Theism. Flint Robert
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worshipper and the worshipped. What communion of reason can a man have with a being which does not understand him, or of affection with a being which has no love, or of will with a being which has no choice or freedom, and is the necessary cause both of good and evil? Pantheism represents absorption in Deity, the losing of self in God, as the highest good of humanity; but this is a mere caricature of that idea of communion with God in which religion must find its realisation, as pantheism leaves neither a self to surrender, nor a personal God to whom to surrender it. The absorption of the finite in the infinite which pantheism preaches is as different from that surrender of the self to God, which is the condition of God dwelling in us and we in God, as night is from day, as death is from life.
We find ample historical confirmation of what has just been said in the very instructive fact, that widespread as pantheism is, it has never in itself been the religion of any people. It has never been more than the philosophy of certain speculative individuals. India is no exception, for even there, in order to gain and retain the people, pantheism has had to combine with polytheism. It is the personal gods of Hindu polytheism and not the impersonal principle of Hindu pantheism that the Hindu people worship. The Sankhya and Vedanta systems are no more religions than the systems of Spinoza, Schelling, or Hegel. They are merely philosophies. Buddhism has laid hold of the hearts of men to a wonderful extent; not, however, in virtue of the pantheism, scarcely dis-tinguishable from atheism, which underlies it, but because of the attractiveness of the character and teaching of the Buddha Sakyamuni himself, of the man-god who came to save men. The human heart cries out for a living personal God to worship, and pantheism fails miserably as a religion because it wholly disregards, yea, despises that cry.
We are compelled to pass onwards, then, to theism. And here, applying the same view of religion as before, it soon becomes obvious that of the three great theistic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism – the last is far inferior to the other two, and the first is a transition to and preparation for the second. Although the latest of the three to arise, Mohammedanism is manifestly the least developed, the least matured. Instead of evolving and extending the theistic idea which it borrowed, it has marred and mutilated it. Instead of representing God as possessed of all spiritual fulness and perfection, it exhibits Him as devoid of the divinest spiritual attributes. Although the Suras of the Koran are all, with one exception, prefaced by the formula, "In the name of Allah, the God of mercy, the merciful," there is extremely little in them of the spirit of mercy, while they superabound in a fierce intolerance. Allah is set before us with clearness, with force, with intense sincerity, as endowed with the natural attributes which we ascribe to God, but only so as to exhibit very imperfectly and erroneously His moral attributes. He is set before us as God alone, beside whom there is none other; as the first and the last, the seen and the hidden; as eternal and unchanging; as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient; as the Creator, the Preserver, and the Judge of all; – but He is not set before us as truly righteous or even as truly reasonable, and still less as Love. He is set before us as an infinite and absolute arbitrary Will, the acts of which are right simply because they cannot be wrong, and which ordains its creatures and instruments to honour or dishonour, heaven or hell, without love or hate, without interest or sympathy, and on no grounds of fitness or justice.
His infinite exaltation above His creatures is recognised, but not His relationship to and interest in His creatures. His almighty power is vividly apprehended, but His infinite love is overlooked, or only seen dimly and in stray and fitful glimpses. His character is thus most imperfectly unveiled, and even seriously defaced; and, in consequence, a whole-hearted communion with Him is impossible. As an unlimited arbitrary Will He leaves man with no true will to surrender to Him. Inaccessible, without sympathy, jealous, and egoistic, His appropriate worship is servile obedience, blind submission – not the enlightened reverence and loving affection of the true piety in which mind and heart fully accord; unquestioning belief, passionless resignation, outward observances, mere external works – not the free use of reason, not the loving dependence of a child on its father, not an internal life of holiness springing from a divine indwelling source. God and man thus remain in this system, theistic although it be, infinitely separate from each other. Man is not made to feel that his whole spiritual being should live and rejoice in God; on the contrary, he is made to feel that he has scarcely any other relation to God than an inert instrument has to the hand which uses it. Submission to the will of God, whatever it may be, without recognition of its being the will of a Father who seeks in all things the good of His children, is the Mussulman's highest conception either of religion or duty, and consequently he ignores the central principle of religious communion and the strongest motive to moral action.
The theism of the Old Testament is incomparably superior to that of the Koran. It possesses every truth contained in Mohammedanism, while it gives due prominence to those aspects of the Divine character which Mohammedanism obscures and distorts. The unity and eternity of God, His omniscience, omnipresence, and inscrutable perfections, the wonders of His creative power, His glory in the heavens and on the earth, are described by Moses and the author of the Book of Job, by the psalmists and the prophets, in language so magnificent that all the intervening centuries have been unable to surpass it. And yet far greater stress is justly laid by them on the moral glory of God, which is reflected in so dim and broken and disproportionate a way through the visions of Mohammed. It is impossible to take a comprehensive view of the Old Testament dispensation without perceiving that its main aim, alike in its ceremonial observances, moral precepts, and prophetic teaching, was to open and deepen the sense of sin, to give reality and intensity to the recognition of moral law, to make known especially that aspect of God's character which we call His righteousness, His holiness. At the same time God is set forth as merciful, long-suffering, and gracious; as healing our diseases, redeeming our life, and crowning us with loving-kindnesses; as creating in us clean hearts, and desiring not sacrifice but a broken spirit.
Before the close of the Old Testament dispensation, a view of God's character had been attained as complete as could be reached through mere spiritual vision and expressed through mere words. The character of God was so disclosed that His people longed with their whole hearts for the blessedness of true spiritual communion with Him, and worthily apprehended what that communion ought to be. But with the widening of their views and the deepening of their longings as to this the supreme good, they realised the more how far they were from the attainment of it. From the beginning Judaism looked beyond itself and confessed its own preparatory and transitional character. And this consciousness grew with its growth. In the days of the later prophets men knew far better what spiritual communion with God ought to be than in the days of the patriarchs, but they did not actually enjoy even the same measure of childlike communion with Him. The law had done its work; it had made men feel more than ever the need of being in communion with God, but it had made them realise also the distance between God and them, and especially the awful width of the gulf between them caused by sin.
That gulf no mere spiritual vision of man could see across, and no mere declarations of love and mercy even from God Himself could bridge over. The reason of man could only be enlightened – the heart of man could only be satisfied – as to how God would deal with sin and sinners, by an actual self-manifestation of God in humiliation, suffering, and sacrifice, which would leave men in no doubt that high and holy as God was, He was also in the deepest and truest sense their Father, and that they were His ransomed and redeemed children. It was only when this was accomplished that religion and theism were alike perfected. Then the character of God was unveiled, the heart of God disclosed, and in such a manner that the most childlike confidence in Him could be combined with the profoundest sense of His greatness and righteousness. Perfect communion with Him in trustful love no longer supposed, as it did in earlier times, an imperfect knowledge, on the part of the worshipper, either of God's character or of his own. It required no overlooking of the evil of sin, for it rested on the certainty that sin had been overcome. Only the life hid with God in Christ can completely realise the idea of religion, for only in Christ can the heart of sinful man be sincerely and unreservedly yielded to a holy God. "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me," are words of the Lord Jesus which can only be denied by those who do not understand what they mean – what the truth and the life are, what fatherhood signifies, and what is involved in coming to a Father.
Christian theism alone gives us a perfect representation of God. It precedes and surpasses reason, especially