In his emphasis upon the incarnation and atonement, Royce has shown a profound appreciation of what is vital in Christianity, but his discussion shows also that these doctrines themselves, in being removed from their historic setting and adapted to the requirements of a philosophical theory, may easily lose what is for religion their most vital elements.
Each of our four philosophers has performed an important service for religious thought. Bergson has made an effective protest against materialism. Eucken has asserted the reality of the spiritual world. Ward has strengthened the philosophical foundations of belief in God and immortality. Royce has found in the distinctive ideas of Christianity the crown of religious philosophy.
The deeper thought of our age, judged by its leading exponents, has been working towards Christianity and not in the opposite direction. It has broken away from materialism with its denial of a spiritual world. It has broken away from an idealism which denies personality in God and man. It has been strongly attracted to Christianity, and influenced in its intellectual constructions by the teaching of Christ and of the Apostles. It is at one with Christianity in its ethical standpoint and emphasis. The Cross is no longer foolishness to the Greek, when leaders of philosophic thought find in Christianity their brightest glimpse into the homeland of the spirit, the source of their deepest insights into truth, the inspiration of their most fruitful activity and the key to the solution of their profoundest problems.
V
The Christian Faith and Other Religions
Four universals were contained in the last commands of the Risen Christ: "All authority has been given unto me. Go, disciple all the nations, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you all the days." If the marching orders of the Church were to be obeyed, the Christian Faith must be brought into contact and into conflict not only with Judaism but with all the ethnic faiths. If its program is to be carried out successfully, Christianity must supersede all other religions. In this lecture we must consider the relation of Christianity to ancient religions, or those prevalent in the Roman Empire at the time of its founding, and then its relation to modern religions.
I. Christianity and Ancient Religions
That the religion of the cross, which started in a despised and persecuted sect among a people without intellectual or military prestige, should in three centuries become the state religion of the Roman Empire, is often spoken of as the miracle of history. The early missionary could not appeal to military force or to an obviously superior type of civilization, and the wonder is not that Christianity conquered the Roman world but that it ever secured a foothold at all. The familiar argument has been: "We can account for the progress of Christianity, against obstacles and without outward aids, only upon the assumption that a divine power was working within."