Philosophy of Religion

INTRODUCTION

Philosophy of Religion starts with the presupposition that religion and religious ideas can be taken out of the domain of feeling or practical experience and made objects of scientific reflection. It implies that, whilst religion and philosophy have the same objects, the attitude of the human spirit towards these objects is in each case, different. In the one they are present to it in an immediate way as objects of devotion or spiritual enjoyment; they come before it at most only in the form of outward fact or of figurative representation. In the other, they become the objects of reflection or intellectual apprehension, and are finally elevated to the form of pure or speculative thought. Feeling, indeed, in all cases, involves a kind of knowledge; the objects of emotion, whether moral or aesthetic or religious must be grasped by the subject, of them with an implicit intelligence, apart from which, its relation to them would be no deeper than that of blind instinctor animal impulse. But the knowledge which is involved in feeling, is as yet, only implicit or virtual knowledge ; it must become something more and higher before it truly deserves the name. And that something higher philosophy claims as its prerogative to elicit. In philosophy we pass out of the sphere of immediacy, in which the mind is still, in a sense one with its object, in which subject and object are dissolved in an atmosphere of intuitive emotion. Abandoning the blessedness of simple faith, we enter into that colder yet loftier region in which reason opposes itself to its object, breaks up the natural harmony wherein no contradiction of thought has yet betrayed itself, and advances to the search after a deeper and indissoluble unity. Nor, in asserting this as its prerogative, does philosophy admit of any limits to the range of its activity. Whatever is real is rational, and with all that, is rational philosophy claims to deal. It does not confine itself to finite things, or content itself with observing and classifying physical phenomena, or with empirical generalizations as to the nature and life of man. Its vocation is to trace the presence and the organic movement or process of reason in nature, in the human mind, in all social institutions, in the history of nations, and in the progressive advancement of the world. In, other words, so far from resting in what is finite and relative, the peculiar domain of philosophy is absolute truth. It offers to thought an escape from the narrow limits of our own individuality, even of our own nationality and age, and an insight into that which is universally and objectively true. In all provinces of investigation it seeks as its peculiar employment to penetrate beneath the surface show of things, beneath empirical appearances and accidents, and to find the ultimate meaning and essence. Its aim is to discover, not what seems, but what is, and why it is; to bind together objects and events in the links of necessary thought, and to find their last ground and reason in that which comprehends and transcends all—the nature of God Himself.

According to this view, then, there is no province of human experience, there is nothing in the whole realm of reality, which lies beyond the domain of philosophy, or to which philosophical investigation does not extend. Religion, so far from forming an exception to the all-embracing sphere of philosophy, is rather just that province which lies nearest to it, for, in one point of view, religion and philosophy have common objects and a common content, and in the explanation of religion philosophy may be said to be at the same time explaining itself.

But can this high claim of philosophy be justified? Before we yield ourselves up to its guidance, must not philosophy be asked to prove that there is nothing presumptuous in this assertion of its universal authority? Before we admit the pretensions of reason to treat thus of all things in heaven and earth, to regard nothing as too high or sacred to be subjected to its inquiries, must we not, as a preliminary condition ask it to give us satisfactory proof of its capacity to deal with them? Without a prior criticism of the organ of knowledge, can we tell whether in any given case it may not be entering on forbidden ground?

It may be answered, in general, that the only way in which philosophy can prove its rights is by philosophising. The capacity or incapacity of reason to deal with any object or class of objects cannot be determined by a preliminary inquiry, for this, if for no other reason, that the inquiry could only be conducted by the faculty which is impugned. If the incapacity is asserted on external authority, it is only reason itself that can judge of that authority and pronounce on its claims. If the incapacity is attempted to be proved on rational grounds, the examination of these grounds, again, must be conducted by reason itself. In either case a second preliminary inquiry would be needed to discover whether the capacity to conduct the first is not precluded by the limits of human reason. You cannot, in short, enter on a criticism of the instrument of thought without taking for granted, at least, its adequacy for the work, of self-criticism. But this presupposition is really the abandonment of the whole question at issue. For not only might it be said that the criticism of mind and its capacities is itself the most difficult and subtle task to which thought can be set, and that the instrument which is presumed to be capable of that task needs no further proof of its capacity for any other; but it must be added that the examination of mind, regarded as an instrument or organ of thought, cannot really be dissociated from the work of thought itself. To examine thought is at the same time to examine the things it thinks. To follow out that examination fully is simply to enter on the whole range of philosophical research, and to investigate the capacity of thought to deal with any class of objects is to furnish the most complete justification of its claims, viz., by thinking them.

Whilst, however, the foregoing considerations may be offered as a general answer to the demand for a proof of the competency of reason to deal with any province of truth prior to its actual entrance on the work of investigation, there are various special grounds on which its competency in the particular province of religion has been questioned. A scientific treatment of religious ideas, a philosophy of God and divine things, is, according to one school of thinkers, precluded by the very nature of human knowledge, which, as essentially relative and finite, can never attain to the cognisance of that which is infinite and absolute. By others, it has been maintained with more or less precision of thought, that, though human intelligencers not precluded by its necessary conditions from all access to the sphere of infinite or absolute realities, yet the only knowledge which is here possible to it is intuitive and immediate, not ratiocinative. The organ of religious knowledge, it is held, is not reason, but simply feeling or faith, or immediate and unreasoning apprehension : with finite objects and relations it is the province of the human understanding to deal, but religious truth, because of its very loftiness and grandeur, escapes the grasp of logic, is not reducible to definite notions or doctrines, or capable of being elaborated into a reasoned system or body of truth. Lastly—to name no other class of objections—the claim of philosophy to deal with religious knowledge has been resisted on the ground that religious truth differs from all other kinds of truth in this, that it has been authoritatively revealed, and an authoritative revelation implies the incompetence of human reason either to discover or to criticise its content. It is obvious that if any of these views is tenable—if religious truth is either altogether beyond the scope of human intelligence, or attainable only by intuition and not by rational insight, or, lastly, forms the content of a fixed supernatural revelation—the construction of a Philosophy of Religion, in any right sense of the words, is an impossible task. It is necessary, therefore, before proceeding further, to examine in detail the objections which thus meet us on the threshold of our undertaking.

Chapter 1

EXAMINATION OF OBJECTIONS TO THE SCIENTIFIC TREATMENT OF RELIGION

The Relativity of Human Knowledge

"BETWIXT that knowledge which can properly be termed science, and religion a distinction in recent times has been drawn by certain acute thinkers which, if valid, would be fatal to the claim of theology or of a philosophy of a religion to be ranked among the sciences. Science, it is said, deals with nature, religion with the supernatural. But can we know anything of the supernatural, or anything, at most, beyond the bare fact that it is? Is the supernatural accessible to human intelligence in such wise that you can build up, by the rigorous processes and methods with which in our physical investigations we work, a science that can claim co-ordinate rank with astronomy, or chemistry, or biology? The answer which has been given is, No! we deny the possibility of a science of the supernatural. The fact and importance of the religious sentiment we admit. All history and our own experience tell us that there are irrepressible instincts which point to something above the domain of nature—to a realm of mystery which transcends the finite and phenomenal world. When we have done our best in the field of human knowledge, in the observation and generalisation of facts and phenomena, we know that there lies beyond, a vast, onsearchable region out of which all phenomena spring, and we recognise in this the proper sphere of the religious sentiment, of those feelings of reverence, awe, submission which are awakened in every rightly constituted mind in the presence of the unknown and inscrutable. But when you try to go further than this—to find in this region available data of knowledge, —both experience and reason pronounce the attempt to be futile. And when theologians or philosophers present us with a series of definitions, notions, detailed propositions and dogmas with reference to this world of mystery, in which the existence, personality, and interior nature of the Absolute, and its relations to the finite world, are laid down with a show of systematic precision, and we are asked to accept this pseudo-science as entitled to rank—as knowledge beside the sciences of observation and experience, we cannot admit the claim. Natural theology, says one eminent scientific authority, is a science falsely so called. ... It seeks to weigh the infinite in the balance of the finite.....It is to the scientific man a delusion, to the religious man a snare. If,’ writes another, religion and science are to be reconciled, the basis of reconciliation must be this deepest, widest, and most certain of all facts—that the power the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable."¹ We not only learn by the frustration of all our efforts that the reality underlying appearance is totally and for ever inconceivable by us; but we also learn why from the very nature of our intelligence it must be so.² The office of theology, third writer declares, is now generally recognised as distinct from that of science.....It confesses its inability to furnish knowledge with any available data. It restricts itself to the region of faith, and leaves to philosophy and science the region of inquiry."³

Now, there is much in this view of the distinctive provinces of science and religion which we may, without giving up anything worth contending for, be ready to admit. If it means merely that the science of religion is not of the same order, dealing with the same class of objects, and reaching its results by the same method, as the physical sciences, in other words, that it is not an inductive science, this may readily be conceded. For it means no more than this, that the objects of religious knowledge cannot be perceived by the senses, or generalised out of the facts and phenomena which sense perceives. It means that God cannot be seen or touched or handled, and that by no mere generalisation from the finite could you ever reach the infinite. But if the implied assertion be that human knowledge is absolutely limited to things finite and phenomenal, that thought cannot transcend the objects which exist in space and time, and take cognisance of that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor imagination in its highest constructive efforts can conceive, and that theology and speculative philosophy, in so far as they pretend to the possession of such knowledge, are fictitious and spurious sciences, this is a view which cannot, without a surrender of the most cherished convictions, be accepted. It may be that the labour of countless thinkers in this province of inquiry has all been labour in vain, that the intellectual instincts which age after age have attracted the highest minds to it, have been mere illusion, and that the results they seem to have reached are altogether deceptive and worthless; but if this be so, the very extent and persistency of the delusion demand the most careful scrutiny of the arguments of those who claim to have exposed it.

The view to which I have now referred—the limitation of science to things finite, and the impossibility of any such science as theology or philosophy of religion—is one which, held perhaps in a vague and uncritical way by many, has received its fullest and ablest exposition in the writings of Mr. Herbert Spencer; and to his treatment of the subject, resuming as it does, the arguments of previous writers, and re-stating them with much freshness of thought and fertility of illustration, I shall in what follows, confine Myself. His thesis is, that the provinces of Science and Religion are distinguished from each other as the known from the unknown and unknowable. Science deals with ascertained phenomena, their order and relations, and comprehends all knowledge that is definite and positive. But positive knowledge does not and cannot embrace the whole possibilities of existence. Every addition to the gradually increasing sphere of science does but bring it into wider contact with the sphere of nescience, with the unknown and unknowable background in which lies the origin and explanation of all things, the unascertained something which phenomena imply but do not reveal. Now this dark impenetrable background beyond experience is the province of religion. But the attitude of mind which alone is possible with respect to this, is, not intelligence, but simply silent reverence for the unknowable ; and this Mr. Spencer maintains is the common essence of all religions, and that which gives to religion the widest and purest sphere of action. The more completely our notion of the unknown reality is purified from earthly analogies, from anthropomorphic conceptions and images—the more, in short, we approximate to the state of simple awe before the altar of the Unknown and Unknowable, the nearer do we come to the perfect ideal of religion.

The grounds on which this thesis is maintained are twofold. Human intelligence can be proved to be incapable of any absolute knowledge (i) empirically, by pointing out that every attempt to press our knowledge beyond certain limits, every ultimate con-and Religion are distinguished from each other as the known from the unknown and unknowable. Science deals with ascertained phenomena, their order and relations, land comprehends all knowledge that is definite and positive. But positive knowledge does not and cannot embrace the whole possibilities of existence. Every addition to the gradually increasing sphere of science does but bring it into wider contact with the sphere of nescience, with the unknown and unknowable background in which lies the origin and explanation of all things, the unascertained something which phenomena imply but do not reveal. Now this dark impenetrable background beyond experience is the province of religion. But the attitude of mind which alone is possible with respect to this, is not intelligence, but simply silent reverence for the unknowable ; and this Mr. Spencer maintains is the common essence of all religions, and that which gives to religion the widest and purest sphere of action. The more completely our notion of the unknown reality is purified from earthly analogies, from anthropomorphic conceptions and images—the more, in short, we approximate to the state of simple awe before the altar of the Unknown and Unknowable, the nearer do we come to the perfect ideal of religion.

The grounds on which this thesis is maintained are twofold. Human intelligence can be proved to be incapable of any absolute knowledge (i) empirically, by pointing out that every attempt to press our knowledge beyond certain limits, every ultimate conception, religious or scientific which we try to frame gives rise to alternative impossibilities of thought : (2) rationally, by an examination of the nature of human intelligence, which issues in a demonstration of the relativity of all human knowledge. The empirical or inductive proof, however, when closely examined, turns on the same principle with, and is resolvable into, the deductive. I shall therefore treat mainly of the latter.

Mr. Spencer here adopts and carries to its logical results that doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge which, derived as it is supposed, from Kant, has been reproduced in this country with special application to theology, by Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mansel. It is, in substance, this: that inasmuch as to think is to ‘condition,’ to think or know the ‘unconditioned,’ or the infinite and absolute, would be simply to think the unthinkable. ‘Infinite’ and ‘Absolute’ are merely terms expressive of the negation of the conditions under which thought is possible. Take the first of these terms: The very nature of thought implies distinction and therefore limitation. A thing can only be thought by being distinguished from other things, defined as possessing what others lack, lacking what others possess. But the Infinite cannot be thus limited, and is therefore unthinkable. A consciousness of the Infinite necessarily involves a self-contradiction; for it implies the recognition by limitation and difference of that which can only be given as unlimited and indifferent Take the other term, the Absolute, and the same incompetency of thought will be seen to apply to it: for thought is possible only as the relation of the thing thought of to the thinker, and an object of thought can only be known or enter into consciousness in relation to the thinking subject. All human knowledge therefore is necessarily relative. Things in themselves, or the Absolute, or God as He is in Himself, we can never know. The conception of the Absolute thus implies at the same time the presence and absence of the relation by which thought is constituted." A science of nature, of man, of all that this finite world contains, we may have; but a science of God and things divine is nothing less than a contradiction in terms.

With this proof of the inherent incapacity of human intelligence to know the Absolute, Mr. Spencer, however, with what consistency we shall see in the sequel, attempts to combine the assertion that we are constrained to believe in the existence of the Absolute. and that we can, in a vague manner, not amounting to positive thought, have a certain ‘consciousness’ of it. Though the Absolute, he says, cannot in any manner or degree be known in the strict sense of knowing, yet we find that its positive existence is a necessary datum of consciousness, and that so long as consciousness continues, we cannot for an instant rid it of this datum.⁴ Reality, though not capable of being made a thought, property so called, because not capable of being brought within limits, nevertheless remains as a consciousness that is positive, is not rendered negative by the negation of limits.⁵

On the foregoing argument I offer the following observations:—

1. The two elements of the theory are irreconcilable. It is impossible to hold at once that human intelligence is limited to the finite, and that it is cognisant of an existence beyond the finite; or, otherwise expressed that all knowledge is relative, and yet that we know the existence of the Absolute.

It is indeed easy to understand the genesis of this theory—the logical necessity which forced the mind of its author to the combination of two elements which, when closely examined, are seen to be contradictory. The assertion that man’s knowledge is limited to the finite and relative would have no meaning save by a tacit reference to an infinite and absolute object to which his knowledge does not extend. When we say that a thing is only a phenomenon or appearance, a quality or attribute, we of course imply that there is something which is not mere appearance but reality, not a mere quality but a substance, with whose deeper nature we place the former in contrast. In order to pronounce that we know only phenomena we must need be aware that there is something other than phenomena, we must know at least of the existence of things in themselves, realities lying behind phenomena, from the knowledge of which, in the full sense of the word, our intelligence is debarred. If we knew no other than finite and phenomenal existences, then we should never know or be able to characterise them as finite and phenomenal. To pronounce, in short, that our knowledge is, in any sense, limited, we must have access to some standard to which that limited knowledge is referred, we must be aware, at least, of the existence of a something beyond the limit, which is to our intelligence inaccessible.

But whilst the two elements—consciousness of the limits of human intelligence, and consciousness of that which transcends those limits—are correlative and inseparable, it is impossible, save by a tour de force, for a theorist who holds that human knowledge can never transcend the finite, to bring these two elements together. If we start with the assertion that thought is by its necessary conditions subjective and finite, or, on the other hand, that the Absolute is only another name for, that which is out of relation to thought, we cannot, save by an act of violence, drag in a consciousness, in any sense, of the Absolute in order to meet the exigencies of our theory. We cannot, in other words, deny all consciousness of the Absolute in order to maintain that human knowledge is limited, and in the same breath assert a consciousness of the Absolute in order to justify our cognisance of that limitation. In so far as the lower animals are devoid of reason, they are unconscious of their irrationality, and it is only we, in virtue of our rational intelligent nature, who can discern their lack of it. So, it might be possible for another and higher intelligence, an observer of human nature possessed of absolute knowledge, to pronounce that man’s knowledge is purely relative, that there is a region of realities from which human thought is shut out, but it is not possible for one and the same consciousness to be purely relative and conscious of its relativity. Grant the fundamental assumption of the theorist and it follows that humanity is not only hopelessly ignorant of reality, but also absolutely unconscious of its ignorance.⁶

2. The proper conclusion from the doctrine of relativity as held by Mr. Spencer and kindred writers, is, not that the Absolute is unknowable, but that no such being exists, or, what comes to the same thing, that the assertion of its existence is meaningless. It is true that neither in the speculations of Mr. Spencer nor in those of the school from which he derives his doctrine that human knowledge is only relative and finite, is that doctrine set forth as subversive of religion, or as depriving religion of any place or function in the spiritual life of man. On the contrary, the avowed aim of Sir W. Hamilton and his theological interpreter, Mr. Mansel, was, by demonstrating the natural and essential weakness of human intelligence, to lend new and exclusive authority to a supernatural revelation, and to supersede reason by faith, as the sole organ of religious knowledge. In Mr. Spencer the doctrine of relativity, though carried out to the evaporation of all definite conceptions of God and divine things, leaves still a field for the exercise of the religious aspirations in the region of the unknown and unknowable, and in the belief in the existence of an Absolute whose nature is for ever incomprehensible.

But the doctrine of relativity common to both classes of theorists leaves no room even for that shadowy and ineffable object of reverence which is Mr. Spencer’s substitute for God, much less for the communication by supernatural interposition of that knowledge of spiritual realities for which human intelligence is essentially incompetent. For, as to the latter view, it is to be remarked that if the disability ascribed to human intelligence were merely that which, according to the theological doctrine of depravity, affects the human spirit as in a fallen, diseased, abnormal condition, in that case it is quite conceivable that a supernatural agency might restore the capacity of receiving and apprehending the knowledge of God. But the disability or incapacity in question is not of the nature of a remediable weakness affecting human intelligence, it is a disability which belongs to human intelligence as such. If thought is, by its very nature, imprisoned in the relative, supernatural aid can more communicate to it a knowledge of the Absolute, that it can convey ideas of colour to a man born blind. Not even a revelation from heaven can introduce into the finite mind a kind of knowledge which, without ceasing to be finite, it cannot attain. If again, with Mr. Spencer, we reduce the content of religious thought to a bare consciousness of the existence of the unknowable Absolute, it is obvious that