The Christian account of Man next engages attention. We confine ourselves to an inquiry into three points: what is man's essential nature, his ideal destiny, his present condition?
We have already observed that in Christian Ethics man is not the central object of study. The moral universe tends towards a more comprehensive end than the perfection of humanity. Nevertheless Christianity is specially marked by a particular conception of man. Regarding him as a being destined for union with, capable of likeness to God, she offers an account of man's failure to fulfil his true destiny, and witnesses to a Divine remedy for his present condition. The familiar contrast between humanity as it might become, and as it is, gives significance to the peculiarly Christian doctrine of sin. It is the dignity of the sufferer that makes the mischief so ruinous; it is the greatness of the issue at stake that makes a Divine movement towards man for his recovery at once credible, and worthy of God[463].
First, then, we presuppose a certain view of man's nature. Christianity lays stress on the principle of personality, with its determining elements, will and self-consciousness. It is for psychology to accurately define personality. For ethics it is simply an ultimate, all-important fact. It is that element in man which makes him morally akin to God, and capable of holding communion with Him; that which places him in conscious relation to Law; gives him a representative character as God's vice-gerent on earth, and conveys the right to dominion over physical nature. If religion consists in personal relations between man and God, religious ethics must be concerned with the right culture and development of personality.
But in virtue of his creaturely position, man's personality cannot be an end to itself[464]. The tendency of Greek thought was to regard man as a self-centred being; to look for the springs of moral action, and the power of progress, within human nature itself. Thus Aristotle's ideal is the self-development of the individual under the guidance of reason, and in accordance with the law of his being. The question is, what is this law, and what the ground of its obligation? Personality, we answer, marked man from the first as a being destined for communion with, and free imitation of God[465]. Personality enables man to be receptive of a message and a call from God. It confers on each possessor of it an absolute dignity and worth. Personality—here is our crucial fact; enabling us to take a just measure of man, and of our duty towards him. One of the deepest truths brought to light by the Gospel was the value of the personal life, of the single soul, in God's sight. Man is great, not merely because he thinks, and can recognise moral relationships and obligations; but chiefly because he was created for union with God; and was destined to find blessedness and perfection in Him alone. Christianity therefore rates highly the worth of the individual; and her task is to develop each human personality—to bring each into contact with the Personality of God[466].
For, secondly, man has an ideal destiny[467]—life in union with God, a destiny which, as it cannot be realized under present conditions of existence, postulates the further truth of personal immortality[468]. Man is capable of progressive assimilation to God of ever deeper spiritual affinity to Him[469]. Such must be the ideal end of a being of whom it is revealed that he was made 'in the image of God.'
But the thought of the 'Divine image' leads us a step further. Whatever be the precise import of the expression, it at least implies that the Good, which is the essence of the Divine, is also a vital element in the perfection of Human nature. It remains to indicate the way in which man is capable of recognising Good as the law of his being, and embodying it in a character. Christianity, as a moral system, offers an account of conscience and of freedom.
The Scriptural doctrine of conscience represents it as the faculty which places man in conscious relation to moral Law, as the expression of the Divine nature and requirement. In a brief sketch it is enough to lay stress on two points.
1. Conscience appears to be an original and constant principle in human nature. To assign to it a merely empirical origin—to derive it from social evolution, from the circumstances, prevalent beliefs, traditional customs of a human community, is inadequate, inasmuch as no such supposed origin will satisfactorily account for the authoritativeness, the spontaneity, the 'categorical imperative' of conscience[470]. Further, the functions attributed to this faculty in Scripture, e.g. 'judging,' 'accusing,' 'witnessing,' 'legislating'—all convey the idea that man stands in relation to moral Law as something outside and independent of himself, yet laying an unconditional claim on his will. In the Christian system the existence of conscience in some form is regarded as a primary and universal fact. Its permanent character is everywhere the same; its function, that of persistently witnessing to man that he stands in necessary relation to ethical Good.
2. The language of the Bible throughout implies that conscience in its earliest stage is an imperfect organ, capable like other faculties of being cultivated and developed. Our Lord's reference to the inward 'eye' (S. Matt. vi. 22) suggests a fruitful analogy in studying the growth of conscience. In its germ, conscience is like an untrained sense, exercising itself on variable object-matter, and hence not uniform in the quality of its dictates. It is enough to point out that this fact is amply recognised by New Testament writers. S. Paul speaks more than once of progress in knowledge and perception as a feature of the Christian mind, and the faculty of discerning the Good is said to grow by exercising itself on concrete material[471]. So again, the moral faculty is impaired by unfaithfulness to its direction; the moral chaos in which the heathen world was finally plunged resulted from such unfaithfulness on a wide scale. The Gentiles knew God, but did not act on their knowledge. They 'became darkened;' they lost the power of moral perception[472].
To enlarge on this subject forms no part of our present plan. It is fair, however, to cordially acknowledge that Christian thought is indebted to psychological research for deeper and more accurate conceptions of the moral faculty; and the possibility of large variation both in the dictates of conscience, and the certainty of its guidance, may be freely admitted. And yet it has been justly observed that the question of the origin of this faculty is not one with which ethics are primarily concerned. That inquiry is wholly distinct from the question of its capacities and functions when in a developed state[473]. The unconditional claim of conscience—this is the constant factor which meets us amid all variations of standard and condition. It is enough that conscience is that organ of the soul by which it apprehends moral truth, and is laid under obligation to fulfil it. A Christian is content to describe it as God's voice; or, in a poet's words,