THE PRECINCT OF RELIGION

IN THE CULTURE OF HUMANITY

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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

ELIGION is as old as man; philosophy of religion is confined to modern thought. The religious consciousness may be traced as far back as human culture and civilization, but the problem of religion was not raised until the opening of the seventeenth century. The vast orient which gave the religious fact, and which, once for all, performed the religious deed, did not possess the intensity necessary for deducing the religious idea. From the East comes the content of religion, from the West its form. Among ancient Mediterranean speculations, we find that Plato, with his worthy views of the human mind, and Aristotle, with his extensive comprehension of human nature, did not isolate and discuss the religious problem as such, but remained content in the plastic and contemplative spirit peculiar to the antique. Stoicism, the earnestness of whose thinking gave us ideas of nature, humanity, conscience, rights, and progress, as well as suitable terms for the expression of their meaning, likewise contributed the idea of religion. This service, however, was largely confined to terminology, and the result of the invention of the word was expended wholly upon the side of etymology. Philology is not philosophy, and the idea and consciousness of religion remained implicit until the natural religious discussion of modern times.

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In modern philosophy, two periods have contrived to produce a philosophy of religion: first, there came the age of enlightenment which covered the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; then, there followed the period of culture from the French Revolution to the present. Here there was analysis which culminated in the Kantian philosophy; there was found synthetic movement which had its beginning with German idealism. For religion the propelling force was, first, a juristic tendency which had its source in the philosophy of natural rights; secondly, an æsthetical influence incident upon the current problem of culture. That modernity should evince the religious idea should not be deemed paradoxical, nor must it be assumed that the problem of religion arose serenely as one question among several. The very bent of modernity was destined to call forth the thought of religion, and the programme which the modern laid down for himself made this a necessary part.

In seeking to account for those modern conditions which have made religious thought possible, history must investigate something more than clearly marked periods and leading personalities. The very tendency and direction of modern philosophy incline toward religion in a manner no less forceful and direct. Here may be noted the strong dualistic movement which acted as the cause of our modern philosophic science, and that equally invincible impulse on the part of thought to return to first principles. In each case the religious principle was involved in both a general and specific manner, and the undercurrent of modern speculation seems to have been directed toward the religious precinct. The reason for this consists in the fact that religion lies in the depths of man's spiritual nature, and when thought creates vast divisions in the human understanding and returns to fundamental principles in the life of mankind, the connection between living religion and speculative philosophy is more easily made out. Breach with the world of appearance and tradition and

the return to a fundamental ground are the very elements which religious speculation needs, and hereby does religion itself become a problem.

I. So invariable is the dualism which pervades our modern thought that it may be regarded as essential to our problem. Upon the psychological side, a beginning could not be made until Descartes created a fundamental distinction between mind and body. It is true that the way in which this distinction is expressed, as the contrast between two substances known as res cogitans and res extensa, can hardly satisfy our psychical and physical theories to-day, but the Cartesian dualism was necessary for presenting the psychological problem. In the same way, modern dualism appears in Kant where it assumes the form of sense and understanding, or phenomenon and noumenon. Here again, we may dissent from the peremptory fashion in which Kant seeks to solve the problems of empiricism and rationalism, yet we cannot fail to observe how germane to the modern was the distinction between appearance and reality. So far as historical facts in philosophy may indicate necessary thought, it may be said that problems of mind and of thought could arise and be discussed only as the thinker separated mind from matter and thought from sensation. The vigour with which this was done caused a shock, the reverberation of which we feel even to-day.

Nor were the practical problems of life exempt from this diremptive tendency, for here as well was made distinction which set the speculator against himself and divided the moderns into party-thinkers. The ethical problem, introduced by Hobbes and thoroughly presented by the thinkers who opposed or corrected his doctrines, was subject to the same influence. Here was a hedonism which based all moral sanction upon some heteronomous principle, while there was an intuitionism appealing to the autonomy of reason. Thus the modern took sides in the conflict between natural desire and rational duty. In the field of æsthetics, there was aroused somewhat the same conflict

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and there appeared the same dualistic agency. Accordingly, taste was defined in terms of pleasure which appealed to the senses, or after the manner of perfection which partook of reason and spirit. Likewise the philosophy of rights which set up abiding contrasts between jus and lex. When Puffendorf, from his chair of international law, endeavoured to adjust the claims of ego and society, as these had been set forth by Hobbes and Grotius, he evinced the keen nature of the problem at hand. Thus the issues of man's life which would be expected to leave him happy in the sense of his humanity, move against him and make his life a problem.

Religion itself, which naturally profited by a view which separated man from the world about him and emancipated him from his immediate consciousness, was to participate in exactly the same spirit of dualism. Here it became something more than an academic dispute, and assumed the form of a great religious conflict. On the one side was the newly discovered principle of reason, which was set at variance with the medieval idea of tradition, and this contrast between ratio and traditio was destined to emancipate human nature. In perfect keeping with this strident separation of reason and culture was the conflict between freedom and authority. In this distinction between libertas and auctoritas, there was involved the principle of free-thought, as also the whole programme of toleration. Hereby the religious consciousness of man was liberated and philosophy of religion became a possibility. Tradition which had been the guide of the fathers, and authority which played the same part with the Schoolmen, were now set at naught; no longer was it argued de religionis non est disputandam, but the essence of religion became a leading problem. Thus with mind and body, noumenon and phenomenon, jus and lex, religion and revelation, the modern inaugurated the religious problem.

In immediate connection with this dualistic tendency was that philosophical impulse which led the early modern