What and Where is God? Part 12

CHAPTER VII

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE WHETHER WE BELIEVE IN IMMORTALITY IF WE LIVE AS WE SHOULD IN THIS LIFE?

1. How can one live as he should?

Some say, "What difference does it make whether we believe in immortality, if we live as we should in this life?"

We also would ask a question. How can one live as he should if he eliminates G.o.d and His plans? G.o.d planned a "whole" or He planned nothing.

We willingly admit that some honest doubters have a larger share in G.o.d's life than they realize. They have heard the message of truth and love, and though confused as to its origin, they accept much of it as binding upon their lives. In many things they conscientiously do G.o.d's will without recognizing it as such. No one is so bad but that he sometimes obeys G.o.d. The meanest man thinks some of G.o.d's thoughts after Him, and makes some voluntary sacrifices. It may never occur to him, however, that G.o.d has any part in the matter. Yet no one lives as he should until he lives the highest type of life of which he is capable.

It is easily possible to be doing good in one direction while exerting a baneful influence in another direction; and easier still to be overlooking something of grave importance. Many well-meaning persons pursue courses of action that work great harm to themselves and to others in the long run. No one should flatter himself with the thought that he has lived as well as he should, until he has lived as well as he could. No man on the outside of a business can do what he would if he were on the inside. A really good man must try to know G.o.d and the plans of His kingdom from within; he must take daily orders; he should be strictly honest toward G.o.d; he should feel the joy and enthusiasm that come from partners.h.i.+p with G.o.d in a great enterprise. But this type of good man will most likely feel sure of immortality. A lack of a.s.surance is a practical proof that something has gone wrong in the life; it may be confusion or indifference, but more likely it is both.

2. The difference in social service

Unless we know what the superstructure is to be, it is impossible to lay the right kind of a foundation. A good foundation for a bungalow would not answer for a fifty-story skysc.r.a.per. And to put a skysc.r.a.per foundation under a bungalow would be the most foolish waste of time and money. Paul gave up everything that the average good citizen holds dear, and spent his entire life in laying the n.o.bler foundation. He believed that the superstructure would be stupendous, and of eternal duration.

No sane person would live the life Paul lived unless he believed in immortality. The same is true of Jesus. Here is a clear-cut and portentous cleavage between good people who are Christians and good people who are not Christians. I do not mean to intimate that a patriotic agnostic would be any more reluctant than a believer to die for his country. It is largely a question of what he considers is worth while. A good sceptic is willing to help educate and civilize in a general way, but he will put forth no effort to evangelize. He does not realize the impossibility of civilizing a non-religious world. He would permit the whole race to be non-religious like himself. He would send all the billions yet to be born into the future life without any knowledge of G.o.d or any spiritual achievement. His att.i.tude would so over-populate the future country with dwarfed and degraded people that our missionary work in a future state, if we are permitted to undertake it, would stagger a St. Paul. When we see the number and quality of our neighbors over there we shall realize the enormity of our mistake. And still they will come, the uncivilized and unchristianized descendants of ancestors whom we neglected. Almost every civilized community in the Christian world had its foundations laid by missionary effort; and it has been kept civilized by a work very similar to that of missions. The firmest ground of hope for the civilization of the race is in the combined educational and religious work of missions. Darkness cannot come to the light, but light may go to the darkness. The longer missionary work is neglected the more of it will there be to do; and that which we leave undone here will be acc.u.mulating for us over there.

With what amazement non-missionary Christians will face their acc.u.mulated missionary tasks in the future life! It is my impression that fifty per cent of the Church members do not believe in missions; that is to say, they do not believe in extending the religion of Jesus if it involves any work or expense for them. They themselves will first need to be saved, if they are to be like their Master and share any of His vision and compa.s.sion. Then there is probably another twenty-five per cent of professing Christians who believe but little in the extension of the gospel. So between the agnostics and the half-Christians, we are not doing a very good piece of social work throughout the world. And this is true whether we have in mind the future history of society on earth, or of society as it shall migrate to our future home. Whether or not we have Christian a.s.surance of G.o.d and the future life makes a tremendous social difference both for this life and for the life to come. Unless we are active and aggressive in the work of extending the kingdom, every form of vice will thrive and multiply in our most cultivated and civilized communities. What hope then is there for benighted peoples where there is neither salt nor leaven? My experience of thirty years in the ministry convinces me that those who have their eyes on the whole earth, do several times as much work for their home communities as do those who believe exclusively in home missions. It is astonis.h.i.+ng what narrow service so-called broad-minded people can render, and what wide achievements can be accomplished by so-called narrow-minded people. Observation will show that it makes a vast difference in the kind and extent of social service rendered if one believes in G.o.d and immortality.

3. The difference in personal preparation

We tell our young people entering high school that they should decide at the outset whether they are going to college; and if possible which college, as the entrance requirements of colleges differ. What should we think of one who would ask, "Why need I bother my mind about a possible college course in the future if I keep busy and learn something well?

What difference can it make?" Yet we grow weary with hearing the question, "What difference does it make whether there is a future existence if we live as we should in this life?" Do they suppose that it is easier to make the freshman cla.s.s in heaven than it is to make the freshman cla.s.s in college? I dare say the requirements are different, but if heaven is worth going to the requirements can hardly be less specific or exacting. Many people who never went to college are far advanced in things pertaining to G.o.d and His kingdom, while some college people do not know the a, b, c of religion. Their standing in a future life cannot possibly be the same.

Like many others, I was brought up to be honest and hard-working from the beginning. According to ordinary standards, I was living as I should. Yet when I heard of college, and had hopes of going to one, a subtle change came over my whole life. While the old duties were performed in the old way, at the same time a complete revolution was taking place within me. The imagination and will readjusted everything to the new and larger sphere for which I hoped. Since no one thus far had gone to college from our frontier community, some of the neighbors thought me to be a foolish dreamer. What good would it do me anyway, was what they wanted to know, since I was already good in "figgers"? When I was probably fourteen years old, a young man told me of some one in another towns.h.i.+p who was going to study Algebra. "What is that?" I asked. "Well," he said, "it is something like Arithmetic, only they use letters instead of figures." "Now that," I promptly told him, "sounds foolish. Why aren't figures good enough?" "Ah," said the young man's father, "Algebra is a mighty fine study! You have noticed that merchants mark the price of their goods with letters. Now if you know Algebra they can't cheat you." So I made up my mind then and there that I would study Algebra.

My first experience with college catalogues, which came a little later, was both interesting and amusing. I had often wondered what there could possibly be to study beyond history, geography, and the three "R's." But at last with a college catalogue in my hands here it was: De Amicitia, De Corona, Trigonometry, etc. After reading pages of unheard-of and unp.r.o.nounceable words, I scarcely knew whether it was about something to eat or something to wear. Theological terms seemed plain English by comparison. In those primitive days it took one more year of preparation to enter the cla.s.sical course than it did the scientific. For that reason alone I promptly decided to take the cla.s.sical. Although I knew nothing of what either course was really about or what it was good for, yet I did not want to bear the stigma of any short cut. I wanted to learn it "all."

Though it did not take long to learn what the college course was about, yet it did take some good faithful application to prepare for entrance examinations.

Many people take their religion as some lazy boys--found in every high school--take their education. These boys have a very light regard for college requirements. John is certain that he is as good a student as Charles or a half dozen other fellows. He emphasizes the fact that a "grind" like James is the most unpopular fellow in school. All suggestions of future trouble fall on deaf ears. Every year train loads of these fellows go to take their entrance "exams." Yes, they arrive at heaven, or college, and may chance to see the lord of the inst.i.tution.

But some one calls them in to test their Latin eyesight, and another to determine their mathematical vision, and if their power of penetration is not sufficient for college subjects, back they go. This is a tragic experience for the lads, to be sure, yet they must learn that promotion means fitness. I have known of young men entering the academy of the college town because they were ashamed to go back home. They were good fellows, but they lacked college fitness. Think of a good sensible fellow who has never studied arithmetic going to college! And then think of a good sort of person going to heaven who has never acquired the spiritual insight to know G.o.d! A man in college who is mathematically blind, and a man in heaven who is G.o.d blind! If one thinks of G.o.d as a visible Ghost in heaven, he will overlook many of the essentials until the pitiful disillusionment comes. And if he thinks of the future home as a doll's heaven, he will make no thorough preparation for entrance.

When a young girl was once lured to a very superst.i.tious church, a friend said to me:

"Well, what difference does it make--we are all going to the same place." But when I asked her if she would be willing to send her daughter to a poor day school or to some wretched music teacher, she had never thought but what that was different. Everything but religion must be properly taught; how that is taught does not matter, "because we all are going to the same place." On that basis, if all were going to live in New York City, I suppose it would make no difference what kind of superst.i.tion they were taught. The expectation of joining a higher and holier society after this life cuts as deeply into my present life plans and purposes as did the expectation of going to college when I was a frontier lad. No matter how upright and industrious one is in the ordinary affairs of life, take away the hope of college or the hope of a future life, and it makes a difference at a thousand vital points.

I once intercepted a stone mason who was building a wall where the specifications called for a window. He was not at all inclined to be convinced of his error. After reading the specifications again he said, "I am right." "But," I replied, "you are confused as to directions."

Then he appealed to a weather vane on a near-by steeple. When I informed him that the church had been moved and that the points of the compa.s.s were entirely wrong, he pulled down the wall that he had so perfectly built. He did not ask what difference it made so long as he was doing a good piece of masonry. He was glad to get the wall down before the superintendent saw it.

If, now, we go on the a.s.sumption that G.o.d has no plans in what He is building, then we must conclude that He is the most ridiculous person that ever went into the construction business. The shock of disillusionment when it comes, as it is bound to do, will be tremendous.

It is one of my greatest sorrows that so many of my friends are building solid masonry in their lives where G.o.d's specifications call for windows; and windows where there should be solid masonry. The windows in the life of Jesus all looked out on the side of love and eternity. The light of a heavenly kingdom was always streaming into His soul.

We make the same mistake in building our cities and social inst.i.tutions.

They but vaguely represent the human temple called for in G.o.d's specifications. And the farther we depart from the plan the more difficult it will be to return to it. Paul told some of the people of his day that they might escape with their lives as from a burning building, but that what they had built contrary to the divine pattern would be reduced to ashes.

I once knew a merchant who had twenty acres of new land broken and planted with onion sets. A temporary house was built to care for a dozen or more workmen. The ground was pulverized to ashes, the onions were planted, and the weeds were kept down so that none ever appeared from the road. It was a fine piece of work. The men toiled, the onions grew and finally blossomed, and the field presented an attractive sight. But alas! the merchant had purchased winter-onion sets, and in all that field there was not one bulb to reward him for his pains. What difference did it make--he and his men surely did some good work?

Many there are who flourish like that field during the days of their strength; but when they ripen there is no bulb, nothing to garner. One of these men with the meaning of life exhausted at sixty remarked to me that one was too old when he had pa.s.sed forty.

A short time before his death Was.h.i.+ngton Gladden was a guest in my home.

As he sat in an easy chair after dinner speaking of other days, and especially as he spoke of his sainted wife, I noticed how old he had grown. Though his body had about run its course, yet the light of his soul had not been dimmed. In my heart I said, "What a dear old man you are, Dr. Gladden. You are nearly all soul!" He had kept the faith. And it had made a difference; for him, for me, and for all the world. While the old man sat there and conversed with the family, the light of his soul sent a s.h.i.+ning ray

"Far down the future's broadening way."

CHAPTER VIII

HOW SHALL WE CONCEIVE OF THE FUTURE LIFE?

1. Its relation to the present const.i.tution of things

Granting that there is a future existence, are we not wholly in the dark as to what it is like? Is it possible to form any conception of heaven that is not offensive to the intelligent mind? Professor Leuba says:

"As soon as, no longer satisfied with a general a.s.surance of unruffled peace and unalloyed enjoyment, we demand specifications, we find ourselves in the presence of ideas and pictures, either absurd or repulsive, or void of real attractiveness. The best gifted religious seers succeed in this descriptive task no better than the cleverest mediums."

Have we, then, no facts on which to build a rational conception of the future state?

I believe that a satisfying view is a possible achievement, because we have some very important and fundamental facts from which to construct a picture. The minor details, of course, are unknown to us, but the main outline, which princ.i.p.ally matters, may be very clearly conceived. As we have previously shown, the future does not have to do with a new G.o.d and a new universe and a new soul; but with the present G.o.d, the present universe, and the present soul to-morrow. The future is not some new thing; it is the old realities a little later, and a little more fully developed. That G.o.d will remain a stable factor in the equation, we may rest a.s.sured. And we can read nature well enough in this scientific age to understand that it is no sudden and fickle movement void of law and order. Neither are we entirely ignorant of our own rational souls that organize themselves into civilized communities by combining and giving shape to the forces of nature in which we live. We have plainly seen that neither G.o.d, nature, nor man has any worth or significance when separated from each other. In the future life, therefore, there is but one factor that is different from those found in the present const.i.tution of things, and that is the loss of the present human body.

And even this difference between the present and the future will be largely rectified, according to the Scriptures, by our receiving new bodies. For too long we have foolishly tried to show that the soul could live without a body; and this in the face of the Scriptural teaching, that G.o.d will give us new bodies. In our effort to show that the soul is able to live independent of a body, we have likewise run counter to experimental psychology and philosophy. Scriptures say we shall have new bodies. Psychology shows that the souls with which we are acquainted are dependent upon the body for consciousness and every intellectual achievement. Philosophy likewise teaches that man can not exist outside of G.o.d. Therefore when these bodies with which G.o.d now enfolds us die, He must again enfold us or we shall perish. There is no reason for thinking that a soul can live if disconnected from G.o.d, and the universe of G.o.d, in which it lives. If G.o.d again enfolds a soul, that new enfoldment will be its new body. And it will not be a spirit body because that is a contradiction of terms. As the Scriptures teach, it will be a _spiritual_ body; that is, it will be a highly refined and delicate instrument of the spirit--yet a real body. This new body, as was the case with the old, must be our first point of contact with the universe of G.o.d. And in the future life, as here, the whole universe will be our augmented body as we progressively become articulated with it.

So all the old conditions of the present life will be restored on a higher plane. Whether the new and refined body will closely resemble the old, is a matter of speculation. However, it must be the instrument of the spirit; and therefore it will have functions similar to the higher intellectual and spiritual uses of our present body. We shall be conscious in it and think with it, and through it we shall manipulate the forces of the universe. If we can keep well, and work without friction, and all pull together I see no reason why we should not accomplish marvelous things in this universe, and at the same time derive a very dignified satisfaction from it all.

However much advanced the new life may be, we shall still be the same persons living in the same G.o.d and in the same universe as now. We shall still be living for the same social and righteous ideals as now, and our motive will be the same old motive of love and good will. G.o.d is not a naked spirit hiding behind nature. He is a Loving Intelligent Will revealing Himself by His outgoing energies which we call nature. In the future life, the same as here, G.o.d will be trying to come to the surface through the bodies which he provides for Himself and His children. And He will be striving, likewise, for a full expression of Himself through all the inst.i.tutions that His children will be organizing out of His beautiful and boundless energies.

Nature is not the gross, crude thing that ignorant people take it to be.

Neither is it something apart from G.o.d. With the little intelligence that a few have acquired on this kindergarten earth, we begin to see what a divine thing nature is. When it is better known and more wisely and lovingly used by G.o.d's children, all nature will be vocal with G.o.d's wisdom and love.

2. Where is heaven?

Heaven is some place, or many places, in our present universe. G.o.d will never leave His beautiful universe that is so infinite in its complexness, so vast in its dimensions, and so rich in its millenniums of development, and go off into nothingness to build some sort of mystical and ethereal heaven. Heaven will be as much a part of the universe as is this earth. And this earth is infinitely closer in its relation to the whole than we are now able to comprehend. Almost daily, scientists are discovering new bonds between the earth and the rest of the universe. The inhabitants of heaven will not be less closely connected, but much more vitally and intelligently related to nature than are we.

There are doubtless many spheres in this universe that would make good sites for a heaven. And it would be interesting to know how many of them are already so utilized. "In my Father's house are many mansions." When we speak of mansions in the skies it would be well to remember that the earth is a pretty good mansion in the skies. The trouble is, being such poor Christians, we have not built upon it a very good heaven. While we have not been wholly recreant in building a heaven on earth, yet we have often cursed this mansion by constructing many h.e.l.ls of smaller or larger proportions.

Another reason for believing that G.o.d does not plan for a heaven outside the objective universe, is the deep desire of man to make his richest ideals tangible and objective in a book, a piece of art, a musical composition, a n.o.ble building, or some splendid inst.i.tution. Life without expression and achievement, as we know it, is both unsatisfactory and dangerous. The same must be true in relation to G.o.d, as evidenced by His vast and beautiful works that have come forth unfolding out of the infinite past and now promise to expand and differentiate into the infinite future. Even in the sphere of human lives He has impelled men to express His wisdom, beauty, and purpose according to human modes of expression.

It evidently is not G.o.d's design to abandon His works of nature and draw back into His own thoughts and spend eternity in self-contemplation. He rather intends to utilize the unlimited capacity of nature, and the unbounded ability of His children, to give the fullest possible expression both of His children and of Himself in a kingdom which has form as well as soul.

In Chapter III I gave a description of the kingdom of G.o.d on earth. I shall now repeat that statement as an equally good description of the kingdom of G.o.d in heaven:

"The kingdom of G.o.d is a loving intelligent family, organized around the Father's good will, living in the universe as His home, using the forces of nature as the instruments of His will, and making all things vocal with His wisdom, love, and power."

So little has the kingdom of G.o.d been realized on earth that it is like a kingdom on paper in comparison with what has doubtless been realized elsewhere in the universe.