Belief in God. II

IMPROVEMENT ERA. Vol. XIII. FEBRUARY, 1910. No 4.

Belief in God.* BY REV. J. R. DUMMELOW, M. A.

II.

— The Moral argument that drawn from the phenomena of — Conscience has been similarly assailed, but with no better suc- cess. Attempts have been made to discredit the authoritative character of conscience by claiming for it a non-moral origin. Conscience, it is urged, is the result of a long and complicated process of evolution, and really represents, not the divine voice of an inward monitor, but the outcome of ages and ages of racial self-interest. To reduce it to a principle of individual self-inter- est is obviously absurd considering how frequently conscience and immediate self-interest are found to be ranged on opposite sides. But the interest of the community or the race is a different thing. Generation after generation has, as it were, mechanically impressed upon its members the tendency to act in a direction salutary to the race, so that at last this unselfish or "altruistic" principle has become a sort of instinct or second nature, varying indeed in its range, intensity, and degree of enlightenment^ but a constant characteristic of man as man.

• Copyright by the MacMillan Co., New York, 1908. 1909. Pub- lished by permission.

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This line of argument is supported by the consideration that there are traces of apparently conscientious action in animals customarily regarded as irrational, and that conscience in mankind exhibits extremely various and inconsistent results in different circumstances and stages of civilization. But to treat conscience and the moral argument on these lines involves a misconception of the scope of Natural Science.

The scope of Natural Science, properly so called, does not include the origin of things nor the purpose and end of their being. It is

merely concerned with a description of their present state and the discovery and analysis of the process by which they arrived there- at. Conscience is what it is, quite independently of the process by which it may have been evolved; just as man is man — an intelli- gent, rational, moral, spiritual being, whatever may have been the stages whereby the physical side of him climbed up from the hum- blest places of the realms of organic life. Undoubtedly the truer view of things is the teleological —that which sees in the humble beginning the germ of a great future —and not the view which refuses to man and conscience their proper names because there may have been a time when they were far removed from their present stage of development. As for the startlingly inconsistent ways in which conscience vents itself in action, that only emphasizes the one underlying principle, the principle expressed in the words "I ought." The subject matter of conscience and its practical range of influence may vary infinitely according to the surroundings, circumstances, and moral attainment of its particular possessor, and it is on this side that we speak of conscience as capable of education and en- lightenment; but the form of conscience remains constant. It may

be stronger or weaker according to the measure of its use, but it remains in essence ever the same; a principle of moral constraint, recognizing in extreme cases no human tribunal whatever —not even the expressed will or the obvious immediate interest of society, in general, and witnessing to an obligation that can only have reference to a Universal Moral Ruler and Lawgiver, whose will is regarded

as at once morally perfect and absolutely without appeal. Whatever, then, may be the history of the evolution of con- science, the testimony of man's moral nature would seem to be

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direct and unmistakable. It points to an Eternal Cause of the Universe and of mankind characterized not merely by creative power and wisdom, but also by moral holinesss. Is it corroborated by the testimony of history? for if the

actual ordering of the world of mankind clearly contradicts the testimony of conscience, we may still be tempted to treat that testimony as illusory. Bishop Butler has shown convincingly that though the gov- ernment of the world represents a scheme imperfectly compre- hensible to us, yet there exist quite undeniable marks of moral rule — tokens that the Power which guides the world is, in more modern phrase, something —not itself which makes for right- — eousness. The rise and fall and the succession of empires; he t

advance and decadence of races, tribes, families; the fortunes of individual men — all these, while they present many puzzling and inexplicable features, about which we shall have more to say later on —bear witness on the whole to the righteousness of him who sits on the world's throne. On the physical side of human nature, where we should ex- pect things to work themselves out most mechanically, the moral law is perhaps most clearly vindicated. Immoral conduct pro- duces its own punishment in so large a number of cases that sin and suffering have sometimes been regarded as simply and in every case, cause and effect. Experienze teaches us, however -and the Bible teaches it too, in the Book of Job— that not all which we commonly regard as evil —all pain, suffering or material loss - is the direct consequence of moral wrong-doing in the individual who suffers. And Christ himself expressly discountenances this attribution of suffering to sin, as its necessary cause (Luke 13: 2, 3, 4). Indeed, suffering is not always an evil, as things are now, though we rightly look upon it as belonging to an imperfect state of exist- ence. Sometimes it seems to be the consequence of virtue and intended to stimulate the aspiring soul to still higher ideals. In history, the most striking picture of moral government is to be found in the fortunes of Israel. Here we are leaving Natural Religion and bordering upon Revelation. But if the Bible picture of Hebrew history be taken as substantially true, it will be found to supply a'key^to historyin general, and to justify the believer's

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conviction that Old Testament history differs from secular history not so much in its subject matter as its treatment — that it is unique not mainly because the Chosen People were uniquely nurtured, guided and disciplined, but because here alone the veil is lifted and the true issues of personal and national conduct are made plain as they appear to him whose hand has guided the history of mankind from its beginning until now. For this reason, in spite of our enormous advance in historical method, and of the advan- tage that comes from an indefinitely wider horizon, it may be boldly said that the historians of today can never hope to surpass or even to equal the fundamental grasp of truth achieved in the early and unscientific efforts of the inspired historians of Israel. Revelation. "Natural Religion," as it is called i. e., the witness of human nature to God — needs Revealed Religion to com- plete it. Man's mind, dwelling on external nature, is led up to the thought of an immensely wise, mighty and beneficent Creator and Ruler. But there are many considerations which tend to depreci- ate the design-argument and rob it of its force. Man needs some direct assurance from outside the circle of his ordinary thought, to combat the problems raised by the presence of anomaly, failure, and waste, to say nothing of pain. Again, man's nature bears on it the impress of moral law, and would lead him up to belief in an all-holy Universal Lawgiver. Yet there is much in the facts of human society that would draw him in a quite opposite direction. No one can read the Psalms or the Book of Job, no one can face honestly the facts of human society around him today, without feeling something of the almost overwhelming difficulty that is involved in the spectacle of human wickedness, unpunished oppression, and unmerited suffering. We need some more direct assurance than conscience itself can give us if we are to exclaim with real conviction:

God's in his heaven; All's right with the world.

And it is natural to ask: If there be a God such as human nature seems to suggest or demand, could he not — would he not find some means of making himself known to his rational creatures?

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The presupposition of the Bible is that he has found such means, and supplemented and completed Natural Religion by direct Revelation. This revelation is focussed in the divine-human fig-

ure of Jesus Christ, foretold and expected in the Old Testament, present to teach and work in the New, and ever abiding by his Spirit in the Church. The fact of divine revelation is, of course, denied by Atheism: but apart from revelation altogether, Atheism is self -condemned

by its presumption. To prove a negative is confessedly a difficult task in any field, and the Atheist claims to have proved it in the widest field of all — the Universe — and in face of the many-sided testimony of Nature and Human Nature. To be justified in a flat and categorical denial of the existence of a deity I must be furnished with a full knowledge of the universe both as a whole and in its details, so as to be competent to declare that nowhere in all the realm of things existing is there any trace of evidence which might even probably tell in favor of Theism. None but a mind practically infinite, omnipresent, and all-knowing could com- pass this. And so it might be suggested that the Atheist really claims for himself the divine qualities and attributes of which he denies the existence in a God. Another line of thought antagonistic to revelation goes by the name of Agnosticism. It dwells on the obvious limitations of our mental powers, which find themselves baffled in every department when they attempt to pass beyond a certain point; and says that the circumscribed human mind, excellent as it is in its own sphere, can never hope to comprehend the Infinite, the Absolute. "The Power," it says, "which the universe manifests to us, is inscrut- able." It dwells also on the difficulties and anomalies in nature; on the darker side of evolution — its aspect of failure, struggle and decay; on the darker side of human nature -the presence of evil, especially of moral evil, in the world; and says these so far bal- ance the tokens of goodness observable, that we cannot be sure, if there be a government of the world, whether it is one that really "makes for righteousness." There is considerable justification for the emphasis laid by Agnosticism on th^ss two factors in human life; but it is just in regard to them th Revelation is our greatest help. The prob-

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lem of evil scarcely falls to be discussed here: but it may be remarked that, while a very real and pressing problem, it can be seen, in the light of Revelation, to be no insuperable obstacle to faith. With regard to the other point, the inadequacy of our fac- ulties, it may be said at once that Natural Religion does fall short

of certainty and completeness, and that this is fully admitted in the Bible. There is a sense in which the God of the Bible is

"incomprehensible," "inscrutable." He is as high above man in his ways and thoughts as heaven is above earth (Isaiah 55: 9). His essential inaccessibility is expressed as a ' dwelling in the thick darkness" (1 K. 8: 12), or in "light inapproachable" (I Tim. 6: 16). "No man hath seen God at any time' (John . . .

1: 18). "No man kioweth who the Father is save the Son'' (Luke 10: 22). Again, man as we know him is, of himself, utterly incapable of any true knowledge of God: the natural man is incap- able of discerning the things of the Spirit (I Cor. 2: 14).

At the same time no duty more persistently impressed on is

their hearers by the prophets than "to know the Lord." To its neglect are ascribed the woe and failures of the Chosen People (Isaiah 1: 3; 5: 13; Hos. 4: 6), and its presence is a guarantee of righteous conduct. In the New Testament the knowledge of the Father and the Son is identified with "everlasting life" (, John 17: 3). What is the meaning of this apparent contradiction? Fallen man, though sin has blurred in him the image of his Creator, retains still the potentiality of that communion for which he was created; and though he cannot of his own initiative "by searching find out God" (Job 11: 7), he can still, by penitent co-operation with Divine grace, attain to a true knowledge of One who has been seeking him ever since the first days of alienation in Paradise (Gen. 3:9), and has revealed himself to receptive hearts in times past "by divers portions and in divers manners" (Heb. 1:1). In himself essentially inscrutable, God wills to be known with the knowledge of personal communion. He has given man the capacity for such communion, and though man has rejected him, God has devised means that his banished be not outcast from him (cp. 2 S 14: 14). The greatest prophet of the Old Testament porbrays in wonderful words this paradox of divine condescension (Isa. 57: 15). The New Testament presents it to us in concrete form in the Messiah

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on whom the wistful gaze of prophet and Psalmist had for centu- ries been lixed. Then was given once and for all a revelation of God and of man together in a single life. The revelation of God in Jesus Christ has stood the test of many generations as corresponding to the highest aspirations and most urgent demands of human nature. Consideration of its

characteristics shows it is just the revelation that man needs. On the one hand, it is a revelation of the character of Almighty God, as in the highest and supremest sense "our Father." On the other hand, it is a revelation of Ideal Manhood: the bewildered question of ages about the meaning, purpose, and destiny of the human life is cleared up in the New Testament. What he tells us, in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, about our duty and our hopes in this life and beyond the grave— what he shows us in his own person of communion with the Heavenly Father, and successful resistance of temptation in the strength of that com- munion — what he shows us of absolute self-surrender, even to the point of death, of triumph through suffering, and of new life and glory after the grave — all these are essential parts of his Revela- tion. But the Revelation is no bare presentation of truth and of an ideal utterly inaccessible to weak and fallen man. Grace as well as Truth came by Jesus Christ (J )hn 1: 17). And what differ- entiates this from all other so-called Revelation is that, while the ideal it holds up before man is uniquely lofty — nothing less than perfection (Mat. 5: 48) — it supplies at the same time the motive force necessary for arriving at the ideal. The Revelation of Truth by itself might well generate despair. Its most characteristic effect has always been the production of a sense of sin: resulting from the felt contrast between the absolute holiness of Almighty God, required by him in man, and exhibited actually in the Man Christ Jesus, and the tale that conscience tells us of our own impurity and pollution. This terrible contrast —viewed in the light of God's revealed Love — would by itself pro- duce an unspeakably bitter remorse; but that remorse is trans- formed into penitence by the further revelation of Grace i. e., of the means which Divine Love has devised for man's restoration. And so the sense of sin leads to "Conversion." In the Bible teaching about Atonement — culminating in the self-offering of

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Christ — we see the true Representative of Mankind removing the barrier set up by sin, opening once more the avenue of access to God, and so rendering possible to man a sacramental sharing of the divine life and strength. Here find their satisfaction that instinct and yearning that led to the primitive institution of sacri- fice, as old apparently and as universal as the human race. In the teaching about the Incarnation— "theWord made flesh" the Son — of God taking upon him not an isolated individual human person- ality, but our nature in a universal way, so as to become true rep- resentative man; we find the fulfilment of the true idea underlying those strange dreams, clothed often in unworthy guise, which find expression in the "Incarnation Myth" of Hindoo and other religions. While in the outcome of the Incarnation — the incorporation of human personalities one by one as members into the body of Christ, that incorporation which renders the atoning sacrifice effectual in each one — we see realized the ideal of the social instinct: all other social"membership" being but a poor metaphor beside the living membership in the Church, "which is His Body." Finally, the Revelation in both its sides receives a magnificent corroboration, when we see the life of Christ reproduced really, if not completely, in the thousands of his followers who, conscious of their own shortcomings, have yet been able to say with lips and life at once, "I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2: 20). "I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me."

[the end.]

Facts.

The man who fell was climbing.

Good habits are not made on birthdays, nor Christian character at the New Year. The workshop of character is every-day life. The un- eventful and commonplace hour is where the battle is lost or won.

An expert commission appointed by the government has reported that strong drink is responsible for ninety per cent of our crime and for most of our poverty, and that alcohol, instead of being necessary to life

and comfort, is inimical to both. Farm. Journal.