REFORM OF RELIGION, OR AT LEAST OF THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION, THROUGH
DARWINISM.
§ 1. _Heinrich Lang, Friedrich Vischer, Gustav Jäger._
In passing on to those who in Darwinism do not see a negation but a
reformation of religion, or at least of theology, we first meet Heinrich
Lang, the late spiritual leader of the "Reformtheologie" in Switzerland. He
treats of "Die Religion im Zeitalter Darwins" ("Religion in the Age of
Darwin") in Holtzendorff's and Oncken's "Deutsche Zeit- und Streitfragen,"
Jahrg. II, Heft 31, Berlin, Lüderitz, 1873.
With a very correct estimate of the lasting value of religion as well as of
natural science, and with a warm apology for the religious realm, he
regulates the boundaries of each by asking religion not to hinder modern
knowledge of the world and nature, and by asking knowledge of nature to
leave the realm of religion untouched in its self-certainty.
But when he, evidently still dependent on the old rationalistic
supernaturalistic conception of miracle and providence, claims to find that
as the result of modern knowledge of the world and nature a special
providence is no longer conceivable, and no other hearing of prayer is
possible than a subjective psychological one; that the processes in the
world, in their entire final causal connection of causes and effects,
nowhere leave a place for {211} the freely acting hand of a divine Lord of
the world, and that even a moral order of the world can only prove itself
so far as guilt and punishment stand in a natural causal connection with
one another: then his religiousness makes concessions to the modern view of
the world which it is not at all obliged to make or justified in making,
and forces upon religion a reform against the necessity and usefulness of
which not only religious feeling and need, but also deeper and more
consequent reflection on God and the world, just as strongly strives.
What remains to him as an independent realm for religion is nevertheless
worthy of recognition. As faith of the human mind in a transcendental unity
which manifests itself in the manifold and sensible, and carries through a
moral order of the world--although one which, by the before-mentioned
limitation of the natural connection of guilt and punishment, is very much
reduced--religion gives to the mind warmth and worship; as confidence of
the heart in an infinite possession in the anguish of the finite, it
creates confidence in God, gratitude, devotion, energy, courage of life; as
reverence for a holiness which stands unimpeachable above the fluctuating
inclinations of our will, awakens the consciousness of guilt, and abolishes
the guilt, it remains the basis of all moral action. Lang also sharply and
correctly points out the insufficiency of Strauss's "The Old Faith and the
New," as well as the conflict between his metaphysical naturalism which
only leads to the struggle for existence, and his demand of self-submission
to the universe, and of the moral and spiritual self-determination of man
as of a being which goes beyond nature. Nevertheless we can not follow Lang
in his {212} ways of reform. First--his conception of God is amazingly
meagre, and of more than a Spencerian unapproachableness. God is to him,
according to his "Dogmatics," nothing but the eternal, in itself perfect
cause of all being, exempted from all changes of the world's process. When
he gives the name of father to this primeval cause, as he does in his
sermons and elsewhere, without being able to admit relation of mutual love
of person to person, he only makes it glaringly evident how little his
abstract metaphysics can satisfy religious need. Second--that which is
claimed to be gained by this modern view of the world (namely, extension of
the supremacy of religion to everything, even to the affairs of daily
life), is not at all new, but is the effect of long-existing sound
religiousness, and is the essence of all sound religious doctrine; and we
therefore can not see how a view of the world, which, for instance, denies
divine providence, and limits the hearing of prayer to its psychological
effects, shall have greater force to leaven the whole daily life
religiously, than our Christian faith in the Father without whose will no
sparrow falls to the ground, and who says to his children: "Call upon me in
the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."
Third--exactly that which Lang declares a purification of religion (namely,
the before-mentioned elimination of divine providence and of all that which
is connected therewith), appears to us not at all as a reform, but as an
immense impoverishment and desolation of religion, which is so far from
being required by natural science, that it turns out to be but a concession
to the most superficial metaphysicians who, of course, have become very
popular. {213}
Friedrich Vischer is also to be ranked in this group. In the sixth part of
his "Kritische Gänge" ("Critical Walks"), he speaks of Strauss' "The Old
Faith and the New," and takes his determined position in reference to the
religious question, quite essentially differing from Strauss. In regard to
the aversion to miracles, he stands on the same ground with Strauss and
Lang; in protesting against Strauss' elimination of the idea of design, and
especially in demanding a moral order of the world, he is still more
energetic than Lang. He particularly does not, like Lang, limit the moral
order of the world to the simple empiric causal connection between human
action and its consequences. But on the other hand, by his opposition to
the idea of a personality of God, he again deviates more than Lang from the
true meaning of Christian religiousness. On page 219 he says: "How, in
spite of the infinite crossings of human action, is inner conformity to the
end in view in general so established through that which we call chance, or
rather by means of these crossings, that we can speak of a moral order of
the world? Men, individuals as well as communities, follow their aims.
Hereby there always results something quite different from that which they
intended and wished. Sublime laws govern above us, between us, full of
mystery in the midst of life; one of them in reference to guilt, punishment
of guilt, is called nemesis. Faith in that meaning of the word, which we
regard as a low one [he means the faith which has its dogmas beyond which
the man of the most recent culture has passed, not knowing that he also
carries around with him his dogmas, his "new faith"] is in need of a person
who founds, carries out, and executes {214} these laws. But the faith of
the monists has no such need. Why not? That needs more sufficient
demonstration."
Certainly it needs more sufficient demonstration. But this demonstration
will never be possible, so long as we acknowledge the government of a moral
order of the world. For this leads of necessity to faith in a living God,
and this faith demands from our conception less pretensions than the faith
in a kind of system of spiritual machinery by which chance and the
wished-for are woven together, without this system proceeding from a highly
spiritual and ethical intelligence. It nevertheless must be acknowledged
that Vischer, from the standpoint of _ethical_ need, vindicates the
position and truth of religion, as he also beautifully and correctly
defines its position in reference to morality, in saying that morality
makes the demand, religion gives the strength to meet it.
From another side, Gustav Jäger makes a compromise between Darwinism and
religion in his five lectures on "Die Darwinsche Theorie und ihre Stellung
zu Moral und Religion" ("The Darwinian Theory and its Position in Reference
to Morality and Religion"), Stuttgart, J. Hoffmann, 1869.
He makes still more valid concessions to religion and Christianity than
Lang and Vischer; directly opposes materialistic monism; leaves to faith in
a personal God, in the divinity of Christ, in individual immortality, in
the answer to prayer beyond the psychological effect, in miracles, in
short, to the full contents of Christian religiousness, their weight and
truth; and in that respect we would have to rank him in the following
group, if he {215} did not by his manner of proving these concessions
exclude himself from it, and rank himself in that group of which we treat
in the present section.
According to his opinion, Darwinism gives to religion, if not new contents
(although these contents are entirely subject to revision according to
Darwinism), still a wholly new foundation, and, indeed, a foundation of
subjective religiousness, as well as of the objective contents of religion,
only from the standpoint of its practical usefulness in the struggle for
existence. The faith in a personal God, in immortality, in redemption by
the God-Man Jesus Christ, in the hearing of prayer, in help in danger even
to the extent of miracles, strengthens man, gives to him a superiority to
those who do not have that faith and who do not have the habit of prayer,
and therefore is so far the best weapon in the struggle for existence; and
herein lies the truth of religion, especially of the Christian religion, as
the most successful weapon in the struggle for existence which takes place
through the whole creation, from the lowest organisms up to the highest
spiritual life of mankind.
We willingly admit that Christianity has certainly proved itself by far the
strongest and most successful means of education to mankind, and that, if
we must once express this experience in the Darwinian mode of speaking, we
can express it as above. But with the attempt to make the _truth_ of
religion and the truth of its contents, even if only subjective, dependent
only and solely upon the proof of its _usefulness_, nobody, either friend
or foe, will be satisfied. The adversaries of religion and Christianity,
perhaps with the exception of Büchner, will admit that Christianity has for
some {216} time been a quite useful weapon to mankind in the struggle for
existence; but they will say that they are just about to replace it by a
still more useful weapon; and the advocates of religion and Christianity
likewise can not agree upon a mere grounding of their religion upon need
which puts upon them every day the possibility of changing it for something
still more useful. Both friend and foe will join in the conviction that
objective truth is always the best guarantee for subjective success; and
thus both will pass beyond the purely utilitarian apologetics or polemics
to the questions as to the objective reality of the contents of Christian
religiousness.
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