Where Science and Religion Meet

by William Scott Palmer

In the pale morning-light of forgiveness.

Rabindranath Tagore.

We are going far with the Christian. Life is indeed a bond; it is materialism that divides the seekers after truth. The secret materialism of the Christian and his trust in religious machinery must bring him into conflict with those who put their trust in other kinds of machines. We who are trusting life, and are trying not to interpret it in terms of the logic of things, find ourselves side by side with those Christians faithful enough to their supreme leader and their own principles to do the same. So we may walk willingly with them and hear what they have to say in more intimate talk than there can be when the spirit of community is wanting.

In this matter of personality and its self-communicating power they have been beforehand with us, as in so many other matters. Jesus has been for them a fountain of wisdom and insight, and while they have kept close to him his wisdom and his insight have been-imparted to them. He has been in them a well-spring wanting to the negligent world. 'Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him,' the disciple hears him say, 'shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.' That is what it means to be indwelt by God, 'the fountain of living waters,' as the older prophet calls him. And we think of what we have learnt about personality and the inseparability of the spirit from its own content of knowledge and volition, of love, too, and righteousness, and joy in beauty and truth. We think of the intercommunication of man with man and of men with God and his 'Christ'—that is, the man 'whose individuality,' as a Christian philosopher says, 'is identified with God in the unity of all his thought and action with the divine knowledge and the divine purpose.' All these come to mind when we hear of a fountain of living waters becoming a well-spring for those who drink of it.

But it may be that we turn away with a sigh from such intimate talk, knowing how far we are ourselves from the union with God which the Christian depicts. And it may be, too, that there dawns upon us the thought that when this Christian speaks of 'atonement' he means, most likely, some process of God by which that union is accomplished, and the neglect or opposition of men is overcome. What difference is there, we may be inclined to ask, between divine incarnation, as the Christian sees it,—God's communication of himself, the fountain of living waters, to men—and an atonement between him and them? Is not the union of incarnation the very act and process of atonement? Is not the redemption of man effected in and through the self-expression of God in him? When he is one with God he is 'redeemed' from the neglect and opposition of sin, and of the rejection of God; and then God is manifest and expressed in him. Is this a question of words? Perhaps, rather, it is a question of emphasis on one or other side, man's side or God's.

But if, for the moment, we lay emphasis on the side of man and speak of atonement and redemption instead of speaking of incarnation and our communion and union with God, there are certainly elements of special difficulty to be encountered. The explanations of Christians are by no means as trustworthy as their insight and the knowledge they derive from their great 'Redeemer.' They explain in legalistic terms, or materialistic, or in terms of a despotic rule, a process and an act of life given and received. They are prone to ignore the prophet in favour of the Scribe or the Pharisee. And once again the prophet may justly put into the mouth of God the old reproach—'My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.' They build up their inventions and hide beneath them the sublimity of living fact; and we who ask them concerning the fact are shown the ruins of those inventions. We ask them for bread and they give us the stones they have put together. There is hardly a religious problem or question, or fact and process, more encumbered than this with that tradition which makes the word of God of none effect. No doubt there are Christians who are both able and willing to help such men and women as are likely to ask their help; the difficulty is to find such Christians. Let us see, now, how we can work out for ourselves an understanding of what is really meant by atonement between men and God, what Christians really mean when they express themselves so ill about it, what it really is that really happens.

Atonement between God and men undoubtedly implies the forgiveness of sinful men by God. They cannot possibly enter into union with him unless they are forgiven. When they sin against their fellow-men they cannot be united or re-united with them on any other condition than that their fellows forgive them. But, we must insist, it is immoral to forgive them unless they at least will to cast away their sinfulness. It is always immoral, too, not to punish, that is, not to condemn, sin and sinfulness; and therefore (since a man and his activity are one) the sinner. How then can God at once condemn (or punish) and forgive the sin, sinfulness and the sinner? Are not condemnation (or punishment) and forgiveness mutually exclusive? If we condemn or punish do we not fail to forgive? If we forgive, must we not remit punishment and cease to condemn?

Now here is a difficulty that reflexion should remove. For it comes of what happens in the lower stages of man's social relations and spiritual growth. We think of punishment as somehow the expression of vindictiveness, while forgiveness alone is the expression of love. So it is in us beginners. So it begins to cease to be, even in us, as we grow into new life and a new spirit. Let us think how we should behave to an evil-doer if we loved him to the utmost of our power of love. Should we condone his evil-doing by withholding that condemnation which is expressed in punishment, whether of look or word or deed (as circumstance demands), and extend to him an artifice of forgiveness in which the moral disunion between him and ourselves shall be concealed? Would that truly represent our faithful love for him, that love which must seek not an appearance but a reality of harmony, and for his sake tolerate no encouragement, not even the slightest possibility of deriving encouragement, for his evil doing? Obviously it would not. For his sake we should unmistakably condemn, making known to him in look or word or deed our condemnation. It would be the expression of our love and, with forgiveness, is of the nature and property of love. We should feel no shadow of vindictiveness. In our relation with him the forgiveness and the condemnation of love would be one.

We encounter here a false antithesis in a matter of spirit and life. Forgiveness and punishment in God or in the man of God can neither be antithetical nor need to be reconciled. In the life of love they are not divided. God, who is love as he is spirit and life, forgives and condemns by one consistent act of love. There is no immoral condonation in his forgiveness, no vindictiveness about his punishment. And this the Christian knows both by his own experience and by the life and lessons of his redeeming Lord. 'Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.' No true Christian would have it otherwise.

'If forgiveness means—as it properly does—the wise and patient care for the criminal's welfare, for his regeneration and recovery into the life of a good society, then there is no distinction whatever between forgiveness and punishment.' That, precisely, is what forgiveness ought to be made to mean, and punishment likewise. But again we see in a mirror darkly and are confused by our history and our own shortcomings. Therefore even Christians misjudge God, or make for themselves 'broken cisterns'—a false God who is no fountain of living waters, pouring forth a never-failing, self-consistent, self-giving love; but a judge, a king, a despot, after the pattern of the world, a God aloof administering punishment or forgiveness, both alike unworthy and misplaced. There is no difficulty at all in this question of punishment and forgiveness if we remember perfect love and its aim, as Jesus shows them.