_THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE HISTORICALLY
CHRISTIAN IN RELIGION_
The fact that the social consciousness tends to emphasize in
religion the concretely historically Christian, has been so inevitably
involved in the preceding discussions, that it can be treated very
briefly.
I. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS NEEDS HISTORICAL JUSTIFICATION
The justification of the social consciousness, we have seen,[53] must
be preëminently from history. Neither nature nor speculation can
satisfy it. It needs to be able to believe in a living God who is in
living relation to living men. It needs just such a justification as
historical Christianity, and only historical Christianity, can give;
it needs the assurance of an objective divine will in the world,
definitely working in the line of its own ideals. It needs also to be
able to give such definite content to the thought of God as shall be
able to satisfy its own strong insistence upon the rational and the
ethical as historical.
II. CHRISTIANITY'S RESPONSE TO THIS NEED
If religion is to be a reality to the social consciousness, then,
there must be a real revelation of a real God in the real world, in
actual human history, not an imaginary God, nor a dream God, nor a God
of mystic contemplation. This discernment of God in the real world, in
actual history, is the glory even of the Old Testament; and it came,
as we have seen, along the line of the social consciousness. And it is
such a real revelation of the real God that Christianity finds
preëminently in Christ. It can say to the social consciousness: Make
no effort to believe, but simply put yourself in the presence of a
concrete, definite, actual, historical fact, with its perennial
ethical appeal; put yourself in the presence of Christ--the greatest
and realest of the facts of history,--and let that fact make its own
legitimate impression, work its own natural work; that fact alone, of
all the facts of history, gives you full and ample warrant for your
own being.
If this be true, it can hardly be doubted that, so far as the social
consciousness understands itself and influences religion at all, it
will tend to emphasize, not to underestimate, the concretely,
historically Christian.
The natural influence of the social consciousness upon religion, then,
may be said to be fourfold: it tends to draw away from the falsely
mystical; it tends to emphasize the personal in religion, and so to
keep the truly mystical; it tends to emphasize the ethical in
religion; and it needs the concretely, historically Christian.
[53] Cf above, pp. 59 ff.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE