Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/131

This page needs to be proofread.
94
THE CONCEPTION OF GOD

unconditional reality and majesty of human nature as possessing it. Remove this supreme vision of this Republic of God, and western civilisation — nay, the whole of human history, which but culminates in it, is without intelligibility, having neither explanatory source nor goal. The central and real meaning of the Christian Religion, in which the self-consciousness of the West finds its true expression, and which thus far has found no home except in the West, lies exactly in the faith that the Creator and the creature are reciprocally and equally real, not identical; that there is Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of men; that God recognises rights in the creature and acknowledges duties toward him; and that men are accordingly both unreservedly and also indestructibly real, — both free and immortal. In that religion alone, I venture to assert, is the union of this triad of faiths to be found — in God, in freedom, in immortality — faiths that, while three, are inseparably one, since neither can be stated except in terms of the other two.


III

THE MONISTIC CONCEPTION OF GOD NOT THE THEISM OF THE WEST, BUT THE PANTHEISM OF THE ORIENT

We are now led to notice Professor Royce’s interesting statement, marked by such candour, at the close of his address. He traces briefly the philosophical and theological genealogy of his view, and expresses his belief that this view is at heart the thought really intended by the faith of the fathers,