The question of the finality of the Christian religion in its purely historical sense has been discussed by Eucken in his Truth of Religion, Christianity and the New Idealism, and Können wir noch Christen sein? In these three works he arrives at the conclusion that no one religion has a claim to the name "absolute religion," because even Christianity itself cannot be more than a partial, though the highest, manifestation of the Divine. And what Christianity has been and is in itself as a force in the history of the Western world cannot be the same as what it was in the personal experience of its Founder. It is not something which descended once and for all into the world, and so remains its permanent inheritance. It is the most priceless inheritance we possess; but such an inheritance has to be discovered again and again. All this cannot come about without calling up to-day the same spiritual energies as were needful for the tasks that were present when Christianity started to conquer the world. Its aspects of "world-denial and world-renewal" render Christianity the very religion we need. "It is the religion of religions," but a statement of this fact does not mean the realisation of the fact. The same energy and aspiration are needful to-day as in the days of yore. Christianity, whenever it has lived on its highest levels, has struggled for two tremendous facts at least: the insufficiency of the world and the regeneration of the world in the light of the Divine. It is not a repetition of what the Founder said concerning religion. What the Founder said cost him enormous labour to discover and to possess. We shall gain so much and no more of the same spiritual substance as we put the same kind of energy in motion. In order that we may unravel the complexities of our day, a spirit similar to his spirit must become ours. When such a spirit ceases to exist, Christianity will become merely a name; its power will have disappeared, and men can delude themselves into believing that they possess it when in fact they are the possessors of but little of its spirit and of much of its form. But the possession of the same spirit as that of Jesus constitutes the further development of Christianity, and this further development is nothing other than what we have already seen—the experience and efficacy of an eternal order of things in the midst of all the changes of time. Thus we are thrown back once more, not upon our bare individual selves, but upon the presence of the Divine within the spiritual life itself. Christianity is therefore not something that has been completed in the past, but the highest mode of conceiving and of experiencing Life in the present; it becomes an inward, personal and spiritual experience; and its duration and expansion depend upon the increase and depth of such a spiritual inwardness.
CHAPTER XI
CHRISTIANITY
It has been noticed how "Characteristic" or "Specific" religion means the carrying farther of the implications of "Universal" religion. It is not only necessary to know the "grounds" of religion, as these reveal themselves within the conclusions of the intellect: we have to plant ourselves upon these "grounds"; we must be what they mean. Thus, religion becomes a personal task—something that can never be realised until the whole nature comes to constant decisions of its own and acts upon those decisions in the light of what has expressed itself in the form of those over-personal norms which have further developed into a conception of, and communion with, the Godhead. We have noticed further, how this essence of religion was realised in the lives of great personalities in history, as well as in the religions which they helped to found.
Eucken does not hesitate to affirm that the highest of these religions is the Christian religion. The core of the Christian religion consists, as we have already noticed, in its presentation of "a world-denial and world-renewal" in a far higher degree than any of the other religions, and also in the fact that it presents the union of the human and the Divine in a clearer light than before. We have noticed, too, how the Indian religions had to condemn the world in order to penetrate to the very essence and bliss of religion. Mohammedanism affirmed the world in too strong a manner, and its eternal world constituted a kind of replica of the present material world on an enlarged scale. The Jewish religion evolved through a series of stages which finally culminated in Christianity. The Roman and the Greek religions presented too many pluralistic aspects to be able ever to reach the highest synthesis whereby the Many found their meaning, interpretation, and value in the One.
Although the Christian religion cannot be designated as absolute religion, still it may be designated as the highest and most perfect manifestation of the Divine. The meaning of the term "absolute religion" involves a conception impossible to maintain, on account of the fact that in all religions some spiritual truth is discerned and realised. The term "absolute religion" is also false on account of the fact that no religion can contain the whole that is to be revealed and experienced. Christianity is best valued when it is seen, not as a completion of the revelation of the Divine to man, but as a revelation which has to be preserved, deepened, and carried farther. In the soul of the Founder of Christianity there was doubtless present far more than is expressed in the Biblical records, and far more than actually filtered into the individual and collective consciousness of the earliest Christian communities. But we cannot live on what has occurred in the life of any other individual or community except in so far as this enters also into our own individual and the collective consciousness. We have already touched on this aspect of the impossibility of obtaining sufficient strength for the warfare of the present in anything that occurred in the past. Some measure of strength—and no psychology is able to say how much—can be obtained from a vision of the spiritual meaning and significance of the life of the Founder. But there is very great danger in looking here alone for the sole source of all the help we need. The spiritual principles of Christianity have been operating in the world ever since the Master presented the Gospel which he lived and died for. The problem of Christianity is thus a twofold problem. On the one hand, we have constantly to go back to the Fountain-head, because it is here that the stream is purest. But we have, on the other hand, to enter into the religious current which surrounds us; and this may be not so pure as it was at its source. Alien waters have entered into the current—waters of very different taste from those which even the Founder expected. These have doubtless polluted the stream. But, on the other hand, good elements—primary and secondary—have entered into the deepest nature of Christianity itself. These have to be taken into account. They have been necessitated by the new and ever more complex situations and conditions into which Christianity has had to enter from generation to generation. It was comparatively easy for Christianity in its early beginnings to include within its compass the whole of life. But by to-day life has branched off in so many new directions; perplexing problems of knowledge and life have made their appearance. We dare not dismiss these to a region outside the sphere of influence of Christianity. Christianity, if it is to remain and increase as a living force, has to interpret these problems; it has to help us to distinguish between the chaff and the wheat.
What, then, is the true meaning of Christianity? Eucken shows that it is not possible to determine the nature of Christianity without realising that the nucleus common to all religions lies in the fact "that they manifest and represent a Divine Life, and that such a Life in its inmost foundation is superior to its external configuration and activity, and is able to withstand all the changes of time, and to maintain within itself, in spite of all its curtailment through the human situation, an eternal truth." This nucleus lies deeper in Christianity than in any other religion. But even Christianity itself is not a pure spiritual nucleus. Much, as we have already noticed, has gathered around it—much that reveals a lower grade of spirituality. All this constitutes the clothing of Christianity. The clothing has been changed again and again in the past. What reason is there for affirming that it cannot be changed again? It is therefore necessary to differentiate between the Substance of Christianity and its Existential-form. The Substance constitutes the fundamental Life superior to the world, and has been present throughout the whole of the Christian era; and it is this Substance which has raised men beyond the merely human situation; it is the Substance that has enabled men to overcome the world, and afterwards to see the world from the standpoint of the Divine. In this work of differentiation we are dependent in a very large measure upon the results of knowledge. Such results do not grant us the Substance of Christianity, because this is something which has to be lived into in order to be possessed. The transformation which occurs on account of a change in the Existential-form may indeed prove helpful to the spiritual nucleus itself, because it represents a truth of the intellect-a truth which does not conflict with any knowledge outside its own sphere. There are many dangers to be discovered in this process of interpreting the spiritual nucleus. A mode of interpretation whose meaning has very largely passed away is bound to prove injurious, because it comes into sharp conflict with a newer and more comprehensive meaning, and consequently Christianity fails to win the support of those who are acquainted with the new Existential-form. And even the individual who retains the old clothing, and looks upon it as being something of the same nature as the spiritual nucleus, is in danger of basing a portion of his religion on a foundation of sand. But, on the other hand, he who is aware of the flaws of the old Existential-form without having assimilated the Spiritual Substance which lies beneath it, is in danger of drifting from religion altogether. The only way of serving best and carrying farther the development of the Christian religion is to grasp and experience deeply the fact that the Spiritual Substance is something entirely different from its form of existence. Its form of existence is an attempt to account for the Substance; it consists of intellectual concepts. And as with everything else in this world so with religion; mere intellectual concepts change, and cannot be more than receptacles used by the human mind to enshrine the things which are presented as meanings and values within the soul.
Eucken pays great attention to the necessity of this process of differentiation between the two elements in Christianity. There is a need to-day of a new form of existence for Christianity; but the satisfaction of this need will not grant us the spiritual nucleus itself. The spiritual nucleus is something to be gained not by means of knowledge, but by means of love. Eucken goes so far as to state that the idea of love and love of one's enemy as presented in Christianity forms a new element for the redemption of the individual and of the race. To grasp this idea and to penetrate into its nature is to solve all the problems of life and death. This is the Eternal element in the Christian religion. It is found, it is true, in other religions; but why should we look for it elsewhere when it blossomed with such divine glory in the life of the Founder? This is the highest spiritual synthesis conceivable. The world has known nothing greater, and nothing greater is to be known. This is the Eternal element in Christianity which has to be possessed and preserved and furthered. If we ask the question concerning the success or failure of Christianity in the future, the answer is to be found by answering the question, Is Love to God and Love to man found within it to-day? If we are able to answer in the affirmative, we are thereby answering the question in regard to the future duration and conquests of Christianity. And if it possesses this element deeply enough, it can adopt any existential-form which appears true without any kind of alarm. If we have to answer in the negative, there is no guarantee as to persistence of Christianity in the future. Anything less than the spiritual nucleus of Love is lacking in strength necessary to withstand the storms of the future.