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The Universality of Christ
The Universality of Christ
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This edition has been proof an corrected from the original hard cover edition.
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an excerpt from the beginning of the:
THE COMPARATIVE METHOD
My subject, plainly, is of vast dimensions, and I want first to say a word or two about the general plan which I propose to follow. It is quite clear that so great a subject as that which has been allotted to me can only be dealt with, in a course of four lectures, by the deliberate selection of one line of approach and then by an outline treatment. It is therefore quite likely that my method may not be one which supplies a direct answer to the questions with which you have come to these meetings. But I have chosen the line which seems to me most fruitful in suggesting answers to the particular questions that in my experience are commonest in men's minds and are the most urgent in my own. So to-day I am going to speak about those two methods of study which have come recently into the field of inquiry, one of them well established, the other by this time also having put its claims beyond question—the historical and the comparative methods. To follow them in detail would be impossible, and we will merely consider what they are capable of achieving and what lies beyond their province. To-morrow I hope to speak about the general conception of a universal religion: how far it is philosophically credible that there should be such a religion at all? and if it is credible, what are the requirements which we shall have to make of any religion if it is to be regarded as a claimant for the place of the one universal religion? After that we shall come to the central theme: Is Christianity qualified to meet these requirements ? Is the religion of Christ the one universal religion? In the fourth lecture our question will be: If in principle it appears that the religion of Christ is qualified to be the one universal religion, does it work out in practice as satisfying the need? On the way we shall raise, and suggest answers to, a large number of questions that are most commonly in the minds of thinking people at the present time. Further, I have been specially asked to try to treat the subject from the philosophical and intellectual point of view, and therefore, in order that we may achieve something on that line, I have deliberately excluded the more emotional side of religion, and with it a great deal of what is more important in the spiritual life of religion. I am anxious to say this at the outset, because otherwise an attempt to handle the matter as the intellect is bound to handle it may seem extraordinarily dry and dull and lifeless.
The study of religion, like nearly every other study, was profoundly modified during the nineteenth century by the introduction of the historical method. The historical method was not itself a novelty in the strict sense. It is to be found in all ages when men have pursued any inquiry in the strictly scientific spirit, and it is markedly prominent in Aristotle. Aristotle subjected the religious beliefs of the Greek philosophers before his time to a treatment by the historical method extraordinarily similar to that which modern thinkers apply to various formulations of religious beliefs, including the beliefs of Christianity. But there was another great tradition which came from Greece, and which in this respect impressed itself upon the mind of the Church. That was the tradition of Platonism. There can be no doubt that the Platonic method is rather hostile to any free and full use of the historical method, because the thinker who is very much akin to Plato in temper of mind will always be so concerned about the eternal and the unchanging that he is rather impatient of any discussion of development and exceedingly impatient of any suggestion that what he believes to be eternal and unchanging is itself only a phase in a long process of development which has to be carried further.
The contrast in the case of the two Greek philosophers is strongest in the sphere of politics, where Aristotle has a quite clear conception of the processes by which one form can give rise to another, and therefore how progress can be guided, while Plato has no suggestion for the initiation of the ideal state except the half humorous one, that all citizens over ten years of age should be banished and the others trained in the national nurseries by a philosopher king. That is what happens when you leave the historical method out.
Now the Church very naturally adopted the Platonic traditions in this matter. The Church was concerned with eternal truth…
***
an excerpt from the beginning of the:
THE COMPARATIVE METHOD
My subject, plainly, is of vast dimensions, and I want first to say a word or two about the general plan which I propose to follow. It is quite clear that so great a subject as that which has been allotted to me can only be dealt with, in a course of four lectures, by the deliberate selection of one line of approach and then by an outline treatment. It is therefore quite likely that my method may not be one which supplies a direct answer to the questions with which you have come to these meetings. But I have chosen the line which seems to me most fruitful in suggesting answers to the particular questions that in my experience are commonest in men's minds and are the most urgent in my own. So to-day I am going to speak about those two methods of study which have come recently into the field of inquiry, one of them well established, the other by this time also having put its claims beyond question—the historical and the comparative methods. To follow them in detail would be impossible, and we will merely consider what they are capable of achieving and what lies beyond their province. To-morrow I hope to speak about the general conception of a universal religion: how far it is philosophically credible that there should be such a religion at all? and if it is credible, what are the requirements which we shall have to make of any religion if it is to be regarded as a claimant for the place of the one universal religion? After that we shall come to the central theme: Is Christianity qualified to meet these requirements ? Is the religion of Christ the one universal religion? In the fourth lecture our question will be: If in principle it appears that the religion of Christ is qualified to be the one universal religion, does it work out in practice as satisfying the need? On the way we shall raise, and suggest answers to, a large number of questions that are most commonly in the minds of thinking people at the present time. Further, I have been specially asked to try to treat the subject from the philosophical and intellectual point of view, and therefore, in order that we may achieve something on that line, I have deliberately excluded the more emotional side of religion, and with it a great deal of what is more important in the spiritual life of religion. I am anxious to say this at the outset, because otherwise an attempt to handle the matter as the intellect is bound to handle it may seem extraordinarily dry and dull and lifeless.
The study of religion, like nearly every other study, was profoundly modified during the nineteenth century by the introduction of the historical method. The historical method was not itself a novelty in the strict sense. It is to be found in all ages when men have pursued any inquiry in the strictly scientific spirit, and it is markedly prominent in Aristotle. Aristotle subjected the religious beliefs of the Greek philosophers before his time to a treatment by the historical method extraordinarily similar to that which modern thinkers apply to various formulations of religious beliefs, including the beliefs of Christianity. But there was another great tradition which came from Greece, and which in this respect impressed itself upon the mind of the Church. That was the tradition of Platonism. There can be no doubt that the Platonic method is rather hostile to any free and full use of the historical method, because the thinker who is very much akin to Plato in temper of mind will always be so concerned about the eternal and the unchanging that he is rather impatient of any discussion of development and exceedingly impatient of any suggestion that what he believes to be eternal and unchanging is itself only a phase in a long process of development which has to be carried further.
The contrast in the case of the two Greek philosophers is strongest in the sphere of politics, where Aristotle has a quite clear conception of the processes by which one form can give rise to another, and therefore how progress can be guided, while Plato has no suggestion for the initiation of the ideal state except the half humorous one, that all citizens over ten years of age should be banished and the others trained in the national nurseries by a philosopher king. That is what happens when you leave the historical method out.
Now the Church very naturally adopted the Platonic traditions in this matter. The Church was concerned with eternal truth…
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