Pax Domini
By EVELYN
UNDERHILL.
[Miss Underhill sums up the " Challenge to Religious Orthodoxy " lip to date. We shall welcome correspondence from our readers (not necessarily for publication) giving us any ideas they may have for future articles of a similar kind, dealing with religious or psycho- logical problems. Next week Mr. Fenn writes on Atheism.—ED. Spectator.]
THIS week there is a pause in the procession of Lions and Christians which has lately occupied our theological arena ; a pause which gives the dust time to settle, and ourselves time to glance at the forgotten stars, Christmas, because it is at once so human and so transcen- dental, announces peace—or at least an armistice— between those who find man's whole duty and meaning in the visible world, and those who beyond this are " snatched up to the invisible love." It presents in a point the question by which religion in the last resort must stand or fall : Is the Transcendent Unseen a fact or an illusion ; and if a fact, does it matter supremely to men ? Can they achieve correspondence with it ? Is the Eternal intimately concerned in the time-process ; does it enter that time-process, to affect and transform human lives ? Christianity is the Yes of history to these questions ; and Christianity, regarded as a religion, stands or falls by Christmas—the Infinite self-revealed within the finite scene.
This, then, seems an appropriate point at which to stop, and consider what the general character of that challenge which is offered by the new generation to orthodox Christianity has shown itself to be ; and what is or should be the Church's answer to its criticisms and demands. It is not easy to approach this question with a mind free from bias ; or maintain the objective attitude of. an umpire towards a discussion which so deeply con- cerns our fundamental reactions to life. Those for whom religion is " a variety of imaginative thinking," and those for whom it represents man's closest communion with Reality, look out on different worlds ; and all but the merely uninterested belong at bottom to one or the other class. Yet perhaps it is worth while at this stage to consider some of the more obvious peculiarities which have marked the series as a whole ; and may therefore he regarded as characteristic of the present outlook.
In the first place, we may assume that the real challenge to orthodox religion is a challenge to justify its :view of the universe ; and of the relation of the half-real human self to the Absolute Reality, God. Yet, with the exception of Mr. Bernal, who denounced in toto and with an impressivesincerity all belief in that " Transcendental Unseen " by which other passages of his essay suggest that he really lives, and of Dr. N. P. Willianis, who met his attack by an insistence on the concrete but " super- natural " reality of Faith, there has been a general agree- ment on both sides to avoid fundamentals ; a curious tendency to keep on the surface, among the moralisms and naturalisms. No one has seriously attempted to relate articulate human religion with the deep currents of our mysterious life. No one either assaults or defends the central stronghold of Christianity—its incarnational and sacramental philosophy. The balanced This-ness and That-ness of a full human response to environment ; the strange power of reaching out through symbols to Abso- lutes ; the persistent call to an apparent renunciation of life which is yet the road to an unimagined fulness of life ; the supra-sensible energy of grace and its trans- forming effects on personality—this vast, rich tract of experience and all it means for our interpretation of the universe, is left untouched alike by attack and defence. One might almost suspect that both parties were in the position of the disciples at Ephesus, who had not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.
Another strange fact is, that none of those who have felt competent to pronounce with such decision on the worthlessness of man's desire for God betray the slightest knowledge of the best Christian thought, either ancient or modern. Many of these writers spend most of the space at their disposal in " reproving the saints for thinking what they never thought "—a pastime which is still as popular with the unchurched intellectual as it was in St. Augustine's day. It is curious that a complete and obvious ignorance of Christian theology is not regarded by scientific minds as any bar to this occu- pation. In this field it is that which they do not know and have not touched of which they prefer to speak. Christian doctrine is taken at its lowest denomination ; and the existence of Christian scholars of the first class, especially those modern writers who have undertaken to reinterpret Christian philosophy in the language of con- temporary thought, is ignored. Yet those who estimate the outlook of current theology without reference—e.g., to Barth and Otto, or, in this country, to Archbishop Temple, Dr. W. R. Matthews, Dr. N. P. Williams or Father Thornton (this list implies no judgment on the eminent names it omits), put themselves in the position of those who would estimate the outlook of physical science without mentioning Eddington, Whitehead or Jeans. Even the unprejudiced study of the Lambeth Report in its entirety (not merely of the extracts that. appeared in the press) might dispel some cherished illusions as to the pear, quality and crooked methods of Christian thinking, and the unreasoning rikoriam of
Christian ethic ; and prove—as Miss Grace Hunter observed in her excellent letter—that hostile critics too often judge the Church by the mentality of the " lab. boy."
Many of the criticisms which have been made with the greatest assurance are found on examination to be the result of complete misunderstanding—e.g., Mr. Bourn- phrey's categorical statement that " the Christian faith attempts to focus our attention on a future life—to the consequent neglect of this present one " ; a proposition which entirely ignores the whole of the incarnational and immanental trend in Christian theism. Again, Mrs. Williams Ellis's complaint as to " the confusion entailed in bringing up an intelligent child " in its tenets, seems to have its origin in nothing more fundamental than the inevitable confusion and loss of proportion which results from trying to teach a subject which the teacher does not understand. As a matter of fact, any Sunday School teacher trained by modern methods, and concerned to work from wit: in outwards instead of pursuing the opposite course, could have dealt honestly and adequately with the difficulties she describes. As to the charges brought by Mr. Bertrand Russell, they suggest that his knowledge of Christianity has been mainly obtained by way of the worst outpourings of the " rationalist press."
At the same time, these articles offer Christians plenty of material for self-examination and contrition : for many of the charges here made against the Church could hardly have been formulated had she done justice to her great inheritance and opportunity. It is evident that Christian society as seen through the eyes of its critics shows few outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace. Though the heroism, charm, and de- votedness of individual souls is acknowledged, the general impression made by the Bride of Christ on the con- temporary mind is not a fortunate one. There is much agreement among the attacking party as to what they condemn in current religion. It is accused of a refusal to face facts, a clinging to vested interests, a merely re- pressive moral code, an ungenerous attitude to political experiment—peculiarities which the Gospel decisively condemns. The timid outlook of an entrenched piety, its desire for consolations, its interest in non-essentials and lazy avoidance of the discipline of thought, its failure to incorporate eternal ideals in new symbols, or recognize God under a fresh disguise ; all this is too easily mistaken by the watching world for the real " mind of the Church." Well might Huvelin say : " It n'y a pas d'ennemi plus profond et plus dangereux du Christianisme, que tout cc qui le rapetisse et le rend itroit."
The challenge to orthodox religion, then, conies chiefly from those whose eyes are so sharply focussed on its human poverty and pettiness, its unattractive clothes, that they miss the mystery and beauty of its soul. When the shepherds ran to Bethlehem, some saw a carpenter's baby born under the most unfortunate circumstances ; but others gazed with awe on the Transcendent Unseen, self-revealed under homely accidents within the human world. This double vision does and must continue, as the mind of man wanders along the frontier between eternity and time. But the final answer to his questions must come from those who can discern with open vision, within and beyond all faulty human embodiment, the substance of the things he hopes for, and the evidence of things not seen..
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