Systematic Theology (Vol. 1-3). Augustus Hopkins Strong

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СКАЧАТЬ lect. I; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:14; Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:175; Fisher, Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 563–570; Caird, Philos. Religion, 160–186.

      (c) Religion is not, as Kant maintained, morality or moral action; for morality is conformity to an abstract law of right, while religion is essentially a relation to a person, from whom the soul receives blessing and to whom it surrenders itself in love and obedience.

      Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Beschluss: “I know of but two beautiful things, the starry heavens above my head, and the sense of duty within my heart.”But the mere sense of duty often distresses. We object to the word “obey” as the imperative of religion, because (1) it makes religion a matter of the will only; (2) will presupposes affection; (3) love is not subject to will; (4) it makes God all law, and no grace; (5) it makes the Christian a servant only, not a friend; cf. John 15:15—“No longer do I call you servants … but I have called you friends”—a relation not of service but of love (Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco). The voice that speaks is the voice of love, rather than the voice of law. We object also to Matthew Arnold's definition: “Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling; morality touched with emotion.” This leaves out of view the receptive element in religion, as well as its relation to a personal God. A truer statement would be that religion is morality toward God, as morality is religion toward man. Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 251—“Morality that goes beyond mere conscientiousness must have recourse to religion”; see Lotze, Philos. of Religion, 128–142. Goethe: “Unqualified activity, of whatever kind, leads at last to bankruptcy”; see also Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:65–69; Shedd, Sermons to the Natural Man, 244–246; Liddon, Elements of Religion, 19.

      3. Essential Idea.

      Religion in its essential idea is a life in God, a life lived in recognition of God, in communion with God, and under control of the indwelling Spirit of God. Since it is a life, it cannot be described as consisting solely in the exercise of any one of the powers of intellect, affection, or will. As physical life involves the unity and coöperation of all the organs of the body, so religion, or spiritual life, involves the united working of all the powers of the soul. To feeling, however, we must assign the logical priority, since holy affection toward God, imparted in regeneration, is the condition of truly knowing God and of truly serving him.

      See Godet, on the Ultimate Design of Man—“God in man, and man in God”—in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 5–79, and Religionsphilosophie, 255—Religion is “Sache des ganzen Geisteslebens”: Crane, Religion of To-morrow, 4—“Religion is the personal influence of the immanent God”; Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 31, 32—“Religion is the reciprocal relation or communion of God and man, involving (1) revelation, (2) faith”; Dr. J. W. A. Stewart: “Religion is fellowship with God”; Pascal: “Piety is God sensible to the heart”; Ritschl, Justif. and Reconcil., 13—“Christianity is an ellipse with two foci—Christ as Redeemer and Christ as King, Christ for us and Christ in us, redemption and morality, religion and ethics”; Kaftan, Dogmatik, 8—“The Christian religion is (1) the kingdom of God as a goal above the world, to be attained by moral development here, and (2) reconciliation with God permitting attainment of this goal in spite of our sins. Christian theology once grounded itself in man's natural knowledge of God; we now start with religion, i.e., that Christian knowledge of God which we call faith.”

      Herbert Spencer: “Religion is an a priori theory of the universe”; Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, 43, adds: “which assumes intelligent personality as the originating cause of the universe, science dealing with the How, the phenomenal process, religion dealing with the Who, the intelligent Personality who works through the process.” Holland, in Lux Mundi, 27—“Natural life is the life in God which has not yet arrived at this recognition”—the recognition of the fact that God is in all things—“it is not yet, as such, religious; … Religion is the discovery, by the son, of a Father who is in all his works, yet is distinct from them all.” Dewey, Psychology, 283—“Feeling finds its absolutely universal expression in religious emotion, which is the finding or realization of self in a completely realized personality which unites in itself truth, or the complete unity of the relations of all objects, beauty or the complete unity of all ideal values, and rightness or the complete unity of all persons. The emotion which accompanies the religious life is that which accompanies the complete activity of ourselves; the self is realized and finds its true life in God.” Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 262—“Ethics is simply the growing insight into, and the effort to actualize in society, the sense of fundamental kinship and identity of substance in all men; while religion is the emotion and the devotion which attend the realization in our self-consciousness of an inmost spiritual relationship arising out of that unity of substance which constitutes man the true son of the eternal Father.” See Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 81–85; Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:227; Nitzsch, Syst. of Christ. Doct., 10–28; Luthardt, Fund. Truths, 147; Twesten, Dogmatik, 1:12.

      4. Inferences.

      From this definition of religion it follows:

      (a) That in strictness there is but one religion. Man is a religious being, indeed, as having the capacity for this divine life. He is actually religious, however, only when he enters into this living relation to God. False religions are the caricatures which men given to sin, or the imaginations which men groping after light, form of this life of the soul in God.

      Peabody, Christianity the Religion of Nature, 18—“If Christianity be true, it is not areligion, but the religion. If Judaism be also true, it is so not as distinct from but as coincident with Christianity, the one religion to which it can bear only the relation of a part to the whole. If there be portions of truth in other religious systems, they are not portions of other religions, but portions of the one religion which somehow or other became incorporated with fables and falsities.” John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:25—“You can never get at the true idea or essence of religion merely by trying to find out something that is common to all religions; and it is not the lower religions that explain the higher, but conversely the higher religion explains all the lower religions.” George P. Fisher: “The recognition of certain elements of truth in the ethnic religions does not mean that Christianity has defects which are to be repaired by borrowing from them; it only means that the ethnic faiths have in fragments what Christianity has as a whole. Comparative religion does not bring to Christianity new truth; it provides illustrations of how Christian truth meets human needs and aspirations, and gives a full vision of that which the most spiritual and gifted among the heathen only dimly discerned.”

      Dr. C. H. Parkhurst, sermon on Proverbs 20:27—“The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah”—“a lamp, but not necessarily lighted; a lamp that can be lit only by the touch of a divine flame”—man has naturally and universally a capacity for religion, but is by no means naturally and universally religious. All false religions have some element of truth; otherwise they could never have gained or kept their hold upon mankind. We need to recognize these elements of truth in dealing with them. There is some silver in a counterfeit dollar, else it would deceive no one; but the thin washing of silver over the lead does not prevent it from being bad money. Clarke, Christian Theology, 8—“See Paul's methods of dealing with heathen religion, in Acts 14 with gross paganism and in Acts 17 with its cultured form. He treats it with sympathy and justice. Christian theology has the advantage of walking in the light of God's self-manifestation in Christ, while heathen religions grope after God and worship him in ignorance”; cf. Acts 14:16—“We … bring you good tidings, that ye should turn from these vain things unto a living God”; 17:22—“I perceive that ye are more than usually reverent toward the divinities. … What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto you.”

      Matthew Arnold: “Children of men! the unseen Power whose eye Forever doth accompany mankind, Hath looked on no religion scornfully That СКАЧАТЬ