RELIGION: HISTORICAL AND ABSOLUTE
In examining the various historical forms of religion, Eucken, as we
should expect, is governed by the conclusions he has arrived at
concerning the solution of the great problem of life, and especially of
the place of religion in life.
A religion which emphasised the need for a break with the world, and of
fight and action for spiritual progress, the possibility of a new higher
life of freedom and of personality, and the superiority of the spiritual
over the material, and which presented God as the ultimate spiritual
life, in which the human personality found its real self, would thus
meet with highest favour, while a form of religion that failed to do so
would necessarily fail to satisfy the tests that he would apply.
He does not spend time discussing various religions in detail, but deals
with them briefly in general, in order to show that the Christian
religion is far superior to all other religions, then he makes a
critical and very able examination of the Christian position. He
considers it necessary to discuss in detail only that form of religion
that is undoubtedly the highest.
The historical religions he finds to be of two types--religions of law
and religions of redemption. The religions of law portray God as a being
outside the world, and distinct from man, One who rules the world by
law, and who decrees that man shall obey certain laws of conduct that
He lays down. Failure to obey these laws brings its punishment in the
present or in a future life, while implicit obedience brings the highest
rewards. To such a God is often attributed all the weaknesses of the
human being, sometimes in a much exaggerated form--hence His reign
becomes one of fear to His subjects.
A religion of law assumes that man is capable of himself of obeying the
law, and is responsible for his mode of life; it assumes that man is
capable through his own energy of conquering the world of sin, and of
leading the higher life.
Religions of this type possess of course the merit of simplicity,
transparency, and finality. The decrees, the punishments and rewards are
given with some clearness and are easily understood; there is no appeal
and little equivocation. They served a useful purpose in the earlier
ages of civilisation, but cannot solve the problem for the complex
civilisation and advanced culture of the present age. They place God too
far from man, and attribute to man powers which he cannot of himself
possess. The conceptions of the Deity involved in them are too
anthropomorphic in character--too much coloured by human frailties.
The religions of law have had to give place to those of a superior
type--the religions of redemption. These religions appreciate the
difficulty there exists for humankind of itself to transcend the world
of sin, and are of two types--one type expressing a merely negative
element, the other a negative and positive element.
The typical negative redemptive religion is that of Buddhism. Buddhism
teaches us that the world is a sham and an evil; and the duty of man is
to appreciate this fact, and to deny the world, but here the matter
ends--it ends with world-renunciation and self-renunciation. There is
only a negative element in such a religion, no inspiration to live and
fight for gaining a higher world. This, of course, cannot provide a
satisfactory solution to the problem, for no new life with new values is
presented to us. It is a religion devoid of hope, for it does not point
to a higher life. "A wisdom of world-denial, a calm composure of the
nature, an entire serenity in the midst of the changing scenes of life,
constitute the summit of life."
Christianity teaches us that the world is full of misery and suffering,
but the world in itself is really a perfect work of Divine wisdom and
goodness. "The root of evil is not in the nature of the world, but in
moral wrong--in a desertion from God." Sin and wickedness arise from the
misuse and perversion of things which are not in themselves evil.
Christianity calls for a break from the wickedness of the world. It
calls upon man to give up his sin, to deny, or break with, the evil of
which he is guilty. But it does not expect man to do this in his own
strength alone--God Himself comes to his rescue. Unlike Buddhism, it
does not stay at the denial of the world, but calls upon man to become a
citizen of a higher world. This gives a new impetus to the higher life;
man finds a great task--he has to build a kingdom of God upon the earth.
This demands the highest efforts--he must fight to gain the new world,
and must keep up the struggle to retain what he has gained. The
inferiority of Buddhism as contrasted with Christianity is well
described by Eucken in the following words: "In the former an
emancipation from semblance becomes necessary; in the latter an
overcoming of evil is the one thing needful. In the former the very
basis of the world seems evil; in the latter it is the perversion of
this basis which seems evil. In the former, the impulses of life are to
be entirely eradicated; in the latter, on the contrary, they are to be
ennobled, or rather to be transformed. In the former, no higher world of
a positive kind dawns on man, so that life finally reaches a seemingly
valid point of rest, whilst upon Christian ground life ever anew ascends
beyond itself."
From such considerations as these, Eucken comes to the conclusion that
of the redemptive religions, which are themselves the highest type,
Christianity is the highest and noblest form, hence his main criticism
is concerned with the Christian religion. This does not mean that he
finds neither value nor truth in any other form of religion. His general
conclusion with regard to the historical religions is that they "contain
too much that is merely human to be valued as a pure work of God, and
yet too much that is spiritual and divine to be considered as a mere
product of man." He finds in them all some kernel of truth, or at least
a pathway to some part of truth, but contends that no religion contains
the whole truth and nothing but the truth. "As certainly," he says, "as
there is only one sole truth, there can be only one absolute religion,
and this religion coincides entirely in no way with any one of the
historical religions."
Eucken's great endeavour in his discussion of the Christian religion is
to bring out the distinction between the eternal substance that resides
in it and the human additions that have been made to it in different
ages, between the elements in Christianity that are essentially divine
and those essentially human. Divested of its human colourings and
accretions, Christianity presents a basis of Divine and eternal truth,
and this regarded in itself, can well claim to be the final and absolute
religion.
The conclusion he has come to with regard to the eternal truth as
contrasted with the temporary colourings of Christianity, with the
essential as contrasted with the inessential, can best be outlined by
taking in turn some of the main tenets and characteristics of the
Christian faith.
Eucken's conception of the negative movement is very much akin to the
Christian idea of _conversion_. The first stage is merely a movement
away from the world, but after a time, in the continuous process of
negation, the negative movement attains a positive significance; when
this stage is arrived at Eucken would apply the term conversion. He
would not limit the negative movement to one act or to one point in
time; the movement towards a higher world must be maintained--the
sustaining of the negative movement being a test of the reality of
conversion. The process of conversion is not a process to be passively
undergone, or to originate from without, but is a movement starting in
the depths of one's own being.
As already pointed out, Eucken believes in _redemption_. The past is
capable of reinterpretation and transformation, because we can view our
past actions in a new light and so change the whole, since the past is
not a closed thing, definite in itself, but a part of an incomplete
whole. He considers, however, that the Christian doctrine of redemption
makes it too much a matter of God's mercy, instead of placing stress
upon the part that man himself must play. The possibility of redemption
in his view follows from the presence and movement of the spiritual life
in man, not merely from an act of the founder of Christianity, and he
avers that while traditional Christianity emphasises the need for
redemption from evil, it does not emphasise sufficiently the necessary
elevation to the good life that must result.
Closely bound up with the Christian doctrine of redemption is that of
_mediation_. Eucken believes that the Christian conception of mediation
resulted from the feeling of worthlessness and impotence of man, and the
aspirations which yet burned within him after union with the Divine. The
idea of mediation bridges the gulf, "a mid-link is forged between the
Divine and the human, and half of it belongs to each side; both sides
are brought into a definite connection which could be found in no other
way." Eucken acknowledges that such a mediation seems to make access to
the Divine easier, gives intimacy to the idea of redemption, and offers
support for human frailty. But he points out that there is an
intolerable anthropomorphism involved in the idea, that it removes the
Divine farther away from man, and that the union of Divine and human is
held to obtain in one special case only--that of Christ. He urges that
in a religion of mediation, one or other, God or Christ, must be chosen
as the centre. "Concerning the decision there cannot be the least doubt;
the fact is clear in the soul-struggles of the great religious
personalities, that in a decisive act of the soul the doctrinal idea of
mediation recedes into the background, and a direct relationship with
God becomes a fact of immediacy and intimacy."
So Eucken will have nothing to do with the idea of mediation in its
doctrinal significance--pointing out that "the idea of mediation glides
easily into a further mediation." "Has not the figure of Christ receded
in Catholicism, and does not the figure of Mary constitute the centre of
the religious emotional life?"
He does, however, lay great store by the help that a man may be to other
men in their upward path: "The human, personality who first and foremost
brought eternal truth to the plane of time, and through this
inaugurated a new epoch, remains permanently present in the picture of
the spiritual world, and is able permanently to exercise a mighty power
upon the soul ... but all this is far removed from any idea of
mediation."
Eucken believes in _revelation_, but through action, and not through
contemplation. To the personality struggling upward, with its aims set
towards the highest in life, the spiritual life reveals itself. He does
not confine revelation to certain periods in time, and believes that
such revelation comes to all spiritual personalities.
He holds, too, that the spiritual personalities are themselves
revelations of the Universal Spiritual Life, and that the Spiritual Life
does reveal itself most clearly in personalities.
How the revelation comes he does not discuss in any detail, but he is
very certain that it comes through action and fight for the highest.
It is perhaps largely due to his activistic standpoint that Eucken does
not deal with _prayer_. In the _Truth of Religion_, which deals very
fully with most aspects of religion, and purports to be a complete
discussion of religion, no treatment of prayer is given. He speaks of
the developing personality as drawing upon the resources of the
Universal Spiritual Life, but this appears to be in action, and not in
prayer or communion.
He is ever suspicious of intellectual contemplation, and this leads him
to attribute less importance than perhaps he should to _mysticism_, to
prayer, adoration, and worship. He admits that mysticism contains a
truth that is vital to religion, but complains that it becomes for many
the whole of religion. Its proper function is to liberate the human mind
from the narrowly human, and to emphasise a total-life, the great Whole.
It fails, however, "because it turns this necessary portion of religion
into the sole content. To it, religion is nothing other than an
absorption into the infinite and eternal Being--an extinguishing of all
particularity, and the gaining of a complete calm through the suspension
of all the wear and tear of life."
Eucken's discussion of _faith and doubt_ is very illuminating. He
protests against the conception of faith which concerns itself merely
with the intellectual acceptance of this or that doctrine. This narrows
and weakens its power, confining it to one department of life; whereas
faith is concerned with the whole of life.
Faith is for Eucken "a conviction of an axiomatic character, which
refuses to be analysed into reasons, and which, indeed, precedes all
reasons ... the recognition of the inner presence of an infinite
energy."
If faith concerns itself with, and proceeds from the whole of life, it
will then take account of the work of thought, and will not set itself
in opposition to reason. But it will lead where reason fails. It is not
limited by intellectual limitations, though it does not underrate or
neglect the achievements of the intellect. Faith enables life to
"maintain itself against a hostile or indifferent world; ... it holds
itself fast to invisible facts against the hard opposition of visible
existence."
The vital importance of such faith to religion is clearly evident; and
bound up with this is the significance of doubt. Doubt, too, becomes
now, not an intellectual matter, but a matter for the whole of life. "If
faith carries within itself so much movement and struggle, it is not
surprising ... if faith and doubt set themselves against each other, and
if the soul is set in a painful dilemma." Eucken considers it to be an
inevitable, and indeed a necessary accompaniment of religious
experience, and his own words on the point are forcible and clear.
"Doubt ... does not appear as something monstrous and atrocious, though
it would appear so if a perfect circle of ideas presented itself to man
and demanded his assent as a bounden duty. For where it is necessary to
lay hold on a new life, and to bring to consummation an inward
transformation, then a personal experience and testing are needed. But
no proof is definite which clings from the beginning to the final
result, and places on one side all possibility of an antithesis. The
opposite possibility must be thought out and lived through if the Yea is
to possess full energy and genuineness. Thus doubt becomes a necessary,
if also an uncomfortable, companion of religion; it is indispensable for
the conservation of the full freshness and originality of religion--for
the freeing of religion from conventional forms and phrases."
Eucken's views on _immortality_ have already been dealt with. He does
not accept the Christian conception of it, for he seems to limit the
possibility to those in whom spiritual personalities have been
developed, and he evidently does not believe that the "natural
individuality with all its egoism and limitations" is going to persist.
In discussing the question of _miracle_, Eucken weighs the fact that a
conviction of the possibility of miracle has been held by millions in
various religions, and particularly in Christianity. He considers that
the question of miracle is of more importance in the Christian religion
than in any other, one miracle--the Resurrection--having been taken
right into the heart of Christian doctrine. He finds, however, that the
miracle is entirely inconsistent with an exact scientific conception of
nature, and means "an overthrow of the total order of nature as this
has been set forth through the fundamental work of modern
investigation." He does not consider such a position can be held without
overwhelming evidence, and does not feel the traditional fact to have
this degree of certainty, or to be inexplicable in another way. He
considers that the explanation of the miracle probably lies in the
psychic state of the witnesses.
Eucken shows in general extreme reluctance to make a historical event a
foundation of belief, and this no doubt accounts to some extent for his
attitude with regard to miracles. He points out that "the founders of
religion have themselves protested against a craving after sensuous
signs," and that this protest "is no other than the sign of spiritual
power and of a Divine message and greatness." He considers that the
belief in, and craving for, sensuous miracle is an outcome of a
"mid-level of religion," where belief is waning and spirituality
declining. While, thus, he does not believe in sensuous miracle, he
acknowledges and lays the greatest stress on one miracle--the presence
of the Spiritual Life in man. It is, indeed, this miracle that renders
others unnecessary.
In discussing the doctrine of the _Incarnation_, Eucken attempts to get
at the inner meaning--the truth which the doctrine endeavours to
express, and he finds this to consist in the fact of the ultimate union
of the human and Divine, and this truth is one that we dare not
renounce. He criticises the attempt that is made in Christianity to show
that such union only obtained once in the course of history. Incarnation
is not one historical event, but a spiritual process; not an article of
belief, but a living experience of each spiritual personality.
He considers as injurious to religion in general the Christian
conception of the _Atonement_. He believes that the idea that is to be
expressed is that of the nearness of God to man in guilt and in
suffering. In endeavouring to express this close intimacy the idea of
suffering was transferred to God himself. The anthropomorphic idea of
reconciliation and substitution thus arose, and this Eucken considers to
have done harm. "The notion that God does not help us through His own
will and power, but requires first of all His own feeling of pity to be
roused, is an outrage on God and a darkening of the foundation of
religion." So Eucken objects to the attempt to formulate the mystery
into dogma. "All dogmatic formulation of such fundamental truths of
religion becomes inevitably a rationalism and a treatment of the problem
by means of human relationships, and according to human standards." "It
is sufficient for the religious conviction to experience the nearness of
God in human suffering, and His help in the raising of life out of
suffering into a new life beyond all the insufficiency of reason.
Indeed, the more intuitively this necessary truth is grasped, the less
does it combine into a dogmatic speculation and the purer and more
energetically is it able to work."
The conception of the _Trinity_ is again an attempt to express the union
of Divine and human, "the inauguration of the Divine Nature within human
life." The dogma, however, involves ideas of a particular generation,
and so threatens to become, and has indeed become, burdensome to a later
age which no longer holds these ideas. Further, the doctrine of the
Trinity has mixed up a fundamental truth of religion with abstruse
philosophical speculations, and this has provided a stumbling-block
rather than a help.
At the same time, Eucken lays the greatest stress on the _personality of
Jesus_. He considers the personality of Jesus to be of more importance
to Christianity than is the personality of its founder to any other
religion. "Such a personality as Jesus is not the mere bearer of
doctrines, or of a special frame of mind, but is a convincing fact, and
proof of the Divine life, a proof at which new life can be kindled over
anew." And again: "It is from this source that a great yearning has been
implanted within the human breast ... a longing for a new life of love
and peace, of purity and simplicity. Such a life, with its incomparable
nature and its mysterious depths, does not exhaust itself through
historical effects, but humanity can from hence ever return afresh to
its inmost essence, and can strengthen itself ever anew through the
certainty of a new, pure, and spiritual world over against the
meaningless aspects of nature and over against the vulgar mechanism of a
culture merely human." But while he would appreciate the depth and
richness of the personality of Jesus, he protests against the worship of
Jesus as divine, and the making of Him the centre of religion. The
greatness of Christ is confined to the realm of humanity, and there is
in all men a possibility of attaining similar heights.
Christianity is, in Eucken's view, much more closely bound up with
historical events than any other religion, and it thus suffers more
severe treatment at the hands of historical criticism than any other
religion. Eucken considers such historical criticism to be of great
value. In Christianity as in other religions we find the eternal not in
its pure form, but mixed with the temporal and variable, and historical
criticism will help in the separation of the temporal from the eternal
elements. In so doing it does an immense service, for it frees religion
from fixation to one special point of time, and enables us to regard it
as ever developing and progressing to greater depths.
Eucken emphasises that the _historical basis_ of Christianity is not
Christianity itself, is not essentially religious; and he quotes
Lessing, Kant, and Fichte to support him in his contention that a belief
in such a historical basis is not necessary to religion, and may even
prove harmful to it. The historical basis is, of course, useful as
bringing out into clear relief the personality of Jesus, and the other
great spiritual personalities associated in His work, and Eucken lays
stress upon the use that history can be to Christianity in giving
records of the experiences of great spiritual personalities in all ages,
but it is important that the history is here a means to an end, and not
an end in itself, and that the importance lies in the spiritual
experience and not in the historical facts.
When one considers how little Eucken has to say concerning worship, and
how little emphasis he places upon historical and doctrinal forms in
religion, one wonders how it is he attaches so much importance to the
functions of the _Church_. He points out that a Church is necessary to
religion, that it seems to be the only way of making religion real and
effective for man. "The Church seems indispensable in order to introduce
and to hold at hand the new world and the new life to man in the midst
of his ordinary existence; it is indispensable in order to fortify the
conviction and to strengthen the energy in the midst of all the opposite
collisions; it is indispensable in order to uphold an eternal truth and
a universal problem in the midst of the fleetingness of the moment." In
the past, however, much harm has been done to religion by the Church.
This has arisen from several reasons. To begin with, it tends to narrow
religion, which is concerned with life, to the realm of ideas, and to
tie down religion by connecting it with a thought-system of a particular
age. Further, the necessary mechanical routine, and the appointment of
special persons to carry out this routine, tends to elevate the routine
and these special persons to a far higher place than they should occupy.
Again, spiritual things have been dragged into the service of personal
ambition, and bound up with human interests. The most serious danger,
however, is that religion, from being an inward matter, tends to become
externalised.
Despite this, an organised Church cannot be dispensed with, and Eucken
points out what changes are necessary to make the Church effective. One
important point he makes clear, namely, that as the Church must speak to
all, and every day, and not only to spiritually distinguished souls, and
in moments of elevated feeling, then the teaching of the Church will
always lag behind religion itself, and must be considered as an
inadequate expression of it.
It is necessary that there should be no coercion with regard to men's
attitude towards the Church, and men should be free to join this or that
Church, or no Church at all.
Then there must be more freedom, movement, and individuality within the
Church. What the Church holds as a final result of the experience of
life cannot be expected as the confession of all, especially of the
young. "How can every man and every child feel what such a mightily
contrasted nature as Luther's with all its convulsive experiences felt?"
Then the Church must not so much teach this or that doctrine as point to
the Spiritual Life, set forth the conditions of its development, and be
the representative of the higher world. Thus, and thus only, Eucken
thinks that the Church can fulfil its proper function, and avoid being a
danger to religion.
Eucken's _appreciation of Christianity_ is sincere. Viewing it from the
standpoint of the Spiritual Life, he finds that it fulfils the
conditions that religion should fulfil. It is based on freedom, and on
the presence of the Divine in humanity, even to the extent of a complete
union between them. The ideal of the Christian life is a personal life
of pure inwardness, and of an ethical character. He speaks of the "flow
of inner life by means of which Christianity far surpasses all other
religions," and of the "unfathomable depth and immeasurable hope which
are contained in the Christian faith."
In Christianity the life of Christ has a value transcending all time,
and is a standard by which to judge all other lives. There is, too, in
Christianity a complete transformation or break, which must take place
before any progress or development can take place.
"There is no need of a breach with Christianity; it can be to us what a
historical religion pre-eminently is meant to be--a sure pathway to
truth, an awakener of immediate and intimate life, a vivid
representation and realisation of an Eternal Order which all the changes
of time cannot possess or destroy."
At the same time, there are changes necessary in the form of
Christianity, if it is to answer to the demands of the age, and be the
Absolute Religion. It must be shorn of temporary accretions, and must
cast aside the ideas of any one particular age which have now been
superseded. No longer can it retain the primitive view of nature and the
world which formerly obtained, no longer must it take up a somewhat
negative and passive attitude, but, realising that religion is a matter
of the whole life, must energetically work itself out through all
departments of life. It must remedy wrong, not merely endure it. It must
proceed from a narrow and subjective point of view to a cosmic one,
without at the same time losing sight of the fact that religion is an
inward and personal matter. It must take account to the full of the
value of man as man, and of the possibilities latent in him, and take
account of his own activity in his salvation.
The Christian ideal of life must be a more joyous one, of greater
spiritual power, and the idea of redemption must not stop short at
redemption from evil, but must progress to a restoration to free and
self-determining activity. Since an absolute religion is based on the
spiritual life, the form in which it is clothed must not be too
rigid--life cannot be bound within a rigid creed. With its form modified
in this way, Eucken considers that Christianity may well be the Absolute
Religion, and that not only we can be, but we _must_ be Christians if
life is to have for us the highest meaning and value.