presents itself in mournful frequency to thoughtful minds, is that of
so-called unmerited suffering. This seeming injustice, co-operative
throughout Nature with the struggle for existence, is a stumbling-block
to many thinkers to whom the creed of propitiation for sin and suffering
in the person and mission of Christ, as well as those dicta of Natural
Science which declare the sacrifice of the weak and helpless to be a
necessary accompaniment of evolutionary life, appear rather as different
aspects of vicarious suffering than as reconciliating explanations of
its compatibility with the supreme government of a God of Love. Is it
not the fact that a large proportion of our trouble and perplexity
concerning certain problems of spiritual morality has origin in our
resentment at the seeming injustice of the operation of the law of
suffering? In grief and sadness of heart we cry out against the
infliction of sorrow and pain upon those who are made to suffer
vicariously for the wrong-doing of others. Surely a God who wreaks
vengeance for one man's sin upon his innocent children cannot be a God
of Justice! Surely the dealing out of madness as the reward for
superlative endeavour, strenuous idealism of thought, and consistent
self-denial, the inflicting upon finely organised sensitive temperaments
a capacity to suffer in a measure scarcely appreciable by coarser
natures, cannot be by the direction of a God of Love! When we behold the
visitation of such mental and physical torture upon pure and upright men
and women, whose conduct seems utterly undeserving of punishment, we ask
ourselves if such things can be in accord with the supreme government of
Divine Love. Our hospitals and asylums are recruited largely from the
ranks of those who suffer from the wrong-doing of others. Inherited
disease and tainted environment set from birth a handicap tantamount to
foredoomed life-failure upon the children of the multiplied unfit, whose
continued tenancy of the earth constitutes a deterring factor in
progressive life. If these things are done by divine ordinance, surely
the laws of human justice, framed for the punishment of wickedness and
vice, and for the maintenance of virtue and its reward, are more in
accord with a true conception of a government of Love and Justice! Can
it truly be the Will of God that the innocent shall suffer for the
guilty, the pure for the impure, the just for the unjust? If so, for
what end are these things ordained?
Most of us have at one time or other "withered and agonised" under the
relentless insistency with which some such ideas as these have intruded
upon our spiritual tranquillity. We try to put them aside as beyond our
understanding. We tell ourselves that we lack faith, that we are not
meant to comprehend the mysteries of God. And yet, if the Creator endows
His creatures with the ability to question, and thus approach, the
border-land between Known and Unknown, Seen and Unseen, can it indeed be
irreverent or presumptuous to look to Him for guidance from mystery into
knowledge, from ignorance into understanding?
If the revelation of God be indeed a revelation throughout Nature,
chronicled by the evolving collective consciousness of Creation; and if
the incarnate purpose of Love be recognisable as the vesture of the
Spirit of Life, God; can a like unfolding of the Will of Love be
withheld from personal and individual understanding?
It is clear that problems of spiritual morality must be approached from
the spiritual plane of thought. That which pertains to the manifestation
of spiritual consciousness and which is subject to the time-limit of
human calculation must be dissociated from apprehension and
contemplation of the eternal verities. If we would regard life as a
Whole, and thus attain a right appreciation of the relation of
individual consciousness to spiritual unity, we must learn to live in
the Whole. If we desire a true understanding of the government of life;
if we would conduct aright our critical inquiry into the methods by
which the law of suffering manifests the progressively revealed Will of
Love; if we would behold this Will of Love pictured upon the face of
life, and receive the same spiritual illumination upon our souls, we
must first establish a right attitude of heart and mind towards the
divine revelation.
Differences noticeable between the religious and scientific
interpretations of certain phenomena are not necessarily fundamentally
hostile the one to the other, since each represents an opposing point of
view rather than a contradictory likeness of fact. Any system of
reflective thought, registered as opinion and propagated as substantial
truth, may appear in opposition to any other established line of
thought; but neither should be on this account judged as wholly right or
wholly wrong, since each may be a perfectly correct impression of the
thing seen, if the reflective machinery available has been properly
employed. For whether artistic perception be utilised as an aid to the
desire so to interpret Nature as to provide an endorsement of psychical
apprehension, or whether it be directed towards the production of
evidence for the verification of intellectual conjecture, the
alternative result of a religious or a scientific interpretation of life
is equally dependent upon focus for its representation in kind.
Under certain unlike conditions of light and distance, two artists
engaged in the representation of the same object produce totally
different impressions of the thing seen. Difference of focus in the
actual outward vision; difference of personality, whereby difference in
the mental powers of registration, reconstruction and expression
becomes apparent, are together productive of difference in
representation. A discerning critic does not, however, condemn either
picture as worthless or incorrect because the one does not resemble the
other. He knows that a just opinion of their respective values rests
upon his ability to gauge that relative difference of focus which is
responsible for their dissimilarity. The worth of his criticism depends
upon his capacity so to focus his own point of view as to embrace and
reconcile the differences of aspect in the representations submitted to
his judgment. Given this ability, he is aware that his perception of the
reconciled differences has enlarged his own appreciation of what he is
called upon to judge. His criticism becomes his own enlightenment. Thus
it appears that true critical appreciation is based upon the focussing
of diverging points of view into converging actuality; and only when
inquiry is attended with such impartial discernment can elucidation
ensue.
The question of suffering, particularly of vicarious suffering, is one
which, from the intimate nature of its bearing on the spiritual as well
as on the physical aspect of human consciousness, gives rise to certain
apparent irreconcilable differences between the religious and the
scientific interpretation of its place and meaning in the scheme of
life. On the one hand we have the point of view derived from that type
of mind which cannot dissociate suffering from sin, regarding each as a
concomitant consequence of a derangement of the divine and originally
perfect order of Creation by reason of the intervention of Evil in
opposition to God's Will for Good. Such is the creed of pessimistic
suffering--a practical denial of the progressive action of the Spirit of
Love. On the other hand, there is the point of view derived from that
type of mind which believes the susceptibility of organisms to
contrasting sensations to be a necessary factor in spiritual as well as
in physical evolution. Such is the creed of optimistic suffering--the
affirmation of the inherence of the divine Spirit of Life in all
creatures, whereby pain and evil are shown to be as truly ordained by
God as those opposing elements of consciousness known to us as joy and
good, to the end that for evil so much good more, for sorrow so much joy
more, may be evolved through the transmuting and progressive purpose of
His Will.
Here, then, are two aspects of the phenomenon of suffering--two pictures
of life drawn from two points of view--the one apparently so
irreconcilable with the other as to make it difficult to realise that it
is indeed one and the same objective which is subjected to critical
inquiry, _i.e._ the compatibility of sin and suffering in a world
created and controlled by a God of Love. But we are not justified in
condemning, on the score of dissimilarity of conception and treatment,
either representation as incorrect or worthless. The point of focus is
responsible for their seeming contradiction. May not, therefore, some
adjustment of our powers of critical discernment give us a point of
focus which shall embrace both aspects, reconcile their seeming
contradictions and differences, and enable us to draw one comprehensive
conclusion from them both, to the enlightenment of our intellectual and
spiritual consciousness? Our analytical appreciation is directed towards
a fair consideration of different aspects of a natural phenomenon. Is it
not possible to attain a vantage-ground above the divergence of aspects
high enough to allow us to behold the spiritual and physical
signification of suffering as one harmonious accompaniment of spiritual
and physical evolution, in accord with the divine directing Will of
Love?
As, within the physical universe, sound-waves, once set in motion, must
circulate for ever, ripple on ripple, in widening vistas of echoing
reproduction, unless broken in their course by contact with some barrier
capable of arresting and absorbing the progress of vibration; so, in
spiritual consciousness, the influences for good and evil which emanate
from all effort, whether individual or collective, volitionary or
involuntary, must circulate for ever throughout Infinity, unless
checked, broken, absorbed, cancelled by centralization in some
interposing and receptive agent. And so, within the Communion of Love,
the saints on earth, chosen by God as worthy to co-operate in the
divinely appointed regenerating purpose of life, may summarise and
transmute the effects of evil into good by means of their own suffering;
may so sanctify their minds and bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit,
that they may be found worthy to share the passion of Incarnate Love in
the redemption of the world. It is the Will of God, it is the Law of
Life, that we bear each other's burdens; that the just suffer for the
unjust, the innocent for the guilty, the pure for the impure! Not in
ourselves or by ourselves alone can sins of commission and omission be
expiated; not by our own unaided efforts can we arrest the consequences
of action. Life is a whole, and individual thought and action touch the
whole, and their effects are felt by the whole. We derive no virtue in
ourselves from ourselves alone. Do we not owe our very ability to
discriminate between good and evil, our standard of right and wrong, our
civilization, our culture--nay, in short, the whole of our evolving
realization of the Love of God--to the collective consciousness of
Creation, which is a continual revelation of God? Do not we stand to-day
as inheritors of wisdom accumulated by the united efforts of mankind in
past times, and as guardians of this, the world's increasing
consciousness of God, revealed throughout all Time, throughout all
Creation? According as our forefathers struggled and attained, do we in
our generation enter upon the inheritance of the earth. Thus the
progressive spiritual consciousness of the world is at once our
inheritance and our trust. We are debtors to the past and custodians of
the future generations of our kind. Through the infinite condescension
of God in employing mankind as a medium of His revelation, the privilege
of realising the increasing purpose of His Will is placed within our
keeping. Made in the image of God, man is endowed with the creative
faculties of his Maker. The Creator wills that His creatures shall
consciously share in the glory of creation, whereby through the
perfecting of spiritual apprehension is revealed the Kingdom of God. Are
we willing to take up the cross of sacrifice and suffer gladly with and
in the passion of Incarnate Love? If we are indeed judged worthy of use
in the elimination of evil by conversion through suffering of the
effects of evil into elements of good, must we not rejoice in our
participation with Divine Love in the revelation of the glory of God? If
we are called upon to surrender ourselves, our minds and souls and
bodies, as a reasonable sacrifice in the service of Love; if we are
chosen by God to suffer in Love and with Love in the progressive
redemption of the world from evil by the translation and transmutation
of its effects in ourselves through suffering into recreated good; shall
we not uplift our hearts and minds and souls in praise, prayer and
thanksgiving, in that we are thus consciously brought into the Holy
Communion of Love?
All creation groaneth and travaileth together, but it is not given to
all forms of life to suffer consciously and willingly in co-operation
with the divine government of life. Participation in the redemption and
salvation of the world through Love is the privilege of those only who
are born into spiritual apprehension of their essential unity with God,
and who thus become one with Him in the transmuting purpose of His Will.
These are they who, obeying the command of Love to resist not evil,
become agents of the divine Alchemist. But the power thus to suffer
willingly in the transmuting process of spiritual progress implies a
dual susceptibility of physical and psychical consciousness which is the
peculiar privilege of mankind. The whole organic world lies under that
law of suffering which ordains that the sacrifice of individual interest
shall form the collective and increasing good of life. But to humanity
alone as yet has been given perception and power to share consciously in
the divine government of Creation. As part of the organic world we are
bound by the law of suffering, but we are not condemned to suffer in
total ignorance of the purpose behind the working of the Will of God. We
are spiritual beings, made in the image of God, and endowed with a
birthright of free-will. We are called upon to suffer _gladly_ in Love
and for Love, so that the Creator may be glorified in His creatures. We
are chosen instruments of the divine Will, but we are free to accept or
refuse our election into active service in the Communion of Love. Shall
we give ourselves to God in willing co-operation with the divine
regenerating purpose of life? Or shall we resent the sacrifice of
ourselves in the forwarding of His Will? We are offered co-operation
with the Spirit of Life, whereby we may become the agents of divine
healing in the progressive redemption of the world, and whereby the
effects of evil may be transmuted into elements of good. We are called
upon to share the passion of Incarnate Love and to take up _willingly_
the cross of sacrifice. If we disregard the divine command to suffer
gladly, we reduce ourselves to the level of the unenlightened brute
creation, thereby proving ourselves unworthy of our vocation to
conscious and active membership of the Communion of Love, inasmuch as we
stultify the divinely implanted powers of transmutation and redemption
within us, and hinder the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth.
For, if men are responsible to a certain extent for their own suffering
and disease of mind and body; if payment in their own persons is exacted
as a just result of ignorance, or as the punishment of abuse of
knowledge; yet the consequences of thought and action are not thereby
entirely arrested. Life is a Whole, and the conduct of the members of
the spiritual Communion of Love must affect the Whole for evil or good.
By our willing acceptance of our suffering as the transmuting agent for
the conversion of the effects of ignorance and of active evil into
elements of recreated good; by our endeavours to add to the world's
accumulating consciousness of the Love of God by means of our own
rightly directed thought and action; by our readiness to suffer in
ourselves the physical and psychical effects of evil, and translate them
into good, may we not prove ourselves more worthy of our high vocation
to the Communion of Love?
IV
THE HERITAGE OF PAIN
IN the foregoing pages has been set forward some attempt to explain how
the transmuting action of the creed of optimistic suffering operates in
a progressive revelation of the spiritual unity of the Whole of Life,
whereby pain appears as the agent of the Will of a God of Love in the
conversion of evil into good, and whereby the perfecting consciousness
of Creation may be drawn into willing co-operation with the Creator.
Such an interpretation of the presence of evil and pain in the world is
in agreement with that advanced by Science in support of the supposition
that evolutionary growth entails the susceptibility of organisms to
contrasting sensations. But is it also compatible with that other
explanation of the origin of evil which holds the sin of Adam
accountable for the suffering of the whole world, and upon which is
based the ecclesiastical doctrine of the need of the Christian
Atonement?
While affirming the interdependence of sin and suffering, there is drawn
a careful distinction between the two, observation of which is necessary
by the man who would avail himself of the Church's aid in the salvation
of his soul. Supported as allegorical truth, if not as actual historical
occurrences, the Hebrew legends of the Creation and the Fall have been
adopted as an explanatory foundation for the need of a new covenant
between man, whose sinful conduct marred an originally perfect world,
and his justly offended Deity.
Before the advent of Christ the souls of men are held to have been in
bondage to the spirit of evil. But through the death of Christ the wrath
of God was appeased, and redemption of the sins of all who should
acknowledge His redemptive power was secured.
The Catholic Church, as the accredited representative of the divine
authority of Christ, teaches that by sacramental agency men may obtain
remission and absolution of sins. But there is no concomitant remission
of suffering, which is the consequence of evil-doing. The painful labour
of men and the travail of women are the result of sin committed by their
progenitors, Adam and Eve. It is one thing to forgive a wrong action,
but another to arrest its mischievous effects. Man, having marred God's
scheme of Creation, must suffer to the end of time from the ineradicable
presence of evil in the world, although individual responsibility for
its existence is secured by belief in the power of absolution claimed by
the Catholic Church in the carrying on of Christ's mission of
redemption.
Ecclesiasticism hails Christ as the Saviour of the world, inasmuch as
His death was a sacrifice sufficient to atone for the sins of all men.
But it is reserved for Science to confirm the truth of this spiritual
recognition of the Divine Redeemer, Love, by evidential testimony
adduced from proven facts of so-called natural law, whereby Christ is
seen as the expounder of doctrine that controverts the theory of evil
and suffering as opposing forces to the Will of a God of Love, and
reveals their purpose in the spiritual evolution of mankind.
To the scientific mind, sin is non-existent apart from recognition of
moral law. Reason asserts that a knowledge of evil is necessary to a
knowledge of good, discrimination between the two being preliminary to
the establishment of moral law; that such discrimination is chiefly
obtained through the sensibility of organisms, the degree of whose
susceptibility determines their relative positions in the evolutionary
scale--a degree which terminates in man, who manifests the highest
consciousness, estimated by his ability to feel, and the highest form of
intelligence of any known creature.
Although sensory consciousness may be regarded as a register by which
the relative positions of organisms in the evolutionary scale may be
determined, the increasing inability to speak positively with regard to
distinction between living and non-living matter forbids any dogmatism
as to the impropriety of applying the term "conscious" to the inorganic
world.
It is, perhaps, here permissible to suggest a possible point of
reconciliation between the natural desire of men to obtain evidence of
their spiritual survival of organic decay and that disregard of
individual importance and advantage which is characteristic of a purely
secular interpretation of the laws of Nature. The Christian, whose creed
includes immortality as the birthright of his soul and the crown of his
religious faith, resents the exclusion of all personal interest from the
consideration of natural phenomena. For instance, with regard to the
effect which physical death is supposed to exercise on his
individuality, Science and Religion, regarding the phenomenon from
different points of view, appear to be in opposition of opinion. But is
this really the case? Is there not in reality fundamental unity between
the secular and sacred aspects of all natural phenomena?
It has been suggested that the sliding scale of physical consciousness
has its psychical counterpart in moral ideals, from which the
aspirations and perceptions of men reach out towards spiritual
apprehension. Can endorsement of this supposition be drawn from the
realm of Natural Science? What reasonable evidence is forthcoming in
support of the conjecture?
Although dogmatic distinction between the organic and inorganic kingdoms
can be of no permanent value (since what is to-day classified as
non-living matter may possibly to-morrow be declared to belong to the
organic world), yet there is justification--drawn from observation of
the simple characteristics of clearly defined organic and inorganic
matter--for remarking the former to be distinguished by apparent
sensory consciousness, which may therefore be called an active
ingredient of manifested life; but the latter shows no such apparent
consciousness, and can therefore be called a passive ingredient. Both
forms of matter react upon each other, and are inextricably present in
life contemplated as a whole. And both forms of matter are
interdependent upon a logical sequence of action, by which the supreme
Spirit of Life pervades and controls all manifested life. By this
maintained interaction, perpetual manifestation of life is carried on,
and the cycle of Birth and Death as a recurring demonstration of being
is shown to be the transmuting accompaniment of the progressive will of
the Spirit of Life. Continuance of sensation in an individual is
dependent upon the maintenance of correspondence between its
organisation and its environment, cessation of which is synonymous with
death. In other words, matter hitherto possessing an individual
consciousness, manifested by response to its environment, is resolved
into particles of matter which show no united susceptibility to
environment, and which are therefore not deserving of description as an
individual living organism. Conversely, birth is a resolution of (in the
above sense) inorganic matter into organic.
The more complicated an organism the wider its environment, and to the
degree of its susceptibility the more liable to resolution into
inorganic matter, unless a corresponding degree of ability to protect
itself from danger continues to accompany its evolution. In the case of
man, knowledge of how to maintain his bodily health must keep pace with
intellectual development if the balance between physical consciousness
and psychical apprehension is to be properly sustained. Psychical
apprehension can be translated into physical comprehension only through
the medium of sense, and appreciation of the meaning and value of
spiritual life through the medium of the brain. Health of body is
necessary for health of mind, and the co-operation of mind and body is
necessary for the apprehension of spiritual truths.