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Christianity As Religion Made Moral 197 CHRISTIANITYAS RELIGIONMADE MORAL DOUGLAS CLYDE MACINTOSH, PH.D. Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut The most characteristic phases of results. At first religion was used as a religion are (i) a definite attitude of means of promoting any value appre- dependence upon a superhuman Power ciated, but more and more it is being for help and deliverance in some crisis concentrated upon moral ends. Mo- in which human values, actual or rality is a content of religion to which ideally possible, seem to be threatened; there can be no rational objection, and (2) the experience, in certain cases, of there is good ground for the hope that, the desired deliverance; and (3) the by becoming ever more truly moral in satisfied and grateful contemplation of its ends and in the ways and means of the superhuman Reality believed to reaching those ends, religion may con- have been the source of the deliverance. serve and even increase its vitality, so It often happens, however, that the that it cannot be rationalized out of desired deliverance does not come. In existence, but only into higher and more time, doubt and criticism are the in- universally acceptable forms. evitable result; a rational explanation As we look over the history of reli- of the failure of the religious attitude, gion we find that, in spite of the often when it does fail, is demanded. Prac- disintegrating influence of rational criti- tical religion, religion which seeks de- cism upon traditional religious belief finite experiential results of the religious and practice, there are certain products attitude, must submit to rationaliza- of the religious spirit which appear to be tion. The great question is whether able to withstand the influence of this it is to be rationalized out of existence, sometimes greatly dreaded "destruc- or rationalized into a final, universally tive criticism." Not all religious revo- valid, scientific form. Can religion re- lution is merely, or even mainly, negative main practical and vital, while develop- in its outcome. Not infrequently ing, along with other human interests rational renunciation of the inadequate and activities, in rationality ? in religion has been accompanied and It is worth noting, in connection even facilitated by the production, as a with this question, that there is one substitute, of religious contents more species of practical value which the fully compatible with the newer and demand for rationality in religion seems more critical modes of thought and to leave unimpaired, viz., morality. action. The failure of materialistic Definite, persistent, and self-abandoning religion has been interpreted as due to dependence upon the religious Object moral delinquencies on the part of the with a view to moral renovation and petitioner; moral ends are accordingly power for service does not fail to bring sought in religion, at first as a necessary I95 This content downloaded from 138.073.001.036 on August 05, 2016 05:26:07 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 196 THE BIBLICAL WORLD precondition of material blessings, but Essential Christianity, then, i.e., finally with the understanding that to Christianity in the form in which it create a clean heart, to renew a right can still be the vital religion of the spirit, is the true function of religion. scientifically minded man, is, whatever Non-moral ceremonies of riddance, too, else it may be, religion made moral. and even immoral mystery-religions be- Not only is religion made moral that come moral, when the public conscience which is most vital in rational religion demands it, and a powerful means of and that which is most rational in vital promoting morality. But most com- religion; it is also that which is most monly, perhaps, the moral revolution Christian in historic and present-day in religion has emanated from some great Christianity. That this is so, that the moral personality, as the history of essence of Christianity, as religion, can religion abundantly shows. be stated in terms of religion made Conspicuous above all others among moral (provided we use this term the prophets of moral religion is Jesus "moral" in the essentially Christian of Nazareth. Original Christianity, we sense, according to which moral value would maintain, was, in its innermost is everywhere an absolute value), is core and essence, religion, made more supported by a consideration of what moral and, therefore, potentially more have come and are today increasingly rational, by the introduction into it, coming to be regarded as the Christian actually and in its tradition, of the conception of God, the Christian experi- moral personality of this matchless ence of salvation, the Christian sense spiritual leader. At the same time it of the value of prayer, and the Christian was morality, made more religious and, hope of eternal life. therefore, more vital, by the carrying First as to the Christian conception into it of the dynamic of the morally of God. It is often said in these days renovated religion of Jesus, a religion of psychology "Man makes God in his whose experience.was that of spiritual own image." This statement cannot be communion and active fellowship with regarded as literally true save from the the divine Father, cultivated not only point of view of atheism. But it is as an end in itself, but as a means to the true that man makes his God-idea and completest self-giving in ministering to that he tends to make it in his own the deepest needs of the human brother. image. Xenophanes was right. "If Essential Christianity is, for the modern, oxen and lions had hands, and could rational, reality-loving spirit, the religion paint with their hands and fashion and morality of Jesus, clothed in the images, as men do, they would make concepts of a scientific age. It cannot the pictures and images of their gods even be the religion of the gospel about in their own likeness; horses would Jesus, unless that gospel about Jesus make them like horses, oxen like oxen." is interpreted in the spirit of the Often the natural desires and disposi- religion of Jesus. It is at once moral- tions of men, but always at any rate ity made religious and religion made their ideals, are reflected in their ideas moral. of the Object of religious dependence This content downloaded from 138.073.001.036 on August 05, 2016 05:26:07 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION MADE MORAL 197 and adoration. We have but to think As for Jesus, so for Christianity as of Zeus and Apollo, of Mars and Venus, essentially identical with the religion of of Rama and Krishna. The chief Jesus, the existence of God is not a trouble with the God-idea of Mohammed mere matter of traditional teaching or and his followers is that it is made too of speculative belief, nor is it a mere much in the image of Mohammed-- practical postulate; it is a verified arbitrary, unreasonably severe in pun- experiential judgment. Jesus could not ishment, impulsively merciful. have recognized any other God than the The Christian God-idea, as we now morally perfect Father. If he had not have it at any rate, is made in the image found such a God, if his spiritual of Christ. There are two varieties of experience had failed to provide veri- Christianity at this point: in the one fication of his belief in a perfect God, he Christ is worshiped as God; in the would have had to do without any God; other the religious Object is "the God for Jesus, it was a perfect God, or none. and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." And it is of unending significance to the But, religiously speaking, the Chris- race that a man who demanded so much, tianity of the deified Jesus and the morally, of the Object of his religious Christianity of the Christlike God are dependence was not obliged to be an largely the same. Both have found the atheist. (The New England theology same sort of God-the same God, collapsed, as someone has remarked, indeed-and have found him in the because the God who could damn men same place, viz., revealed in the person for his own glory was too immoral a and work of Christ. being to be worshiped by a man who "Your Father in heaven is perfect." could set so severe a moral standard Perfect, that is, from the point of view for himself as that he ought to be willing of Jesus. The only God whom Jesus to be damned for the glory of God. The could worship, the only God of whom he time has come, indeed, when, to the could be the prophet, must needs be Christian moral consciousness, atheism morally perfect, judged by the standards would be a view more acceptable of Jesus himself. And the essentially than Calvinism in its more extreme Christian conception of God today is form.) that of the adequate Object of religious Christianity, then, as religion made dependence and adoration, sufficient, moral, includes the verifiable faith that not only in power and wisdom, but also the perfect God exists, and that not, as in character, being the realization of the Professor Howison would have it, as personal moral ideal of Jesus. "the final cause of everything and the If it be remarked, with Professor efficient cause of nothing," but as the of Simmel, Berlin, that we know well ultimate efficient cause of the spiritual enough what God is, viz., the unity of evolution of man, and of the spiritual all spiritual ideals, but that we can never redemption of sinful men accomplished know that God is, the answer is that it through Christ, and immanently active is true enough that, apart from religious as the Holy Spirit in the Christlike experience, we cannot know that God is.
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