CHAPTER ONE

THE RELIGIOUS RESPONSE

NO LEADING human interest or social institution is more provocative of controversy than religion. Even upon a question of fundamental fact like that of the place and importance of religion in human culture, different views are possible and defensible. When we consider how religion has endured through the long course of social history and how its vital spirit has survived innumerable changes of outward form, we may be convinced that it stands as a permanent and necessary expression of human nature, essential to human life, inseparable from human experience. The hostile influences which now attack it seem no more likely to work its destruction than are the

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storm winds to destroy the granite mountain peak against which they blow. But when we think of the way in which other cultural influences, scientific and ethical, have steadily encroached upon religion, we seem driven, in spite of ourselves perhaps, to the opposite conclusion. In particular is this the case when we think of how the advance of scientific knowledge has undermined the authority and diminished the prestige of religion.

Seen in the light of these tendencies religion appears as a provisional and pre-scientific interpretation of the human world. It appears as a temporary stage inevitable in the development of human culture but equally certain to give way and disappear as man progresses to more intelligent interpretations of his own life and environment. Even now in Western civilization we seem to see the influence of religion waning and approaching extinction as scientific knowledge becomes

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more widespread and scientific conclusions gain more general acceptance.

What do we mean by religion? Many definitions have been proposed and it would be interesting to review a number of the most successful. But it is not a definition that we want, at least not in the textbook sense of a formal statement which will apply to all historic forms of religion from the totemism of primitive man and the fetishism of the savage to enlightened Judaism and Buddhism and Christianity. What we should have clearly in mind before we begin any discussion of the present-day problems of religion is a descriptive statement on which we can agree, as true to the distinctive character of religion, true to that germ of meaning which has persisted through the long and devious courses of social history, has vitalized a bewildering number of savage superstitions and fanciful mythologies, and has finally

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come to articulate expression in systematized religious belief.

On one point there is certainty. Religion is an expression or attitude of human nature in its entirety, of the whole man, not of any particular part or special faculty. This is a fundamental truth, one too obvious, it would seem, to be ignored or denied. Yet it has been ignored and virtually denied. The reason is that students of a complex response like the religious tend to become interested in some one special aspect or phase of it, to concentrate their attention upon this aspect, to emphasize it at the expense of all others, and finally to put it in place of the whole. So in the case of religion, we have had very able writers maintaining that religion was essentially belief, belief in super-personal powers or deities. We have had others identifying it primarily with a mode of emotion like the feeling of awe or of adoration or of

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dependence, and still others finding its essence in acts of worship or of ritualistic performance. But such one-sided and partial interpretations are now unanimously rejected; it is agreed that the religious response involves the whole nature of man and thus affects his thinking, his states of feeling, and his acts.

Understanding then that religion is a response of an intelligent human nature in its entirety and also that since man is essentially a social being any such response of his whole nature will have its social reference and implications, we next ask: What object or stimulus calls forth this response? An answer in harmony with contemporary tendencies of thought would perhaps be that religion is a response on the part of the human individual to the moral and social values which he holds supreme. There is truth in this: we all recognize that religious faith in

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its developed form is concerned with our moral and social ideals, with the fulfillment of our human hopes and aspirations, with the realization of our social purposes and our personal ideals. But it is more than this. What the more is, is indicated by a famous ,definition of religion as faith in the “conservation” of values.¹ Such faith in the conservation of values, if it has any distinctive meaning, necessarily looks beyond our human nature and its purposes and ideals to the nature of the world, to the character of the encompassing universe. It affirms that the values which we rate highest are grounded in the nature of the existing world; it affirms that the universe is such as to guarantee the realization of these values.

Religion, therefore, is not merely a response to valued objects, to ideals of excellence and worth; it is also a response to the real universe.

1    Hoffding, Philosophy of Religion, p. 10ff.

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Indeed it is, primarily, a response of the intelligent human individual to Universal Reality. Objection to this statement may undoubtedly be made on the ground that it attributes to the average man an interest in what is really a metaphysical abstraction. The vast majority of human beings, it will be said, have never even thought of “reality with a capital R,” of the Universe as the philosopher conceives it. They are concerned only with the particular situations and circumstances which arise in their own daily lives, are interested only in that part of the earth they happen to inhabit, and are aware of the natural world only as it affects the local conditions under which they carry on the business of living.

Of course it would be absurd to suppose that his religion makes a metaphysician out of the ordinary man or that it gives him an interest in the philosophical problem of the

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Ultimate Reality. By “Universal Reality” as the object which calls forth the religious response something is meant admittedly vague. Something not definitely conceived after the mamer of philosophy but none the less real for that: the cosmic background of human life; the total scheme of things. From time to time the average man is reminded of this cosmic background of his own life and activities by the uncertainty, the hazards, and the mystery of human life, features which force themselves upon his notice in a multitude of ways and a variety of circumstances, in periods of crisis and danger, at times of triumph and fulfillment) in moments of yearning and aspiration, in the bitterness of disappointment and the hopelessness of grief. On such occasions he is reminded that birth and duration of life; the preservation of health and personal vigor, the unfolding of plans and the fruition of friendship, are for him as for all

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human beings it's the control of natural forces which link up somehow with the cosmic sys. tem. Through the use of his own intelligence and the knowledge gained by his fellows he can, within comparatively narrow limits, predict the incidence Of these forces and hence foresee and control his Own future. But in spite of the widening area of human control

each man knows that his life ends as it began, in mystery; his successes, so impressive when viewed at short range, serve merely to accentuate his helplessness in the vast driftings of cosmic weather. Every man, as we say, owes his debt to nature: so every man is eventually, brought face to face with the “total scheme of things.”

And religion is his personal response to this “total scheme of things.” What, kind of response? we next inquire. The religious response is an affirmation on man's part of his personal confidence in the Supreme Cosmic

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Power. Now all expressions of confidence can have but one rational ground or source. We only trust that which we deem trust-worthy. The basis of our confidence in any Object is always some valuable quality or qualities which we have found in it. In the case of a machine it is its steadiness and efficiency of operation which we rely on, for these are the qualities a machine must have if it is reproduce the results we desire. So in case of the Universe the ground of the confidence we feel in it is an inherent excellence we believe it to possess. But in this case it is much more than uniformity and efficiency in mode Of Operation.

When we respond to the Supreme Cosmic Power with religious faith, we are not expecting, if our faith is at all intelligent, to obtain from it any of the particular Objects Or results which we as individuals happen to desire. It is not even our individual interests as we understand them, or

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the private ambitions we have cherished, which we rely on the Universe to gain or to promote for us. We are not attributing to the Universe any special solicitude for, or sympathy with, these private schemes and ambitions of ours. What we have in mind is rather the objects and experiences to which we as intelligent persons attach intrinsic or absolute value the insights and achievements, the loyalties and sympathies, of personal life and association. It is these values whose reality is at stake. And if we do feel a personal confidence in the Supreme Cosmic Power (as the religious man does) this means that we affirm the ultimate reality of, the real conservation of, these values. We have confidence in the Universe because we believe it is essentially good and will make goodness prevail.

The religious response we thus recognize as an expression of confidence in Universal

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Reality. Its effect is to reassure the human individual when confronted with the ultimate issues of life, to reassure him since it seems to guarantee the reality of those values which he in moments of clearest thought and widest vision holds highest. We can be still more explicit in characterizing the religious response, although we cannot go far in this direction without anticipating conclusions to be later arrived at as the result of analysis and argument. The values to which religion ascribes an ultimate and conquering reality are, as was just pointed out, those which our reason recognizes as intrinsic and absolute. Now, they are all values of personal achievement and association. They may seem, it is true, to take on an impersonal form when conceived as Truth or Power or Progress or Beauty. But Truth and Power and Progress and Beauty imply in their attainment mutual insight and community of understanding,

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co-operation and fellowship, love and intelligent sympathy, on the part of intelligent persons. Hence the values in question, recognized by reason as highest, are values realized in intelligent community and through personal association.

To believe, as religion does, that these values are ultimately real is to believe that there is in the Universe an enduring appreciation of these values and a prevailing power and purpose to realize them. If, however, this much is implied in faith in the ultimate conservation of values, religion in effect discovers common ground between human nature and the cosmic reality. The two are linked together by their appreciation of the insights and activities of intelligent community and personal association. This kinship makes possible personal communion. So the religious response tends to develop by inner logic of its own., from confidence in, to communion

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With, God, in such communion religious faith finds confirmation and fulfillment. For it not merely gives assurance Of the reality of the highest personal and social values; it realizes these values in actual experience.

Religion we then understand as an expression of confidence on the part of human beings, individually or collectively, in the goodness of the real universe, which leads to communion With the Power or powers believed to control it.