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Unity in Action: Persons, Community And·Ecumenism in the Thought of John Macmurray

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Unity in Action: Persons, Community And·Ecumenism in the Thought of John Macmurray UNITY IN ACTION: PERSONS, COMMUNITY AND·ECUMENISM IN THE THOUGHT OF JOHN MACMURRAY By GERARD McCABE Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Theology in the School of Theology of the Faculty of Human and Management Sciences, University ofNatal, Pietermaritzburg. University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg November 2002 SUPERVISOR: Professor Neville Richardson DECLARATION I hereby state that the whole dissertation, except where specifically indicated to the contrary, is my own original work. Gerard McCabe Signed Pietermaritzburg November 2002 As supervisor, I have agreed to the submission ofthis dissertation. Professor R Neville Richardson ~~ Signed__~__'l7_~ _ Pietermaritzburg November 2002 ABSTRACT As both a philosopher and a Christian, John Macmurray (1891-1976), spent his life attempting to show that we are truly called to a life of unity with one another. He makes a strong philosophical case that to be properly human is to seek and to intend communion with others, and in his analysis of the nature of the human person he offers uS a way ofunderstanding that the call to Christian unity is not simply a matter of pastoral effectiveness but one that expresses the deepest truth of our human being, that we are most fully ourselves when we are in communion with one another. The call to unity among the Christian Churches is one that has largely shaped pastoral and theological concerns over the last hundred years or more. The efforts of the World Council of Churches and the writings of many eminent theologians have pushed the question of ecumenism to the forefront of Christian consciousness. It is now generally recognised among Christians of all traditions that the failure of the Churches to give practical expression of the unity for which Christ prayed is itself a major obstacle to the proclamation of the Good News, and one that inhibits the message of Jesus from being properly heard and accepted by many who are seeking meaning in their lives. In terms of how best to achieve the unity that so many desire, there has long been a divide between those who argue that unity should come about through doctrinal agreement and those who say that, while doctrine tends to divide Christians, unity can be best achieved through a shared commitment to practical efforts to make the world a more peaceful, just and loving place. Something, however, that has been largely overlooked in the whole ecumenical question is the need to find an appropriate philosophical basis for unity among peoples and among the Churches. Without such a philosophical underpinning, the call to unity can easily be seen as simply a practical pastoral tool for the effective proclamation of the Gospel or as nothing other than emotive rhetoric. In the writings ofJohn Macmurray we· are able to find an approach to the question of ecumenism that provides us with just such a philosophical basis for unity. This dissertation engages in a close reading of both Macmurray's philosophical and religious views, and suggests that, despite some inconsistencies in his own approach, Macmurray offers the whole ecumenical project a significant philosophical basis for the notion that in seeking unity among the Christian Churches we are being faithful to our nature as human beings. While not denying the sincerity of the countless numbers of those who have committed themselves to the call for unity among Christians, the desire for unity needs to be fortified by an appropriate understanding of human nature. It is. argued that the ecumenical movement can be greatly enhanced by the kind of perspective that Macmurray brings to the whole question of unity. His voice still needs to be heard. 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 CHAPTER ONE 20 THE CRISIS OF THE PERSONAL 20 The Crisis in Contemporary Philosophy 20 Romanticism, Kant and Descartes 26 The Person As Agent 41 Thinking as Reflective Activity 44 CHAPTER TWO 52 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF COMMUNION 52 Relationships andIntentionality 52 Fear andLove 56 Modes ofMorality 62 Society and Community 65 CHAPTER THREE 74 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF RELIGION 74 The Inclusive Nature ofReligion 76 The Universal Other 80 Real and Unreal Religion 82 A Personal God 90 1 CHAPTER FOUR 99 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JESUS 99 The Ambiguity ofChristianity 99 The Importance ofJudaism for Christianity 103 The Teaching ofJesus 109 The Failure ofChristianity 120 CHAPTER FIVE 126 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF UNITY FOR THE CHURCHES AND FOR THE WORLD 126 Macmurray's Faith Experience 127 The True Value ofChristianity 142 ~~~~~~~ 1~ CHAPTER SIX 160 A SIGN OF HOPE: THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT 160 Unity Through Service 160 The Ecumenical Movement 164 Unity Through Doctrine andService 175 CONCLUSION 184 BIBLIOGRAPHY 188 2 INTRODUCTION On his very first day of school, a five-year-old boy was asked by his teacher what he wanted to be when he grew up. The answer he gave was that he wanted to be "a man of knowledge".l The young boy in question, John Macmurray, certainly achieved his desire. Born in Scotland in 1891, he lived to the age of 85 and spent his whole life becoming, in his terms, a man of knowledge. He spent most of his adult years in the great halls of learning, first as student and then as lecturer and professor. Despite a wide range of interests, ranging from science to art and from politics to international relations, his main focus was on philosophy, and a mark of the knowledge that he attained in that field is that he was at various times in his academic career a lecturer in philosophy at Manchester University, and at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, before moving on to become a don at Bailiol College in Oxford. From there he moved to London to become Grote Professor in Mind and Logic at University College, London and completed his academic wanderings at Edinburgh, where he was Professor of Moral Philosophy from 1944 until his retirement in 1958. Along with such an impressive list of academic appointments, the wide range of Macmurray's publications also bear testimony that we are indeed dealing with a man of knowledge. He wrote fifteen books, covering such issues as democracy, Communism, the mearung of history, science, the relationship between philosophy and religion, and the meaning of 1 John E. Costello,John Macmurrqy: A Biograp!?J, Flons Books, Edinburgh, 2002, p.19. 3 Christianity. He also contributed a great number of articles for a variety of publications, and was largely responsible for the BBC's influential series on philosophy and society of the 1930s'. What emerges from even a brief glance at the range of his publications is that Macmurray was no stereotype philosopher, hidden in his ivory tower. He was a person who believed that if philosophy was to be of any real value then it must engage with the social problems of its times. His own experience of serving, first as a medic and then as a soldier, in the First World War, convinced him that the failure of philosophy and also of Christianity to create the conditions where people could live in peace and friendship, called for a fresh approach to the philosophical and religious questions of what it means to be a human person. The courage with which he intellectually addressed the social and political difficulties of his time reveals that being a man of knowledge was not, for Macmurray, an invitation to solitariness, but that learning and knowledge should be used as a contribution to the well-being of the world. There is a passion to his writing that shows his efforts were not simply about understanding the world, but about changing it? Such a view of the role of learning, and of philosophy in particular, set Macmurray apart from most of his contemporary colleagues, to such an extent that, despite the highly impressive academic positions he held, he can be said to have never really felt at home in the British philosophical culture of his day. 2 It was Kad Marx who famously wrote in his eleventh thesis on Feuerbach that 'The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it". Quoted by H. Kung in Does God Exist, Doubleday & Company, New York, 1980, p.231. 4 At a time when the philosophical agenda was being set by thinkers like 4 S Wittgenstein3, Ayer and Gilbert Ryle , an agenda which refused to see any significant role for philosophy beyond that of linguistic analysis and verification, Macmw:ray's own philosophical efforts were of wider concern. He was haunted by the attempt to come to an adequate understanding of human natw:e, and felt that if we could only properly understand what it is to be human then we might more easily find solutions to the many problems besetting society and the world. His efforts received little appreciation from his philosophical contemporaries. Ryle, famous for a book entitled The Concept of Minrf, dismissed Macmw:ray for writing and speaking too simply! When Ayer, one of the most famous of the 20th centw:y English philosophers, succeeded Macmw:ray as Grote Professor in Mind and Logic, his inaugw:al lectw:e· was made controversial by his refusal to even mention the name ofhis predecessor. The growing sense ofacademic isolation that Macmw:ray must have felt was perhaps partly lessened by the fact that there were other thinkers, though not in Britain's academic circles, who shared many of his concerns and 7 values. His own philosophical approach was close to that of Martin Buber , 8 author of the seminal work I and Thou , and to certain existential thinkers 3 Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951), author of Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and Philosophical Investigations (1953).
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