The New Theology Part 2
The history, even of the most recent civilisations, is, comparatively speaking, only as old as yesterday, whereas the presence of human life on this planet is traceable into the almost illimitable past. But the farther we go back in our investigation of human origins the less possible does it appear that the primitive man of theological tradition has ever existed. The Adam of the dogmatic theologian is like the economic man of the older school of writers on political science, the man who always wants to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest, and whose one consistent endeavour is to seek pleasure and avoid pain; he has never existed.
+Divine immanence and its Fall.+--Besides, we do not want him to exist.
The Fall theory is not only impossible in face of the findings of modern science; it is a real hindrance to religion. So far from having to give it up because science would have nothing to say to it, the difficulty would be to retain it and yet have anything like a rational view of the relation of G.o.d and the world. It has already been stated that the starting-point of the New Theology is a recognition of the truth that G.o.d is expressing Himself through His world. This truth occupied a place in religious thought ages before modern science was thought of; science has confirmed it, but has not compelled us to think it; if science had never existed, it would still remain the only reasonable ground for an adequate explanation of the relation of man to the universe. It simplifies all our questionings and coordinates all our activities. There is not a single one in the whole vast range of human interests which it does not cover. There is nothing which humanity can do or seek to do which is not immediately dependent upon it. The grandest task and the lowliest are both implied in it. It declares the common basis of religion and morality. Religion is the response of human nature to the whole of things considered as an order; morality is the living of the individual life in such a way as to be and do the most for humanity as a whole; it is making the most of one's self for the sake of the whole. Morality is not self-immolation. To jump off London Bridge would be self-immolation, but it would not be an act conducive to the welfare of the community; it might indeed be a very selfish and cowardly act. True morality involves the duty of self-formation and the exercise of judgment and self-discipline in order that the individual life may become as great a gift as possible to the common life. It will therefore be seen at once that there is a vital relation between morality and religion; the one implies the other even though the fact may not always be recognised, and both are based upon the immanence of G.o.d.
+The truth beneath the doctrine of the Fall.+--But never yet has a particular doctrine or mode of stating truth held its own for any length of time in human history unless there was some genuine truth beneath it, and the doctrine of the Fall is no exception. It does contain a truth, a truth which can be stated in a few words, and which might be inferred from what has already been said about the relationship of man and G.o.d. The coming of a finite creation into being is itself of the nature of a fall, a coming down from perfection to imperfection. We have seen the reason for that coming down; it is that the universal life may realise its own nature by attenuating or limiting its perfection. If I want to understand the composition of the ordinary pure white ray, I take a prism and break it up into its const.i.tuents. This is just what G.o.d has been doing in creation. Our present consciousness of ourselves and of the world can reasonably be accounted a fall, for we came from the infinite and unto the infinite perfection we shall in the end return. I do not mean that our present consciousness of ourselves is eternal; I only a.s.sert that our true being is eternally one with the being of G.o.d and that to be separated from a full knowledge of that truth is to have undergone a fall. But this fall has no sinister antecedents; its purpose is good, and there is nothing to mourn over except our own slowness at getting into line with the cosmic purpose. Another way of describing it would be to call it the incarnation of G.o.d in nature and man, a subject about which I must say more in another chapter. This view of the meaning and significance of the Fall can be traced in all great religious literature. Perhaps one of the best statements of it that has ever been made is the one set forth by Paul of Tarsus in the eighth chapter of his letter to the Romans: "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of G.o.d. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by the reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of G.o.d. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Pa.s.sages like this make it impossible to believe that Paul was ever really tied down to the literal rabbinical view of Adam's transgression and its consequences; and these words are a clear statement of the truth that the imperfection of the finite Creation is not man's fault but G.o.d's will, and is a means toward a great end.
CHAPTER V
JESUS THE DIVINE MAN
+The centrality of Jesus.+--All that has been said hitherto is but a preparation for the discussion of the greatest subject that at present occupies the field of faith and morals, that of the personality of Jesus and His significance for mankind. It has been repeatedly pointed out both by friends and foes of the New Theology that the ultimate question for the Christian religion is that of the place occupied by its Founder. Who or what was Jesus? How much can we really know about Him? What value does He possess for the religious consciousness to-day? All other questions about the Christian religion are of minor importance compared with these, and if we are prepared with an answer to these we have by implication answered all the rest. Christianity is in a special sense immediately dependent upon its Founder. No other religion has ever regarded its founder as Christians regard their Master. Christianity draws its sustenance from the belief that Jesus is still alive and impacting Himself upon the world through His followers. Other great religions trace their origin to the teaching and example of some exceptional person; Christianity does the same, but with the added conviction that Jesus is as much in the world as ever and that His presence is realised in the mystic union between Himself and those who know and love Him. If this be true, it is a fact of the very highest importance and one which can neither be pa.s.sed over nor relegated to a subordinate position. Christianity without Jesus is the world without the sun. If, as I readily admit, the great question for religion in the immediate future is that of the person of Jesus, the sooner we address ourselves to it the better.
Before discussing what theology has to say of Him let us note in general terms what the civilised world is saying, theology or no theology. I suppose the most out-and-out materialist would admit that in the western world the name of Jesus exercises an influence to which no other is even remotely comparable. Perhaps he would even go so far as to admit that there is no name anywhere which means so much to those who hear it. It is not merely that the strongest civilisation on earth reverences that name, but that there is no other civilisation which can produce a parallel to it. The nearest approach to it is that of Gautama, and I think it would be generally admitted that the influence even of this mighty and beautiful spirit has never possessed the immediacy, intensity, and personal value which distinguish that of Jesus. It might be maintained with some show of reason that the civilisation of Christendom, although it is now being copied by non-Christian communities such as j.a.pan, is not necessarily the highest because it happens to be the strongest, and that it is even regarded with contempt by the best representatives of some more ancient faiths.
Still that is not quite the point. The point is that the name of Jesus, which stands for a moral ideal which is the very negation of materialism, commands a reverence, and indeed a worship, the like of which no other has ever received in the history of mankind. It is no use trying to place Jesus in a row along with other religious masters.
He is first and the rest nowhere; we have no category for Him. I am not trying to prove the impossible, namely, that Christianity is the only true religion and the rest are all false. We shall get on better when that kind of nonsense ceases to be spoken. All I am concerned to emphasise is that somehow Jesus seems to sum up and focus the religious ideal for mankind. His influence for good is greater than that of all the masters of men put together, and still goes on increasing. It is a notable fact that although churches and creeds are losing their hold upon the modern mind, the name of Jesus is held in greater regard than ever. We have heard of a meeting of workmen cheering Jesus and hissing the churches. In our day most people are agreed that in Jesus we have the most perfect life ever exhibited to humanity. It is not only Christians who take this view; everyone, or nearly everyone, does so.
Some years ago a book was published which bore on the t.i.tle-page the question, "What would Jesus do?" The book was not very well written, and I do not think the writer would have claimed that it contained anything original, but it had an enormous sale simply because of its attempt to answer the question on the covers. The most unlikely people bought and read it, people who never went to church and would not dream of doing so. From indications such as these one is justified in a.s.serting that our western civilisation has accepted as true that, no matter who Jesus was, His character represents the highest standard for human attainment. In seeking moral excellence the individual and the race are thus moving toward an ideal already manifested in history.
The most effective taunt that can be levelled at inconsistent Christians is that they are unlike their Master. Criticisms of the character of Jesus are now few in number, and usually take the form of declaring that it is impracticable or impossible, not that it is undesirable or imperfect. Some, no doubt, would maintain that perhaps the real Jesus did not answer to the ideal which Christians have formed of Him, but that is another question. Here we are now face to face with the unescapable fact that the greatest moral and religious force in the world is embodied in the name of Jesus, and this by general consent.
+The Jesus of traditional theology.+--But what has traditional Christian theology to say about Jesus? Here we enter a region in which the ordinary man of the world does not live and is never likely to live, but we cannot afford to ignore it. According to the received theology, Jesus was and is G.o.d and man in a sense in which no one else ever has been or ever will be. As the shorter catechism has it, following the language of the ancient creeds, "There are three persons in one G.o.d, the same in substance, equal in power and glory," and Jesus is the second of the three. This kind of statement cannot but be confusing to the ordinary mind of to-day if only because the word "person" does not mean to us quite the same thing that it meant to the framers of the ancient creeds. Strange as it may seem to some of my readers, I believe what the creeds say about the person of Jesus, but I believe it in a way that puts no gulf between Him and the rest of the human race. This, I trust, will become clearer as we proceed; it seems to me to be implied in any real belief concerning the immanence of G.o.d.
I think even the Athanasian creed is a magnificent piece of work if only the churches would consent to understand it in terms of the oldest theology of all! But, according to conventional theology, the second person in the Trinity, who was coequal and coeternal with G.o.d the Father, laid aside His glory, became incarnate for our salvation, was born of a virgin, lived a brief suffering life, wrought many miracles, died a shameful death, rose again from the tomb on the second morning after He had been laid in it, and ascended into heaven in full view of His wondering disciples. In fulfilment of a promise made by Him shortly before the crucifixion, and repeated before the ascension, He and the Father conjointly sent the third person in the Trinity to endue with power from on high the simple men whose duty it now became to proclaim the gospel of salvation to the world. Jesus is now on the throne of His glory, but sooner or later He will come again to wind up the present dispensation and to be the Judge of the quick and the dead at a grand a.s.size.
There is a sense in which all this is true, but it is commonly expressed in such a way that the truth is lost sight of. Literally understood it is incredible. The only way to get at the truth in every one of these venerable articles of the Christian faith will be to shed the husk, and that we must do without hesitation or compromise. A more accurate historic perspective would save us from the crudities so often preached from the pulpits in the name of Christian truth, crudities which repel so many intelligent men from the benefits of public worship. There never has been the slightest need for any man of thoughtful mind and reverent spirit to recoil from the fundamentals of the Christian creed. Rightly understood they are the fundamentals of human nature itself.
+G.o.dhead and manhood.+--The first in order of thought is that of the G.o.dhead of Jesus. As regards this tenet I think it should be easily possible to show that the most convinced adherent of the traditional theology does not believe and never has believed what he professes to hold. The terms with which we have to deal are Deity, divinity, and humanity. A good deal of confusion exists concerning the interrelation of these three. It is supposed that humanity and divinity are mutually exclusive, and that divinity and Deity must necessarily mean exactly the same thing. But this is not so. It follows from the first principle of the New Theology that all the three are fundamentally and essentially one, but in scope and extent they are different. By the Deity we mean--and I suppose everyone means--the all-controlling consciousness of the universe as well as the infinite, unfathomable, and unknowable abyss of being beyond. By divinity we mean the essence of the nature of the immanent G.o.d, the innermost and all-determining quality of that nature; we have already seen that according to the Christian religion the innermost quality of the divine nature is perfect love. Show us perfect love and you have shown us the divinest thing the universe can produce, whether it knows itself to be immediately directed and controlled by the infinite consciousness of Deity or whether it does not. It is clear, then, that although Deity and divinity are essentially one, the latter is the lesser term and is dependent for its validity upon the former. Humanity is a lesser term still. It stands for that expression of the divine nature which we a.s.sociate with our limited human consciousness. Strictly speaking, the human and divine are two categories which shade into and imply each other; humanity is divinity viewed from below, divinity is humanity viewed from above. If any human being could succeed in living a life of perfect love, that is a life whose energies were directed toward impersonal ends, and which was lived in such a way as to be and do the utmost for the whole, he would show himself divine, for he would have revealed the innermost of G.o.d.
Now let us apply these definitions to the personality of Jesus.
Granted that the devotion of Christians has been right in recognising in Him the one perfect human life, that is, the one life which consistently and from first to last was lived in terms of the whole, what are we to call it except divine? In a sense, of course, everything that exists is divine, because the whole universe is an expression of the being of G.o.d. But it can hardly be seriously contended that a crocodile is as much an expression of G.o.d as General Booth. It is wise and right, therefore, to restrict the word "divine"
to the kind of consciousness which knows itself to be, and rejoices to be, the expression of a love which is a consistent self-giving to the universal life. "G.o.d is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in G.o.d and G.o.d in him." General Booth is divine in so far as this is the governing principle of his life. Jesus was divine simply and solely because His life was never governed by any other principle. We do not need to talk of two natures in Him, or to think of a mysterious dividing line on one side of which He was human and on the other divine. In Him humanity was divinity and divinity, humanity. Does anyone think that this brings Jesus down to our level? a.s.suredly it does not; we are far too p.r.o.ne to be ruled by names. To the ordinary Christian this explanation of the divinity of Jesus may seem equivalent to the denial of His uniqueness, but it is nothing of the kind. I have already devoted some little s.p.a.ce to emphasising the obvious fact that it is impossible to deny the uniqueness of Jesus; history has settled that question for us. If all the theologians and materialists put together were to set to work to-morrow to try to show that Jesus was just like other people, they would not succeed, for the civilised world has already made up its mind on that point, and by a right instinct recognises Jesus as the unique standard of human excellence. But this is not to say that we shall never reach that standard too; quite the contrary. We must reach it in order to fulfil our destiny and to crown and complete His work. To stop short of manifesting the perfect love of G.o.d would be to fail of the object for which we are here and to render the advent of Jesus useless. Christendom already knows this perfectly well, although it has not always succeeded in expressing it with perfect clearness. "Beloved, now are we sons of G.o.d, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He (or rather it) shall appear, we shall be like Him." In our practical religion we all, even the most reactionary of us, regard the divinity of Jesus just in this way. It has no other value. We talk of imitating Him, conforming to His likeness, showing His spirit, and so on. When we want a model for courage, fidelity, gentleness, humility, unselfishness, we promptly turn to Jesus. Even in our relations with G.o.d we try to follow His lead; instinctively we range ourselves with Him when we address the universal Father; until we come to creed-making we never think of putting Him on the G.o.d side of things and ourselves on another. Catholic or Protestant, orthodox or unorthodox, Unitarian or Trinitarian, we all accept in practice the ident.i.ty of the divine and human in Jesus and potentially in ourselves. But you make Him only a man! No, reader, I do not. I make Him the only Man--and there is a difference. We have only seen perfect manhood once and that was the manhood of Jesus. The rest of us have got to get there.
+Jesus and Deity.+--This brings us to the further question of the Deity of Jesus. As a matter of fact, as I have already indicated, this question, too, has long been settled in practice. If by the Deity of Jesus is meant that He possessed the all-controlling consciousness of the universe, then a.s.suredly He was not the Deity for He did not possess that consciousness. He prayed to His Father, sometimes with agony and dread; He wondered, suffered, wept, and grew weary. He confessed His ignorance of some things and declared Himself to have no concern with others; it is even doubtful how far He was prepared to receive the homage of those about Him. If there be one thing which becomes indisputable from the reading of the gospel narratives it is that Jesus possessed a true human consciousness, limited like our own, and, like our own, subject to the ordinary ills of life. Once again everybody knows this after a fashion. The most determined of so-called orthodox controversialists would hardly try to maintain that the consciousness of Jesus was at once limited and unlimited. To do so would be an impossible feat; if Jesus was the Deity, He certainly was not the _whole_ of the Deity during His residence on earth, whatever He may be now. But, it may be objected, in His earthly life He was the Deity self-limited: "He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,"
etc. Quite so, but see where this statement leads. The New Theology can consistently make it, but it is difficult to see how that newer theology which calls itself orthodoxy manages to do so. Does the self-limitation of Jesus mean that the Deity was lessened in any way during the incarnation? Why, of course not, we should all say; the Deity continued with infinite fulness unimpaired above and beyond the consciousness of Jesus. Then are we to understand that this self-limitation of Jesus meant that the eternal Son, or second person in the Trinity, the Word by whom the worlds were made, quitted the throne of His glory and lived for thirty-three years as a Jewish peasant? I think the dogmatic theologian would have some hesitation in giving an unqualified affirmative to this question, for the difficulties implied in it are practically insurmountable. Was the full consciousness of the eternal Word present in the babe of Bethlehem, for instance? If not, where was it? Questions like these cannot be answered on the lines of the conventional Christology. The plain and simple answer to all of them is to admit that the Jesus of history did not possess the consciousness of Deity during His life on earth. His consciousness was as purely human as our own. Any special insight which He possessed into the true relations of G.o.d and man was due to the moral perfection of His nature and not to His metaphysical status. He was G.o.d manifest in the flesh because His life was a consistent expression of divine love and not otherwise. But He was not G.o.d manifest in the flesh in any way which would cut Him off from the rest of human kind. According to the received theology, Jesus and Jesus only, out of all the beings who have ever trodden the road which humanity has to travel, existed before all ages. We live our threescore years and ten and then pa.s.s on into eternity; He was eternal to begin with. He comes to earth with a h.o.a.ry antiquity behind Him, a timeless life to look back upon; we have just fluttered into existence.
Surely any ordinary intelligence can see that this kind of theologising puts an impa.s.sable gulf at once between Jesus and every other person who has ever been born of an earthly mother. Certainly it does, the theologian may declare, and rightly so, for that gulf exists; He a.s.sumed human nature, but He was eternally divine before He did so, and we are not. I do not need to refute this argument; the trend of modern thought is already doing so most effectually. It is a gratuitous a.s.sumption without a shred of evidence to support it. Besides, unfortunately for this kind of statement, the scientific investigation of Christian origins, and the application of the scientific method to the history of Christian doctrine have shown us how the dogma of the Deity of Jesus grew up. It was a comparatively late development in Christianity, and its practical implications never have been accepted, although at one time there was a danger that the winsome figure of Jesus would be removed altogether from the field of human interest and regard. The Jesus of Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment" is a terrifying figure without a trace of the lowly Nazarene about Him, and yet this was the Jesus of the conventional Christianity of the time. It was through this dehumanising of Jesus in Christian thought and experience that Mariolatry arose in the Roman church. Could anything be more grotesque than the suggestion that the mother of Jesus should need to plead with her son to be merciful with frail humanity? And yet this is what it came to; the figure of Mary was introduced in order to preserve a real humanity in our relations with the G.o.dhead. All honour to those who have called us back to the real Jesus, the Jesus of Galilee and Jerusalem, the Jesus with the prophet's fire, the Jesus who was so gentle with little children and erring women, and yet before whom canting hypocrites and truculent ecclesiastics slunk away abashed.
Upon this recovered Jesus the world has now fixed its adoring gaze, and it will not readily let Him go again.
+Divine manhood and Unitarianism.+--But then, someone will protest, this is sheer Unitarianism after all; you do not believe in the Jesus who is the object of the faith of Christendom, but in one who was only a man among men; you do not think of Him as very G.o.d of very G.o.d. Not so fast; we are busy with names again. Most of us have a tendency to think that if we can get a doctrine labelled and pigeonholed, we know all about it, but we are generally mistaken. This is not Unitarianism, and I do believe that Jesus was very G.o.d, as I have already shown. We have to get rid of the dualism which will insist on putting humanity and Deity into two separate categories. I say it is not Unitarianism, for historic Unitarianism has been just as p.r.o.ne to this dualism as the extremest Trinitarianism has ever been. Like Trinitarianism it has often tended to regard humanity as on one side of a gulf and Deity as on the other; it has emphasised too much the transcendence of G.o.d. The sentence quoted above from an orthodox Trinitarian divine about "G.o.d's eternal eminence and His descent on a created world" might just as well have been employed by an out-and-out Unitarian. Modern Unitarianism is in part the descendant of eighteenth-century Deism which insisted upon the transcendence of G.o.d almost to the exclusion of His immanence; it thought of G.o.d as away somewhere above the universe, watching it but leaving the machine pretty much to itself. Unitarianism in the course of its history from the first century downward has pa.s.sed through a good many phases. Present-day Unitarianism is preaching with fervour and clearness the foundation truth of the New Theology, the fundamental unity of G.o.d and man. But it does not belong to it exclusively, and I decline to be labelled Unitarian because I preach it too. The New Theology is not a victory for Unitarianism. If ever the English-speaking communities of the world should come to be united under a single flag, would it be just and wise to call them all Americans? No doubt some of our American cousins would like to think so, but there is enough of virility and solid worth on the British side of the question to make that description impossible. The t.i.tle would be a misnomer, and in fact an absurdity. The case in regard to the connection of the New Theology with Unitarianism is not dissimilar. It is only sectarian Unitarians who would try to claim it for their own denomination; the best and most outstanding exponents of Unitarianism would not wish to do anything of the kind, for they know well enough that historically speaking they have not consistently stood for it any more than any other denomination. The New Theology does not belong to any one church but to all. For my own part I would not even take the trouble to try to turn a Roman Catholic into a Protestant. Let every man stay in the church whose spiritual atmosphere and modes of worship best accord with his temperament, but let him recognise the deeper unity that lies below the formal creeds. The old issue between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism vanishes in the New Theology; the bottom is knocked out of the controversy. Unitarianism used to declare that Jesus was man _not_ G.o.d; Trinitarianism maintained that He was G.o.d _and_ man; the oldest Christian thought, as well as the youngest, regards Him as G.o.d _in_ man--G.o.d manifest in the flesh. But here emerges a great point of difference between the New Theology on the one hand and traditional orthodoxy on the other. The latter would restrict the description "G.o.d manifest in the flesh" to Jesus alone; the New Theology would extend it in a lesser degree to all humanity, and would maintain that in the end it will be as true of every individual soul as ever it was of Jesus. Indeed, it is this belief that gives value and significance to the earthly mission of Jesus; He came to show us what we potentially are. This is a great and important issue, which requires to be treated in a separate chapter.
CHAPTER VI
THE ETERNAL CHRIST
In the course of Christian history a good deal of time has been occupied in the discussion of the metaphysical question of the complex unity of the divine nature; and the result has been the doctrine of the Trinity, a conception which, it has been claimed, at once satisfies and transcends the operations of the human intellect. Most non-theological modern minds are, however, somewhat suspicious of the doctrine of the Trinity; it seems rather too speculative and too remote from ordinary ways of thinking to possess much real value. But this is quite a mistake. We cannot dispense with the doctrine of the Trinity, for it, or something like it, is implied in the very structure of the mind. It belongs to philosophy even more than to religion, and to the sphere of ethics not less. I daresay even the man in the street knows, quite as certainly as the man in the schools, that a metaphysical proposition underlies the doing of every moral act, even though it may never be expressed. All thinking starts with an a.s.sumption of some kind, and without an a.s.sumption thought is impossible. This is just as true of the strictest scientific processes as it is of deductive reasoning, and indeed it is interesting to watch the way in which within recent years idealistic philosophy and empirical science have joined hands. Does physical science, then, imply the doctrine of the Trinity? Yes, unquestionably it does, after a fashion, for it starts with an a.s.sumption which takes it for granted. Perhaps this would be news to Professor Ray Lankester, and such as he, but I think I could convince them that I am right if I had them face to face. To use the mind at all we have to a.s.sume this doctrine even though we may not actually formulate it. Christianity did not invent it; it clarified and defined it, but in principle it is as old as the exercise of human reason.
+The basal a.s.sumption of thought.+--After making a comprehensive a.s.sertion of this kind I suppose I am bound to justify it, and I do not shrink from the task. I say that all thinking starts with an a.s.sumption of some kind, and exact thought requires that that a.s.sumption shall be the simplest possible, the irreducible minimum beneath which we cannot get. Now when we start thinking about existence as a whole and ourselves in particular, we are compelled to a.s.sume the infinite, the finite, and the activity of the former within the latter. In other words we have to postulate G.o.d, the universe, and G.o.d's operation within the universe. Look at these three conceptions for a moment and it will be seen that every one of them implies the rest; they are a Trinity in unity. The primordial being must be infinite, for there cannot be a finite without something still beyond it. We know, too, that to our experience the universe is finite; we can measure, weigh, and a.n.a.lyse it--an impossible thing to do with an infinite substance. And yet if we think of infinite and finite as two entirely distinct and unrelated modes of existence, we find ourselves in an impossible position, for the infinite must be that outside of which nothing exists or can exist; so of course we are compelled to think of the infinite as ever active within the finite, the source of change and motion, the exhaustless power which makes possible the very idea of development from simplicity to complexity. If the universe were complete in itself, change would not occur, and a cosmic process, evolutionary or otherwise, would be inconceivable. Here, then, we have the basal factors of any true theology, philosophy, or science.
Readers of Haeckel's "Riddle of the Universe" will note that that eminent materialist, who professes to do away with the very idea of G.o.d, takes these factors for granted; and yet I suppose he would object to being told that he believes in the doctrine of the Trinity. But he does, for he begins by a.s.suming infinite s.p.a.ce filled to the farthest with matter ponderable and imponderable, and forthwith proceeds to weigh, measure, and divide the latter as though it were finite! Here are two terms of the doctrine of the Trinity at once. We get the third as soon as Professor Haeckel sets to work to explain the cosmic process, for as he does so he is all the while taking for granted that the infinite is pressing in and up through the finite, evolving beauty and order, light and life.
+The moral basis of the doctrine.+--But it may be contended that these bare bones of the doctrine of the Trinity are not the doctrine as it enters into spiritual experience. I admit the fact while a.s.serting strongly that but for this framework of intellectual necessity the doctrine would be unknown to faith and morals. It is sometimes stated that the doctrine of the Trinity was formulated in order to account for Jesus, but that is only incidentally true. Its framers took the materials for it over from Greek thought, and even Greek thought probably inherited it from an older civilisation still, if indeed there were any necessity to inherit it. I contend that if we had never heard of the doctrine in connection with Jesus, we should have to invent it now in order to account for ourselves and the wondrous universe in which we live.
Unquestionably, however, it is from the point of view of religion and morals that the doctrine has most significance, and therefore has become indissolubly a.s.sociated with the personality of Jesus; and it is easy to see how this has come about. Thinkers have always been compelled to construe the universe in terms of the highest known to man, namely, his own moral nature. It was natural, therefore, that while they thought of the universe as an expression of G.o.d, they should think of it as the expression of that side of His being which can only be described as the ideal or archetypal manhood. The infinite being of G.o.d is utterly incomprehensible to a finite mind, and in regard to it the most devout saint is as much an agnostic as the most convinced materialist. But we are justified in holding that whatever else He may be G.o.d is essentially man, that is, He is the fount of humanity. There must be one side, so to speak, of the infinitely complex being of G.o.d in which humanity is eternally contained and which finds expression in the finite universe. Humanity is not a vague term; we have already seen something of what it is. We ought not to interpret it in terms of the primeval savage, or even of average human nature to-day, but in terms of what we have come to feel is its highest expression, and that is Jesus. If we think therefore of the archetypal eternal divine Man, the source and sustenance of the universe, and yet transcending the universe, we cannot do better than think of Him in terms of Jesus; Jesus is the fullest expression of that eternal divine Man on the field of human history. Here, then, we have the first and second factors in the doctrine of the Trinity morally and spiritually construed.
+The divine Man.+--The idea of a divine Man, the emanation of the infinite, the soul of the universe, the source and goal of all humanity, is ages older than Christian theology. It can be traced in Babylonian religious literature, for instance, at a period older even than the Old Testament. It played a not unimportant part in Greek thought, and Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Jesus, works it out in some detail in his religio-philosophic system, which aimed to combine the wide outlook of Greek culture with the high seriousness of Hebrew religion. It is a true, indeed an inevitable, conception, if we hold anything like a consistent view of the immanence of G.o.d in His universe. With what G.o.d have we to do except the G.o.d who is eternally man? This aspect of the nature of G.o.d has been variously described in the course of its history. It has been called the Word, the Son, and, as we have seen, the second person in the Trinity. For various reasons I prefer to call it--or rather Him--the eternal Christ. I do this because, for one thing, the word "Christ" is a living word with a clearly marked ethical content and a great religious value.
Originally, of course, it was but the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Messiah, and meant the "anointed one," the person chosen for a special divine work. But in the New Testament, especially the writings of St.
Paul, as well as all Christian history through, it is a.s.sociated on the one hand with the personality of Jesus, and, on the other, with the fontal or ideal Man who contains and is expressed in all human kind.
According to the New Testament writers, Jesus was and is the Christ, but in His earthly life His consciousness of the fact was limited.
But, as we have come forth from this fontal manhood, we too must be to some extent expressions of this eternal Christ; and it is in virtue of that fact that we stand related to Jesus, and that the personality of Jesus has anything to do with us. Here is where the value of our belief in the interaction of the higher and the lower self comes in.
Fundamentally our being is already one with that of the eternal Christ, and faith in Jesus is faith in Him. Jesus is not one being and the Christ another; the two are one, and Jesus seems to have known it during His earthly ministry. He lived His life in such a way as to reveal the very essence of the Christ nature. He is therefore central for us, and we are complete in Him. Here is the goal of all moral effort--Christ. Here, too, is the highest reach of the religious ideal--Christ. "For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us."
+The Christ of St. Paul.+--I am persuaded that we have here the key to the Christology of that great thinker and preacher, the apostle Paul.
It is this ideal or eternal Christ who is the object of his faith and devotion. He even goes so far as to warn his readers not to dwell too much upon the limited earthly Jesus, but upon His true being in the eternal reality: "Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more." He does not say, "To me to live is Jesus," but, "To me to live is _Christ_." If ever there was a Christian who really loved Jesus with pa.s.sionate and whole-hearted devotion, it was the apostle Paul, but he says almost nothing about the earthly ministry of his Lord. He seems to have had a vivid impression as to what the character of Jesus was really like, and he gave himself up to the worship of this with all his heart; but he does not draw for us any of the beautiful gospel pictures of the Jesus in the peasant's dress who taught on the hillsides of Galilee, went about doing good, was a welcome guest in the home at Bethany, lived a true human life, and died a shameful death. Paul always thought of Him, and truly, as the Lord who came down from heaven, but he does _not_ draw a sharp line of distinction between Him and the rest of humanity. He calls Jesus "the first-born among many brethren." He speaks of the summing up of all things in Christ, and of the final consummation when G.o.d shall be all in all. Here is the New Theology with a vengeance. Paul requires to be rescued from the inadequate and distorting interpretations his thought has received in the course of its history. He brought this conception of the eternal Christ into Christianity from pre-Christian thought, saw it ideally revealed in Jesus, and then bade mankind respond to it and realise it to be the true explanation of our own being. Sometimes he appears to deviate from this view, and to say things inconsistent with it, but that we need not mind; he saw it, and that is enough. It forms the foundation of his gospel.
CHAPTER VII
THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF G.o.d
+Jesus all that Christian devotion has believed Him to be.+--So far we have seen that the personality of Jesus is central for Christian faith.
We deny nothing about Him that Christian devotion has ever affirmed, but we affirm the same things of humanity as a whole in a differing degree. The practical dualism which regards Jesus as coming into humanity from something that beforehand was not humanity we declare to be misleading. Our view of the subject does not belittle Jesus but it exalts human nature. Let this be clearly understood and most of the objections to it will vanish. Briefly summed up, the position is as follows: Jesus was G.o.d, but so are we. He was G.o.d because His life was the expression of divine love; we too are one with G.o.d in so far as our lives express the same thing. Jesus was not G.o.d in the sense that He possessed an infinite consciousness; no more are we. Jesus expressed fully and completely, in so far as a finite consciousness ever could, that aspect of the nature of G.o.d which we have called the eternal Son, or Christ, or ideal Man who is the Soul of the universe, and "the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world;" we are expressions of the same primordial being. Fundamentally we are all one in this eternal Christ. This is the most difficult statement of all to make clear, for the average westerner cannot grasp it; it is different from his ordinary way of looking at things. The best way of demonstrating it, as I have already shown, is to draw attention to the fact that Christian orthodoxy has all along been affirming the mystic union between Christ and the soul, and that the limited earthly consciousness of Jesus did not prevent Him from being really and truly G.o.d. Why should we not speak in a similar way about any other human consciousness? If we could only get men to do so habitually and sincerely, it would be the greatest gain to religion that could possibly be imagined. In the third chapter I have pointed out that psychological science is doing much to help us toward this realisation.
We are beginning to see, however hard it may be to understand it, that our limited individual consciousness is no barrier to the true identification of the lesser with the larger self. What Christian doctrine, therefore, has been affirming of Jesus for hundreds of years past is receiving impressive confirmation from modern science and is being seen to be true of every human being--that is, the lesser and the larger are one, however little the earthly consciousness may be able to grasp the fact. To me this is a most helpful and inspiring truth, one of the most important that has ever found a place in Christian thought; it elucidates much that would otherwise be obscure. It enables us to see how the human and divine were blended in Jesus without making Him essentially different from the rest of the human race; it enables us to realise our own true origin and to believe in the salvability of every soul that has ever come to moral consciousness. If this truth will not lift a man toward the higher life, I do not know one that will. It is the truth implied in all redemptive effort that has ever been made, and in every message that has ever gripped conscience and heart; it is, as the Nicene creed has it, "the taking of the manhood into G.o.d."
+The preeminence of Jesus.+--Lest anyone should think that this position involves in the slightest degree the diminution of the religious value and the moral preeminence of Jesus, let me say that it does the very opposite. Nothing can be higher than the highest, and the life of Jesus was the undimmed revelation of the highest. Faith to be effective must centre on a living person, and the highest objective it has ever found is Jesus. He is no abstraction but a spiritual reality, an ever-present friend and guide, our brother and our Lord.
No one will ever compete with Jesus for this position in human hearts.
When I speak of the eternal Christ, I do not mean someone different from Jesus, although I certainly do mean the basal principle of all human goodness; Jesus was and is that Christ, and we can only understand what the Christ is because we have seen Him. Whole-hearted faith in Him has proved itself to be the most effective means to the manifestation of our own Christhood.
+Jesus and the incarnation.+--This thought at once opens up another great question to which we have already alluded, that of the incarnation of this eternal Christ or Son of G.o.d in the finite universe. According to the received theology the incarnation of G.o.d in human life was limited to the life of Jesus only, and through Him to mankind. I purposely say popular theology because the best Christian thought has always known better. Popular theology has it that Jesus, the only-begotten eternal Son of G.o.d, took human flesh and a human nature, was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of a virgin, and was born into the world in a wholly miraculous way--a way which stamps Him as different from all that were ever born of woman before or since.
It seems strange that belief in the virgin birth of Jesus should ever have been held to be a cardinal article of the Christian faith, but it is so even to-day. There is not much need to combat it, for most reputable theologians have now given it up, but it is still a stumbling-block to many minds. Perhaps, therefore, a brief examination of the subject may not be altogether out of place.
+The virgin birth not demonstrable from Scripture.+--The virgin birth of Jesus was apparently unknown to the primitive church, for the earliest New Testament writings make no mention of it. Paul's letters do not allude to it, neither does the gospel of St. Mark. "In the fulness of time," says the great apostle, "G.o.d sent forth His Son born of a woman." He was "of the seed of David according to the flesh," but nowhere does Paul give us so much as a hint of anything supernatural attending the mode of His entry into the world. Mark does not even tell us anything about the childhood of the Master; his account begins with the baptism of Jesus in Jordan. The fourth gospel, although written much later, ignores the belief in the virgin birth, and even seems to do so of set purpose as belittling and materialising the truth. The supposed Old Testament prophecies of the event have nothing whatever to do with it. The famous pa.s.sage, "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel," is a reference to contemporary events, and the word translated "virgin"
simply means a young woman. It is a prophecy of the birth of a prince whose work it should be to put right for Judah what the reigning king Ahaz had been putting wrong. The story in the seventh of Isaiah is as follows: Ahaz, a rather weak ruler, was greatly concerned by the news that Rezin, king of Syria and Pekah, king of northern Israel, had formed an alliance against him and were marching on Jerusalem. In his extremity this monarch of a petty state turned toward the mighty ruler of a.s.syria, the greatest military power in the world, and asked his help against the combination. Isaiah, statesman as well as prophet, saw that this was a wrong move. a.s.syria was aspiring to universal dominion, and to form an alliance with the military master of that mighty state would be to supply him with an excuse for further interference. The policy of Ahaz was therefore as suicidal as that of John Balliol when he called in Edward the First to adjudicate on his claim to the crown of Scotland, or the policy of Spain when she called in Napoleon. Sargon, king of a.s.syria, was overturning thrones in all directions, profiting by the divisions and jealousies of his foes. The great empires of Egypt and Babylonia went down before him as well as the smaller states. The condition of things in this ancient world was just like that of Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century when the star of Napoleon was in the ascendant. For Ahaz to turn for help to Sargon was to court disaster in the end. Isaiah saw this and went out to meet Ahaz one day "at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field"--a vivid descriptive touch.
The king was apparently preparing to stand a siege in his capital and was making sure of the water supply. Isaiah's remonstrance was in substance: You need not take so much trouble with your preparations; Syria and Israel will have more than enough to do presently to defend their own borders from Sargon. Besides, men like Rezin and Pekah are not men to be afraid of in any case; they have neither strength nor skill. But do not for heaven's sake call in Sargon; if you do you will supply him with an excuse for meddling and we shall never get rid of him. This was good counsel, but Ahaz was too short-sighted and panic-stricken to take much notice of it, so in oriental fashion Isaiah goes on to paint a picture of future disaster. The land, he says, will soon be laid waste, and future generations will rue the policy now being determined upon. In the end, of course, things will come all right, for G.o.d will not abandon His people. A better and wiser prince shall arise who shall restore prosperity to Judah. That prince is not yet born, but when he is, his name shall be called Immanuel,--G.o.d with us. In another place he describes him as Wonderful Counsellor, Divine Hero, Father Everlasting, Prince of Peace. "b.u.t.ter and honey shall he eat," because there will be nothing else left after a.s.syria has swept over the country, but the discipline may have good results in the end, and will serve to bring Judah to her senses.
There is something strikingly modern about all this, and it is a good example of the way in which the same conditions arise over and over again in the course of human history. It is plain to be seen that the prophecy here indicated was only the shrewd common sense of a wise and patriotic man who loved his country and believed in G.o.d. But what on earth have his words to do with the birth of Jesus? It is only by a very long stretch of the pious imagination that they can be held to apply to Christianity at all. They have an interest of their own, and a very considerable interest, too, even from the point of view of religion; but Isaiah would have been considerably astonished to be told that they would have to wait seven hundred years for fulfilment. To a certain extent they were fulfilled soon afterward in the advent of the well-meaning but not very brilliant king Hezekiah. I have dwelt upon this pa.s.sage at some length because it is a fair example of the way in which Old Testament literature has been pressed into the service of Christian dogma. What I am now saying, as I need hardly point out, is not my _ipse dixit_; expert biblical scholarship has been saying it for a long time, but somehow or other its bearing upon generally accepted dogmas is not popularly realised. It can hardly be maintained that Christian preachers who know the truth about these matters and refrain from stating it plainly are doing their duty to their congregations.
No Old Testament pa.s.sage whatever is directly or indirectly a prophecy of the virgin birth of Jesus. To insist upon this may seem to many like beating a man of straw, but if so the man of straw still retains a good deal of vitality.
+The virgin birth in the gospels.+--The only two gospels in which the virgin birth is alluded to are Matthew and Luke, and the nativity stories contained in these are very beautiful, especially those peculiar to Luke. But the two gospels are mutually contradictory in their account of the circ.u.mstances attending the miraculous birth.
Each contains a genealogy which professes to be that of Joseph, not of Mary, and these are inconsistent with each other. What has the genealogy of Joseph got to do with the birth of Jesus if Jesus were not his own son? The conclusion seems probable that in the earlier versions of these gospels the miraculous conception did not find a place, or else that two inconsistent sources have been drawn upon without sufficient care being taken to reconcile them. But this is not the only discrepancy. Matthew gives Bethlehem as the native place of Joseph and Mary, Luke says Nazareth. Matthew says not a word about the census of Cyrenius as the motive for the journey to Bethlehem, but leads us to suppose that the holy family were already in residence there. Then again he tells us of the coming of the wise men from the East, their public inquiry as to the whereabouts of the holy child, the jealousy of Herod, the ma.s.sacre of the innocents, and the flight into Egypt. Luke says nothing about these things, but gives us an entirely different set of wonders, including the attendance of an angelic host and the annunciation to the shepherds. So far from recording any ma.s.sacre, or any hasty flight, he tells us that some time after His birth the babe was taken to the Temple at Jerusalem to be presented to the Lord, and that afterwards He and His parents "returned into Galilee to their own city Nazareth." According to Matthew Nazareth was an afterthought and only became the residence of the holy family after the return from Egypt. These accounts do not tally, and no ingenuity can reconcile them. The nativity stories belong to the poetry of religion, not to history. To regard them as narrations of actual fact is to misunderstand them. They are better than that; they take us into the region of exalted feeling and give us a vision of truth too great for prosaic statement. Christianity would be poorer by the loss of them, but they are not indigenous to Christianity. They have their parallels in other religions, some of them much older than the advent of Jesus.
The beautiful legends surrounding the infancy of Gautama, for example, are startlingly similar to those contained in the first and third gospels. Like Jesus, the Buddhist messiah is stated to have been of royal descent and was born of a virgin mother. At his birth a supernatural radiance illuminated the whole district, and a troop of heavenly beings sang the praises of the holy child. Later on a wise man, guided by special portents, recognised him as the long-expected and divinely appointed light-bringer and life-giver of mankind. When but a youth he was lost for a time and was found by his father in the midst of a circle of holy men, sunk in rapt contemplation of the great mystery of existence. The parallel between these legends and the Christian version of the marvels attending the birth of Jesus is so close as to preclude the possibility of its being altogether accidental. There must have been a connection somewhere, and indeed there is no need to think otherwise, for nothing is to be gained or lost by admitting it.
+Christianity not dependent on a virgin birth.+--But why hesitate about the question? The greatness of Jesus and the value of His revelation to mankind are in no way either a.s.sisted or diminished by the manner of His entry into the world. Every birth is just as wonderful as a virgin birth could possibly be, and just as much a direct act of G.o.d. A supernatural conception bears no relation whatever to the moral and spiritual worth of the person who is supposed to enter the world in this abnormal way. The credibility and significance of Christianity are in no way affected by the doctrine of the virgin birth otherwise than that the belief tends to put a barrier between Jesus and the race and to make Him something which cannot properly be called human. Those who insist on the doctrine will find themselves in danger of proving too much, for, pressed to its logical conclusion, it removes Jesus altogether from the category of humanity in any real sense. Like many others, I used to take the position that acceptance or non-acceptance of the doctrine of the virgin birth was immaterial because Christianity was quite independent of it, but later reflection has convinced me that in point of fact it operates as a hindrance to spiritual religion and a real living faith in Jesus. The simple and natural conclusion is that Jesus was the child of Joseph and Mary and had an uneventful childhood.
+The truth in the doctrine of the virgin birth.+--And yet, as with every tenet which has held a place in human thought for any considerable length of time, there is a great truth contained in the idea of a virgin birth. It is the truth that the emergence of anything great and beautiful in human character and achievement is the work of the divine spirit operating within human limitations. This idea is very ancient, and there is no great religion which does not contain it in some form or other. One form of it, for example, can be discerned in the Babylonian creation myth with its parallel in the book of Genesis. The home of the primitive Chaldeans, the stock whence Israelites, Babylonians, a.s.syrians, and other Semitic communities sprang, was in the low-lying territory surrounding the Persian gulf.
During the rainy seasons these lands were flooded by the overflow of the great rivers. The sun of springtime, rising upon this ma.s.s of waters which stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see, drew forth from their bosom the life and beauty of summer flowers and fruit. From observation of this regularly recurring phenomenon the primitive Semites constructed their creation myth, one version of which appeared in the first chapter of the book of Genesis, a version much later than the Babylonian, but an outgrowth of the same idea. They thought of a primeval waste of water covering everything. As the writer of the Genesis account has it: "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." In the Babylonian version this primeval water was personified as a woman--Tiamat. They thought of the sun of heaven as impregnating this virgin matrix with the seeds of cosmic life--quite an accurate conception from the modern point of view. Later on this idea became spiritualised in a much higher degree. The religious mind came to regard the physical, mundane, or distinctively human principle as the matrix upon which the spirit of G.o.d brooded, bringing to the birth a divine idea. And this is perfectly true too, as anyone can see. Nothing great and n.o.ble in human experience can be accounted for merely in terms of atoms and molecules. That is where materialism always comes to grief, for on its own premises it cannot account for the emergence of intelligence and all the higher qualities of human nature. A divine element, a spiritual quickening, is required for the evolution of anything G.o.dlike in our mundane sphere; it is a virgin birth. Lower acting upon lower can never produce a higher. It is the downpouring and incoming of the higher to the lower which produces through the lower the divine manhood which leaves the brute behind. This is the sense in which it is true that Jesus was of divine as well as human parentage. We do not account for Him merely by saying that He was the son of Joseph and Mary and the descendant of a long line of prophets, priests, and kings; we have to recognise that His true greatness came from above.