GOD AND THE UNIVERSE
+What religion is.+--All religion begins in cosmic emotion. It is the
recognition of an essential relationship between the human soul and the
great whole of things of which it is the outcome and expression. The
mysterious universe is always calling, and, in some form or other, we
are always answering. The artist answers by trying to express his
feeling of its beauty; the scientist answers by recognising its laws
and unfolding its wonders; the social reformer answers by his
self-denying labours for the common good. In each and every case there
is in the background of experience a conviction that the unit is the
instrument of the All; religion is implied in these as in all other
activities in which man aims at a higher-than-self. But religion,
properly so-called, begins when the soul consciously enters upon
communion with this higher-than-self as with an all-comprehending
intelligence; it is the soul instinctively turning toward its source
and goal. Religion may assume a great many different and even
repellent forms, but at bottom this is what it always is: it is the
soul reaching forth to the great mysterious whole of things, the
higher-than-self, and seeking for closer and ever closer communion
therewith. The savage with his totem and the Christian saint before
the altar have this in common: they are reaching through the things
that are seen to the reality beyond.
+What the word "God" means.+--But what name are we to give to this
higher-than-self whose presence is so unescapable? The name matters
comparatively little, but it includes all that the ordinary Christian
means by God. The word "God" stands for many things, but to
present-day thought it must stand for the un-caused Cause of all
existence, the unitary principle implied in all multiplicity. Everyone
of necessity believes in this. It is impossible to define the term
completely, for to define is necessarily to limit, and we are thinking
of the illimitable. But we ought to understand clearly that to
disbelieve in God is an impossibility; everyone believes in God if he
believes in his own existence. The blankest materialist that ever
lived, whoever he may have been, must have affirmed God even in the act
of denying Him. Professor Haeckel declares his belief in God on every
page of his "Riddle of the Universe," the famous book in which he says
that God, Freedom, and Immortality are the three great buttresses of
superstition, which science must make it her business to destroy. So
far science has only succeeded in giving us a vaster, grander
conception of God by giving us a vaster, grander conception of the
universe in which we live. When I say God, I mean the mysterious Power
which is finding expression in the universe, and which is present in
every tiniest atom of the wondrous whole. I find that this Power is
the one reality I cannot get away from, for, whatever else it may be,
it is myself. Theologians will tell me that I have taken a prodigious
leap in saying this, but I cannot help it. How can there be anything
in the universe outside of God? Whatever distinctions of being there
may be within the universe it is surely clear that they must all be
transcended and comprehended within infinity. There cannot be two
infinities, nor can there be an infinite and also a finite beyond it.
What infinity may be we have no means of knowing. Here the most devout
Christian is just as much of an agnostic as Professor Huxley; we can
predicate nothing with confidence concerning the all-comprehending
unity wherein we live and move and have our being, save and except as
we see it manifested in that part of our universe which lies open to
us. One would think that this were so obvious as to need no
demonstration. But how do ordinary church-going Christians talk about
God? They talk as though He were (practically) a finite being
stationed somewhere above and beyond the universe, watching and
worrying over other and lesser finite beings, to wit, ourselves.
According to the received phraseology this God is greatly bothered and
thwarted by what men have been doing throughout the few millenniums of
human existence. He takes the whole thing very seriously, and thinks
about little else than getting wayward humanity into line again. To
this end He has adopted various expedients, the chief of which was the
sending of His only begotten Son to suffer and die in order that He
might be free to forgive the trouble we had caused Him. I hope no
reader of these words will think I am making light of a sacred subject;
I never was more serious in my life. What I am trying to show is that,
reduced to its simplest terms, the accepted theology of the churches
to-day is pitiably inadequate as an explanation of our relationship to
this great and mysterious universe. There is a beautiful spiritual
truth underneath every venerable article of the Christian faith, but as
popularly presented this truth has become so distorted as to be
falsehood. It narrows religion and belittles God. It is dishonouring
to human nature, and is absolutely ludicrous as an interpretation of
the cosmic process. Of course, the dogmatic theologian will maintain
that this is a caricature of the way in which the relationship of God
to the world is set forth in religious treatises and from the Christian
pulpit. But is it? I think I can appeal with confidence to the
thoughtful man who has given up going to church as to whether it is or
not. The God of the ordinary church-goer, and of the man who is
supposed to teach him from study and pulpit, is an antiquated
Theologian who made His universe so badly that it went wrong in spite
of Him and has remained wrong ever since. Why He should ever have
created it is not clear. Why He should be the injured party in all the
miseries that have ensued is still less clear. The poor crippled child
who has been maimed by a falling rock, and the white-faced match-box
maker who works eighteen hours out of the twenty-four to keep body and
soul together have surely some sort of a claim upon God apart from
being miserable sinners who must account themselves fortunate to be
forgiven for Christ's sake. Faugh! it is all so unreal and so stupid.
This kind of God is no God at all. The theologian may call Him
infinite, but in practice He is finite. He may call Him a God of love,
but in practice He is spiteful and silly. I shall have something to
say presently about the twin problems of pain and evil; but what
so-called orthodoxy has to say is not only no solution of them, it is
demonstrably false to the religion of Jesus.
+Every man believes in God.+--For the moment what I want to make clear
is this. No man should refuse to assert his belief in God because he
cannot bring himself to believe in the God of the typical theologian.
Remember that the real God is the God expressed in the universe and in
yourself. The question is not whether you _shall_ believe in God, but
how much you _can_ believe about Him. You may think with Haeckel that
the universe is the outcome of the fortuitous interaction of material
forces without consciousness and definite purpose behind them, or you
may believe that the cosmos is the product of intelligence and "means
intensely and means good," but you cannot help believing in God, the
Power revealed in it. As I write these words I am seated before a
window overlooking the heaving waste of waters on a rock-bound Cornish
coast. It is a stormy day. The sky is overcast toward the western
horizon; on the east shafts of blue and saffron have pierced the pall
of darkness and flung their radiance over the spreading sea. The total
effect is strangely solemnising. The suggestion of titanic forces
conveyed in the rush of wind and wave upon the unyielding cliffs,
conjoined to the majestic march of the storm-clouds across the heaven
from the west, is somehow elevated and composed by the mystic light
that streams from the east. I have never seen anything quite like it
before. It tells me of a beneficent stillness, an eternal strength,
far above and beyond these finite tossings. It whispers the word
impossible to utter, the word that explains everything, the deep that
calleth unto deep. So my God calls always to my deeper soul, and tells
me I must read Him by mine own highest and best, and by the highest and
best that the universe has yet produced. Thus the last word about God
becomes the last word about man: it is Jesus. Materialists may tell me
that the universe does not know what it is doing, that it goes on
clanking and banging, age after age, without end or aim, but I shall
continue to feel compelled to believe that the Power which produced
Jesus must at least be equal to Jesus. So Jesus becomes my gateway to
the innermost of God. When I look at Him I say to myself, God is
_that_, and, if I can only get down to the truth about myself, I shall
find I am that too.
+What does the universe mean?+--But why is there a universe at all?
Why has the unlimited become limited? What was the need for the long
cosmic struggle, the ignorance and pain, the apparently prodigal waste
of life and beauty? Why does a perfect form appear only to be
shattered and superseded by another? What can it all mean, if indeed
it has a meaning? This is what thinkers have been asking themselves
since thought began, and I have really nothing new to say about it.
What I have to say leads back through Hegelianism to the old Greek
thinkers, and beyond them again to the wise men who lived and taught in
the East ages before Jesus was born. It is that this finite universe
of ours is one means to the self-realisation of the infinite.
Supposing God to be the infinite consciousness, there are still
possibilities to that consciousness which it can only know as it
becomes limited. Any of my readers to whom this thought is unfamiliar
have only to look at their own experience in order to see how
reasonable it is. You may know yourself to be a brave man, but you
will know it in a higher way if you are a soldier facing the cannon's
mouth; you will know it in a still different way if you have to face
the hostility and prejudice of a whole community for standing by
something which you believe to be right. Perhaps you have a manly
little son; he, like you, may believe in his sterling good qualities.
But wait till he has gone out to fight his way in life; then you will
realise what he is worth, and so will he. It is one thing to know that
you are a lover of truth; it is another thing to realise it when your
immediate interest and your immediate safety would bid you hedge and
lie. Do not these facts of human nature and experience tell us
something about God? To all eternity God is what He is and never can
be other, but it will take Him to all eternity to live out all that He
is. In order to manifest even to Himself the possibilities of His
being God must limit that being. There is no other way in which the
fullest self-realisation can be attained. Thus we get two modes of
God,--the infinite, perfect, unconditioned, primordial being; and the
finite, imperfect, conditioned, and limited being of which we are
ourselves expressions. And yet these two are one, and the former is
the guarantee that the latter shall not fail in the purpose for which
it became limited. Thus to the question, Why a finite universe? I
should answer, Because God wants to express what He is. His
achievement here is only one of an infinite number of possibilities.
"God is the perfect poet
Who in creation acts His own conceptions."
This is an end worthy alike of God and man. The act of creation is
eternal, although the cosmos is changing every moment, for God is
ceaselessly uttering Himself through higher and ever higher forms of
existence. We are helping Him to do it when we are true to ourselves;
or rather, which is the same thing, He is doing it in us: "The Father
abiding in me doeth His works." No part of the universe has value in
and for itself alone; it has value only as it expresses God. To see
one form break up and another take its place is no calamity, however
terrible it may seem, for it only means that the life contained in that
form has gone back to the universal life, and will express itself again
in some higher and better form. To think of God in this way is an
inspiration and a help in the doing of the humblest tasks. It redeems
life from the dominion of the sordid and commonplace. It supplies an
incentive to endeavour, and fills the heart with hope and confidence.
To put it in homely, everyday phraseology, God is getting at something
and we must help Him. We must be His eyes and hands and feet; we must
be labourers together with Him. This fits in with what science has to
say about the very constitution of the universe; it is all of a piece;
there are no gaps anywhere. It is a divine experiment without risk of
failure, and we must interpret it in terms of our own highest.