We thus see that the essence of Christianity and its durability do not lie in any kind of theology: it lies within the Spiritual Substance which has abode within it throughout the centuries. Here will the world find its peace and power; here will all social complexities be solved; here will the meanings and blessings of the spiritual over-world of goodness and love become the possession of man. This is what Eucken means by contending that it is not the business of Christianity to deal with social problems in any light but the light of Infinite Love. Without an experience of this deepest source of Christianity, we do not possess the equipment for doing anything more than patching and re-patching the evils of the world. And all our patching, when but a small span of time has passed away, will leave the situation just as it was, or probably worse. Every solution will give birth to a new complexity; the world may be incessantly active in connection with the betterment of the social situation,'but we shall never heal the wounds of individuals and of nations until they are brought to the depth of the spiritual life revealed in Christianity as Eternal Love. "A warm love towards all humanity runs through Christianity; it longs to redeem every individual; it gives man a value beyond all special achievements and on the other side of all mental and moral deeds; it has been the first to bring the pure inwardness of the soul to a clear expression. But it has also, through the linking of the human to a Divine and Eternal Order, raised life beyond all that is trivial and merely human with its civic ordinances and social interests. He who, with the best intention, views Christianity as a mere means for the betterment of the social situation, draws it from the heights of its nature, and deprives it of the main constituent of its greatness—the emancipation from the petty-human within the depths of the human itself. It is essentially the nature of Christianity that it transplants man into a new world over against the world that is nearest to our hands; it has planted the fundamental conviction of Platonism of the existence of an Eternal Order over against the world of Time amongst a great portion of the human race, and has given a mighty impetus to all effort. But it has, though it separated the Eternal from Time, brought it back again into Time; and through the presence of the Eternal it has, for the first time, proposed to mankind and to each individual a fundamental inner renewal, and through this has inaugurated a genuine history."[63]
Acknowledging such a nucleus as constituting the very substance of Christianity, Eucken proceeds to show the necessity of preserving and unfolding the nucleus against the changes of Time. The nucleus has to be preserved over against Nature. It has been noticed in previous chapters how modern science has presented us with a view of Nature immensely vaster than that presented in Christian theology. Such a view has destroyed for ever a large number of the theological conceptions of the past. The earth has been reduced to a subsidiary place within the cosmos; and any attempt to return to the old conceptions is bought at too high a price. A new mode of thought in regard to the interpretation of the physical universe has come to stay, and the sooner the Christian Church comes to an understanding with it the better for the Church itself. And this new mode may be gladly accepted, because it cannot touch the nature and destiny of the soul of man. We are not able to view the perfect circle of things, but we are able to trace a segment of it in the fact of the unmistakably cosmic character of the spiritual life. The progressive intensifying of the Life-process has made the fact abundantly clear that Nature is not the final reality it was supposed to be by the scientific mode of the past, but that it signifies no more than a "human vista of reality." And, as we have already observed in connection with the Theory of Knowledge, the nature of that "vista" is determined by a mental process and a construction beyond Nature. Nature appears as no more than an environment when once the power of Eternal Life has appeared within the soul. An insistence on this power and its capacity has raised man to a level from which he recognises the "priority of spirit" in spite of all the "palpableness of sensuous impressions." Man thus appears great as against Nature; but there is more than enough to make him humble when he views himself in the light of that truth which constitutes the Spiritual and Eternal Substance of Christianity.
Not only do we find the two different elements present in the Christianity of our day; they are also apparent in the presentation of Christianity found within the Gospels themselves. The miraculous elements in the Gospels exhibit a number of contradictions; and an even more serious objection to them is the fact that they come into direct conflict with the scientific interpretation of Nature. As Eucken says: "To place a miracle in that one situation would mean an overthrow of the total order of Nature, as this order has been set forth through the fundamental work of modern investigation and through an incalculable fulness of experiences. What would justify such a breach with the total mode of reality ought to appear to us with overwhelming, indisputable clearness. Has the traditional fact this degree of certainty, and cannot it be explained in any other way? Who is able to assert this with entire assurance? If the superiority of the Divine was, on this particular occasion, to be proclaimed in a tangible manner, why did all this happen for a small circle of believers alone, and why did it not happen to others? There seems, however, to have been necessary a certain state of the souls of the disciples to make them see what they thought they saw; but in all this there is found a psychic and subjective factor in operation—a factor whose potency is very difficult to define and to mark its boundaries. It would have been a fact of a wonderful nature if the souls of the disciples, from within, became suddenly and without intermediary convinced of the continuation of the life and the presence of the Master: all this would have been no sensuous miracle—no break in the course of Nature. But we have to bear in mind how times of strong religious agitation and convulsion are so little qualified to judge concerning external phenomena, and how easily a psychic state solidifies into a supposed percept! Within and without Christianity there are numerous examples of the sensuous appearance of a dead person being considered to be fully authenticated by the narrower circle of friends. Savonarola appeared more than a hundred times after his death, but always to those whose hearts clung to him; and to fifteen nuns of the convent of St Lucia he gave the consecrated wafer through the opening in their grille."[64]
Eucken shows that an inability to accept the miraculous element in the Gospels need not prevent anyone from being the possessor of the Spiritual Substance. The spiritual content of Christianity is a content which lies beyond the region of physical phenomena, whether those phenomena are natural or are supposed to be supernatural. Christianity is dragged down to a lower level by confusing its mode of existence with its spiritual kernel. Religion is able to subsist without such aids simply because it has discovered the true wonder within the spiritual life itself. We do not know what future investigations may reveal from the scientific side. It may be that Nature will appear more and more mechanical in many of its manifestations; but even if this should prove to be the case, it can produce no injury whatever to the nature and content of spiritual life. It may be, on the other hand, that the scientific movement now proceeding in the direction of neo-Vitalism will produce results which will modify and even overthrow the mechanical conceptions of life, and thus enable the future to construct a Metaphysic of Nature.[65] The battle between these two schools of science is proceeding to-day. But even if the final issue should be a decision in favour of mechanism, the destiny of Christianity or of the human soul does not depend upon such a decision. If the issue should turn in favour of the vitalistic conception, great gains are bound to accrue to religion; for thus a warrant for a belief in a reality higher in nature than what is termed physical will be established and shown to be at work in the origin and constant "becoming" of physical phenomena. The main point for us to-day is to hold fast to the superiority of spiritual life to all that we know concerning the physical universe. Unless this is done, we shall lose the deeper inward connections of life, and shall be in danger of sinking back to the level of naturalism—a level from which the culture and religion of the Western world have partially emerged. Further, the spiritual nucleus of Christianity must be preserved over against the changes of history. Changes in human society threaten Christianity more directly than even the changes of Nature. These changes, in so far as they are judged by a spiritual standard to be good, can be accepted by Christianity, but only on the presupposition that Christianity has learned how to differentiate between its Eternal Substance and its temporal form of existence. The mere flow of the events of Time is insufficient to produce a religion of substance and duration, for here we are dependent upon the content of the moment. This aspect has been already dealt with in the chapter on Religion and History.[66] A similar necessity for differentiating between the Eternal and the temporary which Eucken enforced in regard to Christianity applies in his view to all the movements of the world. Whatever form—scientific, philosophical, social, theological—these movements may take, they have all to find their meaning in a Standard which is Eternal. Whenever such a Standard has been recognised, mankind was able to move in an upward direction; whenever it was absent, the complexities of knowledge and life increased and had no light to reflect upon themselves, and no power to raise themselves to a higher plane. When the Eternal and Substantial is present at the governing centre of life, all of reality that can possibly present itself to man is viewed in an entirely different light. Great spiritual movements cannot possibly arise from any shallower source. There must be present in all such movements a consciousness of something of Eternal value, and a faith in the possibility of attaining a higher grade of reality in the midst of all the fragmentary factors which present themselves. Religion is thus viewed as a movement which takes place not by the side of life, but within life itself. A power of immediacy grows within the soul; it is now able to sift and winnow, to select and to reject; it is able to penetrate into the difference between first and second things, and to relegate all minor things to their lower sphere.[67]
It is of no avail to ignore this difference; and neither is it of any avail to ignore the difference between the old and the new existence-forms of Christianity. The old and the new conceptions cannot possibly flow together. One mode has to take a primary place, and the other a secondary place. The old intellectual presentation of Christianity has, in many ways, become inadequate. But still it cannot be thrown overboard in any light-hearted manner, if for no other reason than that it has grown along with the growth of the Spiritual Substance itself. Some kind of shock, and even loss, may be temporarily experienced in parting with it; but this is a process that has to be passed through; and once it is passed through, the new clothing of Christianity cannot but help man to see a richer meaning in the Eternal. It may not fit quite so compactly for a time; it may not merge easily with the Spiritual Substance. We are far less comfortable in a new suit of clothes than in an old one; but comfort is not the only criterion in regard to the things of the body or of the soul. There may be a need for a change, and our needs are of more significance than our comforts. The change from old to new can be accomplished when the difference of Substance and Form is clearly perceived, and when the Substance is preserved in the midst of the change. This is one of the greatest tasks set to the Christian Church to-day, and no one is competent to undertake it if he has not experienced in the very depth of his own soul the meaning of the Eternal as the essence of the Christian religion. Eucken has grasped this truth in an unmistakable manner; and he sees nothing but disaster for religion in any attempt to present a new clothing at the expense of ejecting the Eternal kernel. But still he insists that in theology the claims of the new forms are overwhelmingly necessary and just.
When we turn to Eucken's conception in connection with the place of the personality of the Founder in the Christianity of the present, we are treading on very difficult ground. This is a question which cannot be decided by the cold, calculating intellect. Without a doubt, there is here something unique in the history of the world—something which no psychology can fathom and no logic can construct into exact propositions. But here once again, the two elements—the Spiritual Substance and its Form—are apparent in the life of the Founder, and in our conceptions concerning his life and death. But we need not fear that any real loss will accrue if we hold fast to the indisputable fact of the presence of a divinity within his life—a divinity which has to be repeated on a smaller scale in our own lives before we are ever able to have even a glimmer of it. It is out of such a spiritual experience that the life of the Master can gain its real value and significance for us. But in the past there has been a tendency to see a good deal of this significance in theological constructions which have now ceased to contain any genuine meaning. At the best these constructions could never mean more than the best intellectual presentations of good men. Something besides them—deeper than them all—had to appear before any soul could be converted to the things of Eternal Life. Here Eucken shows that metaphysical concepts such as the Trinity have tended to become purely anthropomorphic and mythological, probably necessary at a certain level of religion, but which have now been superseded by truer conceptions of life and existence. There is no longer any meaning in asking whether the Founder was a "mere man" or a God. He was an intermediate reality between the two. To measure the depth and content of his soul is a presumption of shallow minds; to determine in a speculative manner the exact nature of his divinity, and to formulate imposing doctrines out of all this is quite as presumptuous. It is sufficient for us to know that he overcame the world, that the Godhead dwelt in a form of immediacy within his soul. All this is an experimental proof of the working of the Divine upon the plane of Time. But such Divine breaks in pieces if it is subjected to exact determinations. Some account of it we must have: the understanding demands this; but that account must include what the best light of knowledge has to throw on the subject. But when all is said, something infinitely greater remains unsaid, and yet to be experienced—something that requires the soul to exert itself in order to experience what all this means. When face to face with the meaning and value of the life and death and spiritual resurrection of the Founder of our Christianity, we are face to face with an eternal reality revealed within the soul of the "son of man." At such a depth of our nature, the petty questions concerning how much or how little was present disappear into the background of life, and we are able through such a vision to pass to the Father. When emphasis is laid on such a fact as this, Christianity will again become a religion of the spirit—a religion which will unite all mankind at a point of unity beneath all close intellectual determinations and differences. And Eucken points out that it is not in the life of Jesus alone that we can obtain such a vision. But we do not gain the vision by merely saying this. If we know of any other character who was so much and who did so much, probably we shall obtain there what we need. But in the Western world at least we do not know any such character; the essence of his life and personality has been always connected with the conception of God. But this is not the sole conception and, as Eucken says, we cannot bind ourselves entirely to this one point in Christianity. The narrow paths which lead to religion are many; we have to draw help from all quarters where the Divine has been revealed. But the danger lies in merely knowing so many such paths while walking on none of them. The personality of Jesus will remain in Christianity, and the world in its darkness will turn again and again to that palpable proof of the Divine seen on such a summit, and endeavour to scale the same everlasting hill of God. "Here we find a human life of the most homely and simple kind, passed in a remote corner of the world, little heeded by his contemporaries, and, after a short blossoming life, cruelly put to death. And yet, this life had an energy of spirit which filled it to the brim; it had a Standard which has transformed human existence to its very root; it has made inadequate what hitherto seemed to bring entire happiness; it has set limits to all petty natural culture; it has stamped as frivolity, not only all absorption in the mere pleasures of life, but has also reduced the whole prior circle of man to the mere world of sense. Such a valuation holds us fast and refuses to be weakened by us when all the dogmas and usages of the Church are detected as merely human organisations. That life of Jesus establishes evermore a tribunal over the world; and the majesty of such an effective bar of judgment supersedes all the development of external power."[68]
We may bring this chapter to a close by once more pointing out Eucken's insistence on the Spiritual Substance of Christianity and the need of a new Existential-form. The Substance was present in the life of the Founder; mankind has to turn to that fact for one of the experimental proofs of the Divine. But such a fact is not sufficient. It is something which happened in someone else, and not in ourselves. The fact is to serve as an inspiration that something similar shall and can happen in ourselves. When this is realised, we become conscious of the power of the Divine within the soul; and the problems of our own day are seen and interpreted in the same spirit as that in which Jesus faced and interpreted the problems of his day. Such a spiritual experience will become a power to use all the good of life, and thus sanctify it in the very using of it. The over-personal norms and standards have now become our own possession; they enable us to see the world as it ought to be seen and to work for the realisation of the vision; and the norms mean even more than this, for we have already seen that they point to something beyond themselves and yet continuous with themselves. They point to Infinite Love as the very essence of the Godhead. The reality of the over-individual norms and the conception of the Divine as Infinite Love thus induce in us a conviction of the possibility of an evolution of the spirit and of a reality beyond sense and time. The Eternal thus enters into Time and overcomes Time. This is Eucken's final conclusion in regard to the Christian religion and the destiny of man. But all this has to be experienced before it can be realised. "The task to-day is to work energetically, to labour with a free mind and a joyful courage, so that the Eternal may not lose its efficient power by our rigid clinging to temporal and antiquated forms, so that what we have recognised as human may not bar the way to the Divine as that Divine is revealed in our own day. The conditions of the present time afford the strongest motives for such work. For once again, in spite of all the contradictions which appear on the surface of things, the religious problem rises up mightily from the depth of life; from day to day it moves minds more and more; it induces endeavour and kindles the spirit of man. It becomes ever plainer to all who are willing to see that mere secular culture is empty and vain, and is powerless to grant life any real content or fill it with genuine love. Man and humanity are pressed ever more forcibly forward into a struggle for the meaning of life and the deliverance of the spiritual self. But the great tasks must be handled with a greatness of spirit, and such a spirit demands freedom—freedom in the service of truth and truthfulness. Let us therefore work together, let us work unceasingly with all our strength as long as the day lasts, in the conviction that 'he who wishes to cling to the Old that ages not must leave behind him the old that ages' (Runeberg), and that an Eternal of the real kind cannot be lost in the flux of Time, because it overcomes Time by entering into it."[69]
Eucken is aware of the various Life-systems which present themselves on every side as all-inclusive. But he sees no hope for a real spiritual education of mankind until every Life-system shall seek for a depth beyond the natural man and all his wants. And such a movement is visible amongst us to-day. It needs to be possessed and proclaimed. The redemption of the world depends upon its success. The Christian religion is such a Gospel. "But a movement towards a more essential and soul-stirring culture—to a progressive superiority of a complete life beyond all individual activities—cannot arise without bringing the problem of religion once more to the foreground. Our life is not able to find its bearings within this deep or to gather its treasures into a Whole unless it realises how many acute opposites it carries within itself. Life will either be torn in pieces by these opposites, or it must somehow be raised above them all. It is the latter alone that can bring about a thorough transformation of our first and shallow view of the universe as well as the inauguration of a new reality. Man has emerged out of the darkness of nature and remains afflicted with the afflictions of nature; yet at the same time, with his appearance upon the earth the darkness begins to illumine, and 'nature kindles within him a light' (Schopenhauer); he who is a mere speck on the face of a boundless expanse can yet aspire to a participation in the whole of Infinity; he who stands in the midst of the flux of time yet possesses an aspiration after infinite truth; he who forms but a mere piece of nature constructs at the same time a new world within the spiritual life over against it all; he who finds himself confined by contradictions of all kinds, which immediate existence in no way can solve, yet struggles after a further depth of reality and after the 'narrow gate' which opens into religion. Through and beyond all the particular problems of life and the world, it behoves us to raise the spiritual life to a level of full independence, to make it simultaneously superior to man as an individual and to bring it back into his soul. When this comes to be there is at the same time a transformation of his inmost being, and for the first time he becomes capable of genuine greatness.... These final conclusions strengthen the aspiration after a religion of the spiritual life.... Such a religion is in no way new, and Christianity has proclaimed it and clung to it from the very beginning. But it has been interwoven with traditional forms which are now seen through by so many as pictorial ideas of epochs and times. Earlier times could allow the Essence and the Form to coalesce without discovering any incongruity in this. But the time for doing this has irrevocably passed away. The human which once seemed to bring the Spiritual and Divine so near to man has now become a burden and a hindrance to him. A keener analysis, a more independent development of the Spiritual and Divine, and, along with this, the truth of religion, do not succeed in reaching their full effects if religion is looked upon as merely something to protect individuals, instead of as that which furthers the whole of humanity —as that which is not merely a succour in times of trouble and sorrow but also as that which guarantees an enhancement in work and creativeness. The situation is difficult and full of dangers, and small in the meantime is the number of those who grasp it in a deep and free sense, and who yet are determined to penetrate victoriously into it, so that the inner necessities of the spiritual life may awaken within the soul of man. Whatever new tasks and difficulties lie in the lap of the future, to-day it behoves us before all else to proceed a step upward in the direction of the summits and to draw new energies and depths of the spiritual life into the domain of man; for this kind of work will prevent the coming of an 'old age' upon humanity and will breathe into its soul the gift of Eternal Youth."[70]