CHAPTER IX

_GENERAL RESULTS_

The question of this third division of our inquiry is this: To what changed points of view, and to what restatements of doctrine, and so to what better appreciation of Christian truth, does the social consciousness of our time lead? The question is raised here, as in the case of the conception of religion, not as one of exact historical connection, but rather as a question of sympathetic points of contact. It means simply: With what changes in theological statements would the social consciousness naturally find itself most sympathetic?

Certain general results are clear from the start, and might be anticipated from any one of several points of view.

I. THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY IN PERSONAL TERMS

In the first place, the social consciousness means, we have found, emphasis on the fully personal--a fresh awakening to the significance of the person and of personal relations. Its whole activity is in the sphere of personal relations. Hence, as in the conception of religion, so here, so far as the social consciousness affects theology at all, it will tend everywhere to bring the personal into prominence, and it certainly will be found in harmony ultimately with the attempt to conceive theology in terms of personal relations. These are for the social consciousness the realest of realities; and if theology is to be real to the social consciousness, then it must make much of the personal. Theology, thus, it is worth while seeing, is not to be personal _and_ social, but it will be social--it will do justice to the social consciousness--if it does justice to the fully personal; for, in the language of another, "man is social, just in so far as he is personal."[54]

The foreign and unreal seeming of many of the old forms of statement, it may well be noted in passing, has its probable cause just here. They were not shaped in the atmosphere of the social consciousness. They got at things in a way we should not now think of using. The method of approach was too merely metaphysical and individualistic and mystical, and the result seems to us to have but slight ethical or religious significance. The arguments that now move us most, in this entire realm of spiritual inquiry, are moral and social rather than metaphysical and mystical. It is interesting to see, for example, how such arguments for immortality as that of the simplicity of the soul's being--and most of those used by Plato--and how such arguments even for the existence of God as those of Samuel Clarke from time and space, have become for us merely matters of curious inquiry. We can hardly imagine men having given them real weight. A similar change seems to be creeping over the laborious attempts metaphysically to conceive the divinity of Christ. The question is shifting its position for both radical and conservative to a new ground--from the metaphysical and mystical to the moral and social; though some radicals who regard themselves as in the van of progress have not yet found it out, and so find fault with one for not continually defining himself in terms of the older metaphysical formulas and shibboleths. The considerations, in all these questions and in many others, which really weigh most with us now, are considerations which belong to the sphere of the personal spiritual life. Ultimately, no doubt, a metaphysics is involved here too; but it is a metaphysics whose final reality is spirit, not an unknown substance--Locke's "something, I know not what."

The unsatisfactoriness of even so honored a symbol as the Apostles' Creed, as a permanently adequate statement of Christian faith, must for similar reasons become increasingly clear in the atmosphere of the social consciousness. One wonders, as he goes carefully over it, that so many concrete statements could be made concerning the Christian religion, which yet are so little ethical. The creed seems almost to exclude the ethical. It has nothing to say, except by rather distant implication, of the character of God, of the character of Christ, or of the character of men. The life of Christ between his birth and his death are untouched. The considerations that really weigh most with us--as they did with the apostles--in making us Christians, certainly do not come here to prominent expression. This whole difference of atmosphere is the striking fact; and were it not that we instinctively interpret its phrases in accordance with our modern consciousness, we should feel the difference much more than we do.

What the previous discussion has called the truly mystical--the recognition of the whole man, of the entire personality--is coming in increasingly to correct both the falsely mystical and the falsely metaphysical. We are arguing now, in harmony with the social consciousness, from the standpoint of the broadly rational, not from that of the narrowly intellectual.

II. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD, AS THE DETERMINING PRINCIPLE IN THEOLOGY

One might reach essentially the same general results from the influence of the social consciousness, by seeing that, so far as it deepens for us the meaning of the personal, it will deepen immediately our conception of the Fatherhood of God--the central and dominating doctrine in all theology--and so affect all theology. For, with a change in the conception of God, no doctrine can go wholly untouched. Every step into a deeper feeling for the personal--and the growth of the modern social consciousness is undoubtedly a long step in that direction--deepens necessarily religion and theology. Perhaps the possible results here can be illustrated in no way better than by recalling Patterson DuBois' putting of the needed change in the conception of the proper attitude of a father toward his child. We are not to say, he writes: "I will conquer that child, no matter what it may cost him," but we are to say, "I will help that child to conquer himself, no matter what it may cost me." Now that change in point of view is a well-nigh perfect illustration of the social consciousness in a given relation, and it cannot be doubted that it is a true expression of Christ's thought of the Fatherhood of God; but has it really dominated through and through our theological statements? Manifestly, what it means to us that God is Father depends on what we have come to see in fatherhood. And Principal Fairbairn, in the second part of his _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, has given us a good illustration of how much it means for theology to be in earnest in making the Fatherhood of God the determining doctrine in theology.

III. CHRIST'S OWN SOCIAL EMPHASES

Again, if the general influence of the social consciousness upon theological doctrine is to be recognized at all, it is evident that a Christian theology must take full account of Christ's own social emphases. By loyalty to these, it will expect best to meet the need of an enlightened social consciousness. It will strive thus--to use Professor Peabody's instructive summary of "the social principles of the teaching of Jesus"--to be true to "the view from above, the approach from within, and the movement toward a spiritual end; wisdom, personality, idealism; a social horizon, a social power, a social aim. The supreme truth that this is God's world gave to Jesus his spirit of social optimism; the assurance that man is God's instrument gave to him his method of social opportunism; the faith that in God's world God's people are to establish God's kingdom gave him his social idealism. He looks upon the struggling, chaotic, sinning world with the eye of an unclouded religious faith, and discerns in it the principle of personality fulfilling the will of God in social service."[55]

And every one of these three great social principles of Jesus has obvious theological applications, not yet fully made.

The social consciousness, indeed, well illustrates Fairbairn's admirable statement of how progress is to be expected in theology. "The longer the history [of Christ]," he says, "lives in the [Christian] consciousness and penetrates it, the more does the consciousness become able to interpret the history in its own terms and according to its own contents. The old pagan mind into which Christianity first came could not possibly be the best interpreter of Christianity, and the more the mind is cleansed of the pagan the more qualified it becomes to interpret the religion. It is, therefore, reasonable to expect that the later forms of faith should be the truer and purer."[56]

Now the social consciousness itself is a genuine manifestation of the spirit of Christ at work in the world, and the mind permeated with this social consciousness is consequently better able to turn back to the teaching of Jesus and give it proper interpretation.

IV. THE REFLECTION IN THEOLOGY OF THE CHANGES IN THE CONCEPTION OF RELIGION

Once more, theology, as an expression of religion, will at once reflect any change in the conception of religion. The influence of the social consciousness upon religion, already traced, will, therefore, inevitably pass over into theology. This means nothing less than a changed point of view, in the consideration of each doctrine. For theology must then recognize clearly that it can build on no falsely mystical conception of communion with God; but, while keeping the elements in mysticism which are justified by the social consciousness, it will require of itself throughout a formulation of doctrine in terms that shall be thoroughly personal, thoroughly ethical, and indubitably loyal to the concretely historically Christian. Many traditional statements quite fail to meet so searching a test; but no lower standard can give a theology that should fully meet the demands of the social consciousness.

The general results of the influence of the social consciousness upon theological doctrine, then, may be said to include: The emphasis upon the fully personal, and so conceiving theology in terms of personal relation; the deepening of the conception of the Fatherhood of God, and making this the determining principle in theology; the application of the social principles of the teaching of Jesus to theology; the reflection in theology of the natural changes in the conception of religion wrought by the social consciousness. Now any one of these general results indicates the certain influence of the social consciousness upon theology, and any one might be followed out into helpful suggestions for the restatement of theological doctrines.

But we shall probably most clearly and definitely answer the question of our theme, if we ask specifically concerning the several elements of the social consciousness: How does a deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men, of the mutual influence of men, of the value and sacredness of the person, of personal obligation, and of love, tend to affect our theological point of view and mode of statement? And our inquiry will follow these separate questions in separate chapters, except that for the purposes of theological inference, the last three may be appropriately grouped together.

[54] Nash, _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 259.

[55] Peabody, _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, p. 104.

[56] Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 186.