Chapter 10

THE HISTORICAL RELIGIONS

We have noticed in the two preceding chapters how Eucken distinguished the two stages of religion--the "Universal" and the "Characteristic" --and how he showed the necessity of both stages. As man cannot escape from the conclusions of his intellect, it becomes necessary for him to come to an understanding with those conclusions; and although such conclusions do not form a complete account of life in its deepest aspects, still they are indispensable for him in order to know that he is on the path towards a further development of his spiritual nature. Hence the grounds of religion have to be emphasised by the conclusions of the intellect. But though intellectual conclusions, as we have already seen, warrant us in holding fast to the presence and reality of a life of the spirit and to the possibility of an evolution of such a life, all this does not mean that such an evolution is actually reached through the affirmations of [p.167] the intellect. The road of spiritual development is marked out, but we have to travel over that road ourselves. Something more than an intellectual acknowledgment of the existence of such a road is necessary before the actual movement takes place. When the actual movement does take place, when the intellectual conclusions come in contact with a will arising from our deepest needs, the matter becomes personal--it becomes something that has to be affirmed by the blending of intellect with the deeper spiritual potencies. The vision at this higher stage constitutes not only the certainty of a path for man--a path which leads to higher regions--but brings forth hidden energies in order to start him on the enterprise. The whole vision is now seen to be possible of realisation only through personal decisions of the whole nature in the direction of the over-personal values which present themselves. These over-personal values increase as the soul passes along the upward path and as it grants a self-subsistence and unconditional significance to these values. There follows here an increase of spiritual reflection; the content of the vision is loosened from sense and time; its self-subsistence becomes more and more real and more and more and more different from all that was experienced on any level below; knowledge steps into the background, and love and appreciation now guide the whole movement of [p.168] the soul. As we have already seen, when this happens, the idea of God as Infinite Love presents itself, and the soul's main task is to climb to the summits "where on the glimmering limits far withdrawn God made Himself an awful rose of dawn." Religion is at such a level more than an intellectual insistence upon its grounds; the soul looks now rather to its summits. Hence the two stages of Universal and Characteristic religion become necessary. And it is not always true that the Universal mode ceases once the Characteristic mode is partially realised. The soul has to descend from the heights into the ordinary world below. And as it now sees the world with new eyes, it sees much more to be condemned than was previously possible for it to see. There comes the constant need of certifying the validity of its experience on the heights, and of getting others who have never attempted the experiment to do so. The man possessed of something of the vision within his own soul proclaims his "gospel," and conceives of all kinds of ways and means by which humanity can be drawn towards the same goal.

This is the meaning which Eucken attaches to the origin and development of the union of universal and specific religions as these have been revealed in human history. The intellectual grounds of religion as well as something of the actual spiritual experiences are presented by the founders. Every kind of [p.169] religion has originated in this manner. They are all attempts at showing that a _here and now_ and a _beyond_ have united and become potencies of life, and can become actualities. The _here and now_ always points to a _beyond_, and the _beyond_, when it is realised, returns to the _here and now_ and always transforms it. Thus, we are in the midst of two worlds which are continuous with one another just as the valley is continuous with the base of the mountain.

Such historical religions do not, then, originate in the collective experiences of humanity, but in what has actually happened in the life of unique personalities. These personalities have become, as it were, mediators between God and man. Such religions adopt the most diverse forms, because the personalities have given of the content of their own personal experiences, and no two experiences view anything from standpoints precisely identical. The historical religions may consequently be narrow in their outlook. The personalities are dependent upon their race, place, training, and inheritance for the particular intellectual presentation of their religion. Thus, each historical religion has its own view of the universe and its own morality. But the value of no historical religion is to be judged from this standpoint alone. Such views of the universe and such morality must have appeared to them somehow as a good--as [p.170] ways and means to what lay _beyond_. We may have outgrown such ways and means; other ways and means higher in their nature may have become our inheritance. But these higher ways and means could not have evolved out of their lower stages had not some element of the _beyond_ instilled itself into them. The historical religions could never have flourished on immorality and superstition, however much of these we may discover in them. It is the _beyond, over-personal_ element which has kept them alive, and this element has always had a hard struggle to overcome and transform _the here-and-now_ elements. Whenever the historical religions are traced back to their sources, there is discovered an element _above_ the world in the souls of their founders and of their immediate followers. As Eucken puts it: "To these founders the new kingdom was no vague outline and no feeble hope, but all stood clear in front of them; the kingdom was so real to their souls and filled them so exclusively that the whole sensuous world was reduced by them to a semblance and a shadow if they could not otherwise gain a new value from a superior power. The new world could attain to such immediacy and impressiveness only because a regal imagination wrestled for a unique picture in the tangled heap of life, and because it invested this picture with the clearest outlines and the most vivid colours. Thus the new world dawns on humanity with [p.171] fascinating power, rousing it out of the sluggishness of daily routine, binding it through a corporate aim, raising inspiring ardour through radiant promises and terrible threats, and creating achievements otherwise impossible. This prepared road into the kingdom of the invisible, this creation of a new reality which is no merely serene kind of play but a deep seriousness, this inversion of worlds which pushes sensuous existence down into a distance and which prepares a home for man within the kingdom of faith--all this is the greatest achievement that has ever been undertaken and that has ever worked upon human soil. ... Their works seemed to carry within them Divine energies; wonders surrounded their paths; their life and being bridged securely the gulf between heaven and earth."[61] Now, Eucken shows that it is of great importance to acknowledge these personalities in order that life may be brought into a safe track. Enough has already been said of the impossibility of finding a sufficiency for life and death within the span of ordinary existence. And as this is so, a whole span of past and present has to be taken into account. The world cannot move a step towards the heights of the future without this. The real future is the blend of what _was_ and _is_ forming the standard and the receptacle for what is _to be._ We have already noticed how such a standard [p.172] evolves; and how, when it is followed to its utmost limits, it merges into the conception of God. But as all this is a conception spiritual in its nature--devoid of flesh and blood as its clothing--it becomes extremely difficult for the majority of mankind to hold fast to its reality in a world where flesh and blood mean so much. Something more tangible is craved for by man as a proof of an over-world and of an over-personal life. Such proof men are able to obtain in the great religious personalities of the world without having to go through the intellectual processes of discovering the grounds of religion. Men are able to view this spiritual truth as they view a picture. It becomes easy to understand how such personalities have been raised beyond all human valuations to a likeness to God and even to an equality with God. Such personalities were the highest conceptions which men could possess of the Godhead. This seems to have been a necessary stage in the evolution of the religious life as well as of religious conceptions. And even to-day attention is not to be diverted from such personalities. The question whether they were or were not gods has become meaningless. What psychology is able to fathom the soul of any individual? Every attempt at doctrinal formulation states less than was present within the souls of such personalities. But, on the other hand, it does seem necessary, [p.173] according to Eucken's teaching, to avoid confusing such personalities with the All. They were great; they possessed elements above the world; but none of them possessed the whole that is in existence.

The truth concerning these founders of religion seems to lie in the fact that they realised a depth of life beyond the world, the intellect, and the span of ordinary life. It is this fact that needs to be brought prominently forward in our day. And such a fact becomes an experimental proof of the presence and efficacy of the Divine within the soul and points to an upward direction the total-movement of the world. If such a fact does not succeed in holding for itself a primary place, other subsidiary facts will colour and weaken its true spiritual content and value. This is the road on which speculative and superstitious ideas have found an entrance into the historical religions. When such is the case, the spiritual reality is gradually weakened, is lowered to the level of intellectualistic dogma, until it ultimately becomes, though in the guise of religion, the worst enemy which spiritual religion has to encounter. All hard and fixed dogmatic settings of religion usurp the supremacy of the spiritual life itself.

Eucken shows this in connection with religious institutions--institutions which were meant by their founders to be essential but [p.174] still subservient to the needs and aspirations of spiritual life. Thus, genuine religion is measured by a doctrinal standard or by a sacrament. These may possess an incalculable value in religion, when used as means and not as ends; but they may, and often do, issue in its degradation to a stage which is hardly a spiritual one. Every historical religion possesses some absolute truth, but does not possess the whole truth; and also each historical religion possesses some elements which have to pass away. But this matter will be dealt with in a later chapter.

The main service of the historical religions is to bring home to us the fact that in the course of human history a spiritual life above the world has again and again dawned on mankind through the experiences and works of great personalities. To realise intensely such a fact is to realise the fact that all this can happen again in a more concentrated form than is actually presented in the slow and toilsome effects of the results of the collective life of the community.

It may be well to refer here to Eucken's classification of the religions of the world. This classifications consists of _the Religions of Law and the Religions of Redemption_. The Religions of Law maintain that the kernel of religion lies in "the announcement and advocacy of a moral order which governs the world from on high." God has revealed His will to man; [p.175] if man obeys, rich rewards await him in a future life; if he disobeys, painful punishment is sure to follow. Man himself has to select one of the two alternatives, and he believes himself able to choose. The Religions of Redemption consider such a view false and superficial. Now, there is no doubt that the Religions of Law are stages which are of value when men are incapable of grasping the difficulties and complexities of religion. The whole of religion on this level of Law is a replica of the relations which obtain on a smaller scale between a sovereign and his subjects, or between a master and his slave. Authority is something purely external. The two Religions of Redemption--the Indian and the Christian--seek the meaning of religion in a very different manner. They both agree that human capability, which seems so evident to the Religions of Law, is the most difficult and important of all questions. They agree further that the essence of religion does not consist in guiding life for the sake of something that life is to participate in or to avoid in the future; they agree that a change must happen within the soul in this world, and that this change only comes about through the aid of a supernatural power. But these two religions differ fundamentally in their different ways of looking at the world. To the Indian religions, the existence of the world is an evil; the world is itself a kingdom of illusions. "All in it is transient [p.176] and unreal; nothing in it has duration; happiness and love are merely momentary, and men are as two pieces of wood floating on the face of an infinite ocean which pass by one another, never to meet again. Fruitless agitation and painful deception have fallen upon him who mistakes such a transient semblance for a reality and who hangs his heart upon it. Therefore it behoves man to free himself from such an unholy arena. This emancipation will take place when the semblance is seen through as semblance, and when the soul has gained an insight right into the foundation of things. Then the world loses its power over man; the whole kingdom of deception with its evanescent values goes to the bottom, all the excited affections caused by the world are extinguished, and life becomes a still and holy calm; it reaches the depth of a dreamless sleep, enters, through its immersion into an eternal essence, beyond the shadows; it passes, according to Buddhism in its most definite interpretation, into a state of entire unconsciousness."[62]

How different a spirit from all this breathes in Christianity! In Christianity the world is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. Something of the revelation of the Divine may be discovered within it, but this is only a segment of a greater whole which comes to realisation within the soul. Here, the world is not cast away, despite all its limitations, but [p.177] is perceived as the only sphere where spiritual experience may exercise itself and draw out its own hidden potencies. Tribulation is to be found in the world; but a standpoint _above_ the world, gained by cutting a path right through the world, is possible. When such a standpoint is reached, the world is seen as it ought to be seen and used as it ought to be used. But this aspect of the meaning of the world in the Christian religion will be dealt with later. It is sufficient to state here that Eucken considers Christianity superior to all other religions by virtue of the fact that it overcomes the world, not by fleeing from it, but by transforming it. It views the physical world as a stage upon which the life of the spirit has to realise all its possibilities; the world and all that is within it take a secondary place: the primary place is now accorded to the world of ideals and values as these merge into love and the conception of the Godhead.

The question of the finality of the Christian religion in its purely historical sense has been discussed by Eucken in his _Truth of Religion, Christianity and the New Idealism_, and _Können wir noch Christen sein_? In these three works he arrives at the conclusion that no one religion has a claim to the name "absolute religion," because even Christianity itself cannot be more than a partial, though the highest, manifestation of the Divine. And what Christianity has been and is in [p.178] itself as a force in the history of the Western world cannot be the same as what it was in the personal experience of its Founder. It is not something which descended once and for all into the world, and so remains its permanent inheritance. It is the most priceless inheritance we possess; but such an inheritance has to be discovered again and again. All this cannot come about without calling up to-day the same spiritual energies as were needful for the tasks that were present when Christianity started to conquer the world. Its aspects of "world-denial and world-renewal" render Christianity the very religion we need. "It is the religion of religions," but a statement of this fact does not mean the realisation of the fact. The same energy and aspiration are needful to-day as in the days of yore. Christianity, whenever it has lived on its highest levels, has struggled for two tremendous facts at least: the insufficiency of the world and the regeneration of the world in the light of the Divine. It is not a repetition of what the Founder said concerning religion. What the Founder said cost him enormous labour to discover and to possess. We shall gain so much and no more of the same spiritual substance as we put the same kind of energy in motion. In order that we may unravel the complexities of our day, a spirit similar to his spirit must become ours. When such a spirit ceases to exist, Christianity will become merely a [p.179] name; its power will have disappeared, and men can delude themselves into believing that they possess it when in fact they are the possessors of but little of its spirit and of much of its form. But the possession of the same spirit as that of Jesus constitutes the further development of Christianity, and this further development is nothing other than what we have already seen--the experience and efficacy of an eternal order of things in the midst of all the changes of time. Thus we are thrown back once more, not upon our bare individual selves, but upon the presence of the Divine within the spiritual life itself. Christianity is therefore not something that has been completed in the past, but the highest mode of conceiving and of experiencing Life in the present; it becomes an inward, personal and spiritual experience; and its duration and expansion depend upon the increase and depth of such a spiritual inwardness.

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