The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 01/Book 1/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
THE IDEA OF RELIGION CONNECTED WITH SCIENCE AND LIFE.
The legitimate action of the religious element produces reverence. This reverence may ascend into Trust, Hope, and Love, which is according to its nature; or descend into Doubt, Fear, and Hate, which is against its nature: it thus rises or falls, as it coexists in the individual, with wisdom and goodness, or with ignorance and vice. However, the legitimate and normal action of the religious element, leads ultimately, and of necessity, to reverence, absolute trust, and perfect love of God. These are the result only of its sound and healthy action.
Now there can be but one kind of Religion, as there can be but one kind of time and space. It may exist in different degrees, weak or powerful; in combination with other emotions, love or hate, with wisdom or folly, and thus it is superficially modified, just as Love, which is always the same thing, is modified by the character of the man who feels it, and by that of the object to which it is directed. Of course, then, there is no difference but of words between revealed Religion and natural Religion, for all actual Religion is revealed in us, or it could not be felt, and all revealed Religion is natural, or it would be of no use.[1] What is of use to a man comes upon the plane of his consciousness, not merely above it, or below it. We may regard Religion from different points of view, and give corresponding names to our partial conceptions, which we have purposely limited, and so speak of natural and revealed Religion; Monotheistic, Polytheistic, or Pantheistic, Pagan, Jewish, Christian, Mahometan Religion. But in these cases the distinction, indicated by the terms, belongs to the thinker's mind, not to Religion itself, the object of thought. Historical phenomena of Religion vary in the more and less. Some express it purely and beautifully; others mingle foreign emotions with it, and but feebly represent the pious feeling.
To determine the question what is Absolute, that is,
perfect Religion, Religion with no limitation, we are not to
gather to a focus the scattered rays of all the various forms
under which Religion has appeared in history, for we can
never collect the Absolute from any number of imperfect
phenomena; and, besides, in making the search and forming
an eclecticism from all the historical religious phenomena,
we presuppose in ourselves the criterion by which they
are judged, namely, the Absolute itself, which we seek to
construct, and thus move only in a circle, and end where
we began. To answer the question, we must go back to
the primitive facts of religious consciousness within us.
Then we find religion is voluntary obedience to the law
of God, inward and outward obedience to that law he has
written on our nature, revealed in various ways through
Instinct, Reason, Conscience, and the Religious emotions.
Through it we regard Him as the absolute object of Reverence,
Faith, and Love.[2] This obedience may be unconscious, as in little children who have known no contradiction
between duty and desire; and perhaps involuntary in the
perfect saint, to whom all duties are desirable, who has
ended the contradiction by willing himself God's will, and
thus becoming one with God. It may be conscious, as
with many men whose strife is not yet over. It seems the
highest and completest mode of Religion must be
self-conscious,—free goodness, free piety, and free, self-conscious
trust in God.[3]
Now there are two tendencies connected with Religion; one is speculative: here the man is intellectually employed in matters pertaining to Religion, to God, to Man's religious nature, and his relation and connection with God. The result of this tendency is Theology. This is not Religion itself. It is men's Thought about Religion; the Philosophy of divine things; the Science of Religion. Its sphere is the mind of men. Religion and Theology are no more to be confounded than the stars with astronomy.[4]
While the religious element, like the intellectual or the moral, or human nature itself, remains ever the same, the Religious Consciousness of mankind is continually progressive; and so Theology, which is the intellectual expression thereof, advances, like all other science, from age to age. The most various theological doctrines exist in connection with religious emotions, helping or hindering man's general development. The highest notion I can form of Religion is this, which I called the Absolute Religion: conscious service of the Infinite God by keeping every law he has enacted into the constitution of the Universe,—service of Him by the normal use, discipline, development, and delight of every limb of the body, every faculty of the spirit, and so of all the powers we possess.
The other tendency is practical; here the man is employed in acts of obedience to Religion. The result of this tendency is Morality. This alone is not Religion itself, but one part of the life Religion demands. There may be Morality deep and true with little or no purely religious consciousness, for a sharp analysis separates between the religious and moral elements in a man.[5] Morality is the harmony between man's action and the natural law of God. It is a part of Religion which includes it “as the Sea her waves.” In its highest form Morality doubtless implies Religious emotions, but not necessarily the self-consciousness thereof. For though Piety, the love of God, and Benevolence, the love of Man, do logically involve each other, yet experience shows that a man may see and observe the distinction between right and wrong, clearly and disinterestedly, without consciously feeling, as such, reverence, or love of God; that is, he may be truly moral up to a certain point, without being consciously religious, though he cannot be truly religious without at the same time being moral also. But in a harmonious man, the two are practically inseparable as substance and form. The merely moral man, in the actions, thoughts, and feelings which relate to his fellow-mortal, obeys the eternal law of duty, revealed in his nature, as such, and from love of that law, without regard to its Author. The religious man obeys the same law, but regards it as the will of God. One rests in the law, the other only in its Author.[6]
Now in all forms of Religion there must be a common
element which is the same thing in each man; not a similar
thing, but just the same thing, different only in
degree, not in kind, and in its direction towards one or many
objects, in both of which particulars it is influenced in
some measure by external circumstances. Then since men
exist under most various conditions, and in widely different
degrees of civilization, it is plain that the religious
consciousness must appear under various forms, accompanied
with various doctrines, as to the number and nature of its
Objects, the Deities; with various rites, forms, and
ceremonies, as it means to appease, propitiate, and serve these
Objects; with various organizations, designed to accomplish
the purposes which it is supposed to demand; and,
in short, with apparently various and even opposite effects
upon life and character. As all men are at bottom the
same, but as no two nations or ages are exactly alike in
character, circumstances, or development, so, therefore,
though the religious element be the same in all, we must
expect to find that its manifestations are never exactly
alike in any two ages or nations, though they give the
same name to their form of worship. If we look still
more minutely, we see that no two men are exactly alike
in character, circumstances, and development, and therefore
that no two men can exhibit their Religion in just the
same way, though they kneel at the same altar, and
pronounce the same creed. From the difference between men,
it follows that there must be as many different subjective
conceptions of God, and forms of Religion, as there are
men and women who think about God, and apply their
thoughts and feelings to life. Hence, though the religious
faculty be always the same in all, the Doctrines of
Religion, or theology; the Forms of Religion, or mode of
worship; and the Practice of Religion, which is Morality,
cannot be the same thing in any two men, though one
mother bore them, and they were educated in the same
way. The conception we form of God; our notion about Man; of the relation between him and God; of the duties
which grow out of that relation, may be taken as the
exponent of all the man's thoughts, feelings, and life. They
are therefore alike the measure and the result of the total
development of a man, an age, or race. If these things
are so, then the phenomena of Religion—like those of
Science and Art—must vary from land to land, and age to
age, with the varying civilization of mankind; must be
one thing in New Zealand, and the first century, and
something quite different in New England, and the fifty-ninth
century. They must be one thing in the wise man,
and another in the foolish man. They must vary also in
the same individual, for a man’s wisdom, goodness, and
general character, affect the phenomena of his Religion.
The Religion of the boy and the man, of Saul the youth,
and Paul the aged, how unlike they appear. The boy’s
prayer will not fill the man's heart; nor can the stripling
son of Zebedee comprehend that devotion and life which
he shall enjoy when he becomes the Saint mature in years.
- ↑ This distinction between natural and revealed religion is very old; at least as old as the time of Origen. But it is evidently a distinction in form not in substance. The terms seem to have risen from taking an exclusive view of some positive and historical form of religion. All religions claim to have been miraculously revealed.
- ↑ The above definition or Idea of Religion is not given as the only or the best that can possibly be given, but simply as my own, the best I can find. If others have a better I shall rejoice at it. I will give some of the more striking definitions that have been set forth by others. Plato: “ A Likeness to God, according to our ability.” John Smith: “God is First Truth and Primitive Goodness. True Religion is a vigorous efflux and emanation of both upon the Spirit of man, and therefore is called a Participation of the Divine Nature. … Religion is a heaven-born thing; the seed of God in the spirits of men whereby they are formed to a similitude and likeness of Himself.” Kant: “Reverence for the moral law as a divine command.” Schelling: “The union of the Finite and the Infinite.” Fichte: “Faith in a moral government of the world.” Hegel: “Morality becoming conscious of the free universality of its concrete essence.” This will convey no idea to one not acquainted with the peculiar phraseology of Hegel. It seems to mean, Perfect mind becoming conscious of itself. Schleiermacher: “Immediate self-consciousness of the absolute dependence of all the finite on the infinite.” Hase: “Striving after the Absolute, which is in itself unattainable; but by love of it man participates of the divine perfection.” Wollaston: “An obligation to do what ought not to be omitted, and to forbear what ought not to be done.” Jeremy Taylor: “The whole duty of man, comprehending in it justice, charity, and sobriety.” For the opinions of the ancients, see a treatise of Nitzsch, in Studien und Kritiken for 1828, p. 527, et seq.
- ↑ See Parker's Sermons of Theism, &c., Serm. V. and VI.
- ↑ Much difficulty has arisen from this confusion of Religion and Theology; it is one proximate cause of that rancorous hatred which exists between the theological parties of the present day. Each connects Religion exclusively with its own sectarian theology. But there were great men before Agamemnon; good men before Moses. Theology is a natural product of the human mind. Each man has some notion of divine things—that is, a theology; if he collect them into a system, it is a system of theology, which differs in some points from that of every other man living. There is but one Religion, though many theologies. See de Wette, Ueber Religion und Theologie, Part I. Ch. I.-III.; Part II. Ch. I.-III.; his Dogmatik, § 4-8.
- ↑ It seems plain that the ethical and religious element in Man are not the same; at least, they are as unlike as Memory and Imagination, though, like these, they act most harmoniously when in conjunction. It is true we cannot draw a line between them as between Sight and Hearing, but this inability to tell where one begins and the other ends is no argument against the separate existence of the faculties themselves. See Kant, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft; 2nd ed. 1794, Pref. p. iii., et seq. Still Religion and Morality are to be distinguished by their centre rather than their circumference; by their type more than their limit.
- ↑ See Mr Parker's Ten Sermons, Sermons I. to V.