The Open Court. a "WEEKLY JOUENTAL
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— The Open Court. A "WEEKLY JOUENTAL DEVOTED TO THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. i Two Dollars No. 309. (Vol. VII.—30.) CHICAGO, JULY 27, 1893. per Year. I Single Copies, 5 Cents. Copyright by The Open Court Publishing Co. — Reprints are permitted only on condition of giving full credit to Author and Publisher. WHAT IS CHRISTIAN FAITH ? continually becoming more and more abstract. Then, BY CH.\RLES S. PEIRCE. after a religion has become a public affair, quarrels It is easy to chop logic about matters of which you arise, to settle which watchwords are drawn up. This have no experience whatever. Men color-blind have business gets into the hands of theologians : and the more than once learnedly discussed the laws of color- ideas of theologians always appreciably differ from sensation, and have made interesting deductions from those of the universal church. They swamp religion those laws. But when it comes to positive knowledge, in fallacious logical disputations. Thus, the natural such knowledge as a lawyer has of the practice of the tendency is to the continual drawing tighter and tighter courts, that can only rest on long experience, direct of the narrowing bounds of doctrine, with less and less or indirect. So, a man may be an accomplished the- attention to the living essence of religion, until after ologian without ever having felt the stirring of the some svmholum quicumque has declared that the salva- answer the simple question at tion of each individual absolutely and spirit ; but he cannot almost exclu- the head of this article except out of his own religious sively depends upon his entertaining a correct meta- experience. physics of the godhead, the vital spark of inspiration There is in the dictionary a word, sc/ipsisin, mean- becomes finally quite extinct. ing the belief that the believer is the only existing per- Yet it is absurd to say that religion is a mere be- son. Were anybody to adopt such a belief, it might lief. You might as well call society a belief, or politics be difficult to argue him out of it. But when a person a belief, or civilisation a belief. Religion is a life, and finds himself in the society of others, he is just as sure can be identified with a belief only provided that belief of their existence as of his own, though he may enter- be a living belief, —a thing to be lived rather than said tain a metaphysical theory that they are all hypostat- or thought. ically the same ego. In like manner, when a man has The Christian religion, if it has anything distinc- that experience with which religion sets out, he has as tive, —and must not aspire to be the necessary ultimate good reason, —putting aside metaphysical subtilties, outcome of every path of religious progress, — is distin- to believe in the living personality of God, as he has guished from other religions by its precept about the to believe in his own. Indeed, belief is a word inap- Way of Life. I appeal to the typical Christian to an- propriate to such direct perception. swer out of the abundance of his spirit, without dicta- Seldom do we pass a single hour of our waking tion from priests, whether this be not so. In the re- lives away from the companionship of men (including cently discovered book, " The Teaching of the Twelve books); and even the thoughts of that solitary hour Apostles,"* which dates from about A. D. loo, we are filled with ideas which have grown in society. see that long before the Apostles' or any other creed Prayer, on the other hand, occupies but little of our was insisted upon, or at all used, the teaching of the if and ceremony are Lord was considered to consist in the doctrine of the time ; and, of course, solemnity to be made indispensable to it (though why observe Two Ways, — the Way of Life and the Way of Death. manners toward the Heavenly Father, that an earthly This it was that at that date was regarded as the sav- father would resent as priggish?) nothing more is prac- ing faith, — not a lot of metaphysical propositions. This ticable. Consequently, religious ideas never come to is what Jesus Christ taught ; and to believe in Christ form the warp and woof of our mental constitution, as is to believe what he taught. do social ideas. They are easily doubted, and are Now what is this way of life ? Again I appeal to open to various reasons for doubt, which reasons may the universal Christian conscience to testify that it is all be comprehended under one, namely, that the re- simply love. As far as it is contracted to a rule of ligious phenomenon is sporadic, not incessant. * with translation and notes by Roswell D. Hitchcock and Francis a degeneration in religion from a per- Edited This causes Philip Brown. New York ; Scribners. 18S4. Also, by Schaft. ^d Edition- belief 1890. ception to a trust, from a trust to a belief, and a New York ; Funk and Wagnals. 3744 THE OPEN COURT. "on disposed to follow their bell-bearer into every vagary, love your neighbor ; ethics, it is : Love God, and these two commandments hang all the law and the — if you will be satisfied so. For my part, I should it lovely to patch prophets." It may be regarded in a higher point of think more up such peace as might great religious world. This view with St. John as the universal evolutionary form- be with the happens to be easy to an individual whose unbiased study scienti- ula. But in whatever light it be regarded or in what- of ever direction developed, the belief in the law of love fic logic has led him to conclusions not discordant with traditional dogmas. Unfortunately, such a case is ex- is the Christian faith. distinctive ceptional ; and guilt rests on you who insist on so "Oh," but it may be said, "that is not anticipated by tautening the lines of churches as to close them against of Christianity ! That very idea was the early Egyptians, by the Stoics, by the Buddhists, the great body of educated and thinking men, pure nor can the not insig- and undefiJed though the religion of many of them and by Confucius." So it was ; nificant difference between the negative and the posi- (you are obliged to acknowledge it) be. Surely an- tive precept be properly estimated as sufficient for a other generation will witness a sweeping reform in this discrimination between religions. Christians may, in- respect. You will not be permitted to make of those deed, claim that Christianity possesses that earmark churches a permanent laughing-stock for coming ages. things are essential to religion of divine truth, —namely that it was anticipated from Many which yet ought primitive ages. The higher a religion the more cath- not to be insisted on : the law of love is not the rule bullying insistence. Thus, it olic. of angry and seems plain Man's highest developments are social; and reli- to me, I confess, that miracles are intrinsic elements of genuine religion. it is not half .so gion, though it begins in a seminal individual inspira- a But important it into tion, only comes to full flower in a great church coex- to emphasise this as is to draw our loving com- tensive with a civilisation. This is true of every reli- munion, almost the entire collection of men who unite gion, but supereminently so of the religion of love. clear thought with intellectual integrity. And who are so to Its ideal is that the whole world shall be united in the you, any way, who are zealous keep the churches bond of a common love of God accomplished by each small and exclusive ? Do you number among your man's loving his neighbor. Without a church, the party the great scholars and the great saints ? Are rudimentary existence you not, on the other hand, egged on by all the notori- religion of love can have but a ; and a narrow, little, exclusive church is almost worse ous humbugs, — votaries of Mammon or of Ward McAl- than none. A great catholic church is wanted. lister, —who deem the attitude of a church-caryatid to The invisible church does now embrace all Chris- be a respectable or a genteel thing ? Your voting- tendom. Every man who has been brought up in the power, too, is repleted with many who, as soon as they bosom of Christian civilisation does really believe in are a little better informed and educated, will drop is in these days that education some form of the principle of love, whether he aware away from you ; and will of doing so, or not. come speedily. Let us, at any rate, get all the good from the vital To those who for the present are excluded from element in which we are all at one that it can yield : the churches, and who, in the passionate intensity of and the good that it can yield is simply all that is any- their religious desire, are talking of setting up a church way possible, and richer than is easily conceivable. for the scientifically educated, a man of my stripe must all our might to draw say, Wait, if you can ; it will be but a few years longer Let us endeavor, then, with ; together the whole body of believers in the law of love but if you cannot wait, why then Godspeed ! Only, into sympathetic unity of consciousness.