Naturalism And Religion
By
Dr. Rudolf Otto
Professor of Theology in the University of Göttingen
Translated by
J. Arthur Thomson
Professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen
and
Margaret R. Thomson
Edited with an Introduction by
The Rev. W. D. Morrison, LL.D.
Williams & Norgate Ltd.
38 Great Ormond Street, London, W.C.1
1907
CONTENTS
Preface.
Chapter I. The Religious Interpretation Of The World.
What is Distinctive in the Religious Outlook.
Chapter II. Naturalism.
What is Distinctive in the Naturalistic Outlook.
The True Naturalism.
Goethe’s Attitude to Naturalism.
The two Kinds of Naturalism.
Aim and Method of Naturalism.
Chapter III. Fundamental Principles.
How the Religious and the Naturalistic Outlooks Conflict.
Mystery : Dependence : Purpose.
The Mystery of Existence Remains Unexplained.
Evolution and New Beginnings.
The Dependence of the Order of Nature.
The “Contingency” of the World.
The Real World.
The Antimony of Our Conception of Time.
The Antimony of the Conditioned and the Unconditioned.
The Antimony of Our Conception of Space.
The Recognition of Purpose.
Teleological and Scientific Interpretations are Alike Necessary.
Chapter IV. Darwinism In General.
The Development of Darwinism.
Darwinism and Teleology.
The Characteristic Features of Darwinism.
Various Forms of Darwinism.
The Theory of Descent.
Haeckel’s Evolutionist Position.
Weismann’s Evolutionist Position.
Virchow’s Position.
Other Instances of Dissatisfaction with the Theory of Descent.
Chapter V. Religion And The Theory Of Descent.
The Problema Continui.
Chapter VI. Darwinism In The Strict Sense.
Differences of Opinion As To the Factors In Evolution.
Weismannism.
Natural Selection.
Chapter VII. Critics Of Darwinism.
Lamarckism and Neo-Lamarckism.
Theory of Definite Variation.
De Vries’s Mutation-theory.
Eimer’s Orthogenesis.
The Spontaneous Activity of the Organism.
Contrast Between Darwinian and Post-Darwinian Views.
Chapter VIII. The Mechanical Theory Of Life.
The Conservation of Matter and Energy.
The Organic and the Inorganic.
Irritability.
Spontaneous Generation.
The Mechanics of Development.
Heredity.
Chapter IX. Criticism Of Mechanical Theories.
The Law of the Conservation of Energy.
Criticisms of the Mechanistic Theory of Life.
Virchow’s “Caution”.
Preyer’s Position.
The Position Of Bunge and Other Physiologists.
The Views of Botanists Illustrated.
Constructive Criticism.
The Constructive Work of Driesch.
The Views of Albrecht and Schneider.
How all this affects the Religious Outlook.
Chapter X. Autonomy Of Spirit.
Naturalistic Attacks on the Autonomy of the Spiritual.
The Fundamental Answer.
Individual Development.
Underivability.
Pre-eminence of Consciousness.
Creative Power of Consciousness.
Activity of Consciousness.
The Ego.
Self-Consciousness.
The Unity of Consciousness.
Consciousness of the Ego.
Chapter XI. Freedom Of Spirit.
Feeling, Individuality, Genius, and Mysticism.
Feeling.
Individuality.
Genius.
Mysticism.
Mind and Spirit. The Human and the Animal Soul.
Personality.
Parallelism.
No Parallelism.
The Supremacy of Mind.
“The Unconscious”.
Is there Ageing of the Mind?
Immortality.
Chapter XII. The World And God.
Footnotes
PREFACE.
It is a remarkable and in some respects a disquieting fact that whilst
rival ecclesiastical parties are engaged in a furious and embittered
debate as to the precise shade of religious instruction to be given in
public elementary schools, the thinking classes in modern Europe are
becoming more and more stirred by the really vital question whether there
is room in the educated mind for a religious conception of the world at
all. The slow silent uninterrupted advance of research of all kinds into
nature, life, and history, has imperceptibly but irrevocably,
revolutionised our traditional outlook upon the world, and one of the
supreme questions before the contemporary mind is the probable issue of
the great struggle now taking place between the religious and the
non-religious conception of human life and destiny. When we look at the
development of this great fundamental conflict we feel that disputes
between rival ecclesiastical systems are of trifling moment; the real task
at the present time before every form of religion is the task of
vindicating itself before a hostile view of life and things.
It is the consciousness of this fact which has led to the translation and
publication in English of Professor Otto’s volume. Professor Otto is well
known on the Continent as a thinker who possesses the rare merit of
combining a high philosophic discipline with an accurate and comprehensive
knowledge of the science of organic nature. It is this combination of
aptitudes which has attracted so much attention to his work on Naturalism
and Religion, and which gives it a value peculiar to itself. At a time
when so much loose and incoherent thinking exists about fundamental
problems, and when so many irrelevant claims are made, sometimes on behalf
of religion and sometimes on behalf of hypotheses said to be resting upon
science, it is a real satisfaction to meet with such a competent guide as
Dr. Otto. Although his book is written for the general reader, it is in
reality a solid scientific contribution to the great debate at present in
progress between two different conceptions of the ultimate nature and
meaning of things. As such it is to be hoped that it will receive the
favourable consideration which it deserves at the hands of the
English-speaking world.
W.D.M.
CHAPTER I. THE RELIGIOUS INTERPRETATION OF THE WORLD.
The title of this book, contrasting as it does the naturalistic and the
religious interpretation of the world, indicates that the intention of the
following pages is, in the first place, to define the relation, or rather
the antithesis, between the two; and, secondly, to endeavour to reconcile
the contradictions, and to vindicate against the counter-claims of
naturalism, the validity and freedom of the religious outlook. In doing
this it is assumed that there is some sort of relation between the two
conceptions, and that there is a possibility of harmonising them.
Will this be admitted? Is it not possible that the two views are
incommensurable, and would it not be most desirable for both sides if this
were so, for if there is no logical antithesis then there can be no real
antagonism? And is not this actually the case? Surely we have now left far
behind us the primitive expressions of the religious outlook which were
concerned with the creation of the world in six days, the making of Eve
out of Adam’s rib, the story of Paradise and the angelic and demoniacal
forces, and the accessory miracles and accompanying signs by means of
which the Divine control of the world was supposed to manifest itself. We
have surely learnt by this time to distinguish between the simple mythical
or legendary forms of expression in the religious archives, and their
spiritual value and ethical content. We can give to natural science and to
religious feeling what is due to each, and thus have done for ever with
tedious apologetic discussion.
It were well indeed if we had really attained to this! But the relations,
and therefore the possibilities of conflict between religion and
world-science, are by no means so easily disposed of. No actually existing
form of religion is so entirely made up of “feeling,” “subjectivity,” or
“mood,” that it can dispense with all assumptions or convictions regarding
the nature and import of the world. In fact, every form, on closer
examination, reveals a more or less fixed framework of convictions,
theoretical assumptions, and presuppositions in regard to man, the world,
and existence: that is to say, a theory, however simple, of the universe.
And this theory must be harmonised with the conceptions of things as they
are presented to us in general world-lore, in natural and historical
science, in particular sciences, in theories of knowledge, and perhaps in
metaphysics; it must measure itself by and with these, and draw from them
support and corroboration, and possibly also submit to contradiction and
correction.
There is no form of religion, not even the most rarefied (which makes
least claim because it has least content), that does not include in itself
some minute Credo, some faith, implying attachment to a set of doctrines
and conclusions however few. And it is always necessary to show that these
conclusions are worthy of adherence, and that they are not at variance
with conclusions and truths in regard to nature and the world drawn from
other sources. And if we consider, not the efflorescences and artificial
products of religion, but religion itself, it is certain that there is,
and always must be, around it a borderland and fringe of religious
world-theory, with which it is not indeed identical, but without which it
is inconceivable; that is, a series of definite and characteristic
convictions relating to the world and its existence, its meaning, its
“whence” and “whither”; to man and his intelligence, his place and
function in the world, his peculiar dignity, and his destiny; to time and
space, to infinity and eternity, and to the depth and mystery of Being in
general.
These convictions and their fundamental implications can be defined quite
clearly, both singly and as a whole, and later we shall attempt so to
define them. And it is of the greatest importance to religion that these
presuppositions and postulates should have their legitimacy and validity
vindicated. For they are at once the fundamental and the minimal
postulates which religion must make in its outlook on the world, which it
must make if it is to exist at all. And they are so constituted that, even
when they are released from their primitive and naïve form and
association, and permitted speculative development and freedom, they must,
nevertheless, just because they contain a theory of the world, be brought
into comparison, contact, or relation of some kind, whether hostile or
friendly, with other world-conceptions of different origin. This relation
will be hostile or friendly according to the form these other conceptions
have taken. It is impossible to imagine any religious view of the world
whose network of conceptions can have meshes so wide, or constituents so
elastic and easily adjustable, that it will allow every theoretical
conception of nature and the world to pass through it without violence or
friction, offering to none either let or hindrance.
It has indeed often been affirmed that religion may, without anxiety about
itself, leave scientific knowledge of the world to go its own way. The
secret reservation in this position is always the belief that scientific
knowledge will never in any case reach the real depth and meaning of
things. Perhaps this is true. But the assumption itself would remain, and
would have to be justified. And if religion had no other interest in
general world-theory, it would still have this pre-eminent one, that, by
defining the limitations of scientific theory, and showing that they can
never be transcended, it thus indicates for itself a position beyond them
in which it can dwell securely. In reality religion has never ceased to
turn its never-resting, often anxious gaze towards the progress, the
changes, the secure results and tentative theories in the domain of
general world-science, and again and again it has been forced to come to a
new adjustment with them.
One great centre of interest, though by no means the only or even the
chief one, lies in the special field of world-lore and theoretical
interpretation comprised in the natural sciences. And in the following
pages we shall make this our special interest, and shall endeavour to
inquire whether our modern natural science consists with the “minimal
requirements” of the religious point of view, with which we shall make
closer acquaintance later; or whether it is at all capable of being
brought into friendly relations with that point of view.
Such a study need not necessarily be “apologetic,” that is to say,
defensive, but may be simply an examination. For in truth the real results
of investigation are not now and never were “aggressive,” but are in
themselves neutral towards not only religious but all idealistic
conceptions, and leave it, so to speak, to the higher methods of study to
decide how the material supplied is to be taken up into their different
departments, and brought under their particular points of view. Our
undertaking only becomes defensive and critical because, not from caprice
or godlessness, but, as we shall see, from an inherent necessity, the
natural sciences, in association with other convictions and aims, tend
readily to unite into a distinctive and independent system of
world-interpretation, which, if it were valid and sufficient, would drive
the religious view into difficulties, or make it impossible. This
independent system is Naturalism, and against its attacks the religious
conception of the world has to stand on the defensive.
What is Distinctive in the Religious Outlook.
At the very beginning and throughout we must keep the following points
clearly before us, otherwise all our endeavours will only lead us astray,
and be directed towards an altogether false issue.
Firstly, everything depends and must depend upon vindicating the validity
and freedom of the religious view of the world as contrasted with
world-science in general; but we must not attempt to derive it directly
from the latter. If religion is to live, it must be able to
demonstrate—and it can be demonstrated—that its convictions in regard to
the world and human existence are not contradicted from any other quarter,
that they are possible and may be believed to be true. It can, perhaps,
also be shown that a calm and unprejudiced study of nature, both physical
and metaphysical reflection on things, will supplement the interpretations
of religion, and will lend confirmation and corroboration to many of the
articles of faith already assured to it. But it would be quite erroneous
to maintain that we must be able to read the religious conception of the
world out of nature, and that it must be, in the first instance, derivable
from nature, or that we can, not to say must, regard natural knowledge as
the source and basis of the religious interpretation of the world. An
apologetic based on such an idea as this would greatly overestimate its
own strength, and not only venture too high a stake, but would damage the
cause of religion and alter the whole position of the question. This
mistake has often been made. The old practice of finding “evidences of the
existence of God” had exactly this tendency. It was seriously believed
that one could thereby do more than vindicate for religious conviction a
right of way in the system of knowledge. It was seriously believed that
knowledge of God could be gained from and read out of nature, the world,
and earthly existence, and thus that the propositions of the religious
view of the world could not only gain freedom and security, but could be
fundamentally proved, and even directly inferred from Nature in the first
instance. The strength of these evidences was greatly overestimated, and
Nature was too much studied with reference to her harmony, her marvellous
wealth and purposeful wisdom, her significant arrangements and endless
adaptations; and too little attention was paid to the multitudinous
enigmas, to the many instances of what seems unmeaning and purposeless,
confused and dark. People were far too ready to reason from finite things
to infinite causes, and the validity or logical necessity of the
inferences drawn was far too rarely scrutinised. And, above all, the main
point was overlooked. For even if these “evidences” had succeeded better,
if they had been as sufficient as they were insufficient, it is certain
that religion and the religious conception of the world could never have
arisen from them, but were in existence long before any such
considerations had been taken into account.
Long before these were studied, religion had arisen from quite other
sources. These sources lie deep in the human spirit, and have had a long
history. To trace them back in detail is a special task belonging to the
domain of religious psychology, history, and philosophy, and we cannot
attempt it here, but must take it for granted. Having arisen from these
sources, religion has long lived a life of its own, forming its own
convictions in regard to the world and existence, possessing these as its
faith and truth, basing their credibility, and gaining for them the
adherence of its followers, on quite other grounds than those used in
“proving the existence of God.” Ideas and conclusions which have not
arisen in this way can hardly be said to be religious, though they may
resemble religious ideas. But having thus arisen, the religious view comes
into contact with knowledge in general, and then a need for justification,
or even a state of antagonism, may arise. It may then be asked whether
convictions and ideas which, so far, have come solely from within, and
have been affirmed and recognised as truths only by heart and conscience,
can possibly be adhered to in the face of the insight afforded by an
investigation and scientific knowledge of nature.
Let us take an example, and at once the highest that can be found. The
religious recognition of the sway of an eternal Providence cannot possibly
be directly derived from, or proved by, any consideration of nature and
history. If we had not had it already, no apologetic and no evidences of
the existence of God would have given it to us. The task of an apologetic
which knows its limitations and its true aims can only be to inquire
whether there is scope and freedom left for these religious ideas
alongside of our natural knowledge of the world; to show that the latter,
because of its proper limitations, has no power to make a pronouncement in
regard to the highest meaning of the world; and to point to certain
indications in nature and history that justify us in interpreting the
whole in terms of purpose and ultimate import. This is the case with all
the conceptions and conclusions of the religious view of the world. No
single one of them can be really proved from a study of nature, because
they are much too deep to be reached by ordinary reasoning, and much too
peculiar in their character and content to be discovered by any scientific
consideration of nature or interpretation of the world. It is, however, at
the same time obvious that all apologetic must follow religion, and can
never precede it. Religion can only be awakened, never coerced. Once
awakened, it can reflect on its validity and freedom; but it alone can
really understand both. And apart from religion, or without its presence,
all apologetic endeavours are gratuitous, and are, moreover, expressly
forbidden by its own highest authorities (Matt. xxiii. 15).
The second point is even more important. Religion does not hold its theory
of the world and its interpretations of the nature and meaning of things
in the same way as poetry does its fine-spun, airy dreams, whose chief
value lies in the fact that they call up moods and arouse a play of
feeling, and which may be grave or gay, elegiac or idyllic, charming or
sublime, but may be true or false indifferently.
For there is this outstanding difference between religion and all
“moods”—all poetic or fanciful views of nature—that it lives by the
certainty of its ideas, suffers if they be uncertain, and dies if they be
shown to be untenable, however charming or consoling, sublime or simple
they may be. Its theories of the world are not poems; they are
convictions, and these require to be first of all not pleasing but true.
(Hence it is that criticism may arise out of religion itself, since
religion seeks for its own sake to find secure foundations.) And in this
respect the religious conception of the world is quite in line with
world-theory in general. Both desire to express reality. They do not wish
to lay gaily-coloured wreaths and garlands about reality that they may
enjoy it, plunged in their respective moods; they desire to understand it
and give an account of it.
But there is at once apparent a characteristic difference between the
propositions and conclusions of the religious view and those of the
secular, a difference not so much of content, which goes without saying,
but in the whole form, manner and method, and tone. As Schleiermacher put
it: “You can never say that it advances with the sure tread” of which
science in general is capable, and by which it is recognisable. The web of
religious certainty is much more finely and delicately woven, and more
susceptible of injury than the more robust one of ordinary knowledge.
Moreover, where religious certainty has attained its highest point in a
believing mind, and is greater rather than less than the certainty of what
is apprehended by the senses or experienced day by day, this
characteristic difference is most easily discerned. The believer is
probably much more confident about “the care of his Heavenly Father,” or
“the life eternal,” than he is about this life with its varying and
insignificant experiences and content. For he knows about the life beyond
in quite a different way. The truths of the religious outlook cannot be
put on the same level as those of ordinary and everyday life. And when the
mind passes from one to the other it does so with the consciousness that
the difference is in kind. The knowledge of God and eternity, and the real
value, transcending space and time, of our own inner being, cannot even in
form be mixed up with the trivial truths of the normal human understanding
or the conclusions of science. In fact, the truths of religion exhibit, in
quite a special way, the character of all ideal truths, which are not
really true for every day at all, but are altogether bound up with exalted
states of feeling. This is expressed in the old phrase, “Deus non scitur
sed creditur” [God is not known but believed in]. For the Sorbonne was
quite right and protected one of the essential interests of religion, when
it rejected as heresy the contrary position, that it was possible to
“know” God. Thus, in the way in which I “know” that I am sitting at this
writing-table, or that it rained yesterday, or that the sum of the angles
in a triangle are equal to two right angles, I can know nothing of God.
But I can know of Him something in the way in which I know that to tell
the truth is right, that to keep faith is duty, propositions which are
certain and which state something real and valid, but which I could not
have arrived at without conscious consent, and a certain exaltation of
spirit on my own part. This, and especially the second part of it, holds
true in an increased degree of all religious conceptions. They weave
themselves together out of the most inward and subtle experiences, out of
impressions which are coarsened in the very act of expressing them. Their
import and value must be judged entirely by the standards of conscience
and feeling, by their own self-sufficiency and validity. The best part of
them lies in the intensity and vitality of their experience, and in the
spontaneous acceptance and recognition which they receive. They cannot be
apprehended by the prosaic, secular mind; whatever is thus apprehended is
at most an indifferent analogue of religious experience, if it is not
self-deception. It is only in exaltation, in quiet enthusiasm, that
religious feelings can come to life and become pervasive, and religious
truth can only become a possession available for everyday use in
proportion as it is possible to make this non-secular and exalted state of
mind permanent, and to maintain enthusiasm as the enduring mood of life
and conduct. And as this is capable of all degrees of intensity from
overpowering outbursts and isolated raptures to a gentle but permanent
tension and elevation of spirit, so also is the certainty and actuality of
our knowledge, whether of the sway of the divine power, or of our own
higher nature and destiny, or of any religious truth whatever. This is
what is meant by St. Paul’s “Praying without ceasing” and his “Being in
the Spirit” as a permanent mood; and herein lies the justification of the
statement of enthusiasm that truth is only found in moments of ecstasy. In
fact, religion and religious interpretations are nothing if not
“enthusiasms,” that is to say, expressions of the art of sustaining a
permanent exaltation of spirit. And any one who is not capable of this
inward exaltation, or is too little capable of it, is badly qualified for
either religion or religious outlook. The “enthusiasts” will undoubtedly
make a better figure in the “kingdom of God,” as well as find an easier
entrance therein, than the prosaic matter-of-fact people.
This is really the source of much that is vexatious in all apologetic
efforts, and indeed in all theorising about religion, as soon as we
attempt to get beyond the periphery into the heart of the matter. For in
order to understand the subject at all a certain amount of “enthusiasm” is
necessary, and in most cases the disputants fail to reach common ground
because this enthusiasm is lacking in one or both. If they both have it,
in that case also dialectics are out of the question.
Finally, it must be remarked that, as Luther puts it, “Faith always goes
against appearances.” The religious conception of the world not only never
grows directly out of a scientific and general study of things, but it can
never be brought into absolute congruence with it. There are endless
tracts and domains of the world, in nature and history, which we cannot
bring under the religious consideration at all, because they admit of no
interpretation from the higher or more general points of view; they lie
before us as everlasting unrelated mysteries, uncomprehended as to their
import and purpose. Moreover, the religious theory of the world can never
tell us, or wish to tell us, what the world is as a whole, or what is the
meaning of its being. It is enough for us that it throws light on our own
being, and reveals to us our place and destiny, and the meaning of our
existence. It is enough if, in this respect, reality adapts itself to the
interpretations of religion, admits of their truth and allows them scope,
and corroborates them in important ways and instances. It actually does
this, and it can be demonstrated that it does. And in demonstrating this
the task of an apologetic that knows its own limitations alone consists.
It must be aware that it will succeed even in this, only if it is
supported by a courageous will to believe and joy in believing, that many
gaps and a thousand riddles will remain, that the ultimate and highest
condition of the search after a world-interpretation is personal decision
and personal choice, which finally depends upon “what manner of man one
is.” Faith has always meant going against appearances. It has gone against
them not from obstinacy or incorrigible lack of understanding, but because
it has had strong reasons, impossible to set aside, for regarding
appearances literally as appearances. It has suffered from the apparent,
often even to the point of extinction, and has again drawn from it and
from its opposition its highest strength. That they overmastered
appearances made of the heroes of faith the greatest of all heroes. And
thus religion lives by the very riddles which have frequently caused its
death, and they are a part of its inheritance and constitution. To work
continually towards their solution is a task which it will never give up.
Until success has been achieved, it is of importance to show, that what
comes into conflict with faith in these riddles at the present day is not
something new and previously unheard of. In cases where faith has died
because of them we almost invariably find the opinion that religion might
have been possible in earlier and more naïve times, but that it is no
longer possible to us, with our deeper insight into the dark mystery of
nature and destiny. This is foolishness. When faith dies thus, it dies of
one of its infantile diseases. For from the tragedies of Job and of
Jeremiah to the Tower of Siloam and the horror of the Mont-Pelée eruption
there runs a direct lineage of the same perennial riddle. Well-developed
religion has never existed without this—at once its shadow and its
touchstone.