International Congress of Arts and Science

Chapter 37

At present all agree that all sides of the soul-life have part in religion; now one side may be the more prominent, now another, according to the peculiarity of certain religions or the individual temperaments.

The philosophy of religion has, in common with scientific psychology, the question of the relation of feeling to the intellect and the will, and as yet there may be many views of this question. Altogether the philosophy of religion is looking for important solutions to many of its problems from the realm of the present scientific psychology.

Experiences, such as religious conversions, appear under this point of view as ethical changes in which the aim of a personal life is changed from a carnal and selfish end to that of a spiritual and altruistic purpose. These are extraordinary and seemingly supernatural processes; nevertheless in them there can still be found a certain development of the soul-life according to law. Modern psychology especially has thrown light upon the abnormal conditions of consciousness which have so often been made manifest in the religious experience of all times. That which religious history records concerning inspiration, visions, ecstasy, and revelation, we now cla.s.sify with the well-known appearances of hypnotism, the induction of conceptions and motives of the will through foreign suggestion or through self-suggestion, of the division of consciousness in different egos, and in the union of several consciousnesses into one common mediumistic fusion of thought and will.

The explanation of these experiences may not yet be satisfactory, but nevertheless we do not doubt the possibility of a future explanation from the general laws controlling the life of the soul. The fact that we can through psychological experiments produce such abnormal conditions of consciousness justifies us in taking the position, that certain psychical laws are at the foundation of these conditions which in their kind are as natural and regular in their functions as the physical laws which we observe in physical experiments. These solutions which modern psychology so far has given, and hopes still further to give, are of great importance to the philosophy of religion. They are an indors.e.m.e.nt of the general principle which one hundred years ago had been advanced by critical speculation, namely, that in all experiences of the religious life the same principles which control the human mind in all other intellectual and emotional fields shall hold sway. Nothing therefore should hinder us in scientific research from following the well-defined maxims of thought, and unreservedly applying the same methods of scientific a.n.a.lysis in theology as is done generally in the other sciences.

The claim of the Church to infallibility and divine inspiration of its dogmas is weakened under this view of the work of the philosophy of religion. Prophetical inspiration and ecstasy, which usually were thought to be supernatural revelations, are now declared by the present psychology to come under the category of other a.n.a.logous experiences, such as the action of mental powers which, under definite conditions of individual gifts and on historical occasions, have manifested themselves in extraordinary forms of consciousness. However, these enthusiastic forms of prophetical consciousness cannot be accepted for a higher form of knowledge or even as of divine origin and as an infallible proclamation of the truth; on the contrary, these forms are to be judged as pathological appearances, which may be more harmful than beneficent for the ethical value of the prophetical intuition. At least, it has come to pa.s.s that all forms of revelation must come under the examination of a psychological a.n.a.lysis and of an a.n.a.logical judgment.

Hence their traditional nimbus of unique, supernatural, and absolute authority is for all time destroyed.

We are carried to the same result by the comparative study of the history of religions. The study shows us that the Christian Church, with its dogma of the divine inspiration of the Bible, does not stand alone; that before and after Christianity other religions made exactly the same claims for their sacred scriptures. By the pious Brahman the Veda is regarded as infallible and eternal; he believes the hymns of the old seers were not composed by the seers themselves, but were taken from an original copy in heaven. The Buddhist sees in the sayings of his sacred book "Dhammapadam" the exact inheritance of the infallible words of his omniscient teacher Buddha. For the confessor of Ahuramazda the Zendavesta contains the scriptural revelation of the good spirit unto the prophet Zarathustra; according to the rabbis the laws revealed unto Moses on Mount Sinai were even before the creation of the world the object of the observation of G.o.d; for the faithful Mohammedan the Koran is the copy of an ever-present original in heaven, the contents of which were dictated word for word to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel. Whoever ponders the similar claims of all these religions for the infallibility of their sacred books, to him it becomes difficult to hold the dogma of the Christian Church concerning the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible as alone true and the similar dogmas of other religions as being false. Rather he will accept the view that in all these examples there are found the same motives of the religious mind, that here is given an expression to the same need common to all seeking for an absolute and abiding basis for their faith.

The study of the comparison of religions has discovered in religions other than that of Christianity many very striking parallels to many narratives and teachings of the Bible. It may be well to recall very briefly some of the important points. Owing to the fact that the a.s.syrian cuneiform writings have now been deciphered, there has been found a story of the creation which has many characteristics in common with those of the Bible. There is found a story of a flood, which in its very details can be regarded as the forerunner of the story of the flood in the Bible. There have been found a.s.syrian penitential psalms, which, in consciousness of guilt and in earnestness of prayer for forgiveness, can well be compared with many psalms of the Bible. Recently the Code of the a.s.syrian King Hammurabi, who reigned two thousand three hundred years before Christ, has been discovered. The similarity of this Code with many of the early Mosaic Laws has called general attention to this fact. In the Persian religion there are found teachings of the Kingdom of G.o.d, of the good spirits who surround the throne of G.o.d, of the Spirit hostile to G.o.d and of an army of his demons, of the judgment of each soul after death, of a heaven with eternal light and of the dark abyss of h.e.l.l, of the future struggle of the mult.i.tudes of good and bad spirits and the victory over the bad through a divine hero and saviour, of the general resurrection of the dead, of the awful destruction of the world and the creation of a new and better world,--teachings which are also found in the later Jewish theology and apocalypse, so that the acceptance of a dependence of Jewish upon corresponding Persian teaching can hardly be avoided. Also Grecian influence is observed in later Jewish literature, in proverbs, in the wisdom of Solomon and the Son of Sirach; especially in the Alexandrian Jewish theology are found Platonic thoughts of an eternal, ideal world, of the heavenly home of the soul, and the Stoic conception of a world-ruling divine Logos.

It is from this source that the Logos to which Philo had already ascribed the meaning of the Son of G.o.d and the Bringer of a divine revelation crossed over into Christian theology and became the foundation of the dogma of the Church concerning the person of Christ.

Of still greater importance than even all this was the opening of the Indian and especially the Buddhistic religious writings. In these we have, five hundred years before Christianity, the revelation of redemptive religion, resting upon the ethical foundation of the abnegation of self and the withdrawal from the world. In the centre of this religion is Gautama Buddha, the ideal teacher of redeeming truth, whose human life was adorned by the faith of his followers with a crown of wonderful legends; from an abode in heaven, out of mercy to the world, he descended into the world, conceived and born of a virgin mother, greeted and entertained by heavenly spirits, recognized beforehand by a pious seer as the future redeemer of the world; as a youth he manifested a wisdom beyond that of his teachers. Then after the reception of an illuminating revelation, he victoriously overcomes the temptation of the devil, who would cause him to become faithless to his call to redemption. Then he begins to preach of the coming of the Kingdom of Justice, and sends forth his disciples, two by two, as messengers of his gospel to all people. Although he declares that it is not his calling to perform miracles, nevertheless the legends indeed tell how many sick were healed, how with the contents of a small basket hundreds were fed, how possessed of all knowledge he reveals hidden things; how overcoming the limitations of s.p.a.ce and time, swaying in the air, being transfigured in a heavenly light, he reveals himself to his disciples just before his death. And at last, in the faith of his followers, having pa.s.sed from the position of a human teacher to that of an eternal heavenly spirit and lord of the world, he is exalted as the object of prayer and reverence, to many millions of the human race in Southern and Eastern Asia.

It is hardly possible that the knowledge of this parallel from India to the New Testament, and of the Babylonian and Persian parallel to the Old Testament, can be without influence upon the religious thought of Christian people. Although we may be ever so much convinced concerning the essential superiority of our religion over all other religions, nevertheless the dogmatic contrast between absolute truth on the one side and complete falsity on the other can no more be maintained. In place of this view there must enter the view of a relative grade of differences between the higher and lower stages of development. No longer can we see in other religions only mistakes and fiction, but under the husk of their legends many precious kernels of truth must be seen, expressions of inner religious feelings and of n.o.ble ethical sentiments. One should therefore accept the position not to object to the same discrimination between husk and kernel in the matter of one"s own religion, and to recognize in its inherited traditions and dogmas legendary elements, the explanation of which is to be found in psychical motives and in historical surroundings, even as they are found in the corresponding parts of religions other than the Christian religion.

Therefore the historical comparison of religions takes us away from an absolute dogmatic positivism to a relative evolutionary manner of study, placing all religions without exception under the laws of time progression and under the causal connection of the law of cause and effect. The isolation of religion therefore is no more. It is regarded as being a part of other human historical affairs, and must yield to the test of a thorough unhindered research. The value of the Christian religion can never suffer in the view of a reasonable man, when it is not accepted in blind faith, but as the result of discriminating comparison.

As the evolutionary philosophy of religion uses the method of science without exception in the case of all historical religions, so also it does not shrink from taking up the question of the beginning of religion, but believes that here also is found the key in the a.n.a.lytical, critical, and comparative method. And here is found the a.s.sistance of the comparative study of languages, ethnology, and paleontology.

The celebrated Sanscrit scholar, Max Muller, sought in the comparative study of mythology to prove the etymological relation of many of the Grecian G.o.ds and heroes with those of the mythology of India and to trace the common origin of all these mythical beings and legends in the personification of the movements of the heavenly bodies, the thunder and lightning, the tempest and the rain. All mythical belief in G.o.ds of the Indo-Germanic peoples seems to have arisen out of a poetical view and dramatic personification of the powers of nature. Suggestive as this hypothesis is, it is not by any means sufficient to give us a complete explanation of the subject. In fact, others have shown that primitive religion does not altogether consist in mythical conceptions, but mainly in reverential actions, sacrifices, sacraments, vows, and other similar cults, which have very little to do with the atmospherical powers of nature, but rather with the social life of primitive people. And when once the sight was clearly directed to the social meaning of the religious rites, it was then observed that even the earliest legends concerning the G.o.ds were connected far more closely with the habits and customs of early society than with the facts of nature. Tyler"s celebrated book concerning "Primitive Civilization" is written from this standpoint, an epoch-making book, showing the original close connection of religion with the entire civilization of humanity, with the views of life and death, the social customs, the forms of law, their strivings in art and science; a book with a large amount of information, brought together from observation on all sides. In this channel are found all the researches which to-day are cla.s.sified under the name of Folklore; seeking to gather the still existing characteristic customs and forms, legends, stories, and sayings, in order to compose these and to discover the survivals of earliest religion, poetry, and civilization of humanity. The gain of this study pursued with so great diligence is not to be underrated. These studies show that all that, which at one time existed as faith in the spirit of humanity, possessed within its very nature the strongest power of continuance, so that in new and strange conditions and in other forms it continued to remain. Under all changes and progress of history there is still found an unbroken connection of constant development.

As important, however, as the possession of a general knowledge of historical forms of development is to the philosophy of religion, nevertheless the possession of this knowledge is not wholly a fulfillment of the purpose of the philosophy of religion. To understand a development means not merely to know how one thing follows as the result of the other, but also to understand the law which lies at the foundation of all empirical changes and at the same time controls the end of the development. If this principle holds good in the understanding of the development in the processes of nature, much more does the principle hold good in understanding the processes of intellectual development of humanity, which have for us not only a theoretical, but at the same time an eminently practical interest. The philosopher of religion sees in religious history not merely the coming together of similar forms, but an advance from the lowest stage of childlike ignorance to an ever purer and richer realization of the idea of religion, a divinely ordained progress for the education of humanity from the slavery of nature to the freedom of the spirit. The question now arises: where do we find the principle and law of this ever-rising development? Where do we find the measure of judgment for the relative value of religious appearances? It is clear that the general principle of the complete development cannot be found in a single fact which is only one of the many manifestations of the general principle, and it is just as clear that the absolute norm of judgment is not found in a single fact always relative, presenting to us the object of judgment and therefore being impossible to stand as the norm of judgment. Therefore the principle of religious development and the norm of its judgment can only be found in the inner being of the spirit of humanity, namely, in the necessary striving of the mind into an harmonious arrangement of all our conceptions, or the idea of the truth, and into the complete order of all our purposes, or the idea of the good. These ideas unite in the highest unity, in the Idea of G.o.d. Therefore the consciousness of G.o.d is the revelation of the original innate longing of reason after complete unity as a principle of universal harmony and consistence in all our thinking and willing. Hence, in the first place, arises the result that the development of the consciousness of G.o.d in the history of religion is always dependent upon the existing conditions of the two united sides, the theoretical perception of the truth and the moral standard of life. In the second place the result arises that the judgment of the value of all appearances in the history of religion depends as to whether and how far these appearances agree with the idea of the true and the good, and correspond with the demands of reason and conscience.

That science which is engaged with the idea of the good we name Ethics; that which is engaged with the last principles of the perception of truth, using the expression of Aristotle, we may name Metaphysics, or following Plato--Dialectic. Recognizing then in the idea of G.o.d the synthesis of the idea of the true and the good, the philosophy of religion is closely related with both, Ethics and Metaphysics.

At present the relation of religion to morality is an object of much controversy. There are many who hold that morality without religion is not only possible but also very desirable; since they are of the opinion that moral strength is weakened, the will is without freedom, and its motives corrupted on account of religious conceptions. On the other hand, the Church, considering the experience of history, finds that religion has ever proved itself to be the strongest and most necessary aid to morality. In this contest the philosophy of religion occupies the position of a judge who is called upon to adjust the relative rights of the parties. The philosophy of religion brings to light the historical fact that from the very beginnings of human civilization, social life and morality were closely connected with religious conceptions and usages, and indeed always so interchangeable in their influence that the position of social civilization on the one side corresponded with the position of religious civilization on the other, just as the water-level in two communicating pipes. Therefore it follows that it is unjust and not historical to blame religion on account of the defects of a national and temporal morality; for these defects of morality, with the corresponding errors of religion, find a common ground in a low stage of development of the entire civilization of the people of the time and age. Further, it becomes the task of the philosophy of religion to examine whether this correspondence of religion and morality, recognized in history, is also found in the very nature of morality and religion.

This question in the main is answered without doubt in the affirmative, for it is clear that the religious feeling of dependence upon one all-ruling power is well adapted not only to make keen the moral consciousness of obligation and to deepen the feeling of responsibility, but also to endow moral courage with power and to strengthen the hope of the solution of moral purposes. The clearer religious faith comprehends the relation of man to G.o.d, so much the more will that faith prove itself as a strong motive and a great incentive of the moral life. Such a conception will not make the moral will unfree but truly free, not in the sense of a selfish choice, but in the sense of a love that serves, knowing itself as an instrument of the divine will, who binds us all into a social organism, the kingdom of G.o.d. And, on the other hand, the more ideal the moral view of life, the higher and greater its aims, the more it recognizes its great task to care for the welfare not only of the individual but of all, to cooperate in the welfare and development of all forms of society, the more earnestly the moral mind will need a sincere faith that this is G.o.d"s world, that above all the changes of time an eternal will is on the throne, whose all-wise guidance causes everything to be for the best unto those who love him.

A like middle position of arbitration falls to the philosophy of religion in the matter of the relation of religion to science. The first demand of science is freedom of thought, according to its own logical laws, and its fundamental a.s.sumption is the possibility of the knowledge of the world on the basis of the unchangeable laws of all existence and events. With this fundamental demand science places itself in opposition to the formal character of ecclesiastical doctrine so far as the doctrine claims infallible authority resting upon a divine revelation.

And the fundamental a.s.sumption of the regular law of the course of the world is in opposition to the contents of ecclesiastical doctrine concerning the miraculous interposition in the course of nature and of history. To the superficial observer there appears therefore to exist an irreconcilable conflict between science and religion. Here is the work of the philosophy of religion, to take away the appearance of an irreconcilable opposition between science and religion, in that the philosophy of religion teaches first of all to distinguish between the essence of religion and the ecclesiastical doctrines of a certain religion, and to comprehend the historical origin of these doctrines in the forms of thought of past times. To this purpose the method of psychological a.n.a.lysis and of historical comparison mentioned above is of service. When, then, by this critical process religion is traced to its real essence in the emotional consciousness of G.o.d, to which the dogmatic doctrines stand as secondary products and varied symbols, then it remains to show that between the essence of religion and that which science demands and presupposes, there exists not conflict but harmony.

When the idea of G.o.d is recognized as the synthesis of the ideas of the true and the good, so then must all truth as sought by science, even as the highest good, which the system of ethics places as the purpose of all action--these must be recognized as the revelation of G.o.d in his eternal reason and goodness. The laws of our rational thinking then cannot be in conflict with divine revelation in history, and the laws of the natural order of the world can no more stand in conflict with the world-governing Omnipotence; but both, the laws of our thinking and those of the real world, reveal themselves as the harmonious revelations of the creative reason of G.o.d, which, according to Plato"s fitting word, is the efficient ground of being as well as of knowing. It is therefore not merely a demand of religious belief that there is real truth in our G.o.d-consciousness, that there should be an activity and revelation of G.o.d himself in the human mind; it is also in the same manner a demand of science considering its last principles, that the world, in order to be known by us as a rational, regulated order, must have for its principle an eternal creative reason. Long ago the old master of thinking, Aristotle, recognized this fact clearly, when he said that order in the world without a principle of order could be as little thinkable as the order of an army without a commanding general.

But while it is true that science, as the ground of the possibility of its knowledge of the truth, must presuppose the same general principle of intellectual knowledge which religion has as the object of its practical belief, then by principle the apprehension is excluded that any possible progress on the part of science in its knowledge of the world can ever destroy religion. We are rather the more justified in the hope that all true knowledge of science will be a help to religion, and will serve as the means of purifying religion from the dross of superst.i.tion.

Truly it can easily be shown that a divine government of the world breaking through, and now and then suspending the regular order of nature through miraculous intervention, would not be more majestic, but far more limited and human, than such a government which reveals itself as everywhere and always the same in and through its own ordained laws in the world. And again, that a revelation prescribing secret and incomprehensible doctrines and rites, demanding from humanity a blind faith, would far less be in harmony with the guiding wisdom and love of G.o.d, and far less could work for the intellectual liberty and perfection of humanity, than such a revelation which is working in and through the reason and conscience of humanity, and is realizing its purpose in the progressive development of our intellectual and moral capacities and powers. When therefore science raises critical misgivings against the supernatural and irrational doctrines of positive religion, then the real and rightly understood interests of religion are not harmed but rather advanced; for this criticism serves religion in helping it to become free from the unintellectual inheritance of its early days, in helping religion to consider its true intellectual and moral essence, and to bring to a full display all the blessed powers which are concealed within its nature, to press through the narrow walls of an ecclesiasticism out into the full life of humanity, and to work as leaven for the enn.o.blement of humanity. Not in conflict with science and moral culture, but only in harmony with these, can religion come nearer to the attainment of its ideal, which consists in the worship of G.o.d in spirit and in truth. Even though they may not be conscious of their purpose, but nevertheless in fact all honest work of science and all the endeavors of social and ethical humanity have part in the attainment of this ideal.

It is the work of the philosophy of religion to make clear that all work of the thinking and striving spirit of humanity, in its deepest meaning, is a work in the kingdom of G.o.d, as service to G.o.d, who is truth and goodness. It is the work of the philosophy of religion to explain various misunderstandings, to bring together opposing sides, and so to prepare the way for a more harmonious cooperation of all, and for an always hopeful progress of all on the road to the high aims of a humanity fraternally united in the divine spirit.

MAIN PROBLEMS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: PSYCHOLOGY AND THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

BY PROFESSOR ERNST TROELTSCH

(_Translated from the German by Dr. J. H. Woods, Harvard University._)

[Ernst Troeltsch, Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Heidelberg, since 1894. b. February 17 1865, Augsburg, Bavaria. Doctor of Theology. Professor University of Bonn, 1892-94. Author of _John Gerhard and Melanchthon_; _Richard Rubbe_; _The Scientific Att.i.tude and its Demands on Theology_; _The Absoluteness of Christianity, and of the History of Religion_; _Political Ethics and Christianity_; _The Historic Element in Kant"s Religious Philosophy_.]

The philosophy of religion of to-day is philosophy of religion so far only, and in such a sense, as this word means science of religion or philosophy with reference to religion. The science of religion of former days was first dogmatic theology, deriving its dogmas from the Bible and from Church tradition, expounding them apologetically with the metaphysical speculation of the later period of antiquity, and regarding the non-Christian religions as sinful derangements and obscure fragments of the primitive revelation. This lasted sixteen centuries, and is confined to-day to strictly ecclesiastical circles. Next, science of religion became natural theology, which proved the existence of G.o.d by the nature of thought and by the const.i.tution of reality, and also the immortality of the soul by the concept of the soul and by moral demands, thus constructing natural or rational dogmas and putting these dogmas into more or less friendly relations with traditional Christianity. This lasted about two centuries, and is to-day of the not strictly ecclesiastical or pietistic circles, which still wish to hold fast to religion. Both kinds of science of religion exist no longer for the strict science. The first was, in reality, supernaturalistic dogmatics, the second was, in reality, a subst.i.tution of philosophy for religion.

The first was demolished by the criticism of miracles in the eighteenth century, the second by the criticism of knowledge in the nineteenth century, which, in its turn, rests upon Hume and Kant.

The science of religion of to-day keeps in touch with that which without doubt factually exists and is an object of actual experience, _the subjective religious consciousness_. The distrust of ecclesiastical and rationalistic dogmas has made, in the thought of the present, every other treatment impossible. So the spirit of empiricism has here as at other points completely prevailed. But empiricism in this field means psychological a.n.a.lysis. This a.n.a.lysis is pursued by the present to the widest extent: on the one side by anthropologists and archaeologists, who investigate the life of the soul in primitive peoples and thus indicate the particular function and condition of religion in these states; on the other side, by the modern experimental psychologists and psychological empiricists, who, by self-observation, and especially by the collection of observations by others and of personal testimony, study religion, and then, from the point of view of the concepts of experimental psychology, examine the main phenomena thus found.

Now, such an empirical psychology of religion has been constructed with considerable success. In this German literature, it is true, has cooperated to a slight degree only. The German theologians have held to the older statements of the psychology of Kant, of Schleiermacher, of Hegel, and of Fries, alone, which, in principle, were on the right path, but which combined the purely psychological with metaphysical and epistemological problems to such a degree that it was impossible to reach a really unprejudiced att.i.tude. German psychologists remain, furthermore, under the spell of psycho-physiology and of quant.i.tative statements of measure, and have, consequently, not liked to advance into this field, which is inaccessible to such statements. More productive than the German psychology for this subject is the French, which has attacked the complex facts far more courageously. Here, however, under the predominance of positivism, there prevails, on the whole, the tendency to regard religion, in its essence, anthropologically or medically and pathologically in connection with bodily conditions. This is the confusion of conditions and origins with the essence of the thing itself, which can be determined only by the thing, and is, by no means, bound exclusively to these conditions. Notwithstanding, the works of Marillier, Murisier, and Flournoy have considerably aided the problem.

More impartially than all of these, the English and American psychology has investigated our subject. Here we have a masterpiece in the Gifford Lectures of William James, which collects into a single reservoir similar investigations such as have been carried on by Coe and Starbuck.

There is here no tendency to a mechanism of consciousness, or to the dogma of the causal and necessary structure of consciousness. And to just this is due the freshness and impartiality of the a.n.a.lyses which James gives out of his enviable knowledge of characteristic cases. James rightly emphasizes the endlessly different intensity of religious experiences, and the great number of points of view and of judgments which thereby results. He also rightly emphasizes the connection of this different intensity with irreducible typical const.i.tutions of the soul"s life, with the optimistic and the melancholy disposition; hence there arise constantly, even within the same religion, essentially different types of religiousness. Limiting himself, then, to the most intense experiences, he decides that the characteristic of religious states is the sense of presence of the divine, which one might perhaps describe in other terms, but which still continues the specifically divine, with the opposed emotional effects of a solemn sense of contrast and of enthusiastic exaltation. He pictures these senses of presence, and ill.u.s.trates them by visionary and hallucinatory representations of the abstract. With this are connected impulsive and inhibitive conditions for the appearance of these senses of presence and of reality, descriptions of the effects upon the emotional life and action, and, above all, the a.n.a.lysis of the event usually called conversion, in which the religious experience out of subconscious antecedents becomes, in various ways, the centre of the soul"s life. All this is description, but it is based upon a ma.s.s of examples and explained by general psychological categories which, by the occurrence of the religious event only, receive a thoroughly specific coloring. It is a description after the manner of Kirchhoff"s mechanics; permanent and similar types, and, likewise, similar conditions for their relations to the rest of the soul"s life are sought out everywhere, without maintaining to have proven at the same time, in this way, an intellectual necessity for the connection. But the characteristic peculiarity of religious phenomena is thus conceived as in no other previous a.n.a.lysis.

All this is still, however, nothing more than psychologic. For the science of religion it accomplishes nothing more than the psychological determination of the peculiarity of the phenomenon, of its environment, its relations and consequences. It is evident that the phenomenon occurs in an indefinite number of varieties; and the chosen point of departure, in unusual and excessive cases, frequently diffuses over religion itself the character of the bizarre and abnormal. Consequently nothing whatever is said about the amount of truth or of reality in these cases. This, by the very principles of such a psychology, is impossible. It a.n.a.lyzes, produces types and categories, points out comparatively constant connections and interactions. But this cannot be the last word for the science of religion. It demands, above all, empirical knowledge of the phenomenon; but it demands this only in order, on the basis of this knowledge, to be able to answer the question of the amount of truth. But this leads to an entirely different problem, that of the _theory of knowledge_, which has its own conditions of solution. It is impossible to stop at a merely empirical psychology. The question is not merely of given facts, but of the amount of knowledge in these facts. But pure empiricism will not succeed in answering this question. The question with regard to the amount of truth is always a question of validity. The question with regard to validity can, however, be decided only by logical and by general, conceptual investigations. Thus we pa.s.s over from the ground of empiricism to that of rationalism, and the question is, what the theory of knowledge or rationalism signifies for the science of religion.

Such a synthesis of the rational and irrational, of the psychological and the theory of knowledge, is the main problem raised by the teaching of Kant, and the significance of Kant is that he clearly and once for all raised the problem in this way. He had the same strong mind for the empirical and actual as for the rational and conceptual elements of human knowledge, and constructed science as a balance between the two.

(He destroyed forever the _a priori_ speculative rationalism of the necessary ideas of thought, and the a.n.a.lytical deductions from them, which undertakes to call reality out of the necessity of thought as such. He restricted regressive rationalism to metaphysical hypotheses and probabilities, the evidence for which rests upon the inevitability of the logical operations which leads to them, which, however, apply general concepts without reference to experience, and therefore become empty, and thus afford no real knowledge.) On the other hand, he proclaimed the formal, immanent rationalism of experience, in attempting to unite Hume"s truth with the truth of Leibnitz and of Plato. In this way he succeeded in grasping the great problem of thought by the root, and in putting attempts at solutions on the right basis. So it is not a mere national custom of German philosophizing, if we take our bearings, for the most part, from this greatest of German thinkers, but it is, absolutely, the most fruitful and keenest way of putting the problem. It is true, the solutions which Kant made, and which are closely connected with the cla.s.sical mechanics of that time, with the undeveloped condition of the psychology of that time, and with the incompleteness of historical thinking then just beginning, have been, meantime, more than once given up again. A simple return to him is therefore impossible. But the problem was put by him in a fundamental way, and his solutions need nothing more than modification and completion.

Now all this is especially true in the case of the science of religion.

Here also Kant took the same course, which seemed to me right for the theoretical knowledge of the natural sciences and for anthropology. In practical philosophy also, to which he rightly counts philosophy of religion, he seeks laws of the practical reason a.n.a.logous to the laws of theoretical reason, axioms of the ethical, aesthetic, and religious consciousness which are already contained _a priori_ in the elementary appearances in these fields, and, in application to concrete reality, produce just these activities of the reason. Here also one should grasp reason only as contained in life itself, the _a priori_ law itself already effective in the diversity of the appearances should make one"s self clear-sighted and so competent for a criticism of the stream of the soul"s appearances. Seizing upon itself in the practical reality, the practical reason criticises the psychological complex, rejects as illusion and error that which cannot be comprehended in an _a priori_ law, selects that part of the same which needs basis and centre and requires only clearness with regard to itself, clears the way for revelations of a life consciousness of its own legality and becomes capable of the development of critically purified experience.

If this is, in principle, valid, the Kantian thought, in the further detail, is maintained in principle only and as a whole. The elaboration itself will have to be quite different from that of his own. Even by Kant himself, on this very point, the synthesis of empiricism and rationalism is far from being elaborated with the necessary rigor and consistency. And to-day we have a quite differently developed psychology of religion, in contrast with which that presupposed by Kant is bare and thin. Finally, there remain in the whole method of the critical system unsolved problems; by failure to solve these, or by too hasty solution, science of religion, especially, is affected.

To make clear the present condition of the problem, one ought, above all, to indicate the modifications to which the Kantian theory of religion must submit,--must submit, especially, by reason of a more delicate psychology, such as we have, with remarkable richness, in James and the American psychologists connected with him. There are _four_ points with regard to this question.

The first is the question of the relation of psychology and theory of knowledge in the very establishment of the laws of the theory of knowledge. Are not the search for and discovery of the laws of the theory of knowledge themselves possible only by way of psychological ascertainment of facts, itself then a psychological undertaking and consequently dependent upon all its conditions? It is the much discussed question of the circle which itself lies at the outset of the critical system. The answer to this is that this circle lies in the very being of all knowledge, and must therefore be resolutely committed. It signifies nothing more than the presupposition of all thought, the trust in a reason which establishes itself only by making use of itself. The unmistakable elements of the logical a.s.sert themselves as logical in distinction from the psychological, and from this point on reason must be trusted in all its confusions and entanglements to recognize itself within the psychological. It is the courage of thought, as Hegel says, which may presuppose that the self-knowledge of reason may trust itself, presuppose that reason is contained within the psychological; or it is the ethical and teleological presupposition of all thought, as Lotze says, which believes in knowledge and the validity of its laws for the sake of a connected meaning for reality, and which, therefore, trusts to recognize itself out of the psychological ma.s.s. The establishment, therefore, of the laws of the theory of knowledge is not itself a psychological a.n.a.lysis, but a knowledge of self by the logical by virtue of which it extricates itself out of the psychological ma.s.s. Theory of knowledge, like every rationalism, includes, it is true, very real presuppositions with regard to the significant, rational, and teleologically connective character of reality, and without this presupposition it is untenable; in it lies its root. It is insight of former days, the importance of which, however, must constantly be emphasized anew, that discusses the validity of the rational as opposed to the merely empirical. But still more important than this thesis are several _inferences_ which are given with it.

The establishment of the laws of consciousness, in which we produce experience, is a selection of the laws out of experience itself, a knowledge of itself by the reason contained in the very experience by way of the a.n.a.lysis which extracts it. It is then an endless task, completed by constantly renewed attacks, and always only approximately solvable. The complete separation of the merely psychological and actual and of the logical and necessary will never be completely accomplished, but will always be open to doubt; one can only attempt always to limit more vigorously the field of what is doubtful. And with this something further is connected.

The inexhaustible production of life becomes constantly, in the latent amount of reason, richer than the a.n.a.lysis discerns, or, in other words, the laws which are brought into the light of logic will always be less the amount of reason not brought into consciousness, and conscious logic will always be obliged to correct itself and enrich itself out of the unartificial logical operations arising in contact with the object. So a finished system of _a priori_ principles, but this system will always be in growth, will be obliged unceasingly to correct itself, and to contain open s.p.a.ces.

Finally, and above all, in case of this separation, there remains within the psychologically conditioned appearance, a residuum, which is either not conceived, but is later reduced to law and thereby a conceived phenomenon, or which never can be so, and is therefore illusion and error. If the psychological and the theoretical for knowledge are to be separated, then that can occur, not merely to show that both must always be together, and form real experience only when together, but there must also be a rejection of that which is merely psychological and not rational since it is illusion and error. The distinction between the apparent and the real was the point of departure which made the whole theory necessary, and, accordingly, the merely psychological must remain appearance and error side by side with that which is psychological and, at the same time, theoretical for knowledge. There always remains in consciousness a residuum of the inconceivable, that is, inconceivable since it is illusion and error. This amounts to saying that reality is never fully rational, but is engaged in a struggle between the rational and anti-rational. The anti-rational or irrational, in the sense of psychological illusion and error, belongs also to the real, and strives against the rational. The true and rational reality to be attained by thought is always in conjunction with the untrue reality, the psychological, that containing illusion and error.

All this signifies that the rationalism of the theory of knowledge must be conditional, partly owing to the corrective and enriching fecundation by primitive and nave thought, partly owing to never quite separable admixture of illusion and error. So, long ago, the system of categorical forms, as Kant constructed it for theoretical and practical reason, began to change, and can never again acquire the rigidity which Kant"s rationalism intended to give it forevermore. And thus the critical system"s rational reality of law produced by reason always contains below itself and beside itself the merely psychological reality of the factual, to which also illusion and error belong,--a reality which can never be rationalized, but only set aside. This, too, is also true for the philosophy of religion: the rational reduction of the psychological facts of religion to the general laws of consciousness which prevail among them is a task constantly to be resumed anew by the study of reality, and follows the movements of primitive religion in order to find there first the rational basis; the reduction is, however, always approximate, can comprehend the main points only, and must leave much open, the rational ground for which is not or not yet evident; finally it has unceasingly to reckon with the irrational as illusion and error, which attaches to the rational, and yet is not explainable by it. The two realities, which the critical system must recognize at its very foundation, continue in strife with each other, and this strife as the strife of divine truth with human illusion is for the science of religion of still more importance.

The second correction of the Kantian teaching is only a further consequence from this state of things. If the att.i.tude of psychology and theory of knowledge requires a strict separation, it requires it only for the purpose of more correct relation. The laws of the theory of knowledge are separated from the merely psychological actuality, but still can be produced only out of it. Thus, as a matter of fact, psychological a.n.a.lysis is always the presupposition for the correct conception of all these laws. Psychology is the entrance gate to theory of knowledge. This is true for theoretical logic as well as for the practical logic of the moral, the aesthetical, and the religious. But just at this point the present, on the basis of its psychological investigation, presses far beyond the original form of the Kantian teaching. This is not the place to describe this, more closely, with reference to the first of the subjects just mentioned. But it is important to insist that this is especially true with respect to the Kantian doctrine of religion. The Kantian doctrine of religion is founded on the moral and religious psychology of Deism, which had made the connection, frequent in experience, of moral feelings with religious emotion the sole basis of the philosophy of religion, and had, in the manner of the psychology of the eighteenth century, immediately changed this connection into intellectual reflections, in accord with which the moral law demands its originator and guarantee. Kant accepted this psychology of religion without proof and built upon it his main law of the religious consciousness, in accordance with which a synthetic judgment _a priori_ is operative in religion (arising in the moral experience of freedom), which requires that the world be regarded as subject to the purposes of freedom. It is, however, extremely one-sided, to give religion its place just between the elements, and a rather violent translation of the religious const.i.tution into reflection. The error of this psychology of religion had been discovered and corrected already by Schleiermacher. But Schleiermacher, for his part too, also failed to deny himself an altogether too sudden metaphysical interpretation of the religious _a priori_ which he had demonstrated, since he not only described the _a priori_ judgment of things, from the point of view of absolute dependence upon G.o.d, as a vague feeling, but raised this feeling, by reason of the supposed lack of difference, in it, between thought and will, reason and being, to a world-principle, and interpreted the idea of G.o.d contained in this feeling in the terms of his Spinozism, the lack of difference between G.o.d and Nature within the Absolute. A real theory of knowledge of religion must keep itself much more independent of all metaphysical presuppositions and inferences, and must admit that the essence of the religious _a priori_ is extorted from a thoroughly impartial psychological a.n.a.lysis. And this is always the place where works, such as those of James, come into play.

Religion as a special category or form of psychical const.i.tution, the result of a more or less vague presence of the divine in the soul, the feeling of presence and reality with reference to the superhuman or infinite, that is without any doubt a much more correct point of departure for the a.n.a.lysis of the rational _a priori_ of religion, and it remains to make this new psychology fruitful for the theory of knowledge of religion. That will be one of the chief tasks of the future.

The third change relates to the distinction of the empirical and intelligible Ego, which Kant connected closely, almost indissolubly with his main epistemological thought of the formal rationalisms immanent in experience. Kant rationalized the whole outer and inner experience, by means of _a priori_ laws, into a totality, conforming to law, appearing in intuitive forms of s.p.a.ce and time, causally and necessarily rigidly connected. The freedom autonomously determining itself out of the logical idea, and contrasting itself with the psychological stream, produces out of the confused psycholican reality this scientific formation of the true reality. The product of thought, however, swallows its own maker. For the same acts of freedom, which autonomously produced the formation of the reality of law, remain themselves in the temporal sequence of psychical events, and, therefore, themselves, with that formation, lapse into the sequence which is under mechanical law. The intelligible Ego creates the world of law, and finds itself therein, with its activity, as empirical Ego, that is, as product of the great world-mechanism and of its causal sequence. It is an intolerable, violent contradiction, and it is no solution of this contradiction to refer the empirical Ego to appearance, and the intelligible Ego to actuality existing in itself, if the operations of the intelligible Ego, also a const.i.tuent part of what takes place in the soul, occur in time and so relapse irrecoverably into phenomenality and its mechanism. All the ingenuity of modern interpretation of Kant has not succeeded in making this circle more tolerable, all shifting of one and the same thing to different points of view has only enriched scientific terminology with masterpieces of parenthetical caution, but not removed the objection that two different points of view do not, as a matter of fact, exist side by side, but conflict within the same object.

This circle is especially intolerable for the psychology of religion and its application to the theory of knowledge. The psychology of religion certainly shows us that the deeper feeling of all religion is not a product of the mechanical sequence, but an effect of the supersensuous itself as it is felt there; it believes that it arises in the intelligible Ego by way of some kind of connection with the supersensuous world. This, however, becomes completely impossible for the Kantian theory of the empirical Ego, and all distinctions of a double point of view in no wise change the fact that these points of view are mutually absolutely exclusive. Here we have the results of psychology which the expression of religious emotion confirms, in that religion can be causally reduced to nothing else, totally opposed to the consequences of such a theory of knowledge. Kant had himself often enough practically felt this, and spoke then of freedom as an experience of communion with the supersensuous as a possible but unprovable affair, while all that, in case of a strict adherence to the phenomenality of time and of the theory of the empirical Ego, which is a consequence of it, is completely impossible. Nothing can be of any a.s.sistance here except a decisive renunciation of those epistemological positions which contradict the results of psychology, and which are themselves only doctrinaire consequences from other positions. Nothing else is possible but the modification of the phenomenality of time, in such a way that by no means everything which belongs to time belongs also as a matter of course to phenomenality, but that the autonomous rational acts which occur in the time series of consciousness possess their own intelligible time-form. At the same time the concept of causality closely connected with the concept of time is to be modified so that there should be not only an immanent and phenomenal causal connection, but also a regular interaction between phenomenal and intelligible, psychological and rational, conscious reality. At the same time the conclusion is also given up, that the Ego submits unconditionally and directly to phenomenality and to causal necessity, while the same Ego, once more, in the same way, as a whole, from another point of view, is subordinate to freedom and autonomy, that is, self-const.i.tutive through ideas. The two Egos must lie not side by side, but in and over one another. It must be possible that, within the phenomenal Ego by a creative act of the intelligible Ego in it, the personality should be formed and developed as a realization of the autonomous reason, so that the intelligible issues from the phenomenal, the rational from the psychological, the former elaborates and shapes the latter, and between both a relation of regular interaction, but not of causal constraint, takes place. This rather deep, incisive modification is, in its turn, an approach of the Kantian teaching to empiricism, but still at the same time, in the destruction and subordination of the phenomenal and intelligible world, in the emphasis upon the single personality issuing from the act of reason, an adherence to rationalism. But since the distinction and the interrelation between the rational and the empirical forms the point of departure for the critical system, and this point of departure requires at the same time the moulding and shaping of the empirical by the rational and the rejection of the psychological appearance; a mere parallelism is altogether impossible, but an interrelation is included, and a task set for the effort and labor which constantly makes the rational penetrate the empirical. At the very outset we have the exclusion of the parallelism and the a.s.sertion of the interrelation. The interrelation, by its very nature, a.s.serts the interruption of the causal necessity and the penetration of autonomous reason in this sequence, without being itself produced by this sequence, although it can be stimulated and helped or inhibited and weakened by it. Thus, in such a case as this, the irrational is recognized by the side of and in the rational. In this case the irrational of the event without causal compulsion by some antecedent, or of the self-determination by the autonomous idea alone, is the irrational of freedom. It is the irrational of the creative procedure which const.i.tutes the idea out of itself and produces the consequences of the reason out of the const.i.tuted idea. But this irrational plays everywhere in the whole life of the soul an essential part, and is not less than decisive in the case of religion, which must be quite different from what it is if it did not have the right to maintain that which it declares to be true of itself, namely, that it is an act of freedom and a gift of grace, an effect of the supersensuous permeating the natural phenomenal life of the soul and an act of free devotion the natural motivation.

The fourth problem arises, when we examine the rational law of the religious nature or of the having of religion which lies in the being and organization of the reason. The having of religion may be demonstrated as a law of the normal consciousness from the immanent feeling of necessity and obligation which properly belongs to religion, and from its organic place in the economy of consciousness, which receives its concentration and its relation to an objective world-reason only from religion. But precisely because religion is reduced to this, it is clear that this is only a reduction which abstracts from the empirical actuality just as the categories of pure reason do. This abstraction, then, should under no circ.u.mstances itself be regarded as the real religion. It is only the rational _a priori_ of the psychical appearances, but not the replacement of appearances by the truth free from confusion. The psychical reality in which alone the truth is effective should never be forgotten out of regard for the truth. This is, however, the fact in the Kantian theory of religion in _two_ directions.

It is always noticeable that the _a priori_ of the practical reason is treated by Kant quite differently from the theoretical. In case of the latter the main idea of the synthesis, immanent in experience, of rationalism and empiricism, is retained, and the _a priori_ of the pure forms of intuition and of the pure categories is nothing without the contents of concrete reality which become shaped in it. It may be very difficult actually to grasp the cooperation of the _a priori_ and the empirical in the single case, and Kant"s theory of the categories may have to be entirely reshaped and approximated to _a priori_ hypotheses requiring verification, but the principle itself is always the disposition of the real and genuine problem of all knowledge. In case of the practical _a priori_ Kant did, it is true, firmly emphasize the formal character of the ethical, aesthetical, and religious law, but, in doing this, does not lose quite out of sight the psychical reality. They appear not as empty forms which attain to their reality only when filled with the concrete ethical tasks, the artistic creations, and the religious states, but as abstract truths of reason, which have to take the place of the intricacies of usual consciousness. At this point one has always been right in feeling a relapse on the part of Kant into the abstract, a.n.a.lytical, conceptual, rationalism, and for this very reason Kant"s statements about these things are of great sublimity and rigor of principle, but scanty in content. It is more important in case also of this _a priori_ of the practical reason to keep in mind that it is a purely formal _a priori_ and in reality must constantly be in relation with the psychical content, in order to give this content the firm core of the real and the principle of the critical regulation of self. So the _a priori_ of morals is not to be represented abstractly merely by itself, but it is to be conceived in its relation to all the tasks which we feel as obligatory, and it extends itself from that point outwards over the total expanse of the activity of reason. Likewise the _a priori_ of art is not to be denoted in the abstract idea of the unity of freedom and necessity, but to be shown in the whole expanse which is present to the soul as artistic form or conception. Thus, in especial degree, religion is not to be reduced to the belief of reason in a moral world-order, and simply contrasted with all supposed religion of any other kind, but the religious _a priori_ should only serve in order to establish the essential in the empirical appearance, but without stripping off this appearance altogether, and from this point of the essential to correct the intricacies and narrowness, the errors and false combinations of the psychical situation. Kant, by his original thought of the _a priori_, was urged in different ways to such a view, and construed epistemologically the empirical psychological religion as imaginary ill.u.s.trations of the _a priori_. But that is occasional only and does not dominate Kant"s real view of religion. This is and still remains only a translation of the usual moral and theological rationalism from the formula of Locke and Wolff into the formula of the critical philosophy.

The same revision occurs in quite a different direction. If religion is an _a priori_ of reason, it is, once for all, established together with reason, and all religion is everywhere and always religious in the same proposition as it is in any way realized. Schleiermacher expressly stated this in his development of the Kantian theory, and, in so far as the practical reason is always penetrated with freedom, and consequently religion itself is established with the act of moral freedom, this was also a.s.serted by Kant himself. Such an a.s.sertion, however, contradicts every psychological observation whatsoever. It is true such observation can prove that religious emotions adjust themselves easily to all activities of reason, but it must sharply distinguish what is nothing more than the religiousness of vague feeling of supersensual regulations, which usually are joined with art and morals, from real and characteristic religiousness, in which, each single time, a purely personal relation of presence to the supersensuous takes place. But this whole problem signifies nothing else than the actualizing of the religious _a priori_, which actualizing always occurs in quite specific and, in spite of all difference, essentially similar psychical experiences and states. This problem of the actualizing of the religious _a priori_ and of its connection with concrete individual psychical phenomena, Kant completely overlooked in his abstract concept of religion, or rather, deliberately ignored, because, as he wrote to Jacobi, he saw all the dangers of mysticism lurking in it. This fear was justified; for, as a matter of fact, all the specific occurrences of mysticism, from conversion, prayer, and contemplation to enthusiasm, vision, and ecstasy, do lurk in it. But without this mysticism there is no real religion, and the psychology of religion shows most clearly how the real pulse of religion beats in the mystical experiences. A religion without it is only a preliminary step, or a reverberation of real and actual religion. Moreover, the states are easily conceived in a theory of knowledge, if one sees in them the actualizing of the religious _a priori_, the production of actual religion in the fusion of the rational law with the concrete individual psychical fact. The mysticism recognized as essential by the psychology of religion must find its place in the theory of knowledge, and it finds it as the psychological actualizing of the religious _a priori_, in which alone that interlacing of the necessary, the rational, the conformable to law, and the factual occurs, which characterizes real religion. The dangers of such a mysticism, which are recognized a thousandfold in experience, cannot be dispelled altogether by the displacement of mysticism, for that would mean to displace religion itself. It would be the same, if one should try to avoid the dangers of illusion and error, by keeping to the pure categories alone, and ceasing to employ them in the actual thinking of experience. Rather, they can be dispelled only in that the actualizing of the rational _a priori_ is recognized in the mystical occurrences, and thus the intricacies and one-sidedness of the mere psychological stream of religiousness be avoided. The psychological reality of religion must always remember the rational substance of religion, and always bring religion as central in the system of consciousness into fruitful and adjusted contact with the total life of the reason. Thus the psychological reality corrects and purifies itself out of its own _a priori_, without, however, destroying itself; or rather, the actual religion in the psychical category of the mystical occurrences will subside to a more or less degree. Thus we have the irrational prevailing here in its third form, which like the two others was contained i
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