Author: Albert C. Knudson
[p. 146]
PHILOSOPHY does not enjoy the prestige it once did. It has in modern times surrendered one field of inquiry after another to the empirical sciences, so that some predict its fate will be like that of King Lear, who divided his goods among his children and then was himself cast out as a beggar upon the street. The actual outlook for it, to be sure, is not so discouraging as this. But it is true that its right to a place in the university curriculum alongside of the special sciences has been called in question, and it is also true that among philosophers themselves there are wide differences of opinion as to its true nature and function. There is in philosophy no generally accepted body of knowledge such as there is in science. Indeed, there is a question as to whether the conclusions reached in philosophy can be called knowledge in the proper sense of the term.
Still, in spite of these uncertainties, philosophy cannot be dispensed with. We each have a philosophy, whether we will or no. The rejection of metaphysics is itself a metaphysics. No thinking person can escape having a world-view of some sort, and the most significant thing about him is perhaps the world-view which he consciously or unconsciously holds. Men struggle for their world-view. They do [p. 147] so on the field of battle, they do so in their cultural life. Indeed, culture is largely the result of the struggle for different world-views. People support their own particular world-view with arguments of one kind and another, and in this way philosophy in the more specialized sense of the term arises. One type of philosophy, such, for instance, as the Aristotelian, may for a time become so dominant as -to be synonymous with philosophy itself, and in that case a reaction may set in against all philosophy, [1] but the reaction turns out to be itself only another type of philosophy. On the other hand, the fact that there is often so much disagreement among philosophers may give rise to a prejudice against philosophy in general, but the prejudice when thought through proves to be itself a philosophy. It is only philosophy that can displace philosophy. Even though philosophy may then have lost some of its former prestige, it by no means follows 1 that its power is broken. It remains consciously or unconsciously about as potent a force as ever in the intellectual life of the world, and it is, therefore, important to determine the relation of theology to it as well as to science.
In the preceding chapter we distinguished philosophy along with theology from science by saying that it has to do with metaphysical reality while science is concerned with the phenomenal realm. And as applied to much of the philosophy of the past this [p. 148] way of stating the distinction would perhaps be quite generally accepted as substantially correct. But it does not hold for much of current philosophy. As there are both a positivistic and a metaphysical interpretation of science, so there are both a positivistic and a metaphysical conception of philosophy. The positivistic type has wide vogue at present; it is the popular philosophy of the day. It decries metaphysics. It seeks to be empirical and scientific in method, and professes to differ from the special sciences only in its scope. What it aims to be is a systematization of the sciences. [2] But it also differs from them in another important respect. It is dogmatic. It affirms that knowledge is limited to the empirical sciences, and in so doing ceases itself to be scientific. Pure science has nothing to say about the limits of human knowledge. Such affirmations are philosophical in the older sense of the term.
Philosophy in its traditional form is commonly divided into epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, and metaphysics, or the theory of reality. Both of these are nominally rejected by the philosophical “modernist.” But as a matter of fact epistemology is a presupposition of the positivistic quite as much as the metaphysical type of philosophy. No philosophy is complete without a theory of knowledge. Epistemology is the necessary foundation alike of [p. 149] metaphysics and of anti-metaphysics. No one is warranted either in affirming or denying the possibility of a knowledge that transcends experience until he has inquired into the nature, conditions, and limits of human thought. At this point the positivistic and metaphysical philosophies are agreed. They are antithetical in their conclusions; but they both, insofar as they are logical and critical, necessarily begin with a study of the problem of knowledge and in that respect transcend the sphere of the empirical sciences.
The positivistic type of philosophy differs, then, from pure science in its greater range, in its taking account of the epistemological problem, and in its anti-metaphysical dogmatism. The last feature is the one that is most characteristic. While it constitutes a point of difference with science, it is also a point of kinship with it, so that positivism in its various forms has come to be known as the “scientific philosophy” of the day. It limits knowledge to the realm covered by the empirical sciences, and by means of its epistemology erects this limitation into a dogma. It thus breaks down the traditional distinction between the method of philosophy and that of science. The same method, we are told, is to be followed in both. [3] Philosophy, like science, has ultimately to do merely with the relation and correlation of facts, with description. For it, as Paul Natorp [p. 150] said, “The way is everything, the goal is nothing.” It recognizes no purpose and no power back of the world of experience. It sees in the phenomenal order simply a “flapping drapery hanging upon no solid form, but folded round the empty outline of a ghost.” [4] Such a philosophy can manifestly lend no positive support to Christian theology. In a negative and indirect way, however, its aid has occasionally been invoked by theologians. It has, for instance, been pointed out that positivism implies the overthrow of materialism; and since materialism has in the past been the great foe of religion, its overthrow, we are told, is a distinct service to faith. But to invoke the aid of positivism in overthrowing materialism is very much like casting out devils by means of Beelzebub. One set of demons is thus disposed of, but another demon takes their place. For positivism with its negative attitude toward the superworld is quite as hostile to religion as is materialism. Indeed, Karl Pearson goes so far as to say: “Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that in materialism lies the next lease of life for theology.” [5] By this he apparently means that materialism affirms the reality of a metaphysical something called matter. What this “something” is we do not know, and since it is unknowable, the theologian can safely take refuge in it. He can claim for it the support of philosophic materialism, and then with the aid of revelation transform it into an object of worship. [6] But whether such an alliance [p. 151] between theology and materialistic agnosticism is possible or not, positivism as over against materialism offers no real aid or comfort to religion.
Another way in which some theologians have tried to turn positivism to their account has been to treat its agnosticism as proof of the metaphysical bankruptcy of the human mind and hence as evidence of man’s need of a divine and authoritative revelation. If men were able through their own reason to arrive at a knowledge of God, a divine revelation would hardly seem to be necessary; at the most, it would serve as a supplement, more or less valuable, to man’s native insight. But if men are entirely incapable through their reason of arriving at a knowledge of God, as they are according to the positivistic philosophy, it is evident that a supernatural revelation is 1 absolutely necessary if he is to be known at all. Those who are interested in maintaining the necessity of an objective authority in religion, consequently, find in philosophical skepticism a natural foil to their authoritarianism. It has often been so in the history of Christian thought. The tendency in that direction was strong at the time of the Reformation. Luther denounced in unmeasured terms the dominant Aristotelian philosophy, seeing in the helplessness of reason a ground for affirming the necessity and sole authority of Revelation. This tendency has reappeared in modern theology, especially in Germany, where it has been closely associated with Neo-Kantian positivism. Such a use of philosophical positivism, however, has never been thoroughgoing, and has always involved a transformation of positivism [p. 152] itself. As the handmaid of theology positivism wears a very different mien from what it does in its native heath. Pure and unadulterated positivism is naturalistic, dogmatically and arrogantly so. It leaves no place for a divine revelation, and for it to be yoked with the latter puts it in a position that is foreign to its native purpose and spirit. Between the two there is and can be no inner bond of union. Only as the positivistic philosophy lays aside its arrogance and its anti-theistic cast, only as it assumes the role of intellectual humility, can it become the ally of biblical authoritarianism, and by that time it has lost much of its distinctive character as a philosophy.
The theology with which positivism in this modified form has been allied has been both conservative and liberal. In the one case the positivistic principle has been used to support the idea of an objective authority, either biblical or ecclesiastical; in the other it has been employed in the interest of the independence and primacy of the emotional or practical nature. The latter is illustrated by the Ritschlian theology. Here the idea of an external and coercive authority is renounced, and revelation is interpreted in a vital and practical instead of an intellectualistic sense. A certain normative and authoritative character is ascribed to revelation, but both the authority and content of revelation are grounded in the spiritual capacity and receptivity of man rather than in anything objectively miraculous. Faith, in other words, takes the place of miracle as the foundation of Christian truth. It gives man the insight which [p. 153] on the positivistic basis cannot be attained through the intellect. It is itself not miraculous in character, and hence the contrast between the view of the world which it implies and that of naturalistic positivism may not seem quite so sharp as in the case of the older supernaturalism. But the content and spirit of the two world-views are totally different, and the attempt to hold them both by making one independent of the other results in an intolerable dualism. No satisfactory working agreement between positivistic agnosticism and the Christian faith in either its authoritarian or liberal form can be established.
We turn then to the metaphysical type of philosophy. And here we distinguish between an intellectually grounded metaphysics and a morally or spiritually grounded metaphysics. It is Kant to whom we chiefly owe this distinction. He rejected metaphysics in its older intellectualistic form, and sought to re-establish it on a moral basis. He found in conscience an adequate ground for affirming God, freedom, and immortality. These affirmations do not rise to the plane of knowledge in the strict sense of the term. They, rather, express a faith; but it is a rationally grounded faith, a faith inherent in the practical reason.
This morally grounded or “faith” metaphysics has been developed in various ways since the time of Kant. In recent years it has come to be known as the philosophy of value, and has been most conspicuously represented by the pragmatism of William [p. 154] James and the transcendental idealism of Windelband and Kickert. Neither of, these philosophic movements contains a clean-cut and coherent metaphysic. But both stress the idea that the needs and aspirations of men warrant our making affirmations concerning reality. These affirmations may not be objectively valid, but they are at least in principle justified; and if they can be shown to represent permanent needs of the human spirit they may be accepted as verified. In this way the door is opened to a metaphysical philosophy.
The philosophy thus arrived at stands midway between modern positivism and the Platonic-Aristotelian intellectualism. To the former because of its anti-metaphysical dogmatism it denies the character of true philosophy, and the latter it charges with ascribing to the pure reason powers which it does not possess. Positivism, so far as it is true, is science, not philosophy; and the traditional intellectualistic theism is negated by the Kantian criticism. Kant taught us that knowledge in the strict sense of the term is limited to experience. What lies beyond that can only be an object of faith. This, we are told, is his great contribution to philosophy. He transformed it into a faith-philosophy. His doctrine of the creative activity of thought, which is often singled out as his greatest achievement, is intellectualistic in character and really belongs to the philosophy of the past. The new and most significant thing in his teaching was his doctrine of the primacy of the practical reason. It was this that inaugurated a new era in the history of philosophy. Henceforth, it is [p. 155] claimed, all true philosophy must be a philosophy of value or of faith, a philosophy for which “the goal is everything, the way nothing.” [7] But the faith expressed in philosophy is one that is being constantly translated into logical forms and into reasoned convictions, and so philosophy takes on both a scientific and a religious character. It “distinguishes itself from religion,” says Kaftan, “in that it is science, and from science in that it is religion.” [8]
Such a practical view of philosophy is naturally congenial to the Christian religion, especially in its Protestant form. Indeed, it has been maintained that this particular type of philosophy is “the philosophy of Protestantism”; and because of his supposed advocacy of it Kant has been called “the philosopher of Protestantism.” The point on which stress has been laid in this connection has been the practical character of the Protestant conception of faith. In Roman Catholicism faith meant intellectual assent. This was the view that naturally fitted in with its dogmatic and authoritarian system. As distinguished from it the reformers emphasized the volitional and emotional nature of faith. With them faith meant decision, trust, something far deeper than the mere assent of the mind. And in this conception, since faith is the organ of religious knowledge, it was implied that the profoundest insights come to us through the will and feeling, rather than through the perceptual and logical faculty. Kant laid hold of this truth, and in his doctrine of the primacy of the [p. 156] practical reason made it basal in his system. A new approach to philosophy was thus introduced, and a new conception of its nature. At present, says Windelband, “We do not so much expect from philosophy what it was formerly supposed to give, a theoretic scheme of the world, a synthesis of the results of the separate sciences, or, transcending them on lines of its own, a scheme harmoniously complete in itself; what we expect from philosophy to-day is reflection on those permanent values which have their foundation in a higher spiritual reality above the changing interests of the times.” [9] A philosophy of this type, whether it eventuates in a clearly defined metaphysics or not, is manifestly favorable to religious belief. It holds to the objectivity of values, and so takes at least an important step in the direction of personalistic theism.
At this point a difference of opinion emerges as to the way in which the knowledge of the higher realm of values is arrived at. The Kantian tradition favors what might be called the postulatory method. According to it, we have no direct experience of the supersensible world. The existence of such a realm is implied in our moral and spiritual nature, but it is not given to us in experience. It is a postulate, an object of faith, not an intuition. The idea that we have an immediate experience of the Divine Kant regarded as fanatical. But in spite of Kant -this “mystical” view has had wide currency in Protestant circles and is to-day contesting the field with the postulatory [p. 157] or “faith” theory. At first it miglit seem as though these two theories were necessarily opposed to each other, and this they would be if the mystical experience were wholly unmediated. But such it is not. All articulate, experience is subjectively conditioned, and so it is with mystical experience. It is conditioned by faith. Without faith there would be no mystic-state, and without the immediacy of mysticism the faith-state would never become a vital conviction. It is, then, possible to combine the mystical theory of religious knowledge with the “faith” theory, implied in the Kantian doctrine of the primacy of the practical reason.
This ethical or ethico-mystical philosophy has had a pronounced influence on modern theology. The Ritschlian theology is, to a large extent, based upon it. Indeed, Ritschlianism might be said to be the philosophy of value applied to the field of Christian theology. Its distinction between judgments of being and judgments of worth presupposes an ethically grounded metaphysics. By means of this distinction new light has been thrown upon the nature of religious faith, and a new bond of connection established between it and the higher faiths of men in general. All these faiths are idealizing processes, and all rest upon the fundamental conviction that the gleaming ideal is the everlasting real. It was this conviction that Lotze had in mind when he said, “The true beginning of Metaphysic lies in ethics. … I seek in that which should be the ground of that which is.” [10] A philosophy thus founded has manifestly a religious [p. 158] motive and is at bottom akin to religion. It justifies in principle religious belief, and leaves room for an independent Christian theology, a theology which stands in its own right and which requires no other support than that furnished by the Christian religion itself.
But however comforting such a philosophy may be from the religious point of view, there are serious objections to it, when taken as complete in itself. For one thing, it assumes too sharp a contrast between the theoretical and the practical reason. The theoretical reason is supposed to stand by itself, to be free from subjective interest, and to be guided solely by its own categories and by the pressure of objective events. It recognizes simply the factual order and the reign of law in it. It is, therefore, mechanistic and deterministic. The practical reason, on the other hand, takes its cue from the will and the ideals of life. It stresses freedom and an objective moral order. It thus runs directly counter to the naturalism of the theoretical reason. But such a conception of the theoretical reason is quite mistaken. The theoretical reason is not sufficient unto itself. It cannot take the first step toward knowledge without faith faith in the intelligibility of the world and faith in our ability to understand it and such faith is practical in nature. It is an assumption whose truth cannot be demonstrated. Furthermore, the theoretical reason is not deterministic. Determinism, if logically carried out, would mean the overthrow of all knowledge. Only through freedom can the possibility of knowledge be harmonized with the [p. 159] fact of error. It is 1, then, a serious mistake to assume that there is a sharp antithesis between the theoretical and the practical reason, and that the former is entirely disinterested and necessarily mechanistic in its view of the world. The very unity of the human spirit renders such a dualistic view inherently improbable.
Another objection to a philosophy or metaphysics that is exclusively grounded in the moral or spiritual nature is that it unduly limits the range and function of the intellect. It assumes or maintains that the theoretical reason is incapable of transcending the phenomenal order. With merely its aid we can never know the thing-in-itself. Speculation gives us no insight into ultimate reality. But such a dogmatic limitation of knowledge is, as we have seen, unwarranted. We cannot very well escape the idea that there is a power or energy back of the world of appearance, nor can we very well avoid thinking about it. And if we are warranted in thinking about it, there would seem to be nothing violent in the supposition that there are a more correct and a less correct way of conceiving it. No matter how baffling the universe may be, we instinctively and inevitably believe that it is intelligible. All science presupposes that it is such; and on that supposition we must hold that it conforms to the laws of reason. We must believe that reality is rational. And if so, not only are we justified in seeking to form a self-consistent view of it, but it is our duty as philosophers to do so. To draw a line at the gateway to ultimate reality and to say to the human intellect, “Thus far mayest thou [p. 160] come but no farther,” is an act of caprice, not of reason.
It has still further been objected to an exclusive philosophy of value that it leads to illusionism. This objection is valid only to a limited extent. It is true that our first and firmest persuasion of reality comes from sense-perceptions and logical deductions from them, and that natural science, consequently, has come to be with many the signature of truth. In contrast with it the realm of the ideal and every philosophy based upon it seem unreal. In science reality is forced upon us and we are compelled to accept it, whether we will or no; in the philosophy of value or of faith, on the other hand, we have to do with hopes and wishes, and these may be far removed from the real. To base a philosophy or theology exclusively on value-judgments seems, therefore, to desert the solid ground of objective reality and to launch forth upon a sea of dreams. But while this seeming has some justification and while the philosophy of value is weakened by its complete detachment from the theoretical reason, it is a mistake to suppose that it logically leads to illusionism. The element of faith or of value in knowledge by no means discredits it. For all knowledge of reality implies faith. And the faith of science is logically no more valid than the faith of religion. Each is ultimate and stands in its own right. We may, then, with a good conscience base our philosophy of reality upon the moral and spiritual nature of man; but if we rest it there exclusively, we lose to some extent the note of objectivity characteristic of the theoretical reason, and [p. 161] expose ourselves needlessly to the charge of subjetivism.
From the purely ethical metaphysics we turn now to the third type of philosophy, which we have described as an intellectually grounded metaphysics. The latter has taken three main forms that of materialism, pantheism, and theism. Materialism denies both the reality and worth of spirit and thus negates religion. Faith can form no alliance with it. We need, therefore, take no account of it. Pantheism also in its more radical and distinctive form is destructive of faith, for it denies freedom and reduces: spirit to the level of things. It virtually makes spirit 1 one with matter and in so doing starts on the road to j materialism; for when spirit and matter are put on I the same plane, the latter always proves itself the stronger. [11] We need not consequently here concern ourselves with it. Theism with its teleological and idealistic implications is the only form of metaphysics with which the Christian faith can ally itself. Every other metaphysic leads eventually to skepticism and despair.
In speaking of theism as an intellectually grounded metaphysic we are not, however, to suppose that it rests on a purely theoretical basis. No philosophy does, not even materialism or pantheism. Every philosophy is based to some extent on practical considerations. Either negatively or positively it is to [p. 162] some degree a philosophy of value, whether it is aware of it or not. Every philosopher, in spite of himself, has his bias. But a distinction may nevertheless be drawn between a pure philosophy of value and a philosophy that bases itself on the theoretical as well as the practical reason. It is in the latter sense that we speak of theism as an intellectually grounded metaphysic. It does not exclude practical considerations; it gives large place to moral values; but it also appeals to the theoretical reason and finds support in it.
Against theism in this traditional sense of the term the charge of “intellectualism” is frequently made. And by intellectualism is meant the view that the truth of religion can be established by arguments of a purely theoretical character. That such a view of the theistic “proofs” was not infrequently taken in the past, is no doubt true. It was believed that the existence of God could be “demonstrated.” But since the time of Kant this view has been quite generally relinquished by theistic writers. It is now seen that strict demonstration is impossible when it conies to objective reality. All knowledge rests on faith. This is true of God as of objective reality in general. And in the case of God it is chiefly moral faith on which knowledge rests. But moral faith may and needs to be supplemented by theoretical considerations; and in this supplementary way the inductive and speculative arguments in support of religious belief have a permanent value. Such is the position taken by current philosophic theism. Nevertheless, against it the old charge of intellectualism and scholasticism [p. 163] is still made. The assumption seems to be that in the field of religious belief the theoretical reason in any form is an intruder and that it must be forthwith banished if the gospel of the purely practical nature of religion is not to be contaminated.
Various objections have been raised against any attempt at an intellectual grounding of religion. For one thing, such a grounding is said to be necessarily inadequate. And this is no doubt true in the sense that no theoretical proof can yield the full religious idea of God. But no theist to-day, so far as I know, puts forth such a claim. Again, it is objected that philosophic theism places undue stress upon the doctrinal element in religion such as the belief in God and personal immortality. Religion, we are told, is something other and older than these beliefs. And this too may be true. But religion in its present and highest form has so completely expressed itself in these beliefs that without them there would be very little of value left in religion. The Christian faith stands or falls with them; and if so, traditional theism cannot have been far astray in centering attention upon them.
Another objection to the theoretical justification of religion is that it does not square with the actual grounds of religious belief. People, as a matter of fact, do not believe in God because of the proofs that have been offered of his existence. Faith with them is instinctive. It springs up spontaneously in their lives. Various causes contribute to its genesis, but its justification it finds within itself. It is self-evidencing. It is based on direct spiritual insight. At [p. 164] least such is the form that it takes in vital piety; and if in this respect it is mistaken, it can lay no claim to truth. If it is not in itself trustworthy, no argument can make it such. We must, then, assume the validity of faith or fall into skepticism. And if so, our task as theologians should be, not to prove the truth of religion, but to show how faith is actually produced, to exhibit its inner nature and grounds. When once produced, it justifies itself.
The trouble with this position is that it fails to distinguish between the psychological causes of faith and its logical grounds. The psychological causes are numerous and from the practical point of view are worthy of careful study. In the actual religious life of men they are far more important than the logical grounds of faith. But this does not mean that they are self-sufficient or that they justify faith. Nor does it mean that faith has no logical grounds, or no need of them. These grounds may not have the significance that was once attributed to them; and they certainly are not essential to faith; nor do they impeach its self-verifying power. But they do serve as supplements to it; and the fact that the direction of attention to them has historically followed rather than preceded faith, does not impair their worth.
Yet the further objection is raised against an intellectually grounded theism that it is superfluous, both logically and practically superfluous. [12] The argument from the moral consciousness, we are told, represents the actual source of religious faith. It alone, [p. 165] therefore, has any real practical value. Then, too, if valid at all, it establishes the existence of God as well as his goodness, and hence there is no need of a purely theoretical argument to prove his existence and his intelligence. These are both involved in his moral character. The one argument from moral experience, consequently, is sufficient. We need no other.
But this line of reasoning implies a very one-sided view of human nature and of religious experience. The human mind has other interests than the ethical, and so has religion. There is no single factor in human life so isolated as to be completely self -sufficient. The moral consciousness may be the chief source of religious faith, but even if it were the sole source which it is not it would not make religious faith so independent as to need no support from the theoretical reason. The very fact that Christian philosophy throughout almost the whole history of the church has been theoretically as well as ethically grounded, is itself the most convincing evidence that the theoretical grounding of faith has not been devoid of practical value. Some have, no doubt, responded more readily to it than others, and many may have been cold to it; but to rule it out as worthless and superfluous is an arbitrary and doctrinaire procedure, entirely unwarranted by actual experience and by the constitution of human nature. Men are unitary beings and what they do along the religious line must find its echo in the parallel activity of thought. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Such has been the conviction of the church during the greater part of its history, despite the influence [p. 166] of authoritarian obscurantism and epistemological sophistry; and hence a working alliance has been quite steadily maintained between theology and the theoretical reason. The philosophy with which the main stream of Christian thought has allied itself has been naturally of the theistic type. But theism has taken various forms. In the course of its development it has gone through four main stages: the Platonic or Neoplatonic, the Aristotelian, the Cartesian, and the modern idealistic. It would be interesting and instructive to trace in detail the relation of each of these theistic philosophies to the Christian faith, but that would here take us too far afield.
It will suffice for our present purpose if we point out two or three common aspects of the theistic systems which have tended to confirm the Christian faith. [13] One has to do with the problem of knowledge. Christianity manifestly implies that the human kind is not limited to the sense plane, that it is able to transcend the empirical, to lay hold of the metaphysical. It does not define how this may be done. It talks about “revelation” and “faith,” but these are religious terms which cast no light upon the mental process by which the transcendental is apprehended. They do, however, imply that in some way or other the human mind does have power to grasp the supersensible. This power is sometimes conceived in an anti-intellectualistic sense, and a sharp distinction is, consequently, drawn between faith and knowledge. But this sharp distinction is, as we have seen, unwarranted. For there is no knowledge without faith, [p. 167] and no faith without more or less knowledge. The two imply each other. And if it be insisted that religious faith is entirely different from intellectual faith, it may be replied that logically one is as good as the other, and that the natural tendency will be for the two to stand or fall together. If faith in the metaphysical capacity of the intellect is denied, there is no good reason why faith in the metaphysical capacity of the religious nature should not also be rejected.
Any philosophy, therefore, which attributes transcendental powers to the human intellect, to that extent lends support to religious faith. And that theism in its four main forms has always done. It has given good grounds, though these differ to some extent in each of its main forms, for believing that the human reason is endowed with the capacity to think correctly concerning ultimate reality, and insofar as it has done this it has created a presumption in favor of the validity of .religious faith. If our intellectual nature is worthy of being trusted, it is -inherently probable that our religious nature also is.
A second philosophical problem in which Christian theology is deeply interested, is that of the “I.” Christianity affirms the reality of the self, of personality. This is one of its most characteristic doctrines, both as applied to man and to God. It holds to the survival of human personality after death, and it places the utmost emphasis upon the personality of God. It has also devoted an extraordinary amount of attention io the question as to how the personality of Christ should be conceived. With it the reality [p. 168] of personality is thus a subject of major concern. Its primary interests here as elsewhere are, of course, practical. But the practical needs the support of the theoretical, and this is especially so in connection with such a problem as that of personality. For to all appearances the human self is a mere bubble on the great sea of cosmic energy; it has no abiding reality. This conclusion has been proclaimed again and again in the materialistic and positivistic philosophies. To their negations it is, therefore, a matter of prime importance that an adequate response be made, if faith is to be at all rational. And this response is to be found in the theistic philosophies. They have realized that if there is no spirit in the microcosm, there can be no spirit in the macrocosm, and hence with united effort they have sought to establish the reality of the human spirit.
Two great contributions have been made toward this end. The first was the Platonic contention that spirit or personality is immaterial. It is, therefore, in its inner being independent of the body and need not necessarily cease to exist when the latter is dissolved. The second contribution is the modern insight into the fact that personality alone fills out the notion of being or reality. The real must provide for change, for this is a changing world; but if it is truly real, it must also in some sense abide and remain identical with itself. In a word, it must combine in itself identity and change, unity and plurality; and this, as a matter of fact, is done only in personality. We change and do many different things, yet through memory we remain or constitute ourselves one and [p. 169] the same. In this unique fact of self-consciousness we have, therefore, the key to reality. This insight and the allied insight into the immateriality of spirit give the lie to our sense prejudices, and thus prepare the way for and confirm the affirmations of faith. [14] Indeed, without these insights faith would find its personalistic assumptions unrelated to if not directly contradicted by reason; and this state of affairs could not but eventually prove detrimental to faith.
A third philosophical problem, which stands closely related to Christian theology, is that of causality. The idea of a real cause is implied in the Christian conception of God as Creator and in the Christian belief in Providence. To dissolve the principle of causality away by reducing it in positivistic fashion to a mere order of succession or coexistence, would then be to undermine these fundamental Christian doctrines. Faith, if it is to maintain its rationality, must ally itself with a philosophy which makes a place for real causality and for causality in its volitional form. Such a philosophy we have in a thoroughgoing theism. Here it is not only made clear that the idea of a real cause is essential to meet the mental demand for ground and connection, but it is also shown that only in its personal form can causality be thought through without self-contradiction. For causality implies change and it also implies permanence. There must be some abiding being that produces the change; otherwise the change would not be accounted for. And this union of permanence and [p. 170] change inherent in causality is found, as we have seen, only in personality. A personalistic philosophy thus solves the problem of metaphysical causality and at the same time furnishes a foundation for the Christian belief in the divine creatorship and providence. [15] From the foregoing discussion it is evident that there can be no theology without metaphysics, and it is also evident that there can be no adequate theology without a metaphysics that is theoretically as well as ethically grounded. But while theology thus stands closely related to metaphysical philosophy, it is not to be identified with it. It has its own distinctive character and its own method. This will be made clear in the next chapter.
This is illustrated by early Protestantism. Compare Georg Wobbermin, Theologie und Metaphysik, p. 5. ↩︎
According to John Dewey, philosophy is “a liaison officer between the conclusions of science and the modes of social and personal action through which attainable possibilities are projected and striven for.” Its true function is not the “knowledge of reality.” When it assumes this role, it becomes a “rival instead of a complement to the sciences” (The Quest for Certainty, pp. 309, 311). ↩︎
“Philosophy,” says Bertrand Russell, “is distinguished from science only by being more critical and more general” (Philosophy, p. 297). It is or should be as ethically disinterested as pure science. It can do nothing to ground men’s higher hopes (Our Knowledge of the External World, p. 37). ↩︎
James Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. I, p. 6. ↩︎
The Ethic of Free Thought, p. 40. ↩︎
See Die Gottesbeweise in der neueren deutschen philosophischen Literatur, by Dr. Franz Schulte, p. 20. ↩︎
J. Kaftan, Die Philosophic des Protestantismus, p. 388. ↩︎
Ibid., p. 241. ↩︎
Die Philosophie im deutschen Geistesleben des XIX Jahrhunderts, p. 119. ↩︎
Metaphysic, p. 536. ↩︎
See E. Troeltsch, Glaubenslehre, p. 68. ↩︎
Compare John Baillie, The Interpretation of Religion, pp. 92f., where this view is emphatically indorsed. ↩︎
Cf . Georg Wobbermin, Theologie und Metaphysik, p. 1901. ↩︎
See my Philosophy of Personalism, pp. 237-46. ↩︎
Cf . my Philosophy of Personalism, pp. 210-25. ↩︎