Tragic Sense Of Life Part 15

[43] _Sermons_, by the Rev. Frederick W. Robertson. First series, sermon iii., "Jacob's Wrestling." Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubuer and Co., London, 1898.

IX

FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY

Sanctius ac reverentius visum de actis deorum credere quam scire.--TACITUS: _Germania_, 34.

The road that leads us to the living G.o.d, the G.o.d of the heart, and that leads us back to Him when we have left Him for the lifeless G.o.d of logic, is the road of faith, not of rational or mathematical conviction.

And what is faith?

This is the question propounded in the Catechism of Christian Doctrine that was taught us at school, and the answer runs: Faith is believing what we have not seen.

This, in an essay written some twelve years ago, I amended as follows: "Believing what we have not seen, no! but creating what we do not see."

And I have already told you that believing in G.o.d is, in the first instance at least, wis.h.i.+ng that G.o.d may be, longing for the existence of G.o.d.

The theological virtue of faith, according to the Apostle Paul, whose definition serves as the basis of the traditional Christian disquisitions upon it, is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," _elpizomevon hupostasis, pragmaton elegchos ou blepomenon_ (Heb. xi. 1).

The substance, or rather the support and basis, of hope, the guarantee of it. That which connects, or, rather than connects, subordinates, faith to hope. And in fact we do not hope because we believe, but rather we believe because we hope. It is hope in G.o.d, it is the ardent longing that there may be a G.o.d who guarantees the eternity of consciousness, that leads us to believe in Him.

But faith, which after all is something compound, comprising a cognitive, logical, or rational element together with an affective, biotic, sentimental, and strictly irrational element, is presented to us under the form of knowledge. And hence the insuperable difficulty of separating it from some dogma or other. Pure faith, free from dogmas, about which I wrote a great deal years ago, is a phantasm. Neither is the difficulty overcome by inventing the theory of faith in faith itself. Faith needs a matter to work upon.

Believing is a form of knowing, even if it be no more than a knowing and even a formulating of our vital longing. In ordinary language the term "believing," however, is used in a double and even a contradictory sense. It may express, on the one hand, the highest degree of the mind's conviction of the truth of a thing, and, on the other hand, it may imply merely a weak and hesitating persuasion of its truth. For if in one sense believing expresses the firmest kind of a.s.sent we are capable of giving, the expression "I believe that it is so, although I am not sure of it," is nevertheless common in ordinary speech.

And this agrees with what we have said above with respect to uncertainty as the basis of faith. The most robust faith, in so far as it is distinguished from all other knowledge that is not _pistic_ or of faith--faithful, as we might say--is based on uncertainty. And this is because faith, the guarantee of things hoped for, is not so much rational adhesion to a theoretical principle as trust in a person who a.s.sures us of something. Faith supposes an objective, personal element.

We do not so much believe something as believe someone who promises us or a.s.sures us of this or the other thing. We believe in a person and in G.o.d in so far as He is a person and a personalization of the Universe.

This personal or religious element in faith is evident. Faith, it is said, is in itself neither theoretical knowledge nor rational adhesion to a truth, nor yet is its essence sufficiently explained by defining it as trust in G.o.d. Seeberg says of faith that it is "the inward submission to the spiritual authority of G.o.d, immediate obedience. And in so far as this obedience is the means of attaining a rational principle, faith is a personal conviction."[44]

The faith which St. Paul defined, _pistis_ in Greek, is better translated as trust, confidence. The word _pistis_ is derived from the verb _peitho_, which in its active voice means to persuade and in its middle voice to trust in someone, to esteem him as worthy of trust, to place confidence in him, to obey. And _fidare se_, to trust, is derived from the root _fid_--whence _fides_, faith, and also confidence. The Greek root _pith_ and the Latin _fid_ are twin brothers. In the root of the word "faith" itself, therefore, there is implicit the idea of confidence, of surrender to the will of another, to a person. Confidence is placed only in persons. We trust in Providence, which we conceive as something personal and conscious, not in Fate, which is something impersonal. And thus it is in the person who tells us the truth, in the person who gives us hope, that we believe, not directly and immediately in truth itself or in hope itself.

And this personal or rather personifying element in faith extends even to the lowest forms of it, for it is this that produces faith in pseudo-revelation, in inspiration, in miracle. There is a story of a Parisian doctor, who, when he found that a quack-healer was drawing away his clientele, removed to a quarter of the city as distant as possible from his former abode, where he was totally unknown, and here he gave himself out as a quack-healer and conducted himself as such. When he was denounced as an illegal pract.i.tioner he produced his doctor's certificate, and explained his action more or less as follows: "I am indeed a doctor, but if I had announced myself as such I should not have had as large a clientele as I have as a quack-healer. Now that all my clients know that I have studied medicine, however, and that I am a properly qualified medical man, they will desert me in favour of some quack who can a.s.sure them that he has never studied, but cures simply by inspiration." And true it is that a doctor is discredited when it is proved that he has never studied medicine and possesses no qualifying certificate, and that a quack is discredited when it is proved that he has studied and is a qualified pract.i.tioner. For some believe in science and in study, while others believe in the person, in inspiration, and even in ignorance.

"There is one distinction in the world's geography which comes immediately to our minds when we thus state the different thoughts and desires of men concerning their religion. We remember how the whole world is in general divided into two hemispheres upon this matter. One half of the world--the great dim East--is mystic. It insists upon not seeing anything too clearly. Make any one of the great ideas of life distinct and clear, and immediately it seems to the Oriental to be untrue. He has an instinct which tells him that the vastest thoughts are too vast for the human mind, and that if they are made to present themselves in forms of statement which the human mind can comprehend, their nature is violated and their strength is lost.

"On the other hand, the Occidental, the man of the West, demands clearness and is impatient with mystery. He loves a definite statement as much as his brother of the East dislikes it. He insists on knowing what the eternal and infinite forces mean to his personal life, how they will make him personally happier and better, almost how they will build the house over his head, and cook the dinner on his hearth. This is the difference between the East and the West, between man on the banks of the Ganges and man on the banks of the Mississippi. Plenty of exceptions, of course, there are--mystics in Boston and St. Louis, hard-headed men of facts in Bombay and Calcutta. The two great dispositions cannot be shut off from one another by an ocean or a range of mountains. In some nations and places--as, for instance, among the Jews and in our own New England--they notably commingle. But in general they thus divide the world between them. The East lives in the moonlight of mystery, the West in the sunlight of scientific fact. The East cries out to the Eternal for vague impulses. The West seizes the present with light hands, and will not let it go till it has furnished it with reasonable, intelligible motives. Each misunderstands, distrusts, and in large degree despises the other. But the two hemispheres together, and not either one by itself, make up the total world." Thus, in one of his sermons, spoke the great Unitarian preacher Phillips Brooks, late Bishop of Ma.s.sachusetts (_The Mystery of Iniquity and Other Sermons_, sermon xvi.).

We might rather say that throughout the whole world, in the East as well as in the West, rationalists seek definition and believe in the concept, while vitalists seek inspiration and believe in the person. The former scrutinize the Universe in order that they may wrest its secrets from it; the latter pray to the Consciousness of the Universe, strive to place themselves in immediate relations.h.i.+p with the Soul of the World, with G.o.d, in order that they may find the guarantee or substance of what they hope for, which is not to die, and the evidence of what they do not see.

And since a person is a will, and will always has reference to the future, he who believes, believes in what is to come--that is, in what he hopes for. We do not believe, strictly speaking, in what is or in what was, except as the guarantee, as the substance, of what will be.

For the Christian, to believe in the resurrection of Christ--that is to say, in tradition and in the Gospel, which a.s.sure him that Christ has risen, both of them personal forces--is to believe that he himself will one day rise again by the grace of Christ. And even scientific faith--for such there is--refers to the future and is an act of trust.

The man of science believes that at a certain future date an eclipse of the sun will take place; he believes that the laws which have governed the world hitherto will continue to govern it.

To believe, I repeat, is to place confidence in someone, and it has reference to a person. I say that I know that there is an animal called the horse, and that it has such and such characteristics, because I have seen it; and I say that I believe in the existence of the giraffe or the ornithorhyncus, and that it possesses such and such qualities, because I believe those who a.s.sure me that they have seen it. And hence the element of uncertainty attached to faith, for it is possible that a person may be deceived or that he may deceive us.

But, on the other hand, this personal element in belief gives it an effective and loving character, and above all, in religious faith, a reference to what is hoped for. Perhaps there is n.o.body who would sacrifice his life for the sake of maintaining that the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles, for such a truth does not demand the sacrifice of our life; but, on the other hand, there are many who have lost their lives for the sake of maintaining their religious faith. Indeed it is truer to say that martyrs make faith than that faith makes martyrs. For faith is not the mere adherence of the intellect to an abstract principle; it is not the recognition of a theoretical truth, a process in which the will merely sets in motion our faculty of comprehension; faith is an act of the will--it is a movement of the soul towards a practical truth, towards a person, towards something that makes us not merely comprehend life, but that makes us live.[45]

Faith makes us live by showing us that life, although it is dependent upon reason, has its well-spring and source of power elsewhere, in something supernatural and miraculous. Cournot the mathematician, a man of singularly well-balanced and scientifically equipped mind, has said that it is this tendency towards the supernatural and miraculous that gives life, and that when it is lacking, all the speculations of the reason lead to nothing but affliction of spirit (_Traite de l'enchainement des idees fondamentales dans les sciences et dans l'histoire_, -- 329). And in truth we wish to live.

But, although we have said that faith is a thing of the will, it would perhaps be better to say that it is will itself--the will not to die, or, rather, that it is some other psychic force distinct from intelligence, will, and feeling. We should thus have feeling, knowing, willing, and believing or creating. For neither feeling, nor intelligence, nor will creates; they operate upon a material already given, upon the material given them by faith. Faith is the creative power in man. But since it has a more intimate relation with the will than with any other of his faculties, we conceive it under the form of volition. It should be borne in mind, however, that wis.h.i.+ng to believe--that is to say, wis.h.i.+ng to create--is not precisely the same as believing or creating, although it is its starting-point.

Faith, therefore, if not a creative force, is the fruit of the will, and its function is to create. Faith, in a certain sense, creates its object. And faith in G.o.d consists in creating G.o.d; and since it is G.o.d who gives us faith in Himself, it is G.o.d who is continually creating Himself in us. Therefore St. Augustine said: "I will seek Thee, Lord, by calling upon Thee, and I will call upon Thee by believing in Thee. My faith calls upon Thee, Lord, the faith which Thou hast given me, with which Thou hast inspired me through the Humanity of Thy Son, through the ministry of Thy preacher" (_Confessions_, book i., chap. i.). The power of creating G.o.d in our own image and likeness, of personalizing the Universe, simply means that we carry G.o.d within us, as the substance of what we hope for, and that G.o.d is continually creating us in His own image and likeness.

And we create G.o.d--that is to say, G.o.d creates Himself in us--by compa.s.sion, by love. To believe in G.o.d is to love Him, and in our love to fear Him; and we begin by loving Him even before knowing Him, and by loving Him we come at last to see and discover Him in all things.

Those who say that they believe in G.o.d and yet neither love nor fear Him, do not in fact believe in Him but in those who have taught them that G.o.d exists, and these in their turn often enough do not believe in Him either. Those who believe that they believe in G.o.d, but without any pa.s.sion in their heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the G.o.d-Idea, not in G.o.d Himself. And just as belief in G.o.d is born of love, so also it may be born of fear, and even of hate, and of such kind was the belief of Vanni Fucci, the thief, whom Dante depicts insulting G.o.d with obscene gestures in h.e.l.l (_Inf._, xxv., 1-3).

For the devils also believe in G.o.d, and not a few atheists.

Is it not perhaps a mode of believing in G.o.d, this fury with which those deny and even insult Him, who, because they cannot bring themselves to believe in Him, wish that He may not exist? Like those who believe, they, too, wish that G.o.d may exist; but being men of a weak and pa.s.sive or of an evil disposition, in whom reason is stronger than will, they feel themselves caught in the grip of reason and haled along in their own despite, and they fall into despair, and because of their despair they deny, and in their denial they affirm and create the thing that they deny, and G.o.d reveals Himself in them, affirming Himself by their very denial of Him.

But it will be objected to all this that to demonstrate that faith creates its own object is to demonstrate that this object is an object for faith alone, that outside faith it has no objective reality; just as, on the other hand, to maintain that faith is necessary because it affords consolation to the ma.s.ses of the people, or imposes a wholesome restraint upon them, is to declare that the object of faith is illusory.

What is certain is that for thinking believers to-day, faith is, before all and above all, wis.h.i.+ng that G.o.d may exist.

Wis.h.i.+ng that G.o.d may exist, and acting and feeling as if He did exist.

And desiring G.o.d's existence and acting conformably with this desire, is the means whereby we create G.o.d--that is, whereby G.o.d creates Himself in us, manifests Himself to us, opens and reveals Himself to us. For G.o.d goes out to meet him who seeks Him with love and by love, and hides Himself from him who searches for Him with the cold and loveless reason.

G.o.d wills that the heart should have rest, but not the head, reversing the order of the physical life in which the head sleeps and rests at times while the heart wakes and works unceasingly. And thus knowledge without love leads us away from G.o.d; and love, even without knowledge, and perhaps better without it, leads us to G.o.d, and through G.o.d to wisdom. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see G.o.d!

And if you should ask me how I believe in G.o.d--that is to say, how G.o.d creates Himself in me and reveals Himself to me--my answer may, perhaps, provoke your smiles or your laughter, or it may even scandalize you.

I believe in G.o.d as I believe in my friends, because I feel the breath of His affection, feel His invisible and intangible hand, drawing me, leading me, grasping me; because I possess an inner consciousness of a particular providence and of a universal mind that marks out for me the course of my own destiny. And the concept of law--it is nothing but a concept after all!--tells me nothing and teaches me nothing.

Once and again in my life I have seen myself suspended in a trance over the abyss; once and again I have found myself at the cross-roads, confronted by a choice of ways and aware that in choosing one I should be renouncing all the others--for there is no turning back upon these roads of life; and once and again in such unique moments as these I have felt the impulse of a mighty power, conscious, sovereign, and loving.

And then, before the feet of the wayfarer, opens out the way of the Lord.

It is possible for a man to feel the Universe calling to him and guiding him as one person guides and calls to another, to hear within him its voice speaking without words and saying: "Go and preach to all peoples!"

How do you know that the man you see before you possesses a consciousness like you, and that an animal also possesses such a consciousness, more or less dimly, but not a stone? Because the man acts towards you like a man, like a being made in your likeness, and because the stone does not act towards you at all, but suffers you to act upon it. And in the same way I believe that the Universe possesses a certain consciousness like myself, because its action towards me is a human action, and I feel that it is a personality that environs me.

Here is a formless ma.s.s; it appears to be a kind of animal; it is impossible to distinguish its members; I only see two eyes, eyes which gaze at me with a human gaze, the gaze of a fellow-being, a gaze which asks for pity; and I hear it breathing. I conclude that in this formless ma.s.s there is a consciousness. In just such a way and none other, the starry-eyed heavens gaze down upon the believer, with a superhuman, a divine, gaze, a gaze that asks for supreme pity and supreme love, and in the serenity of the night he hears the breathing of G.o.d, and G.o.d touches him in his heart of hearts and reveals Himself to him. It is the Universe, living, suffering, loving, and asking for love.

From loving little trifling material things, which lightly come and lightly go, having no deep root in our affections, we come to love the more lasting things, the things which our hands cannot grasp; from loving goods we come to love the Good; from loving beautiful things we come to love Beauty; from loving the true we come to love the Truth; from loving pleasures we come to love Happiness; and, last of all, we come to love Love. We emerge from ourselves in order to penetrate further into our supreme I; individual consciousness emerges from us in order to submerge itself in the total Consciousness of which we form a part, but without being dissolved in it. And G.o.d is simply the Love that springs from universal suffering and becomes consciousness.

But this, it will be said, is merely to revolve in an iron ring, for such a G.o.d is not objective. And at this point it may not be out of place to give reason its due and to examine exactly what is meant by a thing existing, being objective.

What is it, in effect, to exist? and when do we say that a thing exists?

A thing exists when it is placed outside us, and in such a way that it shall have preceded our perception of it and be capable of continuing to subsist outside us after we have disappeared. But have I any certainty that anything has preceded me or that anything must survive me? Can my consciousness know that there is anything outside it? Everything that I know or can know is within my consciousness. We will not entangle ourselves, therefore, in the insoluble problem of an objectivity outside our perceptions. Things exist in so far as they act. To exist is to act.

But now it will be said that it is not G.o.d, but the idea of G.o.d, that acts in us. To which we shall reply that it is sometimes G.o.d acting by His idea, but still very often it is rather G.o.d acting in us by Himself.

And the retort will be a demand for proofs of the objective truth of the existence of G.o.d, since we ask for signs. And we shall have to answer with Pilate: What is truth?

And having asked this question, Pilate turned away without waiting for an answer and proceeded to wash his hands in order that he might exculpate himself for having allowed Christ to be condemned to death.

And there are many who ask this question, What is truth? but without any intention of waiting for the answer, and solely in order that they may turn away and wash their hands of the crime of having helped to kill and eject G.o.d from their own consciousness or from the consciousness of others.

What is truth? There are two kinds of truth--the logical or objective, the opposite of which is error, and the moral or subjective, the opposite of which is falsehood. And in a previous essay I have endeavoured to show that error is the fruit of falsehood.[46]

Moral truth, the road that leads to intellectual truth, which also is moral, inculcates the study of science, which is over and above all a school of sincerity and humility. Science teaches us, in effect, to submit our reason to the truth and to know and judge of things as they are--that is to say, as they themselves choose to be and not as we would have them be. In a religiously scientific investigation, it is the data of reality themselves, it is the perceptions which we receive from the outside world, that formulate themselves in our mind as laws--it is not we ourselves who thus formulate them. It is the numbers themselves which in our mind create mathematics. Science is the most intimate school of resignation and humility, for it teaches us to bow before the seemingly most insignificant of facts. And it is the gateway of religion; but within the temple itself its function ceases.