Chapter 8

RELIGION: HISTORICAL AND ABSOLUTE

In examining the various historical forms of religion, Eucken, as we should expect, is governed by the conclusions he has arrived at concerning the solution of the great problem of life, and especially of the place of religion in life.

A religion which emphasised the need for a break with the world, and of fight and action for spiritual progress, the possibility of a new higher life of freedom and of personality, and the superiority of the spiritual over the material, and which presented God as the ultimate spiritual life, in which the human personality found its real self, would thus meet with highest favour, while a form of religion that failed to do so would necessarily fail to satisfy the tests that he would apply.

He does not spend time discussing various religions in detail, but deals with them briefly in general, in order to show that the Christian religion is far superior to all other religions, then he makes a critical and very able examination of the Christian position. He considers it necessary to discuss in detail only that form of religion that is undoubtedly the highest.

The historical religions he finds to be of two types--religions of law and religions of redemption. The religions of law portray God as a being outside the world, and distinct from man, One who rules the world by law, and who decrees that man shall obey certain laws of conduct that He lays down. Failure to obey these laws brings its punishment in the present or in a future life, while implicit obedience brings the highest rewards. To such a God is often attributed all the weaknesses of the human being, sometimes in a much exaggerated form--hence His reign becomes one of fear to His subjects.

A religion of law assumes that man is capable of himself of obeying the law, and is responsible for his mode of life; it assumes that man is capable through his own energy of conquering the world of sin, and of leading the higher life.

Religions of this type possess of course the merit of simplicity, transparency, and finality. The decrees, the punishments and rewards are given with some clearness and are easily understood; there is no appeal and little equivocation. They served a useful purpose in the earlier ages of civilisation, but cannot solve the problem for the complex civilisation and advanced culture of the present age. They place God too far from man, and attribute to man powers which he cannot of himself possess. The conceptions of the Deity involved in them are too anthropomorphic in character--too much coloured by human frailties.

The religions of law have had to give place to those of a superior type--the religions of redemption. These religions appreciate the difficulty there exists for humankind of itself to transcend the world of sin, and are of two types--one type expressing a merely negative element, the other a negative and positive element.

The typical negative redemptive religion is that of Buddhism. Buddhism teaches us that the world is a sham and an evil; and the duty of man is to appreciate this fact, and to deny the world, but here the matter ends--it ends with world-renunciation and self-renunciation. There is only a negative element in such a religion, no inspiration to live and fight for gaining a higher world. This, of course, cannot provide a satisfactory solution to the problem, for no new life with new values is presented to us. It is a religion devoid of hope, for it does not point to a higher life. "A wisdom of world-denial, a calm composure of the nature, an entire serenity in the midst of the changing scenes of life, constitute the summit of life."

Christianity teaches us that the world is full of misery and suffering, but the world in itself is really a perfect work of Divine wisdom and goodness. "The root of evil is not in the nature of the world, but in moral wrong--in a desertion from God." Sin and wickedness arise from the misuse and perversion of things which are not in themselves evil. Christianity calls for a break from the wickedness of the world. It calls upon man to give up his sin, to deny, or break with, the evil of which he is guilty. But it does not expect man to do this in his own strength alone--God Himself comes to his rescue. Unlike Buddhism, it does not stay at the denial of the world, but calls upon man to become a citizen of a higher world. This gives a new impetus to the higher life; man finds a great task--he has to build a kingdom of God upon the earth. This demands the highest efforts--he must fight to gain the new world, and must keep up the struggle to retain what he has gained. The inferiority of Buddhism as contrasted with Christianity is well described by Eucken in the following words: "In the former an emancipation from semblance becomes necessary; in the latter an overcoming of evil is the one thing needful. In the former the very basis of the world seems evil; in the latter it is the perversion of this basis which seems evil. In the former, the impulses of life are to be entirely eradicated; in the latter, on the contrary, they are to be ennobled, or rather to be transformed. In the former, no higher world of a positive kind dawns on man, so that life finally reaches a seemingly valid point of rest, whilst upon Christian ground life ever anew ascends beyond itself."

From such considerations as these, Eucken comes to the conclusion that of the redemptive religions, which are themselves the highest type, Christianity is the highest and noblest form, hence his main criticism is concerned with the Christian religion. This does not mean that he finds neither value nor truth in any other form of religion. His general conclusion with regard to the historical religions is that they "contain too much that is merely human to be valued as a pure work of God, and yet too much that is spiritual and divine to be considered as a mere product of man." He finds in them all some kernel of truth, or at least a pathway to some part of truth, but contends that no religion contains the whole truth and nothing but the truth. "As certainly," he says, "as there is only one sole truth, there can be only one absolute religion, and this religion coincides entirely in no way with any one of the historical religions."

Eucken's great endeavour in his discussion of the Christian religion is to bring out the distinction between the eternal substance that resides in it and the human additions that have been made to it in different ages, between the elements in Christianity that are essentially divine and those essentially human. Divested of its human colourings and accretions, Christianity presents a basis of Divine and eternal truth, and this regarded in itself, can well claim to be the final and absolute religion.

The conclusion he has come to with regard to the eternal truth as contrasted with the temporary colourings of Christianity, with the essential as contrasted with the inessential, can best be outlined by taking in turn some of the main tenets and characteristics of the Christian faith.

Eucken's conception of the negative movement is very much akin to the Christian idea of _conversion_. The first stage is merely a movement away from the world, but after a time, in the continuous process of negation, the negative movement attains a positive significance; when this stage is arrived at Eucken would apply the term conversion. He would not limit the negative movement to one act or to one point in time; the movement towards a higher world must be maintained--the sustaining of the negative movement being a test of the reality of conversion. The process of conversion is not a process to be passively undergone, or to originate from without, but is a movement starting in the depths of one's own being.

As already pointed out, Eucken believes in _redemption_. The past is capable of reinterpretation and transformation, because we can view our past actions in a new light and so change the whole, since the past is not a closed thing, definite in itself, but a part of an incomplete whole. He considers, however, that the Christian doctrine of redemption makes it too much a matter of God's mercy, instead of placing stress upon the part that man himself must play. The possibility of redemption in his view follows from the presence and movement of the spiritual life in man, not merely from an act of the founder of Christianity, and he avers that while traditional Christianity emphasises the need for redemption from evil, it does not emphasise sufficiently the necessary elevation to the good life that must result.

Closely bound up with the Christian doctrine of redemption is that of _mediation_. Eucken believes that the Christian conception of mediation resulted from the feeling of worthlessness and impotence of man, and the aspirations which yet burned within him after union with the Divine. The idea of mediation bridges the gulf, "a mid-link is forged between the Divine and the human, and half of it belongs to each side; both sides are brought into a definite connection which could be found in no other way." Eucken acknowledges that such a mediation seems to make access to the Divine easier, gives intimacy to the idea of redemption, and offers support for human frailty. But he points out that there is an intolerable anthropomorphism involved in the idea, that it removes the Divine farther away from man, and that the union of Divine and human is held to obtain in one special case only--that of Christ. He urges that in a religion of mediation, one or other, God or Christ, must be chosen as the centre. "Concerning the decision there cannot be the least doubt; the fact is clear in the soul-struggles of the great religious personalities, that in a decisive act of the soul the doctrinal idea of mediation recedes into the background, and a direct relationship with God becomes a fact of immediacy and intimacy."

So Eucken will have nothing to do with the idea of mediation in its doctrinal significance--pointing out that "the idea of mediation glides easily into a further mediation." "Has not the figure of Christ receded in Catholicism, and does not the figure of Mary constitute the centre of the religious emotional life?"

He does, however, lay great store by the help that a man may be to other men in their upward path: "The human, personality who first and foremost brought eternal truth to the plane of time, and through this inaugurated a new epoch, remains permanently present in the picture of the spiritual world, and is able permanently to exercise a mighty power upon the soul ... but all this is far removed from any idea of mediation."

Eucken believes in _revelation_, but through action, and not through contemplation. To the personality struggling upward, with its aims set towards the highest in life, the spiritual life reveals itself. He does not confine revelation to certain periods in time, and believes that such revelation comes to all spiritual personalities.

He holds, too, that the spiritual personalities are themselves revelations of the Universal Spiritual Life, and that the Spiritual Life does reveal itself most clearly in personalities.

How the revelation comes he does not discuss in any detail, but he is very certain that it comes through action and fight for the highest.

It is perhaps largely due to his activistic standpoint that Eucken does not deal with _prayer_. In the _Truth of Religion_, which deals very fully with most aspects of religion, and purports to be a complete discussion of religion, no treatment of prayer is given. He speaks of the developing personality as drawing upon the resources of the Universal Spiritual Life, but this appears to be in action, and not in prayer or communion.

He is ever suspicious of intellectual contemplation, and this leads him to attribute less importance than perhaps he should to _mysticism_, to prayer, adoration, and worship. He admits that mysticism contains a truth that is vital to religion, but complains that it becomes for many the whole of religion. Its proper function is to liberate the human mind from the narrowly human, and to emphasise a total-life, the great Whole. It fails, however, "because it turns this necessary portion of religion into the sole content. To it, religion is nothing other than an absorption into the infinite and eternal Being--an extinguishing of all particularity, and the gaining of a complete calm through the suspension of all the wear and tear of life."

Eucken's discussion of _faith and doubt_ is very illuminating. He protests against the conception of faith which concerns itself merely with the intellectual acceptance of this or that doctrine. This narrows and weakens its power, confining it to one department of life; whereas faith is concerned with the whole of life.

Faith is for Eucken "a conviction of an axiomatic character, which refuses to be analysed into reasons, and which, indeed, precedes all reasons ... the recognition of the inner presence of an infinite energy."

If faith concerns itself with, and proceeds from the whole of life, it will then take account of the work of thought, and will not set itself in opposition to reason. But it will lead where reason fails. It is not limited by intellectual limitations, though it does not underrate or neglect the achievements of the intellect. Faith enables life to "maintain itself against a hostile or indifferent world; ... it holds itself fast to invisible facts against the hard opposition of visible existence."

The vital importance of such faith to religion is clearly evident; and bound up with this is the significance of doubt. Doubt, too, becomes now, not an intellectual matter, but a matter for the whole of life. "If faith carries within itself so much movement and struggle, it is not surprising ... if faith and doubt set themselves against each other, and if the soul is set in a painful dilemma." Eucken considers it to be an inevitable, and indeed a necessary accompaniment of religious experience, and his own words on the point are forcible and clear. "Doubt ... does not appear as something monstrous and atrocious, though it would appear so if a perfect circle of ideas presented itself to man and demanded his assent as a bounden duty. For where it is necessary to lay hold on a new life, and to bring to consummation an inward transformation, then a personal experience and testing are needed. But no proof is definite which clings from the beginning to the final result, and places on one side all possibility of an antithesis. The opposite possibility must be thought out and lived through if the Yea is to possess full energy and genuineness. Thus doubt becomes a necessary, if also an uncomfortable, companion of religion; it is indispensable for the conservation of the full freshness and originality of religion--for the freeing of religion from conventional forms and phrases."

Eucken's views on _immortality_ have already been dealt with. He does not accept the Christian conception of it, for he seems to limit the possibility to those in whom spiritual personalities have been developed, and he evidently does not believe that the "natural individuality with all its egoism and limitations" is going to persist.

In discussing the question of _miracle_, Eucken weighs the fact that a conviction of the possibility of miracle has been held by millions in various religions, and particularly in Christianity. He considers that the question of miracle is of more importance in the Christian religion than in any other, one miracle--the Resurrection--having been taken right into the heart of Christian doctrine. He finds, however, that the miracle is entirely inconsistent with an exact scientific conception of nature, and means "an overthrow of the total order of nature as this has been set forth through the fundamental work of modern investigation." He does not consider such a position can be held without overwhelming evidence, and does not feel the traditional fact to have this degree of certainty, or to be inexplicable in another way. He considers that the explanation of the miracle probably lies in the psychic state of the witnesses.

Eucken shows in general extreme reluctance to make a historical event a foundation of belief, and this no doubt accounts to some extent for his attitude with regard to miracles. He points out that "the founders of religion have themselves protested against a craving after sensuous signs," and that this protest "is no other than the sign of spiritual power and of a Divine message and greatness." He considers that the belief in, and craving for, sensuous miracle is an outcome of a "mid-level of religion," where belief is waning and spirituality declining. While, thus, he does not believe in sensuous miracle, he acknowledges and lays the greatest stress on one miracle--the presence of the Spiritual Life in man. It is, indeed, this miracle that renders others unnecessary.

In discussing the doctrine of the _Incarnation_, Eucken attempts to get at the inner meaning--the truth which the doctrine endeavours to express, and he finds this to consist in the fact of the ultimate union of the human and Divine, and this truth is one that we dare not renounce. He criticises the attempt that is made in Christianity to show that such union only obtained once in the course of history. Incarnation is not one historical event, but a spiritual process; not an article of belief, but a living experience of each spiritual personality.

He considers as injurious to religion in general the Christian conception of the _Atonement_. He believes that the idea that is to be expressed is that of the nearness of God to man in guilt and in suffering. In endeavouring to express this close intimacy the idea of suffering was transferred to God himself. The anthropomorphic idea of reconciliation and substitution thus arose, and this Eucken considers to have done harm. "The notion that God does not help us through His own will and power, but requires first of all His own feeling of pity to be roused, is an outrage on God and a darkening of the foundation of religion." So Eucken objects to the attempt to formulate the mystery into dogma. "All dogmatic formulation of such fundamental truths of religion becomes inevitably a rationalism and a treatment of the problem by means of human relationships, and according to human standards." "It is sufficient for the religious conviction to experience the nearness of God in human suffering, and His help in the raising of life out of suffering into a new life beyond all the insufficiency of reason. Indeed, the more intuitively this necessary truth is grasped, the less does it combine into a dogmatic speculation and the purer and more energetically is it able to work."

The conception of the _Trinity_ is again an attempt to express the union of Divine and human, "the inauguration of the Divine Nature within human life." The dogma, however, involves ideas of a particular generation, and so threatens to become, and has indeed become, burdensome to a later age which no longer holds these ideas. Further, the doctrine of the Trinity has mixed up a fundamental truth of religion with abstruse philosophical speculations, and this has provided a stumbling-block rather than a help.

At the same time, Eucken lays the greatest stress on the _personality of Jesus_. He considers the personality of Jesus to be of more importance to Christianity than is the personality of its founder to any other religion. "Such a personality as Jesus is not the mere bearer of doctrines, or of a special frame of mind, but is a convincing fact, and proof of the Divine life, a proof at which new life can be kindled over anew." And again: "It is from this source that a great yearning has been implanted within the human breast ... a longing for a new life of love and peace, of purity and simplicity. Such a life, with its incomparable nature and its mysterious depths, does not exhaust itself through historical effects, but humanity can from hence ever return afresh to its inmost essence, and can strengthen itself ever anew through the certainty of a new, pure, and spiritual world over against the meaningless aspects of nature and over against the vulgar mechanism of a culture merely human." But while he would appreciate the depth and richness of the personality of Jesus, he protests against the worship of Jesus as divine, and the making of Him the centre of religion. The greatness of Christ is confined to the realm of humanity, and there is in all men a possibility of attaining similar heights.

Christianity is, in Eucken's view, much more closely bound up with historical events than any other religion, and it thus suffers more severe treatment at the hands of historical criticism than any other religion. Eucken considers such historical criticism to be of great value. In Christianity as in other religions we find the eternal not in its pure form, but mixed with the temporal and variable, and historical criticism will help in the separation of the temporal from the eternal elements. In so doing it does an immense service, for it frees religion from fixation to one special point of time, and enables us to regard it as ever developing and progressing to greater depths.

Eucken emphasises that the _historical basis_ of Christianity is not Christianity itself, is not essentially religious; and he quotes Lessing, Kant, and Fichte to support him in his contention that a belief in such a historical basis is not necessary to religion, and may even prove harmful to it. The historical basis is, of course, useful as bringing out into clear relief the personality of Jesus, and the other great spiritual personalities associated in His work, and Eucken lays stress upon the use that history can be to Christianity in giving records of the experiences of great spiritual personalities in all ages, but it is important that the history is here a means to an end, and not an end in itself, and that the importance lies in the spiritual experience and not in the historical facts.

When one considers how little Eucken has to say concerning worship, and how little emphasis he places upon historical and doctrinal forms in religion, one wonders how it is he attaches so much importance to the functions of the _Church_. He points out that a Church is necessary to religion, that it seems to be the only way of making religion real and effective for man. "The Church seems indispensable in order to introduce and to hold at hand the new world and the new life to man in the midst of his ordinary existence; it is indispensable in order to fortify the conviction and to strengthen the energy in the midst of all the opposite collisions; it is indispensable in order to uphold an eternal truth and a universal problem in the midst of the fleetingness of the moment." In the past, however, much harm has been done to religion by the Church. This has arisen from several reasons. To begin with, it tends to narrow religion, which is concerned with life, to the realm of ideas, and to tie down religion by connecting it with a thought-system of a particular age. Further, the necessary mechanical routine, and the appointment of special persons to carry out this routine, tends to elevate the routine and these special persons to a far higher place than they should occupy. Again, spiritual things have been dragged into the service of personal ambition, and bound up with human interests. The most serious danger, however, is that religion, from being an inward matter, tends to become externalised.

Despite this, an organised Church cannot be dispensed with, and Eucken points out what changes are necessary to make the Church effective. One important point he makes clear, namely, that as the Church must speak to all, and every day, and not only to spiritually distinguished souls, and in moments of elevated feeling, then the teaching of the Church will always lag behind religion itself, and must be considered as an inadequate expression of it.

It is necessary that there should be no coercion with regard to men's attitude towards the Church, and men should be free to join this or that Church, or no Church at all.

Then there must be more freedom, movement, and individuality within the Church. What the Church holds as a final result of the experience of life cannot be expected as the confession of all, especially of the young. "How can every man and every child feel what such a mightily contrasted nature as Luther's with all its convulsive experiences felt?"

Then the Church must not so much teach this or that doctrine as point to the Spiritual Life, set forth the conditions of its development, and be the representative of the higher world. Thus, and thus only, Eucken thinks that the Church can fulfil its proper function, and avoid being a danger to religion.

Eucken's _appreciation of Christianity_ is sincere. Viewing it from the standpoint of the Spiritual Life, he finds that it fulfils the conditions that religion should fulfil. It is based on freedom, and on the presence of the Divine in humanity, even to the extent of a complete union between them. The ideal of the Christian life is a personal life of pure inwardness, and of an ethical character. He speaks of the "flow of inner life by means of which Christianity far surpasses all other religions," and of the "unfathomable depth and immeasurable hope which are contained in the Christian faith."

In Christianity the life of Christ has a value transcending all time, and is a standard by which to judge all other lives. There is, too, in Christianity a complete transformation or break, which must take place before any progress or development can take place.

"There is no need of a breach with Christianity; it can be to us what a historical religion pre-eminently is meant to be--a sure pathway to truth, an awakener of immediate and intimate life, a vivid representation and realisation of an Eternal Order which all the changes of time cannot possess or destroy."

At the same time, there are changes necessary in the form of Christianity, if it is to answer to the demands of the age, and be the Absolute Religion. It must be shorn of temporary accretions, and must cast aside the ideas of any one particular age which have now been superseded. No longer can it retain the primitive view of nature and the world which formerly obtained, no longer must it take up a somewhat negative and passive attitude, but, realising that religion is a matter of the whole life, must energetically work itself out through all departments of life. It must remedy wrong, not merely endure it. It must proceed from a narrow and subjective point of view to a cosmic one, without at the same time losing sight of the fact that religion is an inward and personal matter. It must take account to the full of the value of man as man, and of the possibilities latent in him, and take account of his own activity in his salvation.

The Christian ideal of life must be a more joyous one, of greater spiritual power, and the idea of redemption must not stop short at redemption from evil, but must progress to a restoration to free and self-determining activity. Since an absolute religion is based on the spiritual life, the form in which it is clothed must not be too rigid--life cannot be bound within a rigid creed. With its form modified in this way, Eucken considers that Christianity may well be the Absolute Religion, and that not only we can be, but we _must_ be Christians if life is to have for us the highest meaning and value.