Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 3

The hypotheses which have been offered in explanation of the religious phenomena of the world are widely divergent, and most of them are, in our judgment, eminently inadequate and unsatisfactory. The following enumeration may be regarded as embracing all that are deemed worthy of consideration.

I. The phenomenon of religion had its origin in SUPERSt.i.tION, that is, in a _fear_ of invisible and supernatural powers, generated by ignorance of nature.

II. The phenomenon of religion is part of that PROCESS or EVOLUTION OF THE ABSOLUTE (i.e., the Deity), which gradually unfolding itself in nature, mind, history, and _religion_, attains to perfect self-consciousness in philosophy.

III. The phenomenon of religion has its foundation in FEELING--_the feeling of dependence and of obligation_; and that to which the mind, by spontaneous intuition or instinctive faith, traces this dependence and obligation we call G.o.d.

IV. The phenomenon of religion had its outbirth in the spontaneous apperceptions of REASON, that is, the necessary _a priori ideas of the Infinite, the Perfect, the Unconditioned Cause, the Eternal Being_, which are evoked into consciousness in presence of the changeful and contingent phenomena of the world.

V. The phenomenon of religion had its origin in EXTERNAL REVELATION, to which _reason_ is related as a purely pa.s.sive organ, and _heathenism_ as a feeble relic.

As a philosophy of religion--an attempt to supply the rationale of the religious phenomena of the world, the first hypothesis is a skeptical philosophy, which necessarily leads to _Atheism_. The second is an idealistic philosophy (absolute idealism), which inevitably lands in _Pantheism_. The third is an intuitional or "faith-philosophy," which finally ends in _Mysticism_. The fourth is a rationalistic or "spiritualistic" philosophy, which yields pure _Theism_. The last is an empirical philosophy, which derives all religion from instruction, and culminates in _Dogmatic Theology_.

In view of these diverse and conflicting theories, the question which now presents itself for our consideration is,--does any one of these hypotheses meet and satisfy the demands of the problem? does it fully account for and adequately explain all the facts of religious history?

The answer to this question must not be hastily or dogmatically given.

The arbitrary rejection of any theory that may be offered, without a fair and candid examination, will leave our minds in uncertainty and doubt as to the validity of our own position. A blind faith is only one remove from a pusillanimous skepticism. We can not render our own position secure except by comprehending, a.s.saulting, and capturing the position of our foe. It is, therefore, due to ourselves and to the cause of truth, that we shall examine the evidence upon which each separate theory is based, and the arguments which are marshalled in its support, before we p.r.o.nounce it inadequate and unphilosophical. Such a criticism of opposite theories will prepare the way for the presentation of a philosophy of religion which we flatter ourselves will be found most in harmony with all the facts of the case.

I. _It is affirmed that the religious phenomena of the world had their origin in_ SUPERSt.i.tION, _that is, in a fear of unseen and supernatural powers, generated from ignorance of nature_.

This explanation was first offered by Epicurus. He felt that the universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which demands a cause; and he found it, or presumed he found it not in a spiritual G.o.d, which he claims can not exist, nor in corporeal G.o.d which no one has seen, but in "phantoms of the mind generated by fear." When man has been unable to explain any natural phenomenon, to a.s.sign a cause within the sphere of nature, he has had recourse to supernatural powers, or living personalities behind nature, which move and control nature in an arbitrary and capricious manner. These imaginary powers are supposed to be continually interfering in the affairs of individuals and nations.

They bestow blessings or inflict calamities. They reward virtue and punish vice. They are, therefore, the objects of "sacred awe" and "superst.i.tious fear."

Whate'er in heaven, In earth, man sees mysterious, shakes his mind With sacred awe o'erwhelms him, and his soul Bows to the dust; the cause of things conceal Once from his vision, instant to the G.o.ds All empire he transfers, all rule supreme, And doubtful whence they spring, with headlong haste Calls them the workmans.h.i.+p of power divine.

For he who, justly, deems the Immortals live Safe, and at ease, yet fluctuates in his mind How things are swayed; how, chiefly, those discerned In heaven sublime--to SUPERSt.i.tION back Lapses, and fears a tyrant host, and then Conceives, dull reasoner, they can all things do, While yet himself nor knows what may be done, Nor what may never, nature powers defined Stamping on all, and bounds that none can pa.s.s: Hence wide, and wider errs he as he walks.[41]

[Footnote 41: Lucretius, "De Natura Rerum," book vi. vs. 50-70.]

In order to rid men of all superst.i.tious fear, and, consequently, of all religion, Epicurus endeavors to show that "nature" alone is adequate to the production of all things, and there is no need to drag in a "divine power" to explain the phenomena of the world.

This theory has been wrought into a somewhat plausible form by the brilliant and imposing generalizations of Aug. Comte. The religious phenomena of the world are simply one stage in the necessary development of mind, whether in the individual or the race. He claims to have been the first to discover the great law of the three successive stages or phases of human evolution. That law is thus enounced. Both in the individual mind, and in the history of humanity, thought, in dealing with its problems, pa.s.ses, of necessity, through, first, a _Theological_, second, a _Metaphysical_, and finally reaches a third, or _Positive_ stage.

In attempting an explanation of the universe, human thought, in its earliest stages of development, resorts to the idea of living personal agents enshrined in and moving every object, whether organic or inorganic, natural or artificial. In an advanced stage, it conceives a number of personal beings distinct from, and superior to nature, which preside over the different provinces of nature--the sea, the air, the winds, the rivers, the heavenly bodies, and a.s.sume the guardians.h.i.+p of individuals, tribes, and nations. As a further, and still higher stage, it a.s.serts the unity of the Supreme Power which moves and vitalizes the universe, and guides and governs in the affairs of men and nations. The _Theological_ stage is thus subdivided into three epochs, and represented as commencing in _Fetichism_, then advancing to _Polytheism_, and, finally, consummating in _Monotheism_.

The next stage, the _Metaphysical_, is a transitional stage, in which man subst.i.tutes abstract ent.i.ties, as substance, force, Being _in se_, the Infinite, the Absolute, in the place of theological conceptions.

During this period all theological opinions undergo a process of disintegration, and lose their hold on the mind of man. Metaphysical speculation is a powerful solvent, which decomposes and dissipates theology.

It is only in the last--the _Positive_ stage--that man becomes willing to relinquish all theological ideas and metaphysical notions, and confine his attention to the study of phenomena in their relation to time and s.p.a.ce; discarding all inquiries as to causes, whether efficient or final, and denying the existence of all ent.i.ties and powers beyond nature.

The first stage, in its religious phase, is _Theistic_, the second is _Pantheistic_, the last is _Atheistic_.

The proofs offered by Comte in support of this theory are derived:

I. _From Cerebral Organization_. There are three grand divisions of the Brain, the Medulla Oblongata, the Cerebellum, and the Cerebrum; the first represents the merely animal instincts the second, the more elevated sentiments, the third, the intellectual powers. Human nature must, therefore, both in the individual and in the race, be developed in the following order: (1.) in animal instincts; (2.) in social affections and communal tendencies; (3.) in intellectual pursuits. Infant life is a merely animal existence, shared in common with the brute; in childhood the individual being realizes his relation to external nature and human society; in youth and manhood he compares, generalizes, and cla.s.sifies the objects of knowledge, and attains to science. And so the infancy of our race was a mere animal or savage state, the childhood of our race the organization of society, the youth and manhood of our race the development of science.

Now, without offering any opinion as to the merits of the phrenological theories of Gall and Spurzheim, we may ask, what relation has this order to the law of development presented by Comte? Is there any imaginable connection between animal propensities and theological ideas; between social affections and metaphysical speculations? Are not the intellectual powers as much concerned with theological ideas and metaphysical speculations as with positive science? And is it not more probable, more in accordance with facts, that all the powers of the mind, instinct, feeling, and thought, enter into action simultaneously, and condition each other? The very first act of perception, the first distinct cognition of an object, involves _thought_ as much as the last generalization of science. We know nothing of _mind_ except as the development of thought, and the first unfolding, even of the infant mind, reveals an intellectual act, a discrimination between a self and an object which is not self, and a recognition of resemblance, or difference between _this_ object and _that_. And what does Positive science, in its most mature and perfect form, claim to do more than "to study actual phenomena in their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and succession."

Cerebral organization may furnish plausible a.n.a.logies in favor of some theory of human development, but certainly not the one proposed by Aug.

Comte. The attempt, however, to construct a chart of human history on such an _a priori_ method,--to construct an ideal framework into which human nature must necessarily grow, is a violation of the first and most fundamental principle of the Positive science, which demands that we shall confine ourselves strictly to the study of actual phenomena in their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and succession. The history of the human race must be based on facts, not on hypotheses, and the facts must be ascertained by the study of ancient records and existing monuments of the past. Mere plausible a.n.a.logies and _a priori_ theories based upon them, are only fitted to mislead the mind; they insert a prism between the perceiving mind and the course of events which decomposes the pure white light of fact, and throws a false light over the entire field of history.

2. _The second order of proof is attempted to be drawn from the a.n.a.logies of individual experience_.

It is claimed that the history of the race is the same as that of each individual mind; and it is affirmed that man is _religious_ in infancy, _metaphysical_ in youth, and _positive_, that is, scientific without being religious, in mature manhood; the history of the race must therefore have followed the same order.

We are under no necessity of denying that there is some a.n.a.logy between the development of mind in the individual man, and in humanity as a whole, in order to refute the theory of Comte. Still, it must not be overlooked that the development of mind, in all cases and in all ages, is materially affected by exterior conditions. The influence of geographical and climatic conditions, of social and national inst.i.tutions, and especially of education, however difficult to be estimated, can not be utterly disregarded. And whether all these influences have not been controlled, and collocated, and adjusted by a Supreme Mind in the education of humanity, is also a question which can not be pushed aside as of no consequence. Now, unless it can be shown that the same outward conditions which have accompanied the individual and modified his mental development, have been repealed in the history of the race, and repeated in the same order of succession, the argument has no value.

But, even supposing it could be shown that the development of mind in humanity has followed the same order as that of the individual, we confidently affirm that Comte has not given the true history of the development of the individual mind. The account he has given may perhaps be the history of his own mental progress, but it certainly is not the history of every individual mind, nor indeed, of a majority even, of educated minds that have arrived at maturity. It would be much more in harmony with facts to say childhood is the period of pure receptivity, youth of doubt and skepticism, and maturity of well-grounded and rational belief. In the ripeness and maturity of the nineteenth century the number of scientific men of the Comtean model is exceedingly small compared with the number of religious men. There are minds in every part of Europe and America as thoroughly scientific as that of Comte, and as deeply imbued with the spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, which are not conscious of any discordance between the facts of science and the fundamental principles of theology. It may be that, in his own immediate circle at Paris there may be a tendency to Atheism, but certainly no such tendency exists in the most scientific minds of Europe and America.

The faith of Bacon, and Newton, and Boyle, of Descartes, Leibnitz, and Pascal, in regard to the fundamental principles of theology, is still the faith of Sedgwick, Whewell, Herschel, Brewster, Owen, Aga.s.siz, Silliman, Mitch.e.l.l, Hitchc.o.c.k, Dana, and, indeed of the leading scientific minds of the world--the men who, as Comte would say, "belong to the elite of humanity." The mature mind, whether of the individual or the race, is not Atheistical.

3. _The third proof is drawn from a survey of the history of certain portions of our race._

Comte is far from being a.s.sured that the progress of humanity, under the operation of his grand law of development, has been uniform and invariable. The majority of the human race, the vast populations of India, China, and j.a.pan, have remained stationary; they are still in the Theological stage, and consequently furnish no evidence in support of his theory. For this reason he confines himself to the "elite" or advance-guard of humanity, and in this way makes the history of humanity a very "abstract history" indeed. Starting with Greece as the representative of ancient civilization, pa.s.sing thence to Roman civilization, and onward to Western Europe, he attempts to show that the actual progress of humanity has been, on the whole, in conformity with his law. To secure, however, even this semblance of harmony between the facts of history and his hypothetical law, he has to treat the facts very much as Procrustes treated his victims,--he must stretch some, and mutilate others, so as to make their forms fit the iron bed. The natural organization of European civilization is distorted and torn asunder. "As the third or positive stage had accomplished its advent in his own person, it was necessary to find the metaphysical period just before; and so the whole life of the Reformed Christianity, in embryo and in manifest existence, is stripped of its garb of _faith_, and turned out of view as a naked metaphysical phenomenon. But metaphysics, again, have to be ushered in by theology; and of the three stages of theology Monotheism is the last, necessarily following on Polytheism, as that, again, on Fetichism. There is nothing for it, therefore, but to let the mediaeval Catholic Christianity stand as the world's first monotheism, and to treat it as the legitimate offspring and necessary development of the Greek and Roman polytheism. This, accordingly, Comte actually does.

Protestantism he illegitimates, and outlaws from religion altogether, and the genuine Christianity he fathers upon the faith of Homer and the Scipios! Once or twice, indeed, it seems to cross him that there was such a people as the Hebrews, and that they were not the polytheists they ought to have been. He sees the fact, but pushes it out of his way with the remark that the Jewish monotheism was 'premature.'"[42]

[Footnote 42: Martineau's Essays, pp. 61, 62.]

The signal defect of Comte's historical survey, however, is, that it furnishes no evidence of the general prevalence of Fetichism in primitive times. The writings of Moses are certainly ent.i.tled to as much consideration and credence as the writings of Berosus, Manetho, and Herodotus; and, it will not be denied, they teach that the faith of the earliest families and races of men was _monotheistic_. The early Vedas, the Inst.i.tutes of Menu, the writings of Confucius, the Zendavesta, all bear testimony that the ancient faith of India, China, and Persia, was, at any rate, pantheistic; and learned and trustworthy critics, Asiatic as well as European, confidently affirm that the ground of the Brahminical, Buddhist, and Parsist faith is _monotheistic_; and that _one_ Being is a.s.sumed, in the earliest books, to be the origin of all things.[43] Without evidence, Comte a.s.sumes that the savage state is the original condition of man; and instead of going to Asia, the cradle of the race, for some light as to the early condition and opinions of the remotest families of men, he turns to Africa, the _soudan_ of the earth, for his ill.u.s.tration of the habit of man, in the infancy of our race, to endow every object in nature, whether organic or inorganic, with life and intelligence. The theory of a primitive state of ignorance and barbarism is a mere a.s.sumption--an hypothesis in conflict with the traditionary legends of all nations, the earliest records of our race, and the unanimous voice of antiquity, which attest the general belief in a primitive state of light and innocence.

[Footnote 43: "The Religions of the World in their Relation to Christianity" (Maurice, ch. ii., iii., iv.).]

The three stages of development which Comte describes as necessarily successive, have, for centuries past, been simultaneous. The theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific elements coexist now, and there is no real, radical, or necessary conflict between them.

Theological and metaphysical ideas hold their ground as securely under the influence of enlarged scientific discovery as before; and there is no reason to suppose they ever had more power over the mind of man than they have to-day. The notion that G.o.d is dethroned by the wonderful discoveries of modern science, and theology is dead, is the dream of the "_profond orage cerebral_" which interrupted the course of Comte's lectures in 1826. As easily may the hand of Positivism arrest the course of the sun, as prevent the instinctive thought of human reason recognizing and affirming the existence of a G.o.d. And so long as ever the human mind is governed by necessary laws of thought, so long will it seek...

[Transcriber's note: In the original doc.u.ment, page 64 is a duplication of page 63. The real page 64 seems to be missing.]

....eur, and consequently to develop its true philosophy. Its fundamental error is the a.s.sumption that all our knowledge is confined to the observation and cla.s.sification of sensible phenomena--that is, to changes perceptible by the senses. Psychology, based, as it is, upon self-observation and self-reflection, is a "mere illusion; and logic and ethics, so far as they are built upon it as their foundation, are altogether baseless." Spiritual ent.i.ties, forces, causes, efficient or final, are unknown and unknowable; all inquiry regarding them must be inhibited, "for Theology is inevitable if we permit the inquiry into causes at all."

II. The second hypothesis offered in explanation of the facts of religious history is, _that religion is part of that_ PROCESS OR EVOLUTION OF THE ABSOLUTE (_i.e._, the Deity) _which, gradually unfolding itself in nature, mind, history, and religion, attains to the fullest self-consciousness in philosophy_.

This is the theory of Hegel, in whose system of philosophy the subjective idealism of Kant culminates in the doctrine of "_Absolute Ident.i.ty_." Its fundamental position is that thought and being, subject and object, the perceiving mind and the thing perceived, are ultimately and essentially _one_, and that the only actual reality is that which results from their mutual relation. The outward thing is nothing, the inward perception is nothing, for neither could exist alone; the only reality is the relation, or rather synthesis of the two; the essence or nature of being in itself accordingly consists in the coexistence of two contrarieties. Ideas, arising from the union or synthesis of two opposites, are therefore the _concrete realities_ of Hegel; and the _process_ of the evolution of ideas, in the human mind, is the process of all existence--_the Absolute Idea_.

_The Absolute_(die Idee) thus forms the beginning, middle, and end of the system of Hegel. It is the one infinite existence or thought, of which nature, mind, history, religion, and philosophy, are the manifestation. "The absolute is, with him, not the infinite _substance_, as with Spinoza; nor the infinite _subject_, as with Fichte; nor the infinite _mind_, as with Sch.e.l.ling; it is a perpetual _process_, an eternal thinking, without beginning and without end."[44] This _living, eternal process of absolute existence is the G.o.d of Hegel_.

It will thus be seen that the _Absolute_ is, with Hegel, the sum of all actual and possible existence; "nothing is true and real except so far as it forms an element of the Absolute Spirit."[45] "What kind of an Absolute Being," he asks, "is that which does not contain in itself all that is actual, even evil included?"[46] The Absolute, therefore, in Hegel's conception, does not allow of any existence out of itself. It is the _unity_ of the finite and the infinite, the eternal and the temporal, the ideal and the real, the subject and the object. And it is not only the unity of these opposites so as to exclude all difference, but it contains in itself, all the differences and opposites as elements of its being; otherwise the distinctions would stand over against absolute as a limit, and the absolute would cease to be absolute.

G.o.d is, therefore, according to Hegel, "no motionless, eternally self-identical and unchangeable being, but a living, eternal _process_ of absolute self-existence. This process consists in the eternal self-distinction, or ant.i.thesis, and equally self-reconciliation or synthesis of those opposites which enter, as necessary elements, into the const.i.tution of the Divine Being. This _self-evolution_, whereby the absolute enters into ant.i.thesis, and returns to itself again, is the eternal _self-actualization_ of its being, and which at once const.i.tutes the beginning, middle, and end, as in the circle, where the beginning is at the same time the end, and the end the beginning."[47]

[Footnote 44: Morell, "Hist, of Philos., p. 461."]

[Footnote 45: "Philos. of Religion," p. 204.]

[Footnote 46: Ibid., chap. xi. p. 24.]

[Footnote 47: Herzog's _Real-Encyc._, art. "Hegelian Philos.," by Ulrici.]

The whole philosophy of Hegel consists in the development of this idea of G.o.d by means of his, so-called, dialectic method, which reflects the objective life-process of the Absolute, and is, in fact, identical with it; for G.o.d, says he, "is only the Absolute Intelligence in so far as he knows himself to be the Absolute Intelligence, _and this he knows only in science_ [dialectics], _and this knowledge alone const.i.tutes his true existence._"[48] This life-process of the Absolute has three "moments."

It may be considered as the idea _in itself_--bare, naked, undetermined, unconscious idea; as the idea _out of itself_, in its objective form, or in its differentiation; and, finally, as the idea _in itself_, and _for itself_, in its regressive or reflective form. This movement of thought gives, _first_, bare, naked, indeterminate thought, or thought in the mere ant.i.thesis of Being and non-Being; _secondly_, thought externalizing itself in nature; and, _thirdly_, thought returning to itself, and knowing itself in mind, or consciousness. Philosophy has, accordingly, three corresponding divisions:--1. LOGIC, which here is identical with metaphysics; 2. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE; 3. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.

[Footnote 48: "Hist, of Philos.," iii. p. 399.]