We have to concede that _D. F. Strauss_ was right when he wrote: "He who writes about the Rulers of Nineveh or the Pharaohs of Egypt, may pursue a purely historical interest: but Christianity is a power so alive, and the question of what occurred at its origin is involved in such vast consequences for the immediate present, that the inquirer would have to be dull-witted to be interested only in a purely historical way in the solution of these questions." But we must also regret that this personal interest has misled him, for one, into pernicious ways.
In view of the frequent a.s.surances of the noted historian, _Th.
Mommsen_, that he hates the sight of old Christian inscriptions(9) we may perhaps welcome it in the interest of history that he refrained from writing the fourth volume of his Roman history, wherein the Origin of Christianity was to be treated. One of his biographers a.s.serts that the downfall of paganism through Christianity was a fact not to _Mommsen"s_ liking, that "a description of the decomposition of all things ancient, and the subst.i.tution therefor of the Nazarene spirit would not have been a labour of love."(10) And again, when we see the well-known historian of philosophy, _F. Ueberweg_, in a letter to _F. A.
Lange_, denouncing from the bitterness of his heart "the miserable beggar-principle of Christianity," and the "surrendering of independence and of personal honour in favour of a servile submission to the master, who is made a Messiah, nay, even the incarnate _Son of G.o.d_," then we may well dread the historical objectivity of a man of such notions in writing about the religion of Jesus Christ.
With reference to the chief subject of psychology, the noted psychologist, _W. James_, writes with utmost frankness: "The soul is an ent.i.ty, and truly one of the worst kind, a scholastic one, and something said to be destined for salvation or perdition. As far as I am concerned, I must frankly admit that the antipathy against the particular soul I find myself burdened with, is an old hardness of heart, which I cannot account for, not even to myself.
I will admit that the formal disposition of the question in dispute would come to an end, if the existence of souls could be used for an explanatory principle. I admit the soul would be a means of unification, whereas the working of the brain, or ideas, show no harmonizing efficacy, no matter how thoroughly synchronical they be. Yet, despite these admissions, I never resort in my psychologizing to the soul."
If we read such statement, if, in addition, we remember the popular-philosophical science of men like _Haeckel_, particularly perhaps the literature which he recommends for information about Christianity, and of which he himself makes use; if we have read _Schopenhauer_, _Nietzsche_, or the "Philosophy of Races" of a _Chamberlain_,-we can no longer be at a loss what to think of the "rule of reason" and of the "search for pure truth." Observe, also, the restless haste of those who, having turned their back upon the Catholic Church, now proceed to attack her, observe their agitated work and incitement, how they rummage and ransack the nooks and corners of the history of the Church in quest of refuse and filth, and if the find is not sufficient how they even help it along by forgery, all this to demonstrate to the world that the grandest fact in history is really absurdity and filth;-then one will understand what instincts may be found there to guide "reason and science." How even s.e.xual impulses are trying to shape their own ethics we shall not examine here. _F. W. Foerster_ relates: "I once heard a moral pervert expound his ethical and religious notions; they were nothing but the reflection of his perverse impulses. But he thought them to be the result of his reasoning."
Is there not known in these days the inherited disorder of the human heart as characterized by the Apostle in the words: "But I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin (Rom. vii. 23)"? The Ancients knew it. The wisdom of _Plato_ knew it, who speaks of the "p.r.i.c.ks of sin, sunk into man, coming from an old, unexpiated offence, giving birth to wickedness." The wise _Cicero_ knew of it: "Nature has bestowed upon us but a few sparks of knowledge, which, corrupted by bad habits and errors, we soon extinguish, with the result that the light of nature does nowhere appear in its clearness and brightness." Truth is often disagreeable to nature. And if not subdued and ruled by strong discipline, nature proceeds to oppose the truth. Only to lofty self-discipline and purity of morals is reserved the privilege of facing the highest truths with a calm eye. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see G.o.d."
Mental Bondage.
Of this wisdom the admirer of liberal freedom knows little. Instead of distinguishing the good from the evil in man, of unfolding his inner kernel, the pure spirit, and making it rule; instead of demanding, like _Pythagoras_, discipline as a preparatory school for wisdom, he has learned from _Rousseau_, the master of modern Liberalism, that everything in man is good. Depravity of nature, original sin, are unsympathetic things to his ear. Even _Goethe_ wrote to _Herder_, when _Kant_ had in his religious philosophy found a radical Evil in man: "After it has taken _Kant_ a lifetime to clean his philosophical gown of many filthy prejudices, he now outrageously slabbers it with the stain of the radical Evil, so that Christians, too, may be enticed to come and kiss the seam."
Instead of exhorting for a redemption from internal fetters, as the sages of all ages did, the principle of wisdom now proposed is to quietly let individuality develop, with all its inclinations. They call this freedom.
Is it not the freedom whereof the slave of sensuality avails himself to form his theory of life? It, too, "grows up in man with that inner compulsion which is identical with true freedom" (_Ad.i.c.kes_).
Freedom this may be. But _only external freedom_, the only freedom they often know. They are unaware that they forfeit thereby the real, the inner freedom. "Thou aimest at free heights," admonishes even the most impetuous herald of freedom, "thy soul is athirst for stars. But also thy wicked impulses are athirst for freedom. Thy wild hounds want to be free, they bark joyfully in their kennel when thy spirit essays to throw open all dungeons."(11) They think to be free and speak of the self-a.s.surance of individual reason, and they cannot see that the mind is in the fetters of bondage.
Else how is it that the atheistic free science, considered in general, arrives with infallible regularity at results that obviously tend to a morally loose conduct of life? How is it, that it tries throughout to shirk the acceptance of a personal G.o.d, and is at home only in open or disguised atheism? that it so persistently avoids the acceptance of anything supernatural? Why does it in its researches never arrive at theism, which has as much foundation at least as pantheism and atheism?
Why does it, nearly without exception, deny or ignore the personal immortality of the soul and a Beyond; why does it never reach the opposite result which, in intrinsic evidence, ranks at least on a par with it? Why is it not admitted, that the will is free and strictly responsible for its acts, although this fact is borne out by the obvious experience and testimony of mankind? Why does it so regularly arrive at the conclusion that the Christian religion has become untenable, and needs development; that its ethics, too, must be reformed, more especially in s.e.xual matters?
Why does it not defend the duty to believe, but reject it persistently? A striking fact! The matters in question here concern truths that impose sacrifices upon man, whereas their opposites have connections of intimate friendship with unpurged impulses. It may be noted also that this same science, that announces to the world these results of research, meets with the boisterous applause from the elements that belong to the morally inferior part of mankind.
_St. Augustine_ prays: "Redeem me, O G.o.d, from the throng of thoughts, which I feel so painfully within my soul, which feels lowly in Thy presence, which is fleeing to Thy mercy. Grant me that I may not give my a.s.sent to them; that I may disapprove of them, even if they seek to delight me, and that I may not stay with them in sleepiness. May they not have the power to insinuate themselves into my works; may I be protected from them in my resolution, may my conscience be protected by Thy keeping." It is the realization of the want of freedom of the human reason, the only way to the liberation from the fetters of our own imperfection. He, who has seriously begun to take up the struggle with his inner disorders, will, by his own experience, pray as _St. Augustine_ prayed.
Recognizing this fact, man will try to rise above himself, to cleave to a superior Power and Wisdom, who, in purer heights, untouched by human pa.s.sions, holds aloft the truth, in order to rise thereby above his own bondage; he will understand the necessity of an authority clothed with divine power and dignity, so that it may hold in unvanquished hands the ideal against all onslaughts of human pa.s.sions. He will without difficulty find this power in the religion of Jesus Christ and in His Church: in Him, who could not be accused of sin, who by His Cross has achieved the highest triumph over flesh and sin, who has surrounded His Church with the bright throng of saints. And if he sees this religion and Church an object of persecution, he will behold in it the signature of its truth. For truth is a yoke despised by sensualism and pride, and the spiritual power that contends for purity and truth will be hated.
Without Earnestness.
The regrettable conception of truth proper to the modern freedom of thought, leads to that flippancy with which our time is p.r.o.ne to treat the highest questions. Why conscientiousness and anxious care? All that is needed is to form one"s personal views; there is no certain, generally valid, truth in religious matters. Hence there is often in this sphere of scientific research a method wholly different from that in use anywhere else. In history, philology, natural science, there is a striving for exactness, but in these matters exact reasoning is replaced only too often by discretionary reasoning, by loose forming of ideas; in the very domain which has ever pre-eminently been called the province of the wisdom of life, there is now in vogue the method of flippancy.
True wisdom is convinced that reason has not been given to man to grope in the dark in respect to the most momentous questions of life; that reason, though limited and liable to err, is given him to find the truth. True wisdom knows its difficulties when the matter in quest is metaphysical truth: it knows how, in this case, more than in any other, reason is exposed to the influence of inclinations from within, and to the power of error and of public opinion from without; that in these matters, least of all, reason is not in the habit of taking the truth by a.s.sault. True, there are intuitions, and inspiration by genius-they have their rights, but they are the exceptions. The ordinary, and only safe, way is to advance cautiously, by discoursive thinking, from cognition to cognition, otherwise there is danger of a sudden fall from the steep path.
In the early Christian ages this insight led to careful cultivation and application of certain methodical means of thinking and terms of expressions, to definitions, distinctions, and forms of syllogism, with that "insulting lucidity," in the words of a modern philosopher, which gives to them the stamp of scrupulousness. The same insight into the cognitive weakness of reason leads to the n.o.ble union between science and modesty.
What, however, do we see in modern philosophic-religious thinking? Often unsolidity, with hardly a remnant of the principles of the serious pursuit of knowledge.
The autonomous freethinker of these days lacks chiefly humility and modesty. The ancient Sage of Samos once declined the name of "sage,"
saying that G.o.d alone is wise, while man must be content to be wisdom-loving (f???s?f??). Not always so the sages of modern times.
_Kant_ believed of his system: "Critical philosophy must be convinced that there is not in store for it a change of opinions, no improvement nor possibly a differently formed system, but that the system of criticism, resting on a fully a.s.sured basis, will be established forever, indispensable for all coming ages to the highest aims of mankind." _Hegel_, in turn, was no less convinced of the indispensability of his doctrine. In the summer term of 1820 he began his lectures with the words: "I would say with Christ: I teach the truth, and I am the truth." Yet, to _Schopenhauer_ _Hegel"s_ philosophy is nonsense, humbug, and worse. _Schopenhauer_ knew better, and was convinced that he had lifted the veil of truth higher than any mortal before him; he claimed that he had written paragraphs "which may be taken to have been inspired by the Holy Ghost." Shortly before his death he wrote: "My curse upon any one, who in reprinting my works shall knowingly make a change; be it but a sentence, or a word, a syllable or a punctuation point." _Nietzsche_ held: "I have given to the world the most profound book in its possession." To the eyes of this philosophy, modesty and humility are no longer virtues. _B. Spinoza_, a leader in later philosophy, states expressly: "Humility is no virtue; it does not spring from reason.
It is a sadness, springing from the fact that man becomes aware of his impotence."
An arrogant mind is not capable of finding the higher truth with certainty; conscientious obedience to truth, unselfish abstention from a.s.serting one"s ego, and one"s pet opinion, can dwell only in the humble mind. Here applies what _St. Augustine_ said of the Neoplatonists: "To acquiesce in truth you need humility, which, however, is very difficult to instil into your minds."(12)
When G.o.d"s authority steps before scientists and earnestly demands faith, they will talk excitedly about their human dignity that does not permit them to believe; about reason being their court of last resort that must not know of submission; and if the Church, in the name of G.o.d, steps before them, they become abusive.
Men who have scarcely outgrown their minority often feel it inc.u.mbent upon themselves to furnish humanity with new thought and to discard the old.
_D. F. Strauss_, a young under-master of twenty-seven years, writes his "Life of Jesus, critically a.n.a.lyzed" (1835); he tells the Christian world that everything it has. .h.i.therto held sacred is a delusion and a snare; he feels the vocation to "replace the old, obsolete, supernatural, method of contemplating the history of Jesus with a new one," which changes all divine deeds into myths. Hardly out of knickerbockers and kilts, they feel experienced enough to come forth with novel and unheard-of propositions on the highest problems. In business and office, as in public service, sober-mindedness and maturity are demanded; but to work out the ultimate questions of humanity, inexperience and lack of the deeper knowledge of life do not disqualify in our time. If _Schiller"s_ complaint of the Kantians of his time was that, "What they have scarcely learned to-day, they want to teach to-morrow," what is to be said of those who teach even before they have learned? And what superficial thinking do we meet in the philosophy of the day! Lacking all solid training, they proceed to construct new systems, or at least fragments of them. As regards their competence, one is often tempted to quote the harsh words of a modern writer: "I believe _Schopenhauer_ would have formed a better opinion of the human intellect, had he paid less attention to authors and newspaper-writers, and more to the common sense evinced by men in their work and business" (_Paulsen_).
It would be highly instructive to take a longer journey through the realm of modern philosophy, in so far as it touches upon questions concerning the theory of the world, or even liberal Protestant theology, so as to subject to a searching criticism the untenable notions and attempts at demonstration even of acknowledged representatives of this science, whereby they generally do away with G.o.d and miracles, the soul and immortality, freedom of the will, the divine moral laws, the Gospel, the divinity of Christ, and so much more, and show what they offer in place of all this. It would disclose an enormous lack of scientific method: instead of a.s.sured results they offer questionable, even untenable theories; in place of proofs, emphatical a.s.sertions, imperatives, catch phrases; or else arguments which under the simplest test will prove miscarriages of logic. These philosophers vault ditches and boundaries with ease, and derive full gratification from imperfect and warped ideas. Of course, exactness in philosophical thinking is not a fruit to be plucked while out taking a walk; it is the product of serious mental work, of sterling philosophical training, which, alas, is wanting to-day in large circles of scientists.
As an instance, we point to the method described in a previous chapter, by which all supernatural factors are rejected by the arbitrary postulate of "exclusively natural causation," without valid proofs, based only upon the arbitrary decision of so-called modern science-in the gravest matter an unscientific process that cannot be outdone.
Another instructive instance, of serious matters treated with levity, is furnished in the unscrupulous way in which the Catholic Church, her teaching, inst.i.tutions, and history, are pa.s.sed upon in judgment by those having neither knowledge nor fairness.
Without Reverence.
True wisdom accepts advice and guidance. It feels reverence for sacred and venerable traditions, for the convictions of mankind on the great questions of life, and greater reverence still for an authority of faith that has received from G.o.d its warrant to be the teacher of mankind, and which has stood the test of time. True wisdom is convinced that continuity in human thinking and in knowledge is necessary. Life is short, and gives to the individual hardly time to attain mental maturity. Philosophy, and this is the matter before us at present,-philosophy can never be the work of a single person; it is the achievement of centuries; succeeding generations, with searching eye and careful hand, building further upon the achievement for which past ages have laid the foundations. By nailing together beams and boards the individual may erect a house good enough for a short time to serve his sports and pleasures; and if wrecked by the first storm, it may be replaced by another. But the building of ma.s.sive and towering cathedrals that last for ages required the work of generations. And only skilful and experienced hands may do the work; haste is out of place here. The ancient sages of Greece, _Plato_, _Pythagoras_, and _Aristotle_, had this reverence for the philosophical and religious traditions of the past. These representatives of true wisdom did not consider philosophy and theology as the product of individual sagacity, they did not attempt to be free rulers in the realm of thought; on the contrary, they looked upon wisdom as the patrimony of the past, which it was their duty to preserve.
They pointed to their venerable traditions, however meagre they were. "Our forefathers," says _Plato_, "who were better than we are, and stood nearer to the G.o.ds than we, have handed down to us this revelation."(13) That the testimony of the great sages, to the effect that the most essential elements of their philosophy had their origin in religious traditions, is based upon truth and not on fancy has been proven by _O. Willmann_, whose knowledge of ancient civilization was very extensive, in his monumental "History of Idealism." Delhi, the home of mysteries, the generations of priests in ancient Egypt, the doctrinal traditions of the Chaldeans, the Magi of Medes and Persians, and the wisdom of the Brahmins of ancient India are witnesses to the fact. "The Ancients were correct," says _Willmann_, "in tracing their philosophy to earliest traditions ... they knew what they owed to their forefathers better than we do. They direct our astonished eyes to a very ancient reality, to a towering remoteness of living thought." This fact is very much against the taste of our times.... An inherited wisdom, springing from an original revelation, adapted to the nations, shining with renewed brightness in true philosophy, is quite the opposite to a philosophy that seeks the source of mental life only in isolated thinking; that thinks its success to be conditioned upon unprepossession; that holds the refutation of tradition to be the test of its strength.
Unfortunately this latter view is widespread in our time. Research is often directed, not by reverence for the wisdom inherited from many Christian centuries, but by the mania, unwise and fatal alike, of seeking new paths. "Love of truth," so we are told, "is what urges on the great leaders of humanity, the prophets and reformers, to seek new and untrodden paths of life. "Plus ultra" is the rallying-cry of these pathfinders of the future, who are clearing the way for the mental life of mankind. No authority can restrain them, no prejudice, however holy: they are following the light which has dawned upon their soul" (_Paulsen_).
And a mult.i.tude discover this light in their souls, and join the prophets and pathfinders! Everybody goes abroad looking for untrodden paths; from all directions comes the cry: Here and there, to the right, to the left, is the right way! Do we not only too often see self-willed and self-satisfied thinkers, whose shortsighted conceit gets within the four walls of their study puffed up against G.o.d and religion, offer us for holy truth the fanciful products of their narrow brains? Do we not see, only too often, champions of shallow reasoning, without discipline of thought and without ethical maturity, recommending their undigested efforts as the wisdom of the world? Youthful thinkers there are in numbers, each of whom claims that he at last has succeeded in solving the world riddle; they offer us new theories of the world, new ideas on ethics, on law and theology, for a few dollars per copy or less. The holy abode of truth has become the campus for saunterers, each eager to displace the other so that he may be sole proprietor, or at least a respected partner. Day by day new solutions of "problems," "vital questions," or at least "outlines" of them; new "views of the world"; new forms of religion and of Christianity for the "modern man"; "reforms" of marriage and of s.e.xual ethics, and so on. Truth had not been discovered until the newcomer puts his pen to the paper. Every one is free to join in. Yea, more, he may not only join in, but lash those who do not applaud him. According to this notion, nothing has a right to exist, no "sacred prejudice" may be claimed once this self-appointed representative of science takes the field for "research."
Behold the Christian truth, it has stood the test of centuries: but it cannot resist these scientific freebooters, they rush over it with banners flying.
Severe speech would here be in order. A painful spectacle, these doings of modern thought in the sacred precincts of truth. "Put off the shoes from thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground," we imagine to hear; yet this sanctuary of truth has been made a profane place of bartering.
While still a pagan, but moved by his desire for truth, the philosopher _Justin_ went to the schools of his day to seek the solution of his doubts and queries. First he turned to a Stoic, but as he taught nothing of G.o.d, _Justin_ was unsatisfied. He next went to a Peripatetic teacher, then to a Pythagorean, but failed to find what he desired. The Platonist at last gave him something. Walking alone along the beach, and musing over _Plato"s_ principles, he met an old man who referred him to the truth of Christianity, to the Prophets and the Apostles: "They alone have seen the truth and proclaimed it unto man, they were afraid of no one, knew no fear; yielded to no opinion; filled with the Holy Ghost, they spoke only what they saw and heard. The Scriptures are still extant, and he who takes them up will find in them a treasure of information about principles and ultimate things, and all else the philosopher must know, if he believes them."(14) And _Justin_ found truth and peace, and bowed to the yoke of the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
What a striking contrast between this serious love of truth in the days of pa.s.sing heathendom, and the uncontrolled thinking of so many in our Christian age! To them truth is no longer a sacred treasure, a yoke to be a.s.sumed in reverence; it has become the plaything of their impressions and inclinations. Indeed, they consider it a burden to accept the old Christian truth, with which they meet on all their ways.
Chapter III. The Bitter Fruit.
The Vocation of Science.