Introduction To the Philosophy Of Religion

Peter Anthony Bertocci PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY

•

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

INTRODUCTION to the THILOSOPHY

of 'RELIGION

Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.

PRENTICE-HALL PHILOSOPHY

SERIES

^Arthur E. ^Murphy, Ph.D., Editor

First Printing Second Printing Third Printing_ Fourth Printing Fifth Printing

October, 1951 . April, 1952 March, 19S3 March, JQ55 June, 1956

COPYRIGHT, I 9 5 I , BY PRENTICE-HALL, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM, BY MIMEOGRAPH OR ANY OTHER MEANS, WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

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PREFACE

FOR some years I have been teaching the philosophy of religion to students interested in the foundations of religious belief but with no preparation in philosophy. Coming from courses in literature and in the physical and social sciences, these students brought with them many questions involving values, the nature of truth, the compatibility of religious faith with the findings of science, and the nature of man and his destiny. As discussion proceeded it became increasingly clear that I could not assume that they had even an elementary knowledge of the physical world as a whole, let alone any appreciation of the basic problems involved in the interpretation of scientific discoveries. They tended to take for granted that what had been taught in biology, psychology, and sociology was all that was to be known about man's nature—the more since they had little knowledge of their own religious tradition at its best. Moreover, they were relatively unaware of the problems involved in interpreting "facts," having had little practice in considering man's world as a whole. Yet these students were particularly anxious to know whether one could find any basis for religious belief in a world whose energies might any day blow up in their faces. To help meet this situation, what seemed to be required was a book bringing together the fundamental facts and problems relevant to the thinking through of basic religious issues. The point of departure for such a book should be sections, like Chapter i and 2, which articulated the student's problems in the religious area. It then might proceed to supply basic information and exposition of philosophical problems with regard to the nature of truth, the nature and validity of religious experience, the basis for the convii

viii • 'Preface flict between science and religion, the constitution of the physical world and man, and the nature of value-experience. The treatment of these subjects and an exposition of the best reasoning for God put forth in the Western tradition should serve as a broad basis for the student's conclusions. Since the needs of beginners and not of seasoned philosophers had to determine the nature of the exposition, I had to decide upon the method of introducing philosophical issues. Experience indicated that students go further when the problems of philosophy are expounded, not by recalling Plato's, Kant's, or Alexander's treatment of the problem, but by a direct exposition of the problem as it comes up in the context of the issue confronting the class. To be sure, the strain removed from the students' comprehension had to be absorbed by my own philosophical conscience. How frequently I wished I could fill out the bare skeleton of a discussion with the rich insights of Spinoza or Aquinas or Royce! But the task was to bring to bear upon the beginner's problem the essentials of philosophy within his reach and relevant to the problem. I could simply accept that task and hope that any omissions, however grievous, might seldom be at the expense of fair dealing within the scope set for the argument. In this book every attempt has been made to render the text self-explanatory to the person with no prior philosophical training. However, if one is to pursue his interest in religion intelligently, there is no escaping difficult problems. Accordingly, the beginner has been confronted with an analysis of those problems that are germane, not only to his felt interest but also to an adequate understanding of the central issues involved in the philosophy of religion. My gratitude goes out to the many students who have helped me to become aware of cloudy exposition. I should expect the average beginner to find Chapters 4, 11, and 17 especially difficult, for here more philosophical preparation is needed for the clearest understanding. But even here, it is hoped, the main structure of the argument will be clear. Everywhere there is as much concern for the understanding of what is involved in the problem at issue as

'Preface • ix for the conclusions reached. Thus, while I myself cannot accept some of the traditional views of God, I have attempted to expound sympathetically the reasoning behind these views before suggesting another possible way out of difficulties they involve. I feel keenly certain limitations in this book—the student also needs the kind of orientation in the problems of religion which comes through study of the great historical religions and a comparison of their basic tenets; in my own teaching I provide for this by assigning additional reading in the excellent treatments that, fortunately, are now easily available. Nor am I happy about omitting definite exposition and treatment of the recent neo-orthodox and existentialist movements in religious thinking, though the informed reader will know that I have had them in mind in my exposition of basic problems. Finally, I have felt obliged, in the interests of the basic task of this book, to leave out related problems in epistemology and metaphysics; here, too, I hope that I will not seem to ignore what I have been forced to exclude. If ever a book was the work of a community of friendly scholars, this one is. Any manuscript which goes through the hands of Edgar S. Brightman and Gordon W. Allport has had the benefit of frank, firm, and friendly criticism of the highest order. They and my brother, Angelo P. Bertocci, have left the imprint of their patient labors on the author and the manuscript. Dr. Richard M. Millard added the benefit of his acute observations as the manuscript approached final form. Nor can I overlook the aid of Dean Emeritus Albert C. Knudson, and of Professors Robert E. Ulich, John Wild, and Richard N. Bender, who criticized some of the chapters. Professors Leland C. Wyman, Norman S. Bailey, Arthur G. Humes, and Donald I. Patt, of the Boston University Department of Biology, and Professor Royal M. Frye, of the Department of Physics, succeeded, I hope, in keeping me from gross errors. Professor Arthur E. Murphy, editor of this Series, has been more than helpful from the beginning. I am also indebted to the generosity of assistants in the Department of Philosophy who have worked beyond the requirements

x * "Preface of duty in helping to prepare the manuscript: Mr. and Mrs. T. Downing Bowler, Mr. and Mrs. Peter V. Corea, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Herrick, Mr. and Mrs. Paul W. Pixler, Mr. Edward T. Dell, Jr., and Mr. Hugo A. Bedau, Jr. If I cannot set down the long list of students who have helped in many ways to improve this book, I can at least offer public thanks. The constant help and selfsacrificing cooperation of my wife have made the writing of this book another common enterprise. PETER ANTHONY BERTOCCI Arlington Heights Massachusetts

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What It Means to be Religious § 1 . THE BASIS FOR RELIGIOUS MATURITY. }2. THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION. § 3 . IS HUMANISM A RELIGION? (4. UNIQUE BY-PRODUCTS OF RELIGIOUS LIVING. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

2 Why Human Beings Develop Religious Belief and Disbelief § 1 . THE MEANING OF BELIEF AND DISBELIEF. §2. THE DESIRE FOR HELP IN THE BUSINESS OF LIVING. § 3 . THE NEED FOR COMMUNION IN GOODNESS. § 4 . THE STRUGGLE WITH EVIL. § 5 . THE WORKS OF RELIGIOUS PERSONS AND INSTITUTIONS AS SOURCES OF DISBELIEF. §6. WEAKNESS IN THE INDICTMENT OF RELIGIOUS PERSONS AND ORGANIZATIONS. § 7 . THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD, OR ITS ABSENCE, AS ROOTS OF BELIEF OR DISBELIEF. § 8 . IS MAN INNATELY RELIGIOUS? §9. DOES RELIGION HAVE RATIONAL MOTIVES? QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

The Meaning and Function of Reason in Experience § 1 . REASONING AS LOGICAL CONSISTENCY. § 2 . REASON AS EMPIRICAL COHERENCE. § 3 . CAN WE BE LOGICALLY CERTAIN ABOUT ANYTHING? § 4 . PSYCHOLOGICAL CERTAINTY, REALITY, AND TRUTH. § 5 . REASONABLENESS AND FAITH. § 6 . REASONABLE FAITH AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD. §7. TRUTH AS GROWING, EMPIRICAL COHERENCE. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

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3

xii • Contents 4

Do We Know God Directly in Religious Experience?

82

§ 1 . THE CLAIM OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. §2. TWO DOGMATIC CLAIMS ABOUT RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. § 3 . IS RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE COGNITIVE? § 4 . IS THERE A COMMON CORE IN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE? § 5 . THE COGNITIVE VALUE OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. §6. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE AS A SOURCE OF GROWTH. § 7 . THE BASIC IMPORT OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. § 8 . PRESENT STATUS OF THE ARGUMENT. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

5

The Conflict of Religious and Scientific Perspectives

121

§ 1 . THE RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE. § 2 . BASES OF CONFLICT AND RECONCILIATION. § 3 . THE SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE. § 4 . THE ISSUE: MECHANICAL EXPLANATION VS. TELEOLOGICAL. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

6

The Nature of the Physical World and Life

141

§ 1 . THE SHIFT FROM A PICTURABLE TO A THINKABLE WORLD. § 2 . OUR CELESTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD. § 3 . OUR SUN-SYSTEM AND ITS FUTURE. § 4 . THE SYSTEM IN THE ATOM. § 5 . DIVINE CREATION OR EVOLUTION? § 6 . THE NATURE OF EVOLUTION. § 7 . EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. § 8 . FACTORS INFLUENCING EVOLUTION. § 9 . THE PLACE OF MAN IN THE EVOLUTIONARY PATTERN. § 1 0 . THE TOTAL OUTLOOK IN EVOLUTION. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

7 The Meaning of Evolution § 1 . PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETATION. § 2 . CONDITIONS FAVORING THE APPEARANCE OF LIFE. § 3 . PROFESSOR HENDERSON'S INTERPRETATION. § 4 . SCHRODINGER's VIEW OF LIFE. § 5 . SHERRINGTON'S CONCEPTION OF MATTER, LIFE, AND MIND. § 6 . J. S. HALDANE'S INTERPRETATION OF LIFE. § 7 . THREE BASIC APPROACHES TO THE FACTS. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

167

Contents • xiii 8 How Shall We Think of Man?

191

§ 1 . IS MAN A COMPLICATED PHYSICAL MACHINE? § 2 . DOES MAN HAVE A NONSPATIAL MIND? § 3 . WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A PERSONAL MIND. § 4 . ARE ALL THE MOTIVES OF MEN PHYSIOLOGICAL? § 5 . SOME PSYCHIC NEEDS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS. § 6 . ARE MEN INTRINSICALLY SELFISH? § 7 . SUMMARY. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

9 Personality, Free Will, and Moral Obligation

223

§ 1 . WHAT IS A PERSONALITY? § 2 . FREE WILL AS EXPERIENCED. §3- WILL-AGENCY AND WILL-POWER. § 4 . IS FREE WILL INCONSISTENT WITH THE FINDINGS OF SCIENCE? § 5 . DOES FREE WILL RENDER MORAL TRAINING USELESS? § 6 . THEORETICAL CONSEQUENCES OF DENYING FREE WILL. § 7 . THE NATURE OF MORAL OBLIGATION. § 8 . THE EXPERIENCE OF OBLIGATION. § 9 . DOES MORAL OBLIGATION REVEAL GOD'S PRESENCE? § 1 0 . IS MORAL OBLIGATION THE VOICE OF SOCIETY? § 1 1 . OBLIGATION: NEITHER DIVINE NOR SOCIAL? § 1 2 . SUMMARY. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

10 Are there Values Valid for All Human Beings? 249 § 1 . THE ARGUMENTS FOR VALUES INDEPENDENT OF MAN. § 2 . THE ARGUMENT FOR VALUES AS UNIVERSAL BUT NOT INDEPENDENT OF MAN. § 3 . THE THEORETICAL IMPORT OF MORAL OBLIGATION AND TRUE VALUES. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

11 Patterns of Reasoning About God

271

§ 1 . THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR GOD. § 2 . THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. § 3 . THE CLASSICAL TELEOGICAL ARGUMENT. § 4 . THE MORAL ARGUMENT FOR GOD. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

12 The Conception of God in the Western Tradition 305 § 1 . GOD § 3 . GOD § 5 . GOD CIENT.

AS A PERSON. § 2 . GOD AS IMMUTABLE AND ETERNAL. AS TRANSCENDENT AND IMMANENT. § 4 . GOD AS CREATOR. AS OMNIPOTENT. § 6 . GOD'S GOODNESS. § 7 . GOD AS OMNISQUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

xiv • Contents 13 The Wider Teleological Argument for a Personal God—The Interrelation of Matter, Life, and Thought 329 § 1 . THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE WIDER TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. § 2 . EXPOSITION OF THE WIDER TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT: Lin\ One: THE PURPOSIVE INTERRELATION OF MATTER AND LIFE. Lin\ Two: THE RELEVANCE OF THOUGHT TO REALITY, QUESTIONS.

14 The Wider Teleological Argument for a Personal God—The Interrelation of the Good Life and Nature 347 L,in\ Three: THE INTERRELATION OF MORAL EFFORT AND THE ORDER OF NATURE. Lin\ FoUV. THE INTERRELATION BETWEEN VALUE AND NATURE. Lin\ Fife: THIS WORLD AS GOOD FOR MAN. QUESTIONS.

15 The Wider Teleological Argument for a Personal God—Objective Roots of Aesthetic and Religious Experience 374 Lin\ Six: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE. Lin\ Seven: RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE AS CONFIRMATORY. § I . SUMMARY OF THE WIDER TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

16 Is This the Best of All Possible Worlds?

389

§ 1 . WHAT IS HAPPINESS? § 2 . THE NATURE OF EVIL. § 3 . THE TRADITIONAL EXPLANATION OF EVIL. § 4 . WEAKNESSES IN THE TRADITIONAL EXPLANATION OF EVIL. § 5 . SUMMARY OF GROUNDS FOR FINITENESS IN GOD. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

17 The Explanation of Excess Evil § 1 . IS SUPERFLUOUS EVIL DUE TO GOD'S ILL-WILL OR NEGLECT? § 2 . WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE IMPEDIMENT? § 3 . ARE OBJECTIONS TO A FINITE-INFINITE GOD VALID? QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

420

Contents • xv 18 How, Then, Shall We Think of God?

442

§ 1 . GOD AS A PERSON. § 2 . GOD AS ETERNAL. § 3 . GOD AS KNOWER. § 4 . GOD AS CREATOR. § 5 . GOD AS LOVE. QUESTIONS.

19 Is It Reasonable to Pray?

469

§ 1 . THE TRANSITION FROM REASONABLE CONCLUSIONS TO REASONABLE LIVING. § 2 . WHAT OUGHT RELIGION TO BE? § 3 . GOD'S PROVIDENCE: IMPERSONAL AND PERSONAL. §4. CONDITIONS OF FELLOWSHIP BETWEEN MAN AND GOD. § 5 . PRAYER AS FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD. §6. IS PRAYER JUST A MATTER OF PSYCHOLOGY? §7. THE GOAL OF PRAYER. §8. IS INTERCESSORY PRAYER REASONABLE? QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

20 The Religious Life and the Community

497

§ 1 . THE RELIGIOUS CHALLENGE TO SOCIAL LOYALTIES. § 2 . THE RELIGIOUS ROOTS OF COMMUNITY. § 3 . THE THEORETICAL ROOT OF RELIGIOUS TENSION. §4. BASES FOR DEVELOPING RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

21 The Good Life and Immortality

519

§ 1 . DEATH AS A MORAL ISSUE. § 2 . THE JUSTIFICATION FOR PERSONAL IMMORTALITY. § 3 . CAN A FINITE GOD GRANT PERSONAL IMMORTALITY? §4. CAN THE MIND EXIST WITHOUT THE BODY? § 5 . IS THE NEXT LIFE A REWARD FOR ACCOMPLISHMENT? § 6 . THE RELIGIOUS IMPERATIVE. QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING.

Index

555

I

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE RELIGIOUS

§ I. THE BASIS FOR RELIGIOUS MATURITY

MOST persons are at a disadvantage when they begin to think about religion. They cannot come to religion in a spirit of relative detachment, as they would approach the study of the stars, for example. Since early childhood they acquired their religious images and ideas in an atmosphere emotionally charged with the approval or disapproval of their parents. When such persons became communicants in a specific religious denomination their early religious attitudes were further confirmed or transformed. But from the beginning, be it at home, at school, or in the community, the emphasis was on some sort of emotional attachment to certain religious ideas and actions in preference to others. It is to be expected, therefore, that whatever the specific content of a person's religion is, he will not regard it as a detached observer. His own hopes and inspirations are involved; he is a partisan, not an outsider looking in. He grows up convinced that his own familiar perspective has some special virtue; at any rate, it probably draws the approval of the people who mean most to his sense of security. As a consequence, the word religion immediately suggests his religion; it exerts a particular pull upon his emotions and attitudes. The word is immediately clothed with his specific convictions and, perhaps, is limited to a specific mode of worship or to a specific denominational creed. Mr. Thwackum, the provincial parson, in Fielding's Tom Jones, declares: "When I mention religion I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian

2 • What It eMeans To Be %eligtous religion, but the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion, but the Church of England." Accordingly, the person who begins to think about religion may find himself identifying his particular beliefs with the essence of all religion. His own religious beliefs are vivid and vital to him, especially if his religious training has been consistent and regular,and if his religion is emotionally allied with valued experiences at home, at school, and with friends. Again, if his specific beliefs have become connected with satisfying moments of high inspiration and if he has found these beliefs helpful in time of need, his religion will have so permeated the nooks and crannies of his life that any other "religion" is a relatively dead thing—something foreign and alien—and, indeed, not really religion! There is only one religion for him. As he tries to evaluate his religion, it will be difficult for him to examine his beliefs impartially and to give adequate weight to those factors in the experience of others which have little meaning to him in terms of his own emotional background. We might say that he suffers from emotional rigidity in religion. It is not only persons who favor their particular religious belief that suffer from emotional rigidity in religious matters. Persons brought up in an atmosphere of indifference or hostility to religion develop a perspective toward life which has little place in it for "religious" ideas, rituals, and emotions. Habituated to their particular pattern of disbelief, such persons also find it difficult to be detached about points of view different from their own. Such men may be emotionally inert as well as intellectually biased. A third group of persons—and we are not trying to classify all variations of religious attitude—have become negative in their approach to religion as a result of disappointment with the religion of their less critical years. An interview with a college junior will serve to illustrate religious rigidity (or frigidity) after disappointment. A young lady came to my office one day after attending a lecture on the meaning of religion. "Oh, if only I could have the religion of my girlhood!"

What It Cleans To Be Religious •

3

she exclaimed. "What you say about religion is so attractive, but I'm not going to be burned again!" Here is her story, somewhat simplified. When she was in the early grades, she was the family's problemchild at school. Inferior to an older sister in deportment and application, she was admittedly bright and very likable. She had a deep affection for her parents, and for her mother in particular. It was during these early days of her inner conflict that America was shocked by the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. Who could predict that this event was to initiate a lasting change in this girl's attitude toward life ? By what psychological link did the death of a baby become connected in this nine-year-old's mind with fear for her own mother's safety? In any case, the newspaper stories filled her mind with horror and uncertainty. Her parents were what she termed "average Catholics," and her religious training had been regular but not especially meaningful. During this period of turmoil, she prayed to God one night and promised that she would be a good girl at school and more obedient generally, if He would only protect her mother. For four or five years her life was transformed, and she felt confident and secure in her world. Then one day, when she was about thirteen, she was told to stay with her aunt while her mother went to the hospital for a brief spell. She went without fuss, sure in her mind that all would be well. Two weeks later she had to be told that her mother had died. "For over a month I couldn't believe it." And then she remarked, "I couldn't believe God had let me down." Since that time this girl went to church to please her father, but faith in God had gone—that is, faith in a God who was never supposed to disappoint her, a God who alone was blamed for her mother's death. At college this junior had, that very semester, studied other religious perspectives and different views of God; but to her, as she said, they were not "God." A moment's reflection will reveal why any other God, or any other set of beliefs, could not satisfy this student. She had lived intimately with her God, with her conception of herself in relation

4 * What It ^Means To Be %eligious to Him. Surely no other God discussed by philosophers could take the place of this God with whom she had lived, and who existed to help her have her own way. For her, every other God was a cosmic stepfather; he might be "all right," but he could not take the place of "God"! At 20, living in the new impersonal world her sciences had described for her, she had found an interest in the psychology and sociology of people; she had hardened herself in a new outlook, one that was fairly "safe"—though there were moments when she wished Many persons have gone through an experience of religion similar to that of this college student. One cannot love any thing, any person, or any ideal and not face the possibility of keen disappointment. Let one believe in an infallible Bible or Church in such a way that he governs his life by it and accepts its promise and discipline. Then let that Bible turn out to be fallible and the Church venal and hypocritical. Something is likely to die in him which will not easily be resurrected. Better be rid of the whole thing! The more central to one's own life is the object of one's faith, the more keen is the shock when that object of faith "lets one down." But we must be careful not to impose any one pattern of religious development or religious disillusionment on all persons. What happens to religious belief depends on innumerable factors in the life-experience of the believer. What the individual calls his religion is interwoven with experiences which are religiously significant for him. The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby was felt in the life of a thirteen-year-old girl through her concern for Mother; this reaction was peculiar to her life and was far different from the effect that the tragedy had on many others. Similarly, the boy who would not call God "Father" because his own father was a vicious drunkard provides one of myriad illustrations of this basic fact: what happens in a person's religious development must be understood in the light of those factors in his life which he ties in with "God" as he conceives Him. This point receives interesting support in a study of 414 Harvard

What It -means To Be %eligiom • 5men and 86 Radcliffe women right after World War II.1 The general effect of the war on this generation of students, as brought out in this study, was consistent with similar studies on students after World War I. In this study 82 per cent of the women and y6 per cent of the men reported the need for religious orientation in their lives, but only 64 per cent of the veterans were numbered among this group. Certainly the war had no uniform effect upon persons. Of the students who felt the need for religious orientation, 60 per cent found the religion in which they were nurtured still satisfying, but the other 40 per cent were looking for a better substitute. Do these data reflect the particular kind of religious training the subjects had had ? It would be hazardous to explain the effect in terms of this factor alone. But that early training is important is clear from the facts. Fully 40 per cent of the youth who were brought up in some form of Judaism and in less God-centered forms of Protestantism (such as Unitarianism and Universalism) did not believe that religion was important to the growth of mature personality. On the other hand, of the 200 students brought up in more orthodox Protestant denominations, 25 per cent denied that they needed religion for maturity of personality, and 14 per cent were convinced that a new type of religion altogether is needed. Only 18 per cent of the total student sample were confident that a mature personality requires no religion, and only 12 per cent considered themselves outright atheists. While it is interesting to point out that in the main these postwar college students were seeking an adequate religious orientation, and although it is important to note that the drift from religion tends to come to rest on ethical rather than theological formulations of religion, the underlying fact must not be overlooked. What happens to each attitude toward religion must be seen in the light of the believer's total experience and of the part 1 G. W. AUport, J. M. Gillespie, J. Young, "The Religion of the Post-War College Student," Journal of Psychology, 1948, 25, 3-33 See also G. W. Allport, The Individual and His Religion. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1950. Chapter II

6

•

"What It Jbleans To Be Religions

he believes religion has played in it. Persons will hold on to what has been valuable to them in their attempt to understand life and to find fulfillment in life. They may pay lip-service to certain beliefs for the sake of convenience, but such expressions make little difference to them and will be shed when the proper occasion arises. Two things are required if a person's religion is to keep in touch with the rest of his thinking, feeling, and acting. First, he must keep criticizing and enlarging his ideas of what is important for self-fulfillment. Second, he must keep reviewing and revising his emotional attachments. He must expect change and growth as his experience brings disappointment along with the opportunity for deeper appreciations. The adult who still has the same quality of emotion, the same ideas, and the same habits which he had as a child is an immature "adult." On the other hand, maturity does not necessarily mean that all the emotions, ideas, and habits of childhood must be supplanted; it rather calls for willingness to change and grow when there seems to be good reason for it, no matter what the immediate consequences to one's emotional peace of mind may be. It has been well said that "Maturity in any sentiment comes about only when a growing intelligence is animated by the desire that this sentiment shall not suffer arrested development, but shall keep pace with the intake of relevant experience." 2 We might stop here to question the kind of religious training which emphasizes dogma and "faith" at the expense of understanding. To be sure, beliefs which are not understood—beliefs which are not seen by the individual as vital to growth—are likely to be thrown out "baby with bath." But the sources of this wholesale rejection of faith lie deeper than faulty methods of religious teaching. Given the best pedagogy, the fact remains that we all 2

G. W. Allport, The Individual and His Religion, New York: The Macmillan Co., 1950, p. 52. The student who is anxious to achieve more insight into his religious sentiment is advised not only to read Chapter III, "The Religion of Maturity," but the rest of this objective and sensitive psychological study of different facets of the religious life.

What It <>Means To Be Religious

•

7

grow up with beliefs, sentiments, prejudices and philosophies that reflect the various stages of our own intellectual maturity as well as our social environment. The narrower and shallower our own experience is, the more likely we are to accept what we are taught without making allowances for emphasis and exaggeration. As we move into the days of adolescence our experience becomes broader and our intellectual ability matures. Under the stress of vocational, social, emotional, and theoretical problems, we see inconsistencies and inadequacies. Sometimes the best way to clean house is to move all the furniture out and then see what can be done with a new plan of organization. This is more easily said than done when it comes to one's mental furniture, however. Any person who has moved from one physical house to another knows how difficult it is to decide what to leave behind. As a person seeks to order his mental house, he becomes aware of many beliefs which are discordant, some which seem to have no apparent use. It takes patience, wisdom, and courage to re-think, re-sort, and reorganize one's convictions, especially since some of the new convictions challenge deep emotional ties with parents, friends, and revered authorities. But there simply cannot be religious maturity, even if there could be emotional and intellectual maturity, unless we face the problems of integrating our beliefs with our new intellectual and emotional adjustments. In all this we need to remember that what we have believed may not be the final answer to the problem confronting us, and that our own solution to date may be immature and uncritical. Besides, the underlying concern is not with the words "religion" or "God" but with the nature of the world in which we live. If one does not believe in God, he must, as a rational person, still face the question: What is the purpose and meaning of human existence in this world ? Mental maturity does not come from accepting or changing religious beliefs. It comes from facing honestly the problems which religious beliefs were intended to solve. But still more is involved if an individual is to become mature

8

• What It Cleans To Be Religious

or make valid changes in his religious orientation. To the willingness to take reasonable though emotionally unsatisfactory new directions a second requirement must be added: the individual must be able to distinguish between the essence of religion and its expression in a particular set of beliefs, or a given church, or a way of life. Is the sum and substance of religious practice available only in one's own denomination? Does one's own experience of God— vivid and intimate as it may be—exhaust all that God may be in human life ? Do the beliefs in which one has been nurtured constitute what has been the core of religion through the ages? The more mature we become intellectually, the less likely are we to confuse some particular phase or attribute of a thing with the thing itself. Not that the particular property or manifestation is unimportant. But can one justify giving up the whole out of dissatisfaction with the part—at least without further analysis ? The purpose of this study in the philosophy of religion is to help at this point. A philosophy of religion is not a theology. It is not a careful analysis and synthesis of the basic doctrines of any one religious faith or denomination. It is the attempt to understand the fundamental issues with which any religious belief is involved. The Christian, Mohammedan, Jewish or any other theology may be very important additions to the fundamental core of religion. But in the philosophy of religion we confine our study to systematic criticism of the essential claims of all religions. Theologies—specific religious tenets within definite religious traditions—come first in the history of thought. For human beings find themselves believing this and that before they systematically analyze and justify their beliefs. But when persons realize that other equally sincere human beings hold to dogmas perhaps different from and contradictory to their own, they are forced to examine the validity of religious thought to come to a clearer understanding of the basic issues involved in any religious belief. When they do this, they become philosophers of religion. Now

What It ^Means To Be %eligious • 9 they have to see their own and other religious traditions in the light of all relevant human experience. This enterprise is hardly a modest one, but we simply cannot solve our problems unless we see what makes them problems. We must try to understand the critical issues many wise persons have found to be involved in religious belief or unbelief. And the first task is to understand what we have an intellectual right to mean when we say that a person is religious. § 2. THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION

It is no easy matter to isolate the essence of religion. Even the most sympathetic and critical scholars identify some important accompaniment of religion with its essence. It is especially tempting to confuse what religion is with what religion ought to be, to identify a persistent attitude that all religious people seem to have toward life with the attitude one believes they ought to have. In this chapter we must be satisfied to clarify a minimum definition of what religion is, reserving the question what religion ought to be until the end of our study. What, then, distinguishes the religious man from other human beings ? The religious man lives by his conviction that what he conceives to be the highest values3 of life are consistent with, or demanded by, the nature of things. The essence or core of religion is the personal belief that one's most important values are sponsored by, or in harmony with, the enduring structure of the universe, whether they are sponsored by society or not!' Several points in this definition need further elaboration. 3 By a value we mean any experience or object the individual wants and critically approves. The highest or most worthwhile values are those for which he cares most. But this definition should not prejudice the discussion of value to come later (Chapter 10). 4 The reader may compare two other minimum definitions to the one suggested here. W. K. Wright defines religion as "the endeavor to secure the conservation of socially recognized values through specific actions that are believed to evoke some agency different from the ordinary ego of the individual, or from other merely human beings, and that imply a feeling of dependence upon this agency." See A Student's Philosophy of Religion (New York: The Macrmllan Co., 1922, p. 47). E. S. Brightman finds that "all kinds of

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• What It <£Mean$ To Be %eligious

First, the fact is emphasized that religion concerns the individual's estimate of the most profound values of life. One person or group may disagree with another as to what the highest values are. But all persons enter the area of religious conviction and commitment when they live on the postulate that their highest values are supported by, or are in harmony with, the ultimate constitution of things. These ideals or values are the things worth striving for in this universe, even if they are never realized to any degree nearing perfection. Second, this definition does not specify the nature of the cosmic structure, whether it be a mind or a machine, for example. It does not define the exact nature of the individual's relation to the whole of things. Nor does the definition make specific statements about God, about the nature of man, about immortality, or about the exact meaning of value. It does assert that when the values we cherish most (a cause, loved ones, freedom, love, justice, beauty), are threatened and endangered despite our best efforts, we find ourselves looking beyond our friends, beyond our society, and even further than what we usually think of as "Nature," to "the powers that be," to implore protection of what we love. Third, in this same vein, the definition recognizes that religion is more than dogma, more than articulate assertions, more than commitment even to a great social idea, worthy as these may be. Religious belief is tested by commitment of life to the kind of relationship the individual believes to exist, ultimately, between him and his 'God.' 5 Invariably the person regards his 'God' as a religions have in common such traits as to warrant the following definition: Religion is concern about experiences which are regarded as of supreme value; devotion toward a power or powers believed to originate, increase, and conserve these values; and some suitable expression of this concern and devotion, whether through symbolic rites or through other individual and social conduct." See A Philosophy of Religion, (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1940, p. 17). 5 Though the word 'God' is introduced into the discussion at this point to assure brevity, it is important to note that no particular conception of God is sponsored. In what follows we shall use the term 'God' to indicate the object of supreme loyalty and allegiance beyond the individual himself. Note the description by John R. Everett: "Although religions require the recognition of super-human power, the idea of God is

What It ^Means To Be %eligious •

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(if not the) dominant, controlling Agency in the world, feels reverence toward 'him,' and feels obligated to live in harmony with whatever he defines that 'God' to be. The values which he believes to be sponsored by or to be consistent with this 'God,' are the goals by which he directs his life. Our meaning here will become clearer if we take as an example the relation of man to God at the core of Christian belief, though we must remember that here we are dealing with a highly developed religious worldview. The relation between God and man in Christian thought is one of mutual interaction between a loving cosmic Person and human beings. Religion at this level might well be defined as friendship with God. It involves the intellect, emotion, and will of both God and man, and it is rooted in good-will, respect, and mutual trust. The true Christian plans his actions not as if he were alone in the world, but rather with the concerns of his Friend in mind. If he takes this relation between himself and God seriously, the Christian breaks the bread of life daily with a feeling of comradeship and responsibility not experienced by those who do not believe in a personal, loving Father. In other religions, the conception of God may vary, but the sense of obligation to what is conceived to be the ultimate is still present. Unselfishness, heroism, profound social and personal idealism can be found in the life of nonreligious (and non-Christian) persons. Indeed, frequently such stalwart living animates the actions of nonreligious persons more than it does the lives of certain "religious" persons for whom God has become a refuge or escape rather than a challenge. But nonreligious persons never (legitimately) feel the obligation to live as their 'God' would have them live. Nor can they be inspired by the assurance that their ideals not necessary. The vague spirits and ghosts who people the world of the savages are not, strictly speaking, Gods. These ghosts and spirits are credited with all the power and many of the activities which are attributed to the later Gods, but they have neither the personality nor the definiteness of character possessed by true Gods." From Religion in Human Experience (1950), p. 20, by John R. Everett, by permission of Henry Holt and Co., Inc., publishers.

12 • What It Cleans To Be %eligious are consistent with, or approved by, the nonhuman powers which make for goodness in the world. However this may be, our concern here is to underscore the fact that one's conception of 'God' affects his commitments in everyday life. But it is also to clarify the underlying focus of religious living as opposed to any other way of living. A person is not religious unless, as a minimum, he commits his life to values which he believes to represent the best that man can aspire to in this kind of world. Even the Buddhist, who does not believe in a personal God who cares for man, feels that man's search for Nirvana is the only discipline worth while. Nirvana is good because this universe is so structured that only Nirvana is ultimately worth while. Nirvana is not good just because someone thinks it is, but because this is the kind of universe in which the secret of inner peace lies in emancipating oneself from the conflicts of human desire by final absorption of one's individuality in the ultimate. Correspondingly, in the Judeo-Christian tradition sacrificial love between man and God becomes the ideal of all persons because this is the kind of universe in which God cares for the individual far beyond what he may deserve. Whatever the differences between Buddhism, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, at the root of each tradition there remains the same basic conviction that man cannot treat himself and his values as if they were unrelated to the enduring "ways of things." § 3. IS HUMANISM A RELIGION?

As already noted, our definition of the essence of religion does not specify the characteristics of the nonhuman structure or agent beyond stating that it embraces more than the individual and human society. So varied are the expressions of religious beliefs that any definition wavers between being so exclusive as to be unfair to the beliefs of significant segments of the human community and being so inclusive that the religious enterprise loses any distinguishing characteristic. It is not always clear what the

What It ^Means To Be %eligious • 13 nonhuman power is upon which dependence is felt, or with which one believes he is in harmony, and one is put to it—as in the case of Buddhism—to determine how far some religious movements do depend upon, or refer their worship to, SL nonhuman agent. But if we are to be fully aware of the possibilities, it seems wiser not to allow such vagueness to be the basis for excluding any movement which considers itself religious, especially when such a movement believes itself to be an improvement on other religious perspectives. This is precisely the situation with regard to religious Humanism. It is tempting to exclude Humanism from the classification "religion" especially if one is thinking (wrongly) of the essence of religion in terms of great movements like Christianity, Hinduism, or Mohammedanism, where there is a clear-cut insistence that a supernatural being controls the constitution of the universe and the nature of goodness. Although the Humanist has high ideals and a noble faith for man, he seems to deny that there is any intimate or inner connection between man, his highest values, and the universe in which he lives. For the Humanist, the universe itself, apart from human effort, is a value-vacuum. Since man is in the world, his task is to take full advantage of his own capacities, of the natural world and of human sociality, and build The Good Society on earth. But Humanism may be viewed as a criticism of the presuppositions of supernaturalistic religion, and even though it is not clear always whether the Humanist feels any allegiance to any power beyond man himself, it seems clear that he believes that his values are not inconsistent with the values of nature, and are at least rooted in, if not "sponsored" by, Nature. Accordingly, Humanism may be considered one variety of religious belief, despite Corliss Lamont's repudiation of this classification. The contrast between supernaturalistic forms of religion and the humanistic comes out clearly in the definition given by this outstanding contemporary Humanist. "Humanism... rules out all forms of the supernatural a n d . . . regards Nature as the totality

14 • What It Cleans To Be %eligious of being and as a constantly changing system of events which exists independently of any mind or consciousness." Corliss Lamont develops his definition by adding: Humanism, drawing especially upon the proven facts of science, believes that man is an evolutionary product of this great Nature of which he is a part and that he is an inseparable unity of body and personality having no individual survival beyond death.... Humanism believes that man has the power and potentiality of solving his own problems successfully, relying primarily on reason and scientific method to do so and to enlarge continually his knowledge of the truth.6 The contrast between the humanistic pole of religious conviction and the supernaturalistic comes out clearly also in the Marxist or Communist form of Humanism. The willingness of Communists to sacrifice for their ideals is reminiscent of Christian or Mohammedan saints. Furthermore, the Marxist ideal ("from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs") calls for a transformation of ordinary human conduct which parallels the demands of the highest religions. But the fact that Communists clearly refuse to believe that human values are in any way sponsored by the structure of the universe would force their exclusion from the realm of the religious (if a religion like Christianity were taken as the basis for comparison). The adherent of supernaturalistic forms of religion is confident that there is an Agency of some sort beyond man, beyond society, and different from physical nature (as usually conceived), in whom man can trust. In fact, many Humanists, Marxist and otherwise, regard such religious belief as detrimental to the noblest living on the part of man. They believe that any religions which focus attention upon man's relation to God (or on otherworldly hopes for the next life) tend to discourage vital interest in the improvement of human conditions in this world. 6 Corliss Lamont, Humanism as a Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library, I949> pp. 19-20.

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We note, then, that the difference between humanistic religion and supernaturalistic religion is a matter of some importance. The Humanist calls upon men to save themselves by making the most intelligent use of their knowledge of man and the world. To the believer in a God who is a Power beyond and within nature and man, the Humanist's ideal is not comprehensive enough. Whatever conception one may have of the good life without belief in God, something is added, he would insist, to what the good life requires the moment one takes his belief in God seriously. If a man does not believe in God, he still has obligations to improve himself, to help others to realize themselves, and to labor for the improvement of society. And it must be granted that no great supernaturalistic religion has demanded less than this. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself." This first commandment in the JudeoChristian tradition finds support in the Wisdom of Amenemope, the Egyptian, who wrote about the tenth century B.C, before any of the Old Testament was written: Better is poverty in the hand of God Than riches in the storehouse; And better are loaves where the heart is joyous, Than riches in unhappiness. God loveth him that cheereth the humble man More than him who honoureth the great man. Set thyself in the arms of God Until thy silence overthroweth them [his enemies].7 And a Babylonian Book of Wisdom contained the injunction: Harm not in any way thine adversary. Recompense the man who doeth evil to thee with good. Oppose thine enemy with righteous dealing. 7 I owe this quotation to William H. Roberta, The Problem of Choice. New York: Ginn and Company, 1941, pp. 116-117. See further: James H. Breasted, The Dawn oj Conscience. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933, pp. 320-330, 372-382.

16 • What It Cleans To Be Religious Give food to eat and wine to drink. Seek after the truth, nourish and honour (thy parents). Over the man who acteth in this way his God will rejoice. The god Shamash will rejoice and will requite him with good.8 The non-Humanist, then, has obligations which have no meaning for the Humanist. In the Christian, and other supernaturalistic traditions, he is to love God and to strive to take God's attitude toward all men. For him goodness must include the deepening, heightening, and widening of his relation to God. Through prayer, worship, and meditation he strives to come into closer communion with the reality of God, both for its own sake and for its effect upon the quality of actions toward others. It may be well to remind ourselves that we are not at this point evaluating the truth of religion, or considering what religion ought to be. We are attempting to clarify what it can mean to be religious. We shall devote the remainder of this chapter to indicating further what is involved in the religious venture especially if, standing in the mainstream of the religious tradition, one is convinced that there is a Power beyond man and nature who cares about man and the things man holds dear. § 4. UNIQUE BY-PRODUCTS OF RELIGIOUS LIVING

It will help us, then, to grasp the meaning of religion if we note several fairly universal accompaniments of (non-Humanistic) religious experience. These accompaniments are considered religious because the persons experiencing them are convinced that the feelings would not be present in their lives without the help of their God. First, gratitude is a basic ingredient of the religious life. A religious person is grateful for the fact that he is alive in 'God's' world, that he can enjoy so many unearned blessings, that there is so much good in the universe. The person who holds it against 8

Roberts, op. tit., p. 121.

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the universe that he or others are alive, the person who is ungrateful for the challenge involved in human existence, is a person whose state of mind is irreligious. The religious man does not assume an attitude either of resentment or of exploitation toward the world. But in every area of human experience it is easy for the good to become the basis for a unique kind of evil. There are temptations to which the religious person in particular is vulnerable. Thus it is very easy for the grateful religious person to slip into religious pride. He may take his own existence, or that of his race or his denomination, as proof of his exclusive importance to God. "I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men," prayed the Pharisee described by Jesus in Luke 18:11. Again, the religious person is in danger of moving from what seems to be genuine gratitude to a refined egotism. It is easy to take the good we have for granted, even when other deserving persons are suffering without it; and it is easy to justify ourselves by saying that God willed that we should be the ones to enjoy it! There are religious dangers even in thanksgiving. When the religious person does not succumb to such temptations, his gratitude leads him into an experience of religious humility, for he realizes his unworthiness. But here again he faces another danger, of falling into the slough of self-depreciation. Humility is not so much a depreciation of self; it is a deeper willingness to do God's will to the best of one's ability and do it gratefully. Humility is also an offspring of reverence, a second religious overtone. Reverence is not an awestruck admiration for the grandeur and quality of God, nor is it an uncritical acceptance of life. The devotee is mystified because he cannot understand or comprehend that majesty which is expressed in the starry heaven above, in the angelic calm of a sleeping baby, or in the graceful swaying of a tulip. In the presence of such a being, he does indeed murmui "May I be worthy!" He finds himself bringing "offerings" neither to incur favor nor to insure further blessings, but as witness to his

18 • What It -Means To Be Religious realization that his blessings have their ultimate source in 'God.' Magic—the attempt to control God or "the powers that be" by flattery or bribery—is never religion, though it sometimes looks like it. The temptation into which the religious person easily falls at this point is that of complete self-abnegation. "Of course, I am nothing in comparison to God." "What is man that thou art mindful of him!" It is easy to move to a cosmic inferiority complex which in fact does not encourage a man to stand upon his feet and say: "What I have is Thine and Thou shalt have the best I can make of me and mine!" Reverence is the search for one's proper attitude toward 'God,' and it is not a scoffing at human capacity and power. Third, the religious person is serene. He has that peace in mind which passes understanding. Why does this peace pass understanding ? Because the religious man is serene when, in any ordinary perspective, there is no excuse for being so. When others are tearing their hair, bemoaning their fate, becoming bitter at the unnecessary evil that surrounds them, despairing under the weight of disappointment or the loss of hard-earned gains, the religious man is far from happy. But he is, nevertheless, serene. It is as if he had found a cosmic sense of humor which enabled him to keep his own dignity and poise in the midst of danger he feared and unhappiness he disliked. This is more than a Stoic apathy. Religious serenity is based on the conviction that evil, no matter what inroads it makes in human contentment, is not invincible and will not ultimately win the day! Here, too, a tempting deception lurks nearby, and mawkish sentimentality may pass itself off as serenity. It is easy to say "everything's going to be all right" in Pollyanna fashion and thus minimize the tragedy and evil-doing in the world. In the name of religion this has frequently happened in history—indeed, religious persons have fled from the world in order to find celestial peace. But the fact remains that the earnest religious man does seem to possess a power to bear evil, to live without capitulating

What It <Means To Be Religious • 19 to it. As suggested, it is very easy for serenity to become smugness or even to encourage a certain spiritual nonchalance: "I am in the world, but not of the world." But that the serious religious person develops the capacity to keep his purpose, to steer a course not constantly altered by hardship and inconvenience, is one of the outstanding characteristics of people who believe in God. Sometimes they are called fanatics, but this epithet grants the contention here stressed: that religious men keep going when others have lost their "go" and are wondering whether life is worth while. It is important to emphasize again that these traits of religious persons will undergo modifications suited to the particular conception of the relation of the individual to God. The next trait is especially characteristic of persons who conceive their relation to God, as in the Judeo-Christian tradition, to be one of personal and mutual trust. This fourth trait is a sense of sin. When a person conceives God as a Person who consciously cares for men and has blessed them with the opportunity for kinship with Him, he feels not only gratitude, reverence, and serenity, but a sense of sin. Santayana has said of the Puritan that he had an "agonized conscience." The religious person is normally aware of the broken tryst, of his willful turning away from the highest goods to lesser goods, and the positive evils which pervade so much of his life. Thus he is forever confronted with the crucial problem of his life: "Is it to be God's will or mine?" No matter how much he may feel that "all is ultimately well" with the universe, he appreciates his own responsibility for any loss of value in his life and that of others. He knows too well the meaning of the parable of the prodigal son; he is constantly abusing the heritage entrusted to him. The temptation for him is to beat his breast too much, to develop a "morbid conscience" or a "neurotic sense of guilt," which, in fact, tends to whitewash the evil he commits by "celebrating" it. "Isn't that terrible? I shouldn't have done that, I know!" But having admitted his sin seems to keep him from changing sin to sanity. Indeed he can rationalize his self-indulgence by bewailing

2o • What It Cleans To Be Religious his background or his unstable condition, when he might be using that energy to improve even a little bit. But when a person takes God seriously, he will be aware of the dark night in his soul, and he will sincerely carry the burden of his guilt as he tries to improve. There are other traits which might well be mentioned. Our concern here is not to give a complete description of the religious life but rather to suggest that there are qualities of human experience which emerge from the belief in 'God'—qualities for good and evil, which have made a great deal of difference to the content of individual and social life. The religious person believes that these qualities are present in his life because 'God' is present in the universe. The question here is not whether a religious person is entitled to this claim, nor is it whether one could not have these identical qualities and temptations without belief in 'God.' The psychological fact is that these particular qualities of experience occur because the religious person believes that the values to which he is committed stand for a way of doing things allowed and favored by the Universe in which he lives. He may frequently be wrong about the values which he thinks are thus objective— indeed, the history of religion is replete with the tragic objectification of the meanest values and of the grossest rationalizations of human misconduct—but inner conviction of the religious man at the time is absolute. To summarize: if religious allegiance is to a cosmic Sponsor of Values, as it in the main is, then certain accompaniments of such allegiance are observable. The religious man experiences a unique sense of gratitude, serenity, reverence, and consciousness of personal sin. At the same time, he is vulnerable to exclusiveness, smugness, obscurantism, and a self-flagellating conscience, as well as to moral and social conservatism. Religion may be a delusion. But if it is a delusion it is the most far-reaching delusion of human existence in its power both for good and evil. We shall be unable to decide whether it is a delusion or not until much later in this book, but our next task is to try to

What It ^Means To Be %eligious • zi understand why human beings develop religious belief and religious unbelief: both throw light on the nature of the human being who is trying to find his way in his world. QUESTIONS

1. a. Why is it difficult to be emotionally "detached" regarding religious beliefs? b. What is meant by "emotional rigidity" in religion ? c. What are some of its causes ? 2. What does religious maturity involve? 3. a. What is the "underlying concern" or "essence" of religion? b. What important distinction helps reveal this ? 4. What is the difference between the philosophy of religion and theology ? 5. What is the "minimum definition" of religion used in this book? Discuss its four-fold emphasis. 6. Why is Humanism considered religious ? 7. Contrast the humanistic world-view with the Christian. 8. Does belief in the supernatural necessarily exclude the humanistic emphasis on improving society ? 9. Why is religion not "essentially" an escape from life ? 10. a. What are some of the "universal accompaniments" of supernaturalistic religious experience? b. What is meant by "religious gratitude" ? c. What is its relation to "humility," "reverence," and "serenity"? 11. Of what temptations must the religious person beware in each of these areas ? 12. Why is the "sense of sin" of religious importance, and how does it differ from "morbid guilt" ? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Books listed without specific mention of chapters are recommended for historical and general background. Bewkes, Eugene G., Howard B. Jefferson (and others). Experience, Reason, and Faith. New York: Harper & Bros., 1940. Brightman, Edgar S. A Philosophy of Religion. New York: PrenticeHall, Inc., 1940. Chapters I, II and III.

22 • What It -Means To Be %eligious Burtt, Edwin A. Types of Religious Philosophy. New York: Harper & Bros., 1939. Everett, John R. Religion in Human Experience. New York: Henry Holt & Co., Inc., 1950. Ferm, Vergilius. First Chapters in Religious Philosophy. New York: Round Table Press, Inc., 1937. Part I.

, (ed.). Religion in the Twentieth Century. New York: The Philosophical Library, 1948. Fisk, Alfred G. The Search for Life's Meaning. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1949. Garnett, A. Campbell. A Realistic Philosophy of Religion. Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1942. Chapters I and II. 1 . God in Us {A Liberal Christian Philosophy for the General Reader). New York: Willett, Clark & Co., 1945. Hocking, William E. Living Religions and a World Faith. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1940. Chapter I. Houf, Horace T. What Religion Is and Does. New York: Harper & Bros., 1935. Chapters I and II. Kepler, Thomas S. Contemporary Religious Thought. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1941. Part I. Lyman, Eugene W. Religion and the Issues of Life. New York: Association Press, 1943. Nicholson, John A. Philosophy of Religion. New York: The Ronald Press, 1950. Chapters I and II. Noss, John B. Man's Religion. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1949. Tsanoff, Radoslav. Religious Crossroads. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1942. Chapter II. Wright, William K. A Student's Philosophy of Religion (rev.). New York: The Macmillan Co., 1943. Chapters I-XIII.

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WHY HUMAN BEINGS DEVELOP RELIGIOUS BELIEF AND DISBELIEF

§ I. THE MEANING OF BELIEF AND DISBELIEF

A BELIEF is more than an assertion about the existence or nonexistence of some being, event, or value. When one says he believes in God, he may simply mean that it is his judgment or opinion that there is a God, but he is not using the word "believe" in any way distinguishing it from opinion, or judgment. To believe (in God or in any being) implies that one is prepared to act on the postulate that he is correct though he realizes that he may be wrong in his opinion or judgment. If human beings had infallible knowledge, there would be no point to the word belief. To believe that a friend is honest is to be prepared to treat him thus, even when complete proof is not forthcoming. Our habits of action are testimonies to the seriousness with which we take our beliefs. We believe when we assent in mind and action to a judgment known to be less than certain. Thus, religious belief involves the earnest expectancy, the willingness to form habits of thinking and living engendered by the conceived nature of the religious object. No attempt will be made to exhaust the description of the sources of religious belief and disbelief.1 The ultimate roots lie hidden in the particular complex of feelings, thoughts, habits, and strivings which make up the warp and woof of individual lives. 1 See Gordon W. Allport, The Individual and His Religion. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949. Chapter I.

24 * "Belief and 'Disbelief As we shall see, the very experiences which lead some to belief lead others to disbelief. The student will do well to analyze his own experiences in the light of factors now to be described, marking the particular twist which characterizes the roots of religious belief or disbelief in his life. § 2. THE DESIRE FOR HELP IN THE BUSINESS OF LIVING

The process of living is a matter of investing our vital energies in a variety of objects, goals, and persons. We seldom come to any clear awareness of what might be considered our root-values. We think we need physical and financial security until we suddenly realize that these are empty if we cannot trust people and enjoy friends. Our parents, brothers, sisters, intimate friends, our children, our country—in them we seem to live and grow and have our beings; without them life is a flimsy thing, a chasing of shadows, a betrayal of yearnings. Our normal existence is one in which we try to protect, increase, and enrich these values and sources of value. When they are endangered, we are endangered. Accordingly, when the doctor says he has done all he can, or when one is forced to watch his loved ones make moves which will both decrease the good in their lives and increase his own sorrow, or, more generally, when one sees the very meaning of his life in the balance, without his being able to do a solitary thing about the outcome, then he finds himself reaching spiritual arms out to the universe. Gone, in these circumstances, is the composed self-reliance; gone is the earlier determination to outgrow "primitive" beliefs. Here one implores that something be done—yes, something that might be an exception to the rules, if need be, to preserve the values in question. We have all been in our psychological foxholes, when the earthwork against madness seemed to be the conviction that this good thing simply could not perish. Having in all conscience done our best, we call to some agency beyond ourselves to save our values. It is when the conceived good

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is at stake, when our towers of value seem to totter that we realize our lives and our values are without purpose if there is no aid beyond ourselves. It is tempting to deal with human situations of this sort highhandedly. Such religious appeals, we say, spring from human weakness which must be "understood" but hardly encouraged. Yet when we enter more deeply into the situation we realize that the aid most human beings seek is not simply for their own preservation as such. What they seek is confidence in their inner struggle for values. How frequently they spend days in agony, trying to fight out the battle by themselves, trying to make up their minds, before going to a friend. There come the moments when they are at the end of their rope, when they cannot venture another step alone—and to this the multitudes seeking psychiatrists testify. They can no longer help themselves; they need aid from without. Indeed, so often, even after the psychiatrist has helped to clarify the problem, and the path to be taken has been outlined, there is still the need for strength. Now the intellect is free, the problem is analyzed; but, alas, the inner weakness is still confronted by the problem of reorganization. Determination is impotent before the old temptation. Then persons find themselves calling for help, for some infusion of strength from some being who cares about their plight. In such a moral predicament is there no friend? There must be! There is! Surely it is in moments like these that the religious belief is frequently born. Religion did not start back in the life of some primitive and then simply get handed on by tradition. The tradition itself would have died had it not been revivified by this type of experience in the life of human beings. As one of the author's students wrote: "Sometimes it is more important to know that life has meaning than to go on living." But we cannot be fair to the facts without realizing that the very situation which brings an appeal for help to the Beyond in some evokes the "everlasting nay" in others. The very fact that men can get into spiritual crises of this sort stirs some men to distrust the

z6 ' "Belief and Disbelief religious impulse itself as a fatal delusion. Thus Bertrand Russell in his famous essay, "The Free Man's Worship," says: To every man comes, sooner or later, the great renunciation. For the young, there is nothing unattainable; a good thing desired with the whole force of a passionate will, and yet impossible, is to them not credible. Yet, by death, by illness, by poverty, or by the voice of duty, we must learn, each one of us, that the world was not made for us, and that however beautiful may be the things we crave, Fate may nevertheless forbid them. It is the part of courage, when misfortune comes, to bear without repining the ruin of our hopes, to turn away our thoughts from vain regrets. This degree of submission to Power is not only just and right; it is the very gate of wisdom.2 In the same mood another philosopher writes: To be genuinely civilized means to be able to walk straightly and to live honorably without the props and crutches of one or another of the childish dreams which have so far supported men.... Man has not yet grown up. He is not adult. Like a child he cries for mom and lives in a world of fantasies.... Can man put away childish things and adolescent dreams? Can he grasp the real world as it actually is, stark and bleak, without its romantic and religious halo, and still retain his ideals, striving for great ends and noble achievements ? If he can all may yet be well.3 Who has escaped this thought that perhaps the religious impulse is a regressive sign of immaturity, the result of a prolonged childhood in which mother and father were appealed to in time of trouble? We hardly needed Freud to tell us that religion might be a product of the father-complex! Is there anyone who has seen the eloquence of a child's mute suffering, who has witnessed the 2

Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1929, p. 52. 3 W. T. Stace, "Man Against Darkness," Atlantic Monthly, September, 1948, p. 58. Reprinted by permission of the Atlantic Monthly.

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psychic disintegration of a life overloaded with tragedy, who has not wondered whether peace was not to be found only by reconciling himself to the final, bare fact that the human machine simply broke down ? Certainly this collapse was not due to the working of any inscrutable Providence. It must be due to the fact that man is simply, as Russell says, "the product of causes which had no provision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms " 4 Yes, by baring one's chest to the elements—come what may!—there seems to be greater freedom, freedom from bitterness and resentment at being "double-crossed" by the universe. There can be the greater dignity of resignation, if one can really believe that no one could help it. In these same experiences of unrelenting suffering the religious believer, like Job, has a story to tell. On some occasions, when he has suffered not in dignified resignation, but as "one who stands and waits," confident that he was not alone in his suffering, he has felt as if in the presence of a blank wall. In such moments of reverent expectancy, surely, if there be a God, spiritual help should come. But there comes no response! Even the Psalmist, speaking as one who had already found confident communion with God, cries, as Jesus was also to cry: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning. O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou answerest not; and in the night season, and am not silent." 5 If those who have known God find themselves, on occasion, in this situation, can we wonder at the disbelief of those who, not knowing God, have not found help in their time of trouble ? 6 To summarize, we find that the same trial of body and soul brings belief to some and unbelief to others. There are those who, 4

Russell, op. at., p. 47. Psalm 22:1-2. 6 See Georgia Harkness, The Var\ Night of the Soul. New York: Abington-Cokesbury Press, 1945. Here the reader will find a description of the depressing experience mystics have had in their religious development, despite prior religious companionship with God. 5

28 • "Belief and "Disbelief like Job, finally utter: "I know that my redeemer liveth." (Job 19:25.) "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." {Job 13:15.) There are those who decide in a different heroic mood, with Bertrand Russell, to find their true freedom "in determination to worship only the God created by our own love of the good, to respect only the heaven which inspires the insight of our best moments." 7 There is a third class, of course, who respond to this situation by wandering to and fro filling the time until death with whatever momentarily intoxicates desire and stupefies the conscience. § 3. THE NEED FOR COMMUNION IN GOODNESS

Related to the desire for help in the business of living is the desire for companionship in the enjoyment as well as preservation of the best in man and nature. To conceive of the religious impulse as the voice of tragedy is not enough, for human beings experience a joyous outreach in the presence of beauty, of precise order and regularity, of human graciousness, heroism, and mercy. Who has not felt the beauty of the ocean and of the laughing brook, of the towering peak and the graceful slope, of the calm lily and the sprightly daisy, of the generous buttercup and the delicate sweet peas? Who has not had moments when he has been convinced that these goods were not his alone to love and enjoy ? There must be, he has murmured, a Creative Artist for whom the colors and songs of the birds are a joy forever. Indeed, was that not He manifest in the symphony ? We human beings know the added zest which comes when our own enjoyment is re-echoed in that of a kind spirit, especially when that one is beloved of us. To laugh and love, to quiver at the stirring of beauty and the humble deed of goodness, to well up in gratitude at the glory in man and nature—all is so much more meaningful if Another is present in that enjoyment. If the skeptic 7

Russell, op. at., p. 50.

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says that this is a result of the child's conditioning in the home (when the family gathers in mutual enjoyment of a common blessing), we need not deny it. The fact—whatever its source— remains that human beings more deeply enjoy shared values, and that this feeling very naturally carries over to the appreciation of real goodness wherever it is. Millions have found their God in the enjoyment of beauty. We must now add the experience of those who have found in their duty "the stern daughter of the voice of God." Who has not felt at times, amid the clamor of opposing desires, that steady, penetrating insistence that he stay at his station and do his duty? In these experiences men have felt that an unseen realm exerted its gentle yet persistent imperative—not a world of pushes and pulls, not a realm of muscular musts, but one of magnetic oughts, a world which once experienced never quite loses its power to disturb indulgent comfort, vapid security and selfish striving. An exponent of this approach to God from the reality of duty tells us that "to believe in God is, at least in its beginnings, hardly more than a deeper way of believing in duty." What happens, as John Baillie sees it, is that to the person who has been believing that love and honor, the objects of his single-hearted devotion, are "the things that matter most in all the world"—to such a person there comes the conviction that these things are central to the System of Things in which he has his humble part to play. [For] now he comes to feel... that it is nothing less than the hidden nature of things that is laying this obligation upon him. For how can he be obliged to do the right if, in the last resort, the Universe does not care whether he do the right or the wrong ? 8 And yet, men have felt such deep satisfaction in the experience of duty, goodness, and beauty that belief in God seemed unneces8

John Bailhe, The Roots of Religion London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1926, p. 223. This passage stands in contrast to that cited earlier from W. T. Stace, who would hold that this feeling is a throwback to adolescence.

30 • ^Belief and "Disbelief sary. Nay, as such men viewed evil, the seemingly needless destruction of good things and good men, their very sensitivity to the contrast of evil and goodness made belief in God impossible. Are not beauty and goodness enough, standing as they do in alluring dignity and nobility? Is it better to take as one's own the deep satisfaction that beauty and goodness afford without insulting man's intelligence by proposing that they rule the universe? It hurts less to feel that no one intended evil; meanwhile there is the joy which grows in beauty and goodness. For many sensitive souls, then, the vision of delight is spoiled if it is confused with the commerce of the universe and if ideals are taken as goals of reality as a whole. These delights and responsibilities are ours; they are not loadstones of the universe, pulling all things to themselves. The sunlit vision of these peaks is enough to keep us reconciled to the shadows of the valleys. Why spoil it by insisting that there must be some ultimate harmony between the grand moments of life, these stars in the night, and the dark turmoil and frustration of everyday occurrence? Let the moralaesthetic moment refuse to give in to a religious mood which is never quite honest enough with the unmeaning catastrophes in human life and nature! Thus Santayana speaks: The spiritual value of our disappointments does not lie merely in producing resignation, or reconciling our chastened wills to the issue.... But the chief' good in having been disappointed is that, if we are firm, we remain inconsolable, having aspired and still aspiring to something better than the event. Then against its Will, fortune will have wedded us to beauties it had no power to create, but only to promise.... The spirit [having turned itself to the contemplation of beauty] cannot be bribed by compensation. It does not wish, it does not need, to be consoled. It is consecrated to an [unreal] perfection which it loves and from which, in its love, it cannot be separated.9 9 George Santayana, The Realm of Spirit, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940, pp. 71, 72.

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§ 4. THE STRUGGLE WITH EVIL

Perhaps this is the best place to emphasize the most common root of religious disbelief: the pervasiveness of evil in the world. But we shall see that even in the experience of evil there are those who find the reality of God. Let us think first of evil as a source of disbelief. The impact of evil on human life is so great that once we allow ourselves to contemplate its range and its ruin, it seems impossible that we should be gullible enough to take the beautiful and the good seriously, let alone to believe that there is a wise, good, and powerful Being who cares about what happens to mankind. Says John Stuart Mill: If there are any marks at all of special design in creation, one of the things most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals. They have been lavishly fitted out with the instruments necessary for that purpose; their strongest instincts impel them to it, and many of them seem to have been constructed incapable of supporting themselves by any other food.10 j e impressed was Mill by this Nature that Tennyson called "red in tooth and claw" that he remarks: "If we are not obliged to believe the animal creation to be the work of a demon, it is because we need not suppose it to have been made by a Being of infinite power." " One might look away from the nonhuman world into the heart 10

John Stuart Mill, "Nature," in Three Essays on Religion (1874), 3rd ed. New York: Longmans, Green & Company, Inc., 1923, p. 58. 11 Mill, "Theism," op at., p. 194. Mill did not find it necessary to deny the existence of God altogether but only to deny God's omnipotence. God, he concluded, was: "A Being of great but limited power, how or by what limited we cannot even conjecture; of great, and perhaps unlimited intelligence, but perhaps, also, more narrowly limited than his power: who desires, and pays some regard to, the happiness of his creatures, but who seems to have other motives of action which he cares more for, and who can hardly be -supposed to have created the universe for that purpose alone." Ibid.

32 * "Belief and Disbelief and behavior of man. He must not overlook the good which he finds there in man's arts and technology, in his churches and his social institutions. But neither can he overlook the fact that in his capacity for torture man is worse than animals could ever be. Would that his self-centeredness expressed itself only in mild or "enlightened" self-seeking at the expense of others! But mark the self-satisfied gleam in his eyes as he destroys others by ingenious methods; see him scheme the most painful destruction of his enemies, not simply by taking men apart limb from limb, but by separating mother from father and babe from parent, and by using his knowledge of mental machinery to shatter the unity of mind! How easily he forgets the cries of the hungry, the mute appeal of the ignorant, and the desolation of the dispossessed, as, "smart" and "businesslike," he plans the perpetuation of inequalities. Pope's phrase, "man's inhumanity to man," simply throws a blanket of abstraction over the shrieks of dying men, the lunacies of broken minds, the horror of exploding shells, the unspeakable inferno of Hiroshima. Were the slaves of the ancient Roman galleys to mingle their cries with those of the victims of "modern" concentration camps and the labor battalions; were the sufferers of racial and religious prejudice to lift their voices together, what discord in the "music of the spheres!" When starving prisoners in a concentration camp can eat the flesh of their weaker comrades, like any wolf-pack, life may well seem a tale of sound and fury told, not by an idiot, but by a monster who delights in his monstrous progeny. The evil that bad men do, its blind depravity, and its intense mercilessness, yes, the very fact that evil can be so terrible—is it not also, in some sense, a measure of what is possible in this worst of all possible worlds ? When men are not using Nature's potentialities for their own evil purposes, she has a bag of tricks all her own. A niggardly, stepmotherly Nature indeed, as Kant once called her! Does she distinguish good from bad when her winds blow away the foundations of men ? Does she care when her floods mercilessly destroy home and family? When the hell in her bowels erupts and the

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fixtures of men's physical being tumble like children's blocks, does she feel remorse? Is her sleep broken when bacteria and virus destroy, debilitate, and, short of blessed death, create an agony in the body of their victims, and threaten the very sanity of those who can only stand by and wait ? No, neither Nature herself nor her by-products are noble to behold in moments like these; and their effect can be so overpowering that their graces seem accidental and temporary. At any rate, it was not without point that some who believed in God had also to believe in his counterpart, a Devil, as the only way of possibly holding to any belief in God at all. Or, in the mood of a Bertrand Russell and a George Santayana, and many other thinkers in our day, the only thing left to do is disabuse oneself of vain hopes, make the most of the good available to man, and, with a good sense of humor, take an attitude of positive resignation. Indeed, let one be not simply an atheist, a nonbeliever, but a militant Humanist, giving one's time and energy not to the demands of a delusory life to come but rather to the improvement of man and his station here and now.12 But, once more, these very tragedies which convince some that existence has no ultimate purpose lead others to an awareness of a deeper Presence in the universe. Admit, they say, the diabolic torture of which man is capable—the fact still remains that there is something in man which is offended and which finds these actions contemptible beyond words. Man may be a complicated animal, but, even as Nietzsche says, he is a red-faced animal; he is ashamed and blushes at his misdeeds. If the bad were the essential thing in him, would he rise up in righteous indignation against it? Does this attitude not bespeak another dimension of reality in him? Does his incurable dissatisfaction not reveal an element in him which transcends the natural man? As we have already noted, the human experience of moral guilt and moral approval has seemed to many to be the reverberating echo in 12

See Max Otto, The Human Enterprise. New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1940.

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them of a Reality whose every stirring was righteous, whose condemnation inescapable. § 5. THE WORKS OF RELIGIOUS PERSONS AND INSTITUTIONS AS SOURCES OF DISBELIEF

The reader may need to be reminded that in this chapter we are seeking to indicate the kind of experiences from which human beings emerge as believers or disbelievers. In describing the experiences which ma\e believers out of some men and disbelievers out of others, we are not evaluating the truth or falsity of the belief and disbelief. We now come to a cause of disbelief which is not so much a personal experience as it is a judgment passed upon others who have believed. The history of religions, we have heard many critics say, is the history of every type of superstition and quackery, of fanatic cruelty and prejudice. Having populated the universe with all kinds of unseen but conniving spectres and agencies, religion has kept man in such terrible fear and dread that everything which happened to him became "evidence" of some Being beyond his control who was punishing or rewarding him for his every deed. Thus the evils in nature and the insanities of men were said to be the indication of the incalculable wrath of ruling agencies, whereas the good things in life bespoke their approval. The privileged in a given society were persons on whose merit the gods had smiled, and the underprivileged were also experiencing the judgment of God. Accordingly, the present distribution of power and privilege of class and caste were not to be disturbed by men. Such beliefs would not be so harmful if they did not serve to blind people to the powers in themselves and nature which could be harnessed by man for his own good once he understood their secrets. But religion has not been satisfied to darken the minds of men with futile imaginings. It has carried on war against the prophets and seers in its own ranks. It has persecuted artists,

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scientists, and statesmen who have criticized orthodox beliefs and who have encouraged men to give more attention to solving their own problems. So anxious have religious medicine men been to keep believers and disbelievers from tampering with the will of God that even in our day they brand the scientific attitude as being essentially unreligious, and they upbraid persons who are trying to assure themselves of economic security as "materialists." Their insistence that the spirit is not subject to the body has led them to underestimate the power of medicine and to neglect the effect of glands and physical constitution on personality formation. In one way or another they have persistently discouraged human effort to improve health and happiness in the world. Has religion really done anything about man's inhumanity to man ? When Black and White of the same denomination do not even sit in the same church, when minority groups, pigmented or not, find the same treatment at the hands of religious persons as at the hands of the irreligious, when the economic barriers which divide people outside of the church also divide those within the church, what difference, pray, does religion make? Is it not true that the economic plight of the vast majority of people had to wait for those who (without a God, and unwilling to use the Scriptures to condone poverty), heard the cry of the poor ? "The only difference religion seems to have made is to render the 'well-situated' smugly content. How they love to gather at their Thanksgiving meals, to thank God for the blessings He has given them (they seem to forget that they have ta\en all they could!). Religion make a difference? Yes, the unfortunate difference of blessing existing inequalities among men. And, mind you, the persons who rationalize their injustices thus are not primitives who dance in groves under the spell of medicine men, but often they are guides of the people who sit in great cathedrals, beautifully-windowed, well-furnished, and politely ushered! Would that religion were only the opiate of the uneducated and

36 • "Belief and "Disbelief poor; alas, it is the well-rationalized philosophy of the haves who 'keep in mind' the have-nots but never really allow their own economic and social position to be threatened!" These words express the mood of a young school teacher who had lost her confidence in religion. She had been teaching for two years in an industrial and mining section of America in which a constant complaint and source of absenteeism among school children was poor teeth—a condition which could be improved by providing the drinking water with needed minerals. The particular town in which she taught was dominated by the owners of the main industries, and they were indifferent to the needs of these underpaid dependents. This teacher, on going to church, found some of these owners and executives in positions of leadership. She could not understand how these men could sit Sunday after Sunday in the Christian Church and yet not lift a finger to improve the situation. Surely the religion of these people could not be trusted with social responsibility! That this conviction is shared by a large number of college men is reported in a study of the religion of postwar college students. One sharp critic wrote: "Why will individuals be so foolish and hypocritical as to spend time and money on religion when intensive programs conducted against TB, venereal disease, cancer, polio, etc., with the same energy and money would wipe out these dread diseases? . . . Organized religion will always be prey to graft and hypocrisy . . . another schism in a divided world —a curse." 13 The inability of religious people to be charitable to each other, as well as to unbelievers, is a constant source of friction and social disunity. Each religious perspective divides the sheep from the goats; and although some men of one faith or sect profess to a tolerance of the views of others, they may all be found giving social, political, and economic advantages to those of their own faith-—even when members of another faith are more worthy 13

Allport, et al., op. at., p. 28.

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(and religious beliefs are not at stake). The good which religious communions do with one hand as they bring persons together is undone by the divisive emphasis upon differences. The fact that churches acquire property and other sources of economic and political power leads them frequently to side with interests which are morally inferior. Moreover, in a world which stands in need of greater ideological unification, one of the deepest sources of conflict is that between great religions, for each is convinced that "the truth in the other religion" can be absorbed into its own divinely-ordained formulas. (See Chapter 20.) § 6. WEAKNESS IN THE INDICTMENT OF RELIGIOUS PERSONS AND ORGANIZATIONS

As one listens to this indictment of religion (institutional or not), he is forced to agree at point after point. But all of a sudden it dawns upon him that he has heard these indictments before, indeed, in the mouths of religious persons and in the name of religion itself. For evidently the very religions which produce smugness also fan the "fire in one's bones"; the God who has been used as a support for the status quo is the source of the condemnation of societies and churches; the same name which divides is held as the ultimate hope of unity. Let us briefly outline the reply of many believers. Although religions have not consistently lived up to their own moral injunctions, although they have been divisive factors, at their best they have nourished, stimulated, and unified the insights of their adherents; usually this has been done at ethical levels higher than would otherwise have prevailed. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that the church which in its time of moral weakness condemned and killed its prophets was also the church which produced them. The leaders of the church have in this respect been confronted by the same human problem facing educational, economic, or political organizations. These other groups of human beings have not arisen to acclaim

3 8 • "Belief and "Disbelief their own torchbearers when these men pleaded for a break with custom and convenience. Progress has been slow, despite the profession of high ideals, because the leaders had to depend upon the support of average persons inured to "the good old ways'r and suspicious of changes which would jar the status quo. In their concern for all manner of men, religious leaders have been confronted with problems all the more difficult. This fact does not justify the moral weakness of the church, but it reminds us that even the most conscientious leaders must proceed in ful! awareness of the many desires of men. Indeed, what other institution facing a similar network of human problems and confronting the shortsighted demands of many types of men has been more tenacious or more successful? Has secular education? Has business organization ? Have recreational organizations ? The church has not lived up to its high responsibility; we are trying to understand and not condone this moral failure. But criticism is sobered when we realize the enormity of the task. Facing the complaint that loyalty to religious truth has fostered divisiveness, the believer asks: Do we want unity at any cost? Do we want unity just for the sake of unity ? There is a serious psychological and ethical dilemma here, confronting not only religion, but any human movement: to unify men around one ideal is to ask them to oppose the efforts of those who live by others. No movement can succeed and no values can ever be realized until some human believers separate themselves from their own group and do their best to convince nonbelievers of the righteousness of their cause. But this brings the question to the critical point: Does the unity-disunity achieved at religious levels make enough difference and the kind of difference that is desirable? Has religion not outgrown its usefulness, and is it not today a greater hindrance than a help ? Should society go on paying such a heavy price for an "opiate of the people?" Some thinkers insist that whatever good has been connected in history with religion has in fact been achieved by intelligence

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in spite of religion. Christianity, these critics point out, did, for example, create a new respect for the individual. In so doing, however, it also sanctioned an individualistic economic system which subjected the majority to a minority who, with the aid of the clergy, used the religious "myth" to keep the poor satisfied. In the Christian emphasis on God as the Father of all men, one may find roots of democratic institutions; but see how authoritarian and class-conscious certain churches are! Democracy would have made stronger headway and would be safer in the future if we could realize that its surest resources spring from the spirit of science, a spirit humble before fact, imaginative and inventive before problems, and co-operative in the pooling of insights on human problems. The religious man need not find a rebuttal difficult. The very trouble with a world threatened by the atomic bomb, he will point out, is that, in the last century especially, men have been enticed to seek salvation through the use of scientific discoveries. The added power developed through science has even encouraged nations to believe that they are the wisest and most powerful beings in the universe, ready to rule all other men by their edicts. Scientific might makes right. Men are no longer the children of God but the pawns of the politician armed with the techniques of psychological and natural science. Faced with the widespread despair and disaster created by two World Wars, by the threat of wholesale human destruction through atomic warfare, many persons are now skeptical about scientific salvation. The most conservative religious circles are convinced that only a Church inspired by divine revelations can provide the motivation adequate to melt human pride and selfishness. They plead with both the liberal religious and the nonreligious mind to return to the bulwarks of historic faith. The religious liberal maintains that a militant belief in man's potential reasonableness (plus adequate emphasis on the ethical core of religious loyalty) can keep men from worshiping themselves or false gods

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However, Liberal and Conservative agree that man's ideals are not his own inventions, that man's values must conform to the will of God, and both urge that apart from such belief there can be no lasting—and rational—motivation to goodness. On their view, the zeal which the Humanist ideal evokes does not spring from the humanistic world-view but from the cultural and spiritual atmosphere provided by long years of more intense religious motivation. Liberal and Conservative agree that although the church has frequently been wicked, civilization will lose its dynamic without religion. Once people are cut from the convictions that what they do has a special relation to the ways of God, we shall indeed witness the spiritual decay of a spiritually homeless people. Let people take atheism seriously, and it will soon be apparent that there is no real reason for not using science as the Nazi showed it might be used, for the servitude of all to a Master Scientific Race living by the Laws of Nature. The question which keeps forcing itself upon us as we consider the pros and cons of religious and ethical motivation is the more fundamental one: Is there truth in religion? Until that question is answered these other questions are secondary. For we cannot know what motivation is justified until we know the truth about the validity of fhe religious quest. Yet there is no doubt that what people sincerely believe, what they honestly think is wellfounded, has a mighty effect upon their lives. It is the author's conviction that generalizations in this area are unusually dangerous, for what moves one person to disillusionment moves another to sacrificial battle. Still, the motivation which is consistent with a certain view of the world must be taken into account when one world-view is being compared with another. For example, we may always ask: Does this view of man and the world really encourage man to be interested in the good of others, or does it discourage altruism? Is this religious worldview likely to inspire and encourage concern for others? It is often said that altruism does not need the inspiration or justifica-

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tion of religion. But without trying to decide the issue here, it is interesting to note Bergson's challenge of this view: We are fond of saying that the apprenticeship to civic virtue is served in the family, and that in the same way, from holding our country dear, we learn to love mankind. Our sympathies are supposed to broaden out in an unbro\en progression, to expand while remaining identical, and to end by embracing all humanity. This is . . . the result of a purely intellectualist conception of the soul. We observe that the three groups to which we can attach ourselves comprise an increasing number of people, and we conclude that a progressive expansion of feeling kfeps pace with the increasing size of the object we love. And what encourages the illusion is that, by a fortunate coincidence, the first part of the argument chances to fit in with the facts; domestic virtues are indeed bound up with civic virtues, for the very simple reason that family and society . . . have remained closely connected. But between the society in which we live and humanity in general there i s . . . [not simply a difference of degree but] 'one of kind.'... Even to-day we still love naturally and directly our parents and our fellow-countrymen, whereas love of mankind is indirect and acquired. We go straight to the former, to the latter we come only by roundabout ways; for it is only through God, in God, that religion bids man love mankind.14 § 7. THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD, OR ITS ABSENCE, AS ROOTS OF BELIEF OR DISBELIEF

We have been discussing ethical motivation as a root of religious belief. As the last quotation suggested, ethical incentive is itself frequently the by-product of an experience which is not essentially moral. Those who have the mystical experience testify that 14 Henri Bergson, Two Sources of Morality and Religion, trans. R. A. Audra and C. Brereton. New York: Henry Holt and Co., Inc., 1935, pp. 24, 25. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

42 • ^Belief and "Disbelief in power and grandeur it transcends aesthetic and moral peaks. And, more important, it is a direct revelation of God's realitymore convincing than any arguments ever are. The author will never forget the look of quiet assurance on the face of a friend who remarked, as they discussed reasons for belief in God, that he had "found God on a hillside." Were it not for revivifying experiences of this sort, in which human beings have felt "the presence of God," it would be hard to understand the tenacity of religious belief. Most religious persons have a feeling that they have found God (or that God has found them!), and that He walks with them. As James says in his indispensable study of religious experience: We may now lay it down as certain that in the distinctively religious sphere of experience, many persons (how many we cannot tell) possess the objects of their belief, not in the form of mere conceptions which their intellect accepts as true, but rather in the form of quasi-sensible realities directly apprehended.15 To illustrate, a man of 27 reports: "I have on a number of occasions felt that I had enjoyed a period of intimate communion with the divine. . . . What I felt on these occasions was a temporary loss of my own identity, accompanied by an illumination which revealed to me a deeper significance that I had been wont to attach to life." 1S Another, a man of 49 writes: God is more real to me than any thought or thing or person. I feel his presence positively, and the more as I live in closer harmony with his laws as written in my body and mind. I feel him in the sunshine or rain; and awe mingled with a delicious restfulness most nearly describes my feelings. 15

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1902, p. 64. 16 Ibid., p. 70.

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I talk to him as to a companion in prayer and praise, and our communion is delightful. . . . That he is mine and I am his never leaves me, it is an abiding joy. Without it life would be a blank, a desert, a shoreless, trackless waste.17 As James remarks, "Probably thousands of unpretending Christians would write an almost identical account."18 If the religious experience of the ordinary person does not of itself cast a steady glow of assurance, the inkling which he does have inspires him to trust "the more" which he finds in the testimony of the mystics of his faith and in the tradition of the church. Surely, he reasons, there are experts in religion as in other realms; there are differences in degree of revelation and insight here as in scientific and mathematical realms. Thus Christian, Hebrew, Hindu, Mohammedan, or Buddhist turns to his scriptures for the clearer revelations of God. But if the direct experience of God's presence has been the vital factor in religious belief for many, its consistent absence has been the strong ground of disbelief in others. To one who has never had "anything like" a direct experience of "God," talk of it is as meaningful as the talk of proud mothers about their babies is to an adolescent. Many individuals can understand the intellectual grounds for belief in God, but this "catching fire" with an "experience" leaves them cold. Anyone who has taught a course in the Philosophy of Religion for long has found students who, though intellectually willing to accept belief in God, still hesitated because they had not "felt God." § 8. IS MAN INNATELY RELIGIOUS?

Since religion is so pervasive and so integral to life, readers may find it odd that, in considering the roots of religion, no mention has been made of a specific, differentiated religious 17 18

Ibid., pp. 70, 71. Ibid., p. 70.

44 * 'Belief and Disbelief instinct. Is there not an inborn and inevitable drive to find God ? Did not the Psalmist speak for all mankind when he said: "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God?" 1 9 If religious phenomena are present in every clime, surely the quest for God is not the product of conditioning or learning. The psychic structure of man must include a drive, analogous to physical and psychic drives such as hunger and sex, which leads the individual to seek for God! To investigate such issues would involve us too deeply in a psychological discussion of the nature of instincts or innate urges in man. But this much seems clear to the author. If by a religious instinct is meant an innate, well-differentiated striving, which, when activated, sets up a yearning for a specific kind of God, there is no religious instinct or urge. The evidence from the variety of religious experience and from the many conceptions of God suggests that there is no distinct urge common to all men regardless of the environment in which they live. Still, one of the amazing facts about human experience is that religious phenomena are found wherever man is found. Can it be that there is nothing in the fundamental structure of a human being which gives rise to this hunger after 'God ?' There is, indeed, another interpretation possible. Most psychologists today would insist, to be sure, that the religious yearning is not intrinsic to the underlying structure of the human mindbody. This statement, however, has been further interpreted to mean that religion is an artificial, unnecessary addition to human nature. It has been suggested that although most people seem to need religion as a "mechanism of adjustment" to life, they would really be better off if they could live without it in any of its forms. Thus, using a Freudian psychology as a base, some thinkers today "explain" religion by saying that the resort to God the Father is psychologically a substitute satisfaction needed by persons whose emotional relations to their human fathers 19

Psalm 42:1-2.

"Belief and "Disbelief • 45 have been inadequate.20 The need for father-love is genuine, but the need for God-love is an emergency measure. God-love becomes superfluous the moment the person grows up enough to adjust to the world without this carry-over from infantile dependence upon his father. We are not here, it must be remembered, discussing the validity of any religious belief. If any belief is rationally justified, it does not matter how it arose. One could argue that many persons resort to faith in science in order to show that they are independent of their Father-God. Whether this conclusion be true or false, would it destroy the value of science? Further, there is no doubt that for many persons religion is an attempt to reconstruct a cozy world in which they are loved or in which they can feel important. Would this origin invalidate religion? The particular manifestation of religious belief (or unbelief) cannot be understood psychologically apart from a careful analysis of the life-history of the individual, including his reasoning processes. But this is true of any belief and, therefore, cannot be used for or against some one belief. What we protest here is the assumption that since there is no religious instinct analogous to sex or to hunger, the religious yearning is artificial, and its presence in human life a sign of weakness. This statement could be true, but it should be justified by a whole theory of what an adequate human adjustment is. And this cannot finally be decided until we do know whether (and what kind of) God exists. As a matter of fact, one may well deny that there is an innate, differentiated, religious yearning for God without concluding 20 Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, (trans. W. D. Robson-Scott). London: Hogarth Press, 1943, p. 92. Freud concludes his own study thus: "Take my endeavor for what it is. A psychologist, who does not deceive himself about the difficulty of finding his bearings in this world, strives to review the development of mankind in accord with what insight he has won from studying the mental processes of the individual during his development from childhood to manhood. In this connection the idea forces itself upon him that religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis, and he is optimistic enough to assume that mankind will overcome this neurotic phase, just as so many children grow out of their similar neuroses."

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that the religious need is superficial. We cannot assume that, once acquired, the religious urge can be eradicated from human personality without any basic injustice to it. One may hold, as the author suggests, that far from being one drive among others, the religious yearning is an ineradicable human reaction. The religious response may accompany the process of satisfying any other drive (or fusion of drives and abilities), once the particular individual has reached a certain qualitative level in his experience. An infant, for example, is no more religious than he is intellectual, aesthetic, or moral. But does this mean that as he reaches a certain level of maturation in the course of his life-experience he will not find himself responding to his world with the yearning for help and companionship from some Being beyond himself? May he not, once his feelings and "thinkings" have developed to a certain point, find himself responding to what he considers the very presence of God (however vaguely he may define that) ? There may indeed be persons whose life-experience may develop in such a way that they never do come to this consciousness. Persons who have not lived deeply will hear, but not appreciate, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. So persons who never ripen, who fill the voids in their lives with all sorts of trinkets and "experiences," may—and by virtue of such activity—never reach the point of psychic maturation prerequisite to religious yearning. Some persons, perhaps, never engage in the search for value to the point of creative challenge. They consequently never develop that craving to identify themselves with a God which is inseparable from the conviction that they are already of concern to him. In Chapter 4 we shall examine further the evidential value of religious experience. Here we make no claim that for human beings to experience this sense of underlying kinship proves the existence of God. From the fact that men do desire a certain object, it does not follow that the object exists. Yet we protest against the relatively superficial manner with which some have

^Belief and "Disbelief '

47

treated the religious yearning. This yearning, to repeat, is not one drive among others. It is a kind of yearning which human beings find permeating their consciousness as they confront earnestly the task of realizing the highest values possible in their lives, or as they respond to certain stimuli in man's sensitive interaction with the world. The psychological roots of religion, then, are not so much outgrowths of other drives as the pointing of the human consciousness itself in a certain direction—toward a seeking and a finding of cosmic friendship. Exactly when the religious yearning comes into a given life, what twist it takes, or what outlet it seeks is an individual matter. But in general terms, it results in the claim that the Universe is with him in his search for values.21 § 9. DOES RELIGION HAVE RATIONAL MOTIVES?

We have said nothing so far about the intellectual motives for belief in God. Religion may indeed be, as some hold, an answer to man's intellectual demand for unity.22 But the so-called rational roots of belief in God do not exist independently of the other springs of religion. Men, of course, do want to understand their world. And, as they ask question after question, they may find themselves assuming that the world is one: that it can be known; that they can depend upon it to honor their attempts to understand its laws. Such questions always open the door to the problem of God's existence and his nature. Whatever we may believe about the claim that one can really know God only by going beyond the province of reason, it seems 21 This amount of truth at least, it seems to the author, is present in the thinking of those who assert, as Albert C. Knudson does, that there is a religious a priori, "a native religious endowment of the human spirit, an endowment that is as fundamental, independent, and trustworthy as is our native capacity for sense experience, moral experience, and aesthetic experience " A. C. Knudson, The Validity of Religious Experience. New York- The Abingdon Press, 1937, p. 186, cf. p 166 S See also Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy. London Oxford University Press, 1926, pp. 116, 140. 22 See W K. Matthews, God in Christian Expedience New York: Harper & Bros., 1930, p. 19

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clear that when we are reasoning about God we are trying to connect our different experiences and our available knowledge. Reason—we do not stop to define it clearly now—at least calls for the discovery of the interconnections between our experiences with a view to determining what the nature of the world is and what we may expect of it. Reason is the knitting needle of experience, and it is not the strands themselves. Thus this whole book is an expression of the rational roots of religion in the life of the author as he tries to weave his experience and knowledge together. But again, just as some find that their "knitting" leads them to God, there are other sincere thinkers who cannot find enough evidence to attest the kind of meaning in the world represented by any of the ideas of God. Indeed, the main conclusion of our discussion thus far is to enforce respect and sympathy for the position of the skeptic in religion. The experience of man does not enable the impartial inquirer to move surely and confidently into belief in God, once he has attempted to bring together all the moments of his experience. Whatever else the reader and the author may think at this point, it should be clear that neither religious belief nor religious disbelief are conclusions made easy by the variety of human experience. One fundamental fact stands out for anyone who cares enough about the question of God to have read this far. The journey to belief or disbelief is a personal venture calling for patience, persistence, and the most difficult sort of self-discipline. Any kind of belief or disbelief worthy of the dignity of mature manhood will not be a rationalized excuse for leading some sort of life already ingrained by habit or desired in prospect Perhaps (and this is a moral judgment) the really important thing about a man is not what he believes or does not believe but the maturity of attitude toward what he believes and disbelieves. His beliefs will control his actions and are therefore important. Yet his own struggle to discover the truth will have

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made him sufficiently sensitive to the problems of interpreting human experience fairly that he will always be in sympathy with the struggle of others. Nor will he fail to remind himself of the difficulties in the interpretation which he has accepted as most adequate. As Socrates said, it is primarily the unexamined life that is not worth living, and not the religious or the irreligious life as such. It makes a great deal of difference whether the religious (or irreligious) life has been examined. Have we not seen that the religious issues of life and action are part of that fundamental search not merely to live, but to live well? It is for this reason that we now begin the main argument of this book by an examination of what we mean by reason and what we can expect of reason when applied to religious problems. QUESTIONS

1. a. b. c. 2. a. '

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

What is the meaning of "belief"? Why is it necessary for action ? What is the relation between belief and experience ? To what conflicting beliefs may "desire for help in the business of living" lead ? b. Do experiences of profound personal tragedy always lead to belief in God? c. In what do Russell and Stace put their trust ? a. Explain why experiences of happiness and of duty often lead to religion, b. Can they lead to some other attitude as well ? a. What is "the most common root of religious disbelief? Why? b. To what conclusion did Hume and Mill come regarding evil ? Does the reality of evil necessarily imply that God does not exist ? Why must we distinguish between the existence of a belief and its truth or falsity ? What actions of religious persons and institutions cause disbelief? How might the believer in religion reply to these "indictments" ? a. How does religion meet the criticism of its ethical failures ? b. Of its internal dissensions ?

j o • ^Belief and "Disbelief 10. Why is it unwise to make motivation the sole judge of valid behavior, religiously and ethically? 11. a. What is the main contention in the passage from Bergson? b. What view does it challenge ? 12. What bearing on religious belief has "direct experience" had for some people ? 13. a. Discuss the grounds for rejecting a religious instinct, defining this term carefully. b. Does this mean that "religious yearning" is superficial ? 14. What do "psychological" criticisms of religious belief tend to overlook? 15. Are there rational grounds for religion? How do they relate to experience in general ? 16. a. Why is the "sceptic in religion" deserving of respect ? b. What is the difference between "belief and disbelief" and "rationalization" ? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Baillie, John. The Roots of Religion in the Human Soul. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1926. Evans, D. Luther. A Free Man's Faith. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949. Harkness, Georgia. The Dar\ Night of the Soul. New York: AbingdonCokesbury Press, 1945. Otto, Max. The Human Enterprise. New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1940.

Trueblood, D. Elton. Alternative to Futility. New York: Harper & Bros., 1948. . The Predicament of Modern Man. New York: Harper & Bros., 1944.

3 THE MEANING AND FUNCTION OF REASON IN EXPERIENCE

A GREAT deal of discussion, not alone regarding religion, turns out to be futile because the participants unconsciously employ different conceptions of reason. Some thinkers are convinced that reason cannot solve the problems of life, but once we understand what these men mean by reason we no longer wonder at their conclusion. In this chapter we shall indicate the sense in which the term will be used in this book by relating it to other conceptions. § I. REASONING AS LOGICAL CONSISTENCY

A is to the right of B. B is to the right of C. Assuming that the most inexperienced person, say a child, understands the meaning of the words in these sentences, or premises, as we call them, ask: Where is A in relation to C? Where is C in relation to A? He will answer: A is to the right of C. C is to the left of A. He will draw these conclusions from these premises, if, as we say, he can reason. But what we really mean is, if he understands the relations of the meanings in the premises to each other. The

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child who comes to these conclusions is thinking logically and not illogically. Let us now assume as premises: All cats are dogs. This professor is a cat. What is the conclusion? Is it, This professor is a dog? An experienced person may reply: "Nonsense. None of those premises is correct." But that is not the question. Granted those premises, what follows logically? What follows from those meanings? It does not matter whether we like the conclusion or not, whether we believe it is true to fact or not: This professor is a dog! We must draw this conclusion if we are to think straight, for it follows logically—that is, consistently—from the premises. Reasoning or thinking is going on in a person's mind as he deduces conclusions from premises. Many times we say we are "thinking" when in fact only ideas and images are flitting through our minds: there is no attempt or intention to find truth. When we "really" think, or reason, we are trying to solve a problem or get at the truth of a matter. We shall never succeed if we do not understand the meanings of our terms and "see" their proper relations to one another. And this \ind of thinking or reasoning, which goes on when we are concentrating on the relations of our meanings to each other, is called logical thinking or reasoning, as we have seen. In logical reasoning, then, our minds are fixed on what we call the implications of what we are saying. If it rains, he will stay home. It is raining. Conclusion: Therefore, he is at home. Here the conclusion, as we relate it to the premises, clearly follows. But suppose we altered the premises to read:

^Meaning and Function of %eason • 53 If it rains, he will stay home. He is at home. Conclusion: It is raining. Does this conclusion necessarily follow? Again, if we understand the relations between our meanings we must say no. For we did not assert in the first premise that he would stay home only if it rained. He might stay home for other causes as well as rain, just as a person can have a headache owing to more than one cause. Much thinking, then, goes on (we also say, much reasoning goes on) which is not logical. We mean that persons can think inconsistently with their premises. The important point is that the standard we have in mind here as we judge the thinking (or reasoning) process is consistency with premises. Reason in this primary sense is logical reason; it is restricted to what the premises necessarily entail. Is there any other kind of reason? We have already noted that in the examples given, the thinker simply has to understand what his premises mean. The child in this instance does not have to know any more about the world than to understand what is meant by persons when they say right or left. Nor does a child have to know what a professor, or dog, or cat is in real life, provided he knows they are distinct entities. In a little more complicated problem, such as guessing in which of daddy's hands the red marble is, the child has to know that daddy has only two hands, that the marble cannot be in two places at the same time. He also has to trust daddy not to switch the marble from one hand to the other. Thus, if the child says that the marble is in daddy's right hand and he then finds that this hand is empty, he immediately concludes that the only other place it can be is in the left hand. Here the child needs to know more about the world before he can be absolutely sure about his answer. Given this situation there are no other alternatives. We accordingly say that the child has made the correct or logical deduction. And we

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insist that if this deduction is right there can be no other correct one which is consistent with these premises. Here is exhibited an ideal of sure-fire knowledge, namely, a one-possibility consistency derived from established premises. This ideal is demonstrated unusually well in the realm of mathematics and geometry where all conclusions are logically bound to accepted definitions or axioms. Here we do not have to believe that two centaurs exist, but we know that if there are two, there must be two single ones. There is no doubting that one and one make two, granted the meanings. This is the ideal of logical truth. This pattern of thought is what many people have in mind when they refer to reason or to its conclusion, rational truth. A rational (logical) conclusion in this sense would have a mustbe-so character; almost-surely-so would have no more validity than to say that two and two "almost surely" equal five. One can understand why this conception of logical reason (and of truth) has been held up as the ultimate ideal. When a proof is logically valid, there are no other possible conclusions, and our uncertainty vanishes. A little reflection, however, forces us to see that when we are thinking in mathematics and in logic, we are enjoying a holiday from the everyday uncertainties of existence. True, we cannot doubt that two and two make four, but we can legitimately x doubt that centaurs, or apples, or marbles, or hands exist. In the example of "raining" and "staying home" we can be sure of our reasoning only if we know on other grounds that "not staying home" is necessarily connected with raining. If we knew that staying home was always connected with raining, we could then, and only then, say that it must be raining since the subject is at home. Here, then, the necessity of our conclusion depends on "what the facts" are. So also in the syllogism: All 1 Anyone can go about willfully insisting that two and two make six, but assuming that he knows that six is not the equivalent of four, we say he has no basis for his insistence.

(^Meaning and Function of %eason

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jj

men are mortal; Socrates is a man: Socrates is mortal. The conclusion is certainly consistent with the premises. If all men are mortal and if Socrates is a man, then Socrates must be mortal. But can we be as sure that all men are mortal, or that Socrates exists, as we are that a certain logical relation holds between being a man, being Socrates, and being mortal? Unless we can be certain of our premises—that is, of the factual truth of what our words refer to—we cannot be sure of the truth of any conclusion even if it is consistent with the premises. Whether or not there are any indubitable experiences, premises, or ideas is no easy matter to decide. Some of the keenest minds in the history of philosophy have insisted that we can have logically necessary knowledge (logical truth) about reality. (And we shall have to consider the possibility of indubitable premises in religion carefully in the next chapter.) The ideal of rational knowledge as consistency between all ideas (logical truth) stands before us as a standard for the degree of certainty any of our conclusions should have. But most of the time, at least, we have to live with much less than logical certainty. How, for example, can we be logically sure that this bread we have in hand is not poisoned, that this pen will write to the bottom of the page, that this ink will not fade, that our friends will not betray us, that democracy is better than tyranny ? Reason as consistency has great value IN TESTING THE CONNECTIONS between the ideas we already have, and exposing errors', but we cannot rely upon it as the SOLE guide to the nature of the world as it is and may be. § 2. REASON AS EMPIRICAL COHERENCE

A boy confronted with a tricycle which he wants to ride must think consistently. Here is an object on wheels, and as such, he reflects, it must move if pushed; that is what wheels do. He thus moves to the tricycle and pushes it hard. Yes, it moves; but he is surprised to see how little it moves. An equal amount of force would shove a toy to the other side of the yard. The child in

j6 • ^Meaning and Function of %eason other words could reason syllogistically: All wheels move; this is an object on wheels: this will move. But no amount of this kind of reasoning will bring the conclusion as to how jar it will move when he pushes it just as hard as he pushed it. We say he has to learn this from experience. (The Latin word, experior, from which we get the word 'experience' and the words "experiment" and "expert," means to try out, to endeavor}) The child has to learn that wheels move by trying them out. By logical thinking he can organize and bring together the ideas he has learned. But logic itself will not tell him more than he can dig out consistently from the ideas he already has. For reasons such as this we often hear that life is deeper than logic! One has to try things out; things have to happen first before we can know what their effects are. Plates usually break if dropped in the sink, but the connection between plate, dropping, and breaking is not a must, as is the relation, 2 + 2 = 4. Sometimes a plate is dropped which does not break. Lighted matches burn fingers and clothes; but no thinking about matches unaided by actual experience would begin to suggest the conclusion. Thus, we first learn about things by connecting our actions with them in some way, seeing what happens, and mentally organizing these happenings in generalizations like: matches when lighted and touched burn fingers. We here use our logic to note what events and ideas may be included with, or excluded from, other ideas. Thus, "All matches burn," is a generalization which includes all matches in the class of burning things, but we had to find out from experience that a match burns (under certain conditions). So that now, when I say: "Don't touch these matches, for if you scratch them they will ignite," I am making a statement consistent with what has actually happened usually, at least, in the past. My statement is true now because it is both consistent with other ideas and with what has been observed in the past and may still be observed under the proper conditions in the future. We have now moved from the conception of reason as logical

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consistency between ideas or concepts into the area of reason as connectivity between ideas and between ideas and experience. Truth about existing things or events must be based on the claim that our ideas are not only consistent with other ideas but are consistent with the observations of events (or with the facts, as we say). This difference between strict logical consistency and actual connections in experience we shall now call growing, empirical coherence. It is so important for our discussion that another example may serve to clinch the distinction. "My friend is honest" is a statement which is based not only on past experience; but the statement can also be further substantiated (if never completely proved) by my lending him money. But the statement as such: "My friend is honest" is consistent in meaning with another statement: "If I lend him money, he will repay me at the designated time," for that is what honesty, at least in part, means. So far we are in the realm of logical consistency. If I say, "My friend is honest. Therefore, I had better be careful about lending him money," I would be considered illogical, assuming that I knew what honesty meant. We must pause here to make one comment. It should be clear that whatever else factual truth may be in addition to logical consistency, we stand no chance of knowing that we have discovered any truth if we are logically inconsistent. Life may be deeper than logic. But we can never organize and understand what we do experience if we do not make correct logical deductions from the statements we hold to be true. If one makes a mistake in his logic he will probably look for the wrong things (as when he goes to a gasoline station to buy a suit). Thus, while consistency alone will not lead to truth about existence, inconsistency will always lead to error. If we are not inconsistent about the relations between our ideas, we must take another step—a more difficult one—if we are to acquire factual truth. We must now seek consistency between our ideas and the variety of experience and actions which make up the stuff of life. We can be sure that a good man

58 • ^Meaning and Function of %eason would be honest, if we so define goodness, but we cannot assert that there are good men who are honest until we meet some. The life of reason, in this fuller sense, is now the constant interrelating of ideas, experiences, and events. Like a General, reason puts together the reports which come from the front where ideas are being carried into action. Adjustment to our environment, to other people, and to whatever the structure of the world may be calls for more than necessary logical thinking. We need to carry our logical conclusions into action for checking. In so doing, we find ourselves stimulated to develop other ideas whose logical consequences will once more guide us into further action. It is this shuttling back and forth of ideas and experiences, with each being allowed to guide the other, that we have in mind when we use the words growing, empirical coherence. This full-blown process of thinking and this effort-for-coherence is what deserves the name of reason, for any other kind of reasoning connects only part of life rather than all that is available. Unless we specify to the contrary, we shall use reason (and reasonable) in this sense: reason not only needs and includes consistency (or thinking in the logical or narrow sense), but it also goes further and correlates every available aspect of experience. Again, all parts of experience (be they sensation, emotions, volitions), all claims to knowledge (be they scientific, aesthetic, moral, or religious), cannot be said to be true or false without having run the gauntlet of consistency with the rest of available experience. Much more needs to be added as we proceed, but now it should be emphasized that we are here relinquishing the hope for logical certainty in knowledge. In other words no conclusion any human mind can ever draw from experience can ever have said of it "this-must-be-so-and-cannot-be-otherwise." In logic an idea necessarily includes or excludes other ideas by its very definition. But it is another story when we come to the realm of matter of actual fact. Experience is broader, if not deeper, than logic, and we can never say we really know anything about existence, if by "know" we mean "we are certain of." Accordingly, when we use the word

^Meaning and Function of %eason

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\nowledge (as when we use the word reason), we need to keep two possibilities in mind, that of couldn't-possibly-be wrong knowledge, and that of empirically coherent knowledge which will have varying degrees of likelihood (or probability). § 3. CAN WE BE LOGICALLY CERTAIN ABOUT ANYTHING?

Before settling for a conception of knowledge which aims at no more than the highest degree of probability, the reader may well ask: Can there not be must-knowledge about any fact of existence? Is all our knowledge probability knowledge? This question calls for much more analysis than can be given here, but it is vital. The author will outline his own answer. But the cautious student will test the validity of this answer every time we face a concrete problem as we move from chapter to chapter. It may be that there is more certainty about matter of fact than the author here proposes. There is one statement of fact, at least, that must be true. It must be true that I exist at the moment I am thinking these lines. I might be wrong about the fact that these lines actually exist. I may be wrong about the fact that I am actually writing them, for experiences testify that my perception and memory are not 100 per cent trustworthy, and this may be one of the untrustworthy occasions. As both Augustine and Descartes saw, if I doubt that I am thinking these lines, I, the doubter, must exist at the moment I am doubting (thinking) about these lines. The same considerations would apply to my feeling, or emoting, oughting, and willing. I think, therefore I am. I strive, therefore I am. I will, therefore I am. I perceive, therefore I am. In other words, here are propositions pertaining to my own existence, which to deny at the moment they are being made, is to reassert. There is no tighter logical relation than this. Let me find any other proposition about matter of fact which to deny is to assert, and it shall be added to this one indubitable truth of fact. If I

6o • ^Meaning and Function of %eason can find any other proposition which is logically implied in the very fact of my existence at any moment, I shall add what it asserts to this undubitable fact. So far I have not been able to do so. I am unable with logical certainty to assert, for example, that I existed ten minutes ago, or to affirm that I will live ten minutes longer. I am able to deny that I have a body, without in that very denial asserting the body's existence. I am able to deny, and without asserting by that very fact, the existence of this room, of my co-students, of other minds, yes, and God.2 That I exist at any given moment I cannot legitimately deny, but I can deny anything else without self-contradiction. 1 can, however, assert with confidence, short of certainty, that I am the same person that I was ten minutes ago, that I have a body, that I am writing these lines in a notebook in a college library. Only with decreasing degrees of confidence can I assert (a) that the body across the table from me has a mind, (b) that it belongs to a good student, and (c) that he will make a good husband. I have decreasing confidence in these matters because my experience of each is not only indirect but the evidence for each is also less reliable, comparatively speaking. Thus, my idea that the body across the table has a mind is based on generalizations from my past experience (including what I have learned from others) with regard to human bodies. I do not experience his mind directly. (Some thinkers would say that I do.) Were I to make judgments about the quality of his mind, I should proceed very cautiously, remembering especially my own limitations and bias. Yet generally speaking, I can be fairly confident that he is a good student in comparison to noncollegiate persons by his presence in a university. Still, I should certainly not hazard the judgment that he is a good student in the scholarly sense, for I have never seen any of his work. I certainly have no evidence that he will be a good husband. 2 The reader who has noticed a similarity to Descartes here should be warned that the author does not give assent to more of Descartes' thought than is here specifically described.

^Meaning and Function of %eason • 61 In this simple illustration, we may discover the outline of what we actually do when we are cautious about our assertions. Normally, we do not assume the critical attitude of justifying everything we take to be true about the world around us. But the moment we face conflicting testimony or a variety of evidence, we realize that our assertions are really hypotheses. We assumed these assertions to be true until we were rebuffed. Once we start relating the hypothesis to the evidence, our confidence increases in proportion as the hypothesis is consistent with relevant observations. The more experiences we have which confirm a hypothesis, including the consequences which would follow if we acted in accordance with the hypothesis, the more confident we are of its truth. To state this in the terminology we have decided to use, the more experience confirms a particular hypothesis, the more empirically coherent (or reasonable) that particular assertion is. Again, the more a statement fits (that is, interconnects without distortion) the variety of experiences, the more coherent or reasonable is the account it gives of the experiences involved. Returning to the question as to the amount of logically certain knowledge we have about existing beings, we may summarize: There is no must-knowledge (or logical certainty) about any aspect of existence beyond the experience of the momentary self. All knowledge, including knowledge about body, about the existence and nature of any world beyond that momentary self is not logically certain (must-be-true), but such knowledge may be probably true in different degrees. Whatever hypothesis is true about matters of fact—about the body, other people, angels, devils, or God—is true because it is most coherent empirically. No other hypothesis is equally well-supported by the variety of experiences and established knowledge. The full import of this conception of reason will become apparent as we move from chapter to chapter. Having related reason to logical certainty, we must now see how empirical coherence differs from psychological certainty, faith, and scientific method.

6i • ^Meaning and Function of %eason § 4. PSYCHOLOGICAL CERTAINTY, REALITY, AND TRUTH

The upshot of our discussion is that knowledge about the nature of man, the world, and God, or any other being is never a matter of logical certainty but always something short of complete assurance. We can, of course, feel psychologically sure or certain that something is true, and we can act on the temporary assumption that it is completely true. Thus we are psychologically certain of the existence of our bodies, a physical world, and other everyday beliefs. But when we reflect on the grounds of our belief, we have to realize that we can at best muster only a high degree of likelihood (or probability). We can show only that a certain view of "the facts" takes account of more relevant data than does another possible statement. Indeed, as critical reflection and the history of scientific discovery indicate, what we take to be fact is not a final and unalterable truth. What we consider "fact" is simply a hypothesis about a particular state of existence which is so well confirmed by experience to date that no one finds occasion to call it in question. Let facts, so-called, conflict with each other, and we no longer know which facts are, as we say, really true. It is very important, therefore, not to confuse (a) psychological certitude, that is, a state of mind we can have even when little, if any, evidence justifies it, with (b) logical certainty, the awareness of necessary consistency between ideas, and (c) reasonable or coherent assertion, the realization that a given proposition gives the most coherent interpretation of the available evidence (leaves the least evidence still to be explained). We can, therefore, define truth as the relevance of statements about reality to reality. By reality we mean the permanent and ultimate thing(s) or being(s) which make up the world. We consider a thing real when it is dependable, when we can consider it the source of other things or beings. We must be careful not to assume that we know what composes reality. It may be one or many, physical, mental, neither of these or both; it may

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include visible things or values. The important point is that whatever we consider real we think of as permanent, as irreducible to other things. Thus, any who would consider electrons to be real would think of them as ultimate beings beyond which there is no going. Those who consider God as real think of Him as the Ultimate Being. We are not here suggesting what is real, but we are defining truth as the relevance of our human statements to the real. We believe, do we not, that our statements are true when they are dependable? But they could not be dependable, we suppose, unless they referred to something dependable. Truth is not reality but rather a statement of what constitutes reality. No sooner have we digested this distinction between truth and reality than we come upon a crucial question. Can there be absolute correspondence between our ideas and reality? From our argument thus far, the student will see that the author must say: We cannot tell. We can never be sure that any of our ideas absolutely correspond to reality. Let the reader ponder this carefully for the consequences have shocked and been intolerable to a great many excellent minds who have accordingly rejected this view. "For," they have said, "this means that we can never be sure that there is any world beyond us, or even that there are other minds. This means skepticism!" To which the plainspoken answer must be: It means that we can never be absolutely certain of anything beyond the momentary self. It means that we are constantly not knowing all there is to know. But it does not mean that there is no knowledge (the position of the skeptics) unless you define knowledge as logical certainty and refuse to consider the alternative that human knowledge is always tentative and probable, rather than logically certain. This is skepticism, if you will, in regard to absolute, human knowledge of reality. But it is not the denial that there is increasing growth in the coherence of human ideas with the data or evidence available to conscious human beings. There are philosophers who maintain that man does, in think-

64 • ^Meaning and function of %eason ing and knowing, actually contemplate reality. Yet even these scholars do not, in the end, give the human knowledge-venture any more basis for security. Every knower, according to them, while he is thinking reality is not thinking it completely. Thus, any knower, when he realizes what his predicament is, must say that he never has the complete truth about reality but only increasingly coherent and less partial views of it. He must in the end be just as skeptical about the final truth of any statement as we find we are forced to be. His actions also must be reasonably tentative, even if psychologically he feels sure that his particular statement corresponds absolutely with reality. § 5. REASONABLENESS AND FAITH

A few paragraphs back, the words confidence, and assurance crept into the discussion. These words do> not represent a cognitive situation. Confidence and assurance represent a total psychological state regarding what can be expected but is not yet proved. Such words would not have been coined if we were certain of everything. To say that one is confident that the snow will melt, that the operation will be successful, that the peace will be maintained, is to assert that although one cannot be sure that this will happen, he is willing to act on the assumption that these events will occur. Again, the reader may wrinkle his brow at the suggestion that he cannot be sure that snow will melt, though he would probably admit some uncertainty about the operation and the peace. But is his state of mind not dependent on the fact that he has never known an instance of snow that did not melt, whereas he has known of unsuccessful operations and of peace that has been broken? Let the reader try to prove beyond a legitimate doubt that snow must melt. He will soon see why his "absolute assurance" even here is confidence based on past experience sufficient to encourage him to act as if there were no legitimate doubt. Here we are, then, life-enjoying, struggling creatures with

^Meaning and Function of %eason • 65 varied needs that call incessantly for satisfaction, surrounded by a world that makes all kinds of demands upon us. Calls from within, invitations and demands from without, an indeterminate future ahead—in all this, final knowledge is never vouchsafed us, and yet, act we must! Is empirical coherence, this tentative, probable thing, is it the only life-line we have ? If this be reason, surely reason cannot be our only help in time of trouble! If, the reader may well say, we cannot be sure about the world, neither can we await assurance, especially when the call is vital and the course uncharted. To wait, to delay is to invite a fate which perhaps could have been avoided if we had "taken a chance." What does reason do for us in situations of this sort? The answer, suggested by reasoning itself, is: Take the chance, for some chance, indeed, you must take! A reasoning person sees that once we are beyond the functioning of reflex and mechanical automatic reactions, every choice-action means a step into comparative darkness. Let us consider a concrete situation. We have done all we can for a patient at death's door. One more step may be taken, but this step, an operation especially dangerous for a weakened patient, may cause death. The patient may live without it; it seems more likely that he may die without it. What shall we do now that our reasonable knowledge has reached its limit? What shall we do when we have come to full awareness of critical alternatives? If we "just go on thinking" during the crucial moments, we act by default; just thinking will no longer help, and we are therefore acting unreasonably. Thinking should lead to some decision, despite the realization that no decision as such is certain. If we decide to wait, we have made a conscious choice; we trust that the person's poor health will improve. If we decide to operate, we chance the operation with confidence in the doctor and in the patient's strength despite the further shock of operation. In each instance there is no certainty; there is no assurance. Some "chance" has to be taken, and it is unreasonable not to take some action when every moment counts, even though the

66 ' ^Meaning and Function of %eason action may prove fatal to the patient. A reasonable person does not simply go on thinking, sustaining "suspended judgment," when that thinking does not actually guide him into the uncertain future. To be reasonable is to allow one's reason to guide action, not to paralyze it. The situation here depicted is indeed extreme, but the human predicament is not falsified. Some ground of uncertainty there is with regard to every choice, though we are more aware of the uncertainty when great odds are at stake, as in our example. The function of reason in human experience is not to kill hope or despair; it is to eliminate thoughtless hope and groundless despair. To be reasonable is not to destroy venturesomeness but to ennoble it by sobering reflection which makes one aware of the possible consequences. We live ultimately by faith and not by reason. For there is always the necessity of a bold thrust into the realm just beyond our best knowledge. Are not those who live by "faith," without the aid of whatever guidance reason can give, irresponsible human beings? They seem to have neither the wisdom nor the courage to live with their whole beings, which include both faith and reason. It should be emphasized here that the word faith is not being used in a specific religious sense. (We shall consider religious faith in the next chapter.) The word here refers to that imperative venturesomeness which is the stuff of life. Faith refers to the conscious willingness to move along and develop one stream of activity on the basis of incomplete evidence because it is, nevertheless, the most reasonable course possible in that situation. Faith is an attitude of will; it is the commitment of the whole individual to action. Faith and reason are distinct moments in the life of a person, not two "parts" of him. He can live with a minimum use of reason, but such living is blind and meaningless; he can live with a minimum use of faith, but few new treasures are unearthed by such "prudence." Our normal living, whether we are driving a car or bringing up children, calls for decision in the absence of some facts. Yet

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it calls for decision based on as much evidence as can be gleaned up to the time when, whether we like it or not, some action must ensue. Our reasonable faith moves out of the area of borderline blindness into the area of confidence. Sometimes reasonable faith is vivified by psychological certitude, but never does it take us into the area of logical certainty. The barometer of faith goes up as the grounds for any particular venture of faith become more coherent, more reasonable. But empirical coherence itself demands that despite the dimmest light, especially where profound values are at stake, we commit our lives to the best we know. Indeed, as William James put it, we should "will to believe" especially in circumstances where our own decision and activity will help create the situation hoped for. Frequently our own attitude toward life will help determine the reality of the ideal. Whenever we confront such options we have a reasonable right to believe what would be best for all concerned, provided there is no well-established evidence contrary to our hope. Faith and reason combine to insure the wisest action possible when action alone remains for verification. Reason does not put the brakes on life; it does not destroy life. It rather follows life as a father may follow his child down the street to curb costly and unnecessary, though easily understandable, recklessness.3

§ 6. REASONABLE FAITH AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD

The conception of reason being suggested will now be related to the nature of scientific method. Many thinkers have opposed reason not only to faith but also to the scientific attitude. Reason, we have been told on the one hand, is inadequate to deal with the "profoundest problems of life." Reason, we have been told on the other, lies outside the domain of scientific method, and is a weak (if not false) guide to an understanding of the world 3 The essay by William James called "The Will to Believe" is highly recommended at this point. See The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New

York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1931.

68 • ^Meaning and function of %eason as it really is. Conclusions reached either by reason or by faith are not trustworthy until they have been stamped with the approval of scientific investigation. We have tried to show that far from there being a clash between reason and faith, reasonable living calls for faith. The reason which is inconsistent with scientific method is the abstract, logical reason which deduces the relations between meanings, regardless of their relation to experience and observation. We shall now similarly indicate in an introductory way (for we shall have to return to the problem again) that scientific method does not stand opposed to reason, as here depicted, but is itself an eminently reasonable way of dealing with human problems. It is all too easy to suppose that the steps a scientist takes as he approaches a problem are something entirely separate from the manner in which intelligent human beings solve their problems. But scientific method did not spring fullborn from the head of Zeus. The steps of scientific method are: (a) awareness of a problem needing solution; (b) preliminary observation of the situation; (c) the development of an hypothesis based on reflection about all the facts at one's disposal; (d) the collection of additional data relevant to the problem; (e) the carrying out of experiments to discover whether the hypothesis is adequate; and (f) the correlation of the hypothesis, if adequate, with other data and facts. Each step was a step taken with the approval of reason as it became clear that by taking these steps the mind could have greater confidence in its conclusions and actions. "The scientific method as a way of discovering truth is itself the most coherent hypothesis as to the best way of finding truth, especially in certain areas. Let us see why this is so. The first four steps—problem, preliminary observation, hypothesis, assembling of relevant data—are experienced every day by all of us in the face of difficulties. To be sure, it is not our everyday habit to formulate a difficulty or problem carefully, or to think out and clearly define our hypothesis, or to be very thorough about collecting all the relevant data. We usually do

^Meaning and Function of %eason • 69 not, like Charles Darwin, mark down in a special notebook all the evidence which seems to contradict our favorite hypothesis. Yet what creature who obeys more than impulse does not consider opposing evidence even when he tries to decide, for example, whether or not he ought to buy a car, or build a house, or get married? Most of us are likely to overestimate or underestimate the value of some of the data we collect, and we are less than assiduous as we collect data contrary to our hoped-for conclusion. But in our calmer moments, and too frequently as a result of sad experience, we realize that we could have been more successful had we conducted our inquiry as if we did not care what the outcome would be, or if we had temporarily at least forgotten that our interests and hopes were involved. That is, we should have been disinterested—to use the prevailing word for this attitude—in our search. Were we not aware of the difficulty we have in noting and facing all the facts, or even of properly stating the problem, would we ask others to listen to our problems, as we frequently do, and then to comment on our solution from their more impersonal vantage point? Our reason tells us that more impartial people can agree with one solution of a problem—in other words, the more public our conclusions can be—the more confident we can be that we are taking the right step. Shall we send our son to college or to the shop? Shall we join the church? Shall we vote for certain political candidates? Shall we take the new position ? Shall we compromise our integrity in a given situation? In all of these and a myriad other problems, the decision will never guarantee the correct solution, and we shall act in faith. Yet we feel more confident if we know that other competent and disinterested 4 persons see the problem as we do, suggest the same hypothesis and, after having considered the available evidence, agree that we should proceed along certain 4 To be ^interested is not to be uninterested; it means to be interested in the truth, let the chips fall where they may.

jo • ^Meaning and Function of %eason lines and not others. This procedure surely is as old as mankind, and not some special prerogative of "science." The same reason, working from experience, leads us to demand publicity or common agreement in discussion whenever possible, and this suggests the fifth step in the analysis of problems we confront, namely, experiment. We all have to try things out; we all have to experiment. How else shall we know what things can do for us or to us ? But when a scientist experiments, he subjects his trying to certain conditions which his reason, once more, indicates for him. If he wants to be sure that a certain amount of penicillin is producing a certain organic effect, he makes sure that he knows what the patient's total condition is when he is given the penicillin; and the scientist compares the results in such cases with the effects experienced by other persons in the same predicament who did not take penicillin. That is, if he is to be sure what causes what, he must control all the factors: he must, as far as possible, know what factors are producing particular results. Otherwise he cannot reasonably connect the dosage of penicillin with the observed effect. Obviously, a repetition of similar instances, in which all the ingredients remain relatively constant, makes his conclusions more reliable because he has more opportunity for observation and for noting what happens when he changes the dosage. There are many refinements which the experienced scientist must make in his methods, many different checks which he must use as his experience and reason lead him to realize the possible loopholes in any particular method of reaching conclusions. Here we are concerned with the main motive for experimentation. Any careful human being who wants to avoid unnecessary hazards in living accepts every opportunity to think and observe, to observe and think, under conditions in which the manipulation and isolation of materials is possible. The experienced scientist also knows, however, that this ideal of experimental knowledge is one which he can only approximate in different degrees, depending on the area in which the

(tMeaning and Function of Treason • ji problem occurs. As he leaves the physical sciences and enters the domains of psychology, sociology, economics, and history, he knows that his results are decreasingly dependable. For in these fields the opportunities for observation and control are far from ideal since the phenomena are much more intertwined and adequate repetition is impossible. If a psychologist wants to know the effect of a certain experience upon a child, he can have only one look, for the child will be different after the experience. No other child he may observe will have the degree of similarity to the first which physical substances of the same class share. The truth seems to be that the ideal of experimental observation in all sciences has to give way very frequently to the most cautious and circumspect observations under the best conditions possible for observation. The way to experimental control is often barred by the nature of the material the scientist is dealing with. Let us briefly examine an illustration from astronomy. When a recent astronomer set up the hypothesis that the unexpected perturbations of the planet Neptune could be best explained by assuming another hitherto unobserved celestial body, of a certain size at a certain place in the heavens, he had no experimental opportunity (in the strict sense of controlled repetition) to confirm his hypothesis. He certainly could not manipulate the movement of the heavens. He did not even have a telescope with a lens strong enough to allow observation of the area in which his computations led him to posit the undiscovered planet. His hypothesis was consistent with the facts already known. It did explain the irregularities in the movement of Neptune on its orbit, irregularities which could not be explained by the gravitational pull of Uranus, and other known factors. He was no doubt psychologically certain that once adequate lenses were developed, human eyes would see the planet. But until the planet could be actually observed, he and his scientific comrades could simply speculate whether or not this was the best explanation of the problematic perturbations. However, when a telescope

72 ' (-Meaning and Function of %eason with sufficiently powerful lenses was developed and then focused on the specified area of the heavens, the human eye did see a planet, which we now call Pluto, answering to the hypothetical description. In sum, the hypothesis, as a hypothesis, had suggested a reasonable relation between an hypothetical entity and a visible disturbance. The expert use of the telescope indicated that the explanatory hypothesis was even more coherent than its originator thought it was. It related other facts (the observations of the heavens by the larger telescope) in a way impossible under any other competing hypothesis. This astronomer could not, however, take another step which must be taken in ideally controlled experiment—namely, compare an instance in which Pluto was not present with one in which Pluto was. In the whole field of astronomy there is no opportunity to control experimentally the phenomena to be observed. All the astronomer can do is to observe with the best instruments at his disposal, under optimum conditions. Experimentation involving controlled repetition is out of the question, and the certainty of the astronomer's conclusions is to that extent attenuated. He is forced to be satisfied with observations which are coherent with the other observations. Even these brief suggestions may serve to show that the method of science is a product of human reason concretely at work as different areas of the world are explored. The scientific method, including experimental control, has more than proved its value to human beings who have been trying to chart reasonable courses of action. But its possibilities and limitations are seen by the reasonable mind whose reasoning activities are broader than the method itself. We would, indeed, be veritable fools if we did not use one of the mind's best tools for whatever it is worth in every area of human experience. Our task, then, is not to follow scientists around suspiciously lest they invade some cherished sanctuary which we for some obscure reason prefer to leave "unmolested." Good judgment bids us welcome our most accurate tools, logic, and scientific method into any

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field for whatever value they may have in that field. But good judgment also requires that we see to it that we do not allow our love of the tools and the accuracy they promise to dictate ahead of time either the value of the problems or the nature of the solutions. In other words, we must test scientific method itself by experience as a whole and in its variety. Here comes a serious rub, especially with those thinkers who regard knowledge acquired by scientific method as the only knowledge worth having. These philosophers would use scientific method as the standard by which all other so-called knowledge is to be judged. For them reasonableness is not the criterion of truth; their criterion is only reason as confined in strict scientific method. Such thinkers seem to forget that this method of science is itself a reasonable formulation based on human experience with the problems of inquiry. Scientific method is one of the means a reasonable human being uses in dealing with his world. For all we know, it may not be of much use in other areas; it may not even be as helpful as the reasonableness which led to its own formulation. Human reason learns from its examinations the different kinds of entities and processes which compose the physical, the biological, and the human realm. Reason realizes that the greenest pastures for scientific method are those areas in which the problem can be formulated and investigated in a way which will bring sensory confirmation. Reason learns that we arrive at the most probable conclusions when the problem can be studied with repetitive experimental control. Then other persons can perform the same experiment and check the conclusions; public observation is possible. But what shall we do when we have to deal with all of the problems indicated in the last chapter—problems which have to do not only with the values of experience but with the meaning of life and the universe as a whole? Here neither sensory confirmation nor experimental control can yield results; neither test-tube, telescope, nor microscope will confirm hypotheses, for

74 * ^Meaning and function of %eason life as a whole is involved. Shall we follow those thinkers who regard these problems as futile because the questions do not lend themselves to scientific procedure? Surely our reason tells us to go on thinking as coherently as we can, aware that our solutions, especially when they are least amenable to treatment by experimental control, will not have the degree of accuracy and publicity which might well be desired. Shall we take the idolatrous position of the man who sits at the altar of science and says: "I will have no other type of knowledge before me! I will follow no other gods, for they will lead me into error!" Or shall we follow our reason in the realization that even if we wait until science can catch up with these difficult problems, questions pertaining to the conduct of life and to the meaning of life itself will be solved uncritically or by default ? We cannot afford the luxury of waiting for science's final word; we must steer our actions by the discipline of a reasonable process which discovers the direction in which the balance of evidence seems to point and acts upon it. Reason, then, tells us that both faith and science should serve the interests of life as a whole: the one, faith, serves to warn us that some leap is necessary; the other, science, serves to warn us that our most coherent hypothesis on matters of high moment may never grant the degree of confidence which publicity, as acquired in scientific experiment, can provide. § 7. TRUTH AS GROWING, EMPIRICAL COHERENCE

The conception of the work of reason here considered is so important for the argument of this book that it may be well to bring together the suggestions made above in a more direct way. Reason and life. Reasoning is the activity of human mentality which undertakes to relate experiences and ideas to each other. It finds itself enmeshed in a total mental life of the individual— a life feeling, wanting, sensing, imagining, willing, and oughting. Human life is a constant choice of a future on the basis of

^Meaning and Function of %eason • 75 remembered and present actualities. There are always more problems to be met and more opportunities to tempt our enjoyment than our selective attention can deal with. Despite all that we consciously do, the course of our lives keeps moving on, building up, as it were, to some new point of emphasis, some new enjoyment or development. In constant interaction with agencies in the environment which make their impact upon us willy-nilly, we find ourselves conscious of desires, feelings, questions—a crowd of experiences dominated by some feelingtone or some idea—all calling for further clarification. Whatever clarity or order we achieve is always challenged by relative unknowns which hover over our reasoning or bar further progress. And this we have discovered through the narrowing of the scope or even through the frustration of many a plan of action. There is always more depth and breadth in our lives, and hardly suspected possibilities hanging over us. This is what we mean when we say that life is deeper than reason. Experience is broader than any one rational plan or system which we manage to evolve as we think out what is present in our consciousness. To be "experienced" is to know that there is always more in the content of our desire, feelings, and ideas (let alone the demands to be made upon them from without) than we can ever fully realize. To know this is to realize that real uncertainty is our human lot, that life, including the life of reason, is always on-the-go-and-on-the-make. But it is also to know that what we put into experience will, to some extent, determine the experience with which we shall have to deal. Reason and faith. This human predicament does not, however, justify the conclusion that present unknowns are unknowable (skepticism or relativism). It simply means that there will always be, at least if the past is to be our guide in judging, some unknown, some uncertainty. Uncertainty from the point of view of physical and spiritual survival and uncertainty from the point of view of accurate and complete knowledge will always be our lot. We are wanting, willing, oughting, knowing creatures

j6 • •^Meaning and Function of %eason coming into a world and yet not knowing the ultimate nature of our own roots or of the world beyond our consciousness. Yet, to be human is to live to understand, and we find life profoundly satisfying as our understanding increases. Both intellectual and vital venturesomeness are constituents of our very being, as our yearnings, hopes, and desires remind us. The ultimate alternatives we face are seldom the ones we would have selected. On basic issues we choose, if we are wise, as reasonably as possible. Otherwise the movement of life and of the world carries us with it only to set us down again with another (perhaps less desirable) choice to make. If we decide to live with some plan in mind, with a better conception of our own real nature and of the world which encompasses us, we soon become very conscious of the fact that what happens to what we sow does not depend entirely upon us. Uncertainty we cannot vanquish, but we can decrease it so far as it depends on our thought and action. Invest our lives we must; committing them to some set of values, to some conceived order of things, cannot be avoided. No choice is open between faith and no faith. The alternatives are faith with reasonable guidance, or faith without reasonable balancing of alternatives in the light of relevant evidence. Here a basic decision is to be made, a decision dictated by the nature of our existence. It should be clear that if we start out with faith in thinking as the guide for human ventures, we are not necessarily committing ourselves once and for all to rational guidance. During the voyage thinking may decide that it cannot do the job and thus nominate some other guide. It may decide, that once certain boundaries are passed, there are other cognitive factors in the human situation, such as indubitable religious revelations, which will serve as better guides. This question is very important and we shall devote the next chapter to it. But one thing may be said even here. Reasoning cannot be abandoned unless the experiences that seem indubitable are consistent with other "revelations" that seem indubitable. The moment contradiction among


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supposedly indubitable experiences appears, further investigation must take place, and the evidence must be reasonably related to some hypothesis. But although logic can discover contradictions or leaky connections among our ideas, logic alone cannot determine which of the contradictory alternatives, if any, is finally to be trusted as basis for further thought and action. Living and observing will have to come to the aid of logic, and this very appeal to the whole of the available evidence in support of some option or other is the life of reason. To repeat, critical living and observing may reveal some value, some being which seems indubitable and is not contradicted by any other experience. Such an existent or value would then become the one certainty by which all other information or experience should be judged. Some such existent is said by many to be revealed by a unique kind of vision, faith in the religious sense of the word. All that we have said in this chapter about empirical coherence as the final judge of truth will have to await the outcome of the investigation of religious experience in the next chapter. Reason and scepticism. But, assuming that the finite mind is denied indubitable knowledge of reality—be it in logic, or in religious, moral or aesthetic intuition—we must develop the best method we can find for understanding the world; and we must commit ourselves to its less than fool-proof decisions. Life simply does not allow us, even were it desirable, to live without making decisions. Even the decision to make no decision, or to live by the strongest wind of desire, or by the compulsion of events, is a decision. The skeptic who denies outright that human reason can ever know anything must decide whether to live by this conclusion or not. Actually the skeptic stands in an impossible position. For he claims rationally that we know that we cannot know, when by hypothesis we were not supposed to be able to know! Although we cannot follow the skeptic in denying the possibility of any knowledge of any kind, we may learn from the

78 • ^Meaning and Function of %eason skeptic that absolute, indubitable knowledge (of the kind which the logical ideal prescribes) is not for us. We accordingly are forced to define knowledge in terms of reasonable probability. Fortunately we know—that is, we are reasonably confident— that even though our total experience grants no sure knowledge, it seems to be sufficiently relevant to reality for us to work out plans of action which keep us living and thinking. Our knowledge accordingly, is never a copy of reality. But it guides us as we interact with reality, just as a map guides us to real roads which the map never copies. Realizing that we cannot have logically certain knowledge of reality or any other indubitable information, our disposition now is to use every possible source of information, to connect all bits of data at all relevant to the problems we are facing. We need, as we look to the future, to connect our data imaginatively with all we know, and finally we need to project some tentative solution. Our faith has been guided to trust this procedure; our faith with regard to knowing is in this procedure which we have called growing, empirical coherence. Reason, results, and scientific method. When, under the guidance of coherence, we come to a tentative conclusion, the venture of life calls for our testing the conclusion to see if it works. We do not test coherence by the practical results. We cannot blissfully say: "What works is true." But practical consequences always help us to check the coherence of any particular hypothesis with the evidence which those results provide. Results (practical consequences) are meaningless unless they are evaluated by a reason which connects them with all the evidence available before the consequences took place. The limited test of practicality is dictated by coherence; practice helps us to see exactly what our hypotheses seem to mean for us at any one moment in our history. Similarly, it was also under the guidance of coherent thinking about the concrete problems confronted in investigation that human beings developed the methods of science. The results

^Meaning and function of %_eason • 79 of this method have been very trustworthy in many areas, but this trustworthiness was itself a judgment made by evaluative reasoning. Scientific method does not test coherence, but it helps to determine the coherence of many particular hypotheses with the workings of nature. An appraising reason sees once more that this method gives priority to conclusions which can be tested by public perceptual experience. Since a large portion of our experience, especially all valuations, involves venturing into areas where the senses play only a small part, the same experienced reason warns us not to allow the demands of scientific method to hold us up. Our enthusiasm for reason supported by sense must not lead us to overlook, disparage, or set aside the problem of thinking as coherently as possible about problems not open to sensory observation. Beginning then with the tentative situation which is life itself, we realize that, unless we can find more indubitable information about the nature of the world in which we live, we are bound on a voyage in which circumspect coherence must guide our faith, even as our faith must keep us loyal in act and thought to the best we can find out. Reason must guide and not arrest development. If we would live the life of reasonable beings, we must live up to the following norms: Be consistent (eliminate all contradictions). Be systematic (discover all relevant relations). - Be inclusive (weigh all available experiences). Be analytic (consider all the elements of which every complex consists). Be synoptic (relate all the elements of any whole to its properties as a whole). Be active (use experimental methods). Be open to alternatives (consider many possible hypotheses). Be critical (test and verify or falsify hypotheses). Be decisive (be committed to the best available hypotheses).5 5 Edgar S. Brightman, Nature and Values. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1945, pp. 106, 107. See also his Introduction to Philosophy, revised, Chapter III, and A Philosophy of Religion, Chapter VI.

8o • ^Meaning and Function of %eason Empirical coherence describes a way of living and not simply of speculating. This kind of coherence is the essence of that reason which is the guide of life;6 it refers to that probability which, as Bishop Butler said, is the guide of life. Can it be our guide in the religious venture ? QUESTIONS

1. a. What is meant by "logical thinking or reasoning" ? b. What is meant by the "ideal of logical truth" ? c. Why cannot it be our "sole guide to the nature of the world" ? d. Why is consistency necessary as a minimum requirement for having knowledge? 2. a. What is meant by "reason as growing empirical coherence" ? 6. How does experience combine with logic to give us truth ? c. Why does "consistency alone" fail to give us truth ? d. What truth lies in the dictum, "life is deeper than logic" ? 3. a. Why can we not hope for logical certainty in knowledge ? b. Can we be certain of anything? c. What is meant by knowledge as a "high degree of probability" ? 4. a. What is meant by the author's statement, "our assertions are really hypotheses"? b. When is a hypothesis considered "true" ? 5. a. What is meant by "psychological certainty" ? b. How does it differ from "logical certitude" and "coherent assertion"? 6. a. What is the definition of "truth" proposed in this book ? b. What is meant here by "reality" ? c. Can we ever be "absolutely" sure that we know what "reality" is ? Why or why not ? 7. a. What path does reason itself suggest for action when knowledge is probable and tentative? b. Why is the refusal to act on incomplete evidence an "action by default" ? 6

See also Arthur E. Murphy, The Uses of Reason. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1943-

^Meaning and Function of %eason • 81 8. a. What is meant by the author's statement: "We live ultimately by faith and not by reason" ? b. What is meant by "faith" ? c. What is the proper relation between faith and reason ? 9. a. What are the five steps in "scientific method" ? b. Why is it such a good way of discovering truth ? c. What are the prerequisites of "experimentation" ? 10. a. Why is reasonableness held to be more basic than scientific method ? b. What is meant by "reasonableness" as the "test" ? 11. Why cannot scientific method alone deal with religious problems? 12. What is meant by the view that "life is deeper than religion" ? Why is skepticism, however, not ultimately justifiable? 13. What does "truth as growing, empirical coherence" mean in practical life? 14. What are the norms of reasonableness ? 15. What considerations does the ever-present need for action force upon us? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Bosley, Harold A. The Quest for Religious Certainty. Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1939. Brightman, Edgar S. An Introduction to Philosophy (rev.). New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1951. Chapters MIL Burtt, Edwin A. Right Thinking (3rd ed.). New York: Harper & Bros., 1946. DeWolf, L. Harold. The Religious Revolt Against Reason. New York: Harper & Bros., 1949. Holmes, Roger W. The Rhyme of Reason. New York: D. AppletonCentury Co., 1939. Humphrey, George. Directed Thinking. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., Inc., 1948.

4 DO WE KNOW GOD DIRECTLY IN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE?

§ I. THE CLAIM OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

T H E discussion in the last chapter left open the possibility that there might be a more immediate and indubitable source of knowledge which would not be subject to growing coherence as a test of truth. Faith, we are told, gives access to truth which is available by no other means. This claim is so widespread and so important that it must not be treated lightly. Indeed, this chapter may challenge the beginner's patience as well as his ability, for we enter an area of experience which is not common ground and which suffers from misconception and prejudice. Let us begin by avoiding one possible source of confusion. As we defined the term in the last chapter, faith does not itself provide insight into the nature of the universe or the meaning of man's existence. Faith, we said, is the willingness to act in accordance with the most reasonable hypothesis. Since action changes the actors and the environment, it contributes to the discovery of truth. But faith itself is always subject to the guidance of reason. It is this very conception of faith which is opposed by many. Faith, they hold, is a kind of knowing. By faith we can be certain of truths which are not vouchsafed us otherwise. Reason may in its own right discover some of these truths, but even if it failed, they would hold for faith. Faith knows truths about God and about the meaning of human 82

Do We Know Qod Directly? • 83 existence which are simply beyond the reach of reason. Proponents of faith may differ as to the exact relation of reason to faith, but they agree that faith at certain points must guide man whether his reason justifies him or not.1 Such faith may seem like sheer credulity. But let no one mistake the essential contention. Faith is just the opposite of credulity for religious believers. It is the certitude which comes from an experience in which truths are revealed to him. Because religious faith is the product of religious experience—the act of faith itself is religious experience—we shall in this chapter discuss the validity of this claim that religious experience brings certain religious knowledge. But we must first consider what takes place in the experience itself. As we saw in Chapter 2, there are many persons who have experiences during which, they are convinced, God is immediately present to them; God is "nearer than breathing and closer than hands and feet." In these experiences there is such exaltation, such a stirring of spirit that experients cannot escape the conviction, as William James put it, that there is an "objective presence." No other human experience, they say, is like this. It is futile to use words which were coined to describe ordinary experiences to clarify experiences which are nothing like them. Accordingly, the object of the experience is declared "ineffable." To understand it one must have the experience; "taste and see that the Lord is good." Furthermore, it is not enough to say that this religious experience is direct. It so transforms the quality and tone of everyday existence that believers are certain that a nonhuman Agency is working in their lives. Were there not a significant backlog of such experiences in the lives of ordinary men, it is doubtful whether much weight would be given to mystics. The calculations and conclusions of mathematical experts are so far beyond the grasp of most of 1 In Etienne Gilson's The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949), and in Reason and Faith in the Middle Ages (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1946), the reader will find an excellent treatment of this subject.

84 ' Do We Know Qod Directly? our limited minds, that without a basic knowledge of arithmetic we would regard their computational antics as queer indeed. Many of the religious mystics expressed their nearness to God as a literal loss of their individuality in God. The mystics in every religious tradition are regarded as the religious "experts" whose sensitivity is more profound and whose experiences are more authoritative. Yet, even though the testimony of the mystics may differ in detail from that of the ordinary man, the latter's "experience of God" provide the background for his willingness to listen to their accounts. The common man who has risen from his prayers with stronger purpose finds in the following description by St. Teresa no necessary incompatibility with his own experience: Often, infirm and wrought upon with dreadful pains before the ecstasy, the soul emerges from it full of health and admirably disposed for action . . . as if God had willed that the body itself, already obedient to the soul's desires, should share in the soul's happiness. . . . The soul after such a favor is animated with a degree of courage so great that if at that moment its body should be torn to pieces for the cause of God, it would feel nothing but the liveliest comfort.2 Religious laymen are thus encouraged to discipline themselves in order that they too may climb the mountain heights and experience the ecstatic, ineffable, and indubitable vision. If now we add to this general human experience in religion and to the mystic awareness, the exemplary lives of great prophets —lives which became turning points in the history of mankind —we have the final and best reasons even more persons would give for believing in the reality of God. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the experience and life of the major Prophets, of Jesus, of the Apostles (Paul in particular), and of the Saints have reinforced each other. Speaking generally for Western civilization, 2 Quoted in William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., Inc., 1929, p. 414.

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in the experience, life, and teaching of Socrates and Jesus inspirational forces were let loose to a degree that left no doubt in the minds of millions that a righteous personal God was real. For multitudes of men with different degrees of education, the God felt in religious experience seemed clearly to become manifest and incarnate in the life, actions, and convictions of Jesus. Whatever else may ultimately be the truth about Jesus, there is no doubt that in and through his experience multitudes have found the meaning of God. Whatever else may be said about the nature of Jesus, there is no doubt that he felt in his life a presence which made possible the kind of life he led and the testimony he gave. Those who became Christians saw in Jesus' life and teaching the supreme revelation of God's reality and will for man. In other religious perspectives, too, a similar general pattern is visible. The convictions of the reality of "God" which sprang from unique experiences find further confirmation and direction when some inspired life at once translates and develops the human vision of God into goals for personal and social existence. In what follows in this chapter we are not concerned with specific theological doctrines about Jesus or Mohammed or Ramakrishna—for such questions merit additional analysis—but we shall have in mind the problem of the revelation of God to man through experiences which might best be termed holy. § 2. TWO DOGMATIC CLAIMS ABOUT RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Two kinds of dogmatism, however, stand in the pathway of a reasonable interpretation of religious experience. The one stems from certain narrow psychological analyses. The other is found in the utterances of many apologists for religion. Both dogmatisms reside in a frame of mind, in an unwillingness to let all of the evidence in human experience speak for itself. Psychological dogmatism proceeds by disqualifying the claim that religious experience is unique and stands in a class by itself.

86 - Do We Know Qod Directly? This claim to unique experience of God, it is held, cannot be valid because it runs contrary to what the psychologist finds to be true about normal sensory, moral, and aesthetic experience. The experience of the holy may be extraordinary but the psychologist must not explain it by reference to God any more than he does other states of mind, such as dreams. Such thinking dogmatically assumes that the psychological description of the average range of human capacity necessarily exhausts the whole range of human sensitivity. The psychology of the last 50 years has been as interested in becoming "a science" comparable to the older physical sciences as it has in taking full account of human experience. Thus the majority of psychologists, desiring especially to deal with data that could be publicly (or "scientifically" observed) tended to limit themselves to a study of what most people are capable of doing. This procedure is justifiable if frankly avowed and if its limitations are not later forgotten. If we are looking for truths which apply to all people, we may indeed have to leave out of account the experiences of the comparative few. But we should all the more remember that our purpose forces us to leave out these unique experiences. We need not succumb to the temptation to regard these unusual experiences as necessarily "queer" or "unimportant." It has been a most unfortunate chapter in the history of psychology that many psychologists, instead of simply saying that they were not yet ready to deal with this type of human experience, have treated it with suspicion and disparagement. They have claimed to explain it away by formulas which they derived from the analysis of human experience minus religion. It is as though one were to consider the thinking of children, without studying it on its own terms, as just another form of normal adult thinking. Many philosophers have, with less reason, been equally dogmatic. Faced with the uniqueness of religious experience, they have explained it away by comparing it with nonreligious experiences. Thus the naturalistic philosopher, Irwin Edman, is quite aware

Do We Know Qod Directly? • 87 of the peace and serenity found by many mystics. He calls attention to the . .. power and energy coming from unexpected depths which the mystic associates and indeed identifies with the One to which he feels himself attuned or assimilated. [But Edman explains:] In secular life, everyone knows this experience of an apparently sudden access of hitherto hidden subterranean energies released by the shock of insight or of sudden fulfillment after intense longing. There are complicated psychological explanations of this phenomenon, explanations no less baffling and considerably more complex than the mystic's simple announcement and conviction that he has come into immediate contact with the source of all energy, the One. [And, Edman goes on to say] the vision the mystic sees may be simply a peculiarly stubbon fixed idea. The breaking down of all canons of intellectual criticism [by appeal to ineffability] may be merely the escape from inhibitions, a weakling's weariness of responsibility, intellectual and practical. It is easy to confuse one's own intensities with the commands of God, one's own vividness of imagination with the nature of things, one's own wide vagueness with the width of all Being. The history of the race is a long battle toward making reason prevail. The mystic relapse into the infinite may be merely the desire to relapse into the peace of the cradled sleep, or of the womb. There is something almost morbidly significant in the fact that mysticism has nourished most when delicate spirits in decaying societies have had a 'failure of nerve,' when the external conditions of society seemed to promise no hope, and the only roads were despair or retreat into the sanctuary of a brooding contemplation, or the listening to one's own heartbeat.3 The historical accuracy of this statement is doubtful. Yet no one can read such a psychological explanation without realizing that it may be true. The logician, however, warns us that the 3

Irwin Edman, Four Ways oj Philosophy. New York: Hcmy Holt & Co., Inc., 1937,

pp. 210-212.

88 • Do We Know Qod Directly? origin of any experience is not the final test of its validity. The origin of an experience, say of love, may indeed have to be considered in the total appraisal, but, however it arose, it may be "the real thing." In any case, the psychologist himself should be logical enough to realize that if some curious state of the glands or psyche may cause a religious experience and invalidate it, so another state of the glands may be an invalidating cause of his own scientific or atheistic conclusions. William James at the very outset of his study of religious experience gave such reductive explanations the coup de grace which should have silenced them. His statement bears repeating: Modern psychology, finding definite psycho-physical connections to hold good, assumes as a convenient hypothesis that the dependence of mental states upon bodily conditions must be thorough-going and complete. If we adopt the assumption, then of course what medical materialism insists on must be true in a general way, if not in every detail: Saint Paul certainly had once an epileptoid, if not an epileptic seizure; George Fox was an hereditary degenerate; Carlyle was undoubtedly auto-intoxicated by some organ or other, no matter which,—and the rest. But now, I ask you, how can such an existential account of facts of mental history decide in one way or another upon their spiritual significance? According to the general postulate of psychology just referred to, there is not a single one of our states of mind, high or low, healthy or morbid, that has not some organic process as its condition. Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the fact intimately enough, we should doubtless see 'the liver' determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it alters in one way the blood that percolates it, we get the Methodist, when in another way, we get the atheist form of mind. . . . To plead the organic causation of a religious state of mind, then, in

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refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual value, is quite illogical and arbitrary, unless one has already worked out in advance some psycho-physical theory connecting spiritual values in general with determinate sorts of physiological change.4 An outstanding contemporary psychologist, Gordon W. Allport, has also reminded us that . . . the validity of any belief can never be disproved by disclosing its origin. A neurotic introvert may be more perceptive and observant because of his neurosis, and the conclusions he reaches may for that reason be sounder than those reached by people lacking his acute motivation.5 The upshot of the matter seems to be this. Those beings who do not have such experiences may or may not doubt the evidential value of these private, ineifable, and yet sensation-like mystical experiences. But they cannot in honesty explain away these experiences without careful scrutiny of their inner quality and import. Nor can they avoid questioning the easy assumption that our ordinary nonmystical states are the sole pathways to reality. This is not to say that psychological analysis can ever be given up in the study of religion or any other phases of human experience. Nevertheless, if psychologists would avoid dogmatism, they must never deny the unique quality any experience might seem to have simply because its present "scientific" assumptions make the study of such experience either embarrassing or difficult, or because such experience seems to contradict what has been discovered about human beings without taking that experience into account. Unfortunately dogmatism is not restricted to some psychologists and philosophers, as we shall now see. Religious dogmatism prevails when those who have religious or mystical experiences resent the suggestion that they may be placing too much confidence in the uniqueness and evidential value of 4

James, Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 13-14. Gordon W. Allport, in College Readings and Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948, p. 101. 5

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their states. They insist that the sensory world and the more usual range of human experience can never give an adequate conception of God. They consequently treat lightly the criticism that special nonsensory information is not always consistent with well-established sensory experience of the world. They tend to explain away the fact that many sincere human beings seem not to have this type of experience by saying that all men without realizing it, do have religious experience. Or they may assert that if men disciplined themselves, indeed, if they lived better lives or believed certain doctrines, they would enter into such experience. However, there is simply no denying the fact that many honest and disciplined men have not had the kind of experience religious persons, let alone mystics, claim to have. Their nonexperience cannot be summarily discounted. The testimonies of the religious seers would have to fit much more snugly than they do into one common tale before such discounting could find adequate logical support. There is "variety of religious experience" and there is conflicting testimony from sensitive persons. It seems best, accordingly, to evaluate the claims made about religious experience in the spirit of fair inquiry, considering them neither as necessary aberrations nor as indubitable evidence which must be taken at face value. The same criterion of truth must hold here as is required for sensory, moral, and aesthetic experience; we must scrutinize religious "revelation" in the light of all we know about it and the rest of human experience. § 3. IS RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE COGNITIVE?

It should be clear that in what follows we are not seeking to deny the fact of religious experience, or its impact on the lives of human beings and through them on human history. We are striving to evaluate its cognitive or evidential value for belief in some sort of God. Our concern at this stage of the argument is to consider whether there is an immediate experience of God which provides indubitable knowledge of the existence and nature of the

Do We Know Qod Directly? • 91 Deity. If we are to found belief in God on the most reliable evidence, we cannot afford to neglect the evaluation of the cognitive claims which have been made for religious experience. If there is an irreducible type of human experience which bears direct witness to a specific, nonhuman Source revealed in that experience, then belief in God could be based on the same kind of reasoning which grounds our everyday belief in the physical world. Let us see what this means. As I write I am aware of a rectangular patch of white which is steadily present as the blue ink of my pen stains it. I am forced to see that white rectangle where I do in relation to other colors before me. It does not seem plausible to say that I am "making up" that experience of white, for I seem to be forced to see it—this peculiar quality and shape—where I do see it. This experience and many other sensory impressions like it, (such as hot, cold, hard) lead one to infer that there is something outside my experience causing me to have that experience of "paper" and no other. When other people have a similar steady sequence of experiences with regard to what I call paper, I am all the more convinced that I am not making up these experiences. The sensory experience of other men confirms mine—however we disagree on details—and mine confirms theirs. We become confident that we are living in an environment which has certain effects upon us. Obviously, none of us in everyday life analyzes his belief in things outside himself—and we have not even scratched the surface in these few lines6—before he believes in them. When his sensory experiences and beliefs contradict themselves or the experiences and beliefs of others, he is forced, if he desires to be reasonable, to further analysis. The point here is that our sense experiences are sufficiently steady, and our interpretations of them have enough in common, that it is not long before we believe in a world outside ourselves, common to us, that was there before we 6 The author is avoiding the involvements of the whole queition of how we know there is a physical world. What has been said is a minimum sufficient for our purposes here.

92 • Do We Know Qod Directly? experienced it and now makes itself felt by us. We do not have to believe in God to believe in what we call a physical world and what the experts among us, the scientists, tell us about its nature. Our belief in a "physical" universe beyond our experience, incomprehensibly vast, stands on our reasoning about specific, unique experiences which we call sensory. Now, the religious person might well wonder whether belief in God is not similarly grounded on steady, unique experiences which reveal the nature of God. Indeed, if there should be data of the spiritual nonsensory kind (which we call the "holy") or if there is truth in the claim to a direct "living awareness" of a personal God, then the conviction of the existence of a nonsensory spiritual world (or of a personal God) would stand in its own right. Belief in God could be as independent of what happens in the sensory, physical world, just as belief in a physical world is independent of belief in God. The strategic value of such a position has not been lost to keen religious minds. Accordingly, some thinkers have asserted that there is a study, namely, theology, as self-contained as any science, whose task it is to correlate and interpret the unique data given in religious experience or revelation. These data, which are not sensory, reveal a supersensible, spiritual environment, or God. For such thinkers, the existence of God does not depend upon evidence derived from such other realms of human experiences as science, morality, and art, though it may be further confirmed by them. The religious consciousness must be regarded as a law unto itself, and its revelations, though they may be more difficult to discern and interpret than sense-experience, demand the same consideration granted to sense. It is this claim which we must now carefully review critically because of the high value such knowledge would have. Speaking for himself, the author must say that analysis of the cognitive claims made for religious experience has forced him to doubt the wisdom of maintaining that religious experience provides evidence for God which needs no support from other areas

Do We Know Qod Directly} • 93 of experience. Let there be no misunderstanding of his position. He is not denying all cognitive value to religious experience, but for reasons to be expounded immediately, he does find it necessary to deny that knowledge about God can be firmly rooted in religious experience alone. Psychological assurance is not \notvledge. There is no doubting the earnestness and psychological assurance of the persons who believe that they have "met" God. This psychological state of assurance, however, viewed for its evidential value, is in itself worthless. Opponents are equally convinced, and persons have been convinced from time immemorial of "realities" which turned out to be not even shadows of reality. Moreover, as we shall see, there may be equal assurance among religious minds who nevertheless give varying and contradictory reports about the nature of their God. The claim to immediate knowledge is untenable. The religious experience is held to be "direct" or "immediate" awareness of God. Why should immediacy be considered an asset cognitively? The answer is close at hand. When knowledge is indirect or mediated, when either time or some other factor stands between the conclusion and the premise, a cognitive leak is possible. If there is no mediation between the knower and the object of his knowledge, there remains no opportunity for error. For now, in some manner, the knower and the object known are one; no wall or bridge separates the knower from the object known. (a) Let us assume (what the author would not grant for other philosophical reasons) that such a relation of immediacy exists. Can we be assured that the knowledge which the individual says has been revealed is true? We cannot assume, without begging the question, that God makes sure that the individual would not misinterpret the meaning of the Presence or the message delivered. Must we not realize, and admit, that every human claim reflects the ability and nature of the subject? Can we forget the fact that the experient may be reading more into (or less out of) his experience than is there? A person's knowledge is his interpretation.

94 * Do We Know Qod Directly? At best the interpretation is an effect of processes beyond himself and events within himself; it is a joint-product of interaction between the knower and the known. This is true whether he is experiencing this white paper, another person's remarks and facial expressions, or a spiritual being. A knower. then, may be face-to-face with the object of his knowledge, he may be even identified with his object momentarily, and he may be convinced of the profoundest rapport between himself and his object; the point nevertheless remains that, at the moment he tries to relate that experience to other experiences or to say anything about it, the connection may "leak." Thus, more—or less—than "what is there" may be reported. Again, let there be whatever oneness we care to assert between the knower and the object known. We still cannot deny the fact that twoness—and the possibility of distortion and error—must enter the knowledge situation at the moment the knower tries to think out the meaning of his experience. It is all too easy to suppose that in knowing we embrace an object. But do we? In knowing we are thinking, and our thinking is a kind of human activity. We cannot assume that, even at its best, thinking "locks in" its object, though there are acute thinkers who have argued that this must be the case.7 We think our experience—that is, 7 The reader is urged to read the scholarly and brilliant argument to this effect in Brand Blanshard's The Nature of Thought. (2 volumes. New York: Allen and Unwin, 1939.) The interpretation of the movement of thought as a growth in the grasp of reality itself, tested by the ideal of systematic coherence, is argued with great cogency in this work. The present author is not convinced, however, even by this challenging analysis, that thinking gets the object "literally and actually" into the experience of the knower. But even assuming that it did, and that error is adequately explained on such a view, there is always a twoness in this system. There is what we now know systematically and in part—and therefore probably only—and what we shall know when the present system is incorporated in the growth of meaning or knowledge of a larger whole. In other words, the assurance which comes by saying that in thinking we have our object within our grip is lost when we realize that what our thinking has within its grip is not to be trusted absolutely. For the light of possible growth in coherence may transform what is known at any stage. Moreover, the insistence that no portion of knowledge is absolute apart from the whole supports the main thesis of this chapter: that the case for independent and self-sufficient knowledge of God through religious experience has not been made out. (Cf. Blanshard, iki4.. Vol. L n. 222 S \

Do We Know Qod Directly? • 95 we connect it with other experiences when we come to clarify its place in our lives. To be sure, we think in accordance with logical laws which we ourselves do not create, and our thinking is about the experiences which our natures do not completely create (delusions aside). It does not follow that because we do not know "things as they are," we therefore do not know anything dependable about them. But the assertion that we "know immediately" and therefore "indubitably" is questionable. And this is our point here. Immediate contact with the object does not guarantee independent or immediate knowledge. (b) But the claim to immediate knowledge must face another charge.8 There is no denying that conclusions frequently come to us in a flash. In comparison to our usual labored and lumbering inferences, we all have sudden flashes of insight in which a conclusion is forced upon us with no effort on our part. Here, certainly, it would seem, is an experience of truth. As we reflect upon such claims, however, we realize that while human beings testify that they enjoy such immediate knowledge, it frequently turns out that their knowledge is false. What seemed to be sheer immediacy must have been rapidity in reception. The conclusion did seem to dash into conscious experience, but are we sure that rapidity of intake was not interpreted as immediate awareness of the object known ? For example, how frequently do we find that the meaning of the emotional expression on a dear one's face, which we are sure we read off in an act of immediate comprehension, is in fact a misinterpretation ? The meaning which we found in that facial expression was the one we had been prepared to put there; what we "read off" we had surreptitiously "read in." What we frequently regard as self-evident and incontrovertible is the psychological effect of the habitual and familiar. The same considerations may apply to the supposed immediate knowledge procured by the religious experience. The religious datum is vague. What we have been saying would 8 See Frederick R. Tennant, Philosophy of Science. London: Cambridge University Press, 1937, p. 74.

96 • Do We Know Qod Directly? lose much of its force if a solid case could be made for a datum, unique and irreducible, which is dependably present in the religious experience of persons. To make clear the value of a dependable religious datum, let us use an analogy drawn from our sensory experience of the written page before us. The word datum (or, plural, data) refers to conscious experience in which we are aware of some quality which we did not ourselves create. The quality is given, not by us, but to us. In this instance, we are presented with a pattern of sensory qualities, white and black, in a particular, given order, side by side, and so on. We call these experiences data in order to specify that this pattern of colors, which we behold as we look before us, is refractory to our will. We have to see them as they are. We did not "ask" for them but they took hold of us by "brute" strength. However we may feel or think about them, it is they that control our attention as long as we look straight ahead. To be sure, strictly speaking, all sensations vary with the sensory acuity of each individual. And our interpretations of them will vary with our own past experience and present set of mind. Thus, the two crossed lines will be taken as a plus sign in one situation and a cross in another. But our sense-data themselves do not vary. Our experiences in sense-perception are so controlled that we can usually come to some agreement about a common core (the color pattern of crossed lines, in this case). There is no denying that in sense-perception we enjoy the steadiest data for comparison and communication with each other. Thus, a Chinese, or a child that cannot read, looking at this page of English would experience the same sense-data (colors and pattern), but he would not relate them to each other and interpret them as we do. But unless the sensory data which the Chinese or the child and we experience did maintain a sufficiently common pattern, we should never be able to teach them our versions. Again, the meaning of the red traffic light may be different for father and child, but father and child are controlled in their senseperception by the same sense-datum, red. They therefore can talk

Do We Know Qod Directly? • 97 to each other about this experience, which remains relatively constant as they discuss their differences and presumably come to agreement. Here is the great boon of knowledge which roots in sense-experience. We make mistakes, or differ widely, about what our sensations refer to or mean; but only under unusual and extreme conditions do we make mistakes about the presence or absence in our experience of the red color, the smell of burning, or the sweet taste. We must not, however, draw hasty conclusions with regard to religious experience from this discussion of the cognitive value of sensory data. We cannot say that religious experience is worthless because its data are not sensation-like qualities (though many have heard voices and seen visions in religious experience). One type of human experience must not be used uncritically as the model for another. Who can regard sense-experience as a model for the kind of experience we have in thinking, or in emoting, and feeling? Similarly the qualities or data in religious experience may be quite different from those in sense or thought. Indeed, the main trend of the testimony by lay and gifted experients testifies to the fact that they are different. Our analogy is intended, rather, to indicate the kind of conditions which have served to give us confidence in our belief that there is a natural world. Unless the religious data, however their specific qualities may vary from the sensory, do have a steadiness, a refractoriness, which even when misinterpreted by unequally mature minds, still serve to ground and control the thinking of the experients, we must temper our claims for the independent validity of religious experience as a source of knowledge. § 4. IS THERE A COMMON CORE IN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE?

We are now ready to pose the critical question. Are there, in religious experience, data steady enough and "refractory" enough to serve as a common denominator for the wealth of interpretations one might well expect ? There are eminent scholars who say

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yes to this question, and there are others who say no. The issues are involved, and the evidence is baffling in quantity and variety (especially if we move beyond any one particular religious tradition). One hesitates to take a definite stand, for he is almost sure that he has probably overlooked or misinterpreted some significant kind of religious experience. However, apart from agreement on the inspirational value of religious experience, the only common factor in the many accounts is that the experience is essentially nonsensory and refers to a "divine" being beyond oneself. There is no broad agreement as to what the experience contains as nonsensory qualitative data. Nor is there broad agreement as to what the nature of the divine is. To render this statement concrete, let us briefly review three different accounts provided by persons within the Christian tradition. The conclusion would be reinforced by analysis of the religious experience within other great traditions such as the Hindu and Mohammedan. fames' "objective presence!' We recall, first, that the author of The Varieties of Religious Experience found that the experience testified to an 'objective presence.' According to James: "The religious phenomenon, studied as an inner fact... has shown itself to consist everywhere, and at all its stages, in the consciousness which individuals have of an intercourse between themselves and higher powers with which they feel themselves to be related." 9 The mystical state in particular, he says, is ineffable, transient, and receptive; its "essential mark," is the "consciousness of illumination." 10 James also insisted that the religious attitude must not be confused with a moralistic attitude. In the religious attitude there is "enthusiastic acceptance." One feels that what one does depends not on his own volition but upon the grace of God.11 A "higher kind of emotion," "an added dimension of emotion" than that 9 James, op. at., p. 465. ^Ibtd, pp. 398, 408. 11 Ibid., p. 289.

Do We Know Qod Directly? • 99 given in all other experiences is present.12 There is "something religious."13 Furthermore, the religious experience is essentially a dynamic tonic which "freshens our vital powers." 14 As a commentator remarks: "There is a heightening of emotional tone, and new perceptions of the meaning of life and of the world seem to come directly from the experiences themselves." 15 Otto's nutnen. But Rudolph Otto 16 found James' interpretations rather naive. He held that the specifically religious experience of the holy reveals more than a "presence." In religious experience there is the consciousness of what Otto calls a numen. He uses this Latin term to emphasize that the experience of the holy is "a unique original feeling-response" which is the "real innermosr core" of all religion.11 This mental state, he says, does not exclude moral and rational factors. But it is constituted by a feelingawareness-and-valuing of an object which can never be translated without remainder into ethical, rational, and aesthetic factors. It is "perfectly sui generis and irreducible to any other; and therefore, like every absolutely primary and elementary datum, while it admits being discussed, it cannot be strictly defined." 18 It is impossible to do justice to Otto's characterization of this numinous mental state, but some remarks may serve to bring out the contrasts he has in mind. As already noted, the experience of the holy is essentially more than the experience of goodness or beauty, related as it may be to these. It is the perception of an independent datum, called the numen. Another great theologian, Schleiermacher, had characterized the religious experience as "feeling of absolute dependence" on God. Otto complains that this description is not fair to the qualitative difference between such ab12

Ibid., p. 504. Ibid., pp. 34, 35. 14 Ibid., p. 505. 15 John M. Moore, Theories of Religious Experience. New York: Round Table Press, Inc., 1938, p. 40. 16 Rudolf Otto, Idea of the Holy, (trans. J. W. Harvey). New York: Oxford University Press, 1943. 17 Ibid., p. 6. 18 Ibid., p. 7. 13

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solute dependence and the ordinary feelings of dependence which we frequently experience as finite beings in nature. It is more than "merely a feeling of dependence." It is, rather, "creature-feeling." Otto describes this creature-feeling further as "the emotion of a creature submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures."19 We would commit a fatal error, he believes, if we considered this creaturefeeling to be a rational inference from any experience of dependence. Far from it; the creature-feeling is the first effect, more like a shadow, of "another feeling-element," 20 which has indubitable reference to the numen. Otto also qualifies this numen, or the qualitative datum immediately perceived in religious experience, as "wholly other" {mystenum). That is, it is something "inexpressible and above all creatures."21 About all we can do to "understand" this inexpressible mystenum is to suggest how it makes us feel. In the presence of the numen mystenum, says Otto, we feel an awe-inspiring "daemonic dread." But this feeling too is different from our natural fear, and different also from moral experience. We also feel an "awful majesty" in the "absolute unapproachability" of the numen.22 Finally, and with this very incomplete sketch we must stop, we feel its "absolute supremacy" in "a sense of force that knows not stint nor stay, that is urgent, active, compelling, and alive." 23 Upon our lives there is bestowed a "beatitude beyond compare," an "all-pervading, penetrating glow," 2i and that solemnity, which is "a strange and mighty propulsion toward an ideal known only to religion." 25 As we compare this description to that of James we note the 19

Ibid., p. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., p. 22 Ibid., p. 23 Ibid., p. 24 Ibid , p. is Ibid., p.

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continual emphasis upon the qualititative difference between values in the religious experience and in other experiences which might seem similar to it in the moral and aesthetic aspect of our lives. The religious experience, both James and Otto would agree, includes more than the moral and the aesthetic. It does not contradict them, but it is richer than they are. But the basic core of agreement is the insistence that in religious experience there is a perceptive-feeling of an objective presence which is a primary, immediate datum of consciousness. This datum is not only present in the experience of the mystics, but it is latent in the experience of all men. However, agreement with regard to detail, and significant detail at that, is not to be found. Issuing from this experience is the propulsion to an ideal, a deeper realization of what life can be. Otto gives us a description of a datum which differs in basic quality and content from that which James found common to the variety of religious experience. One more quite recent account will serve to support the same conclusion. Bergson's religious intuitionism. The influential French philosopher, Henri Bergson,26 maintains that the human mind through intuition enjoys unshadowed cognitive contact with the cosmic Elan Vital. Intuition, as this thinker conceives it, is always to be contrasted with the limitations of our ordinary conceptual or logical thinking. Logical thinking can only grasp the static aspects of life; like a still camera it cannot catch life on the wing. But reality, in ourselves, in the lives of others, in the cosmos itself as Bergson conceives it, is not static. Yet, Bergson points out that because these dynamic realities do lend themselves (up to a certain point, and for practical purposes) to our logical concepts, philosophers have made the mistake of supposing that we can "find" reality by way of logical thought and practical activity. Nevertheless the only way to reach reality is through a dynamic intuition. "By intuition is meant the kind of intellectual sympathy by which 26 Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, {trans. R. A. Audra and C. Brereton). New York: Henry Holt & Co., Inc., 1935.

102 • Do We Know Qod Directly? one places oneself within an object in order to coincide with what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible." 27 These two ways of knowing, by static reasoning and by dynamic intuition, leave their effect on religion also. To the latter we owe vital religion, to the former conventionalized, dogmatic, and institutional religion. At its electric core religion is the expression of intuitions which break through the crust of dogma and convention and meets the Vital Impetus of the world. These experiences in turn release the creative and refreshing powers within the person, powers which even religious men tend to resist out of concern for personal and social security. Accordingly, there is a constant struggle in religion between this creative zest for novelty and the demand for stability and dependable order. But without intuition religion loses vitality. The religious intuitions which most human beings can feel are not, to be sure, as profound as those of the mystics.28 The mystic is the exceptional person among us who has sufficiently overcome this tendency toward routine security to allow the creative Elan in the universe to live in him and to work through him. The Elan stretches his life and energies beyond the boundaries which human life has yet been able to realize. The profoundest mystics are those who, renewed in their spiritual life by such intuitions, become creative agents of a superabundant love. Their increased vitality radiates "extra-ordinary energy, daring, power of conception and realization." 29 They are lifted, and other men through them, to those new levels of love where the good of humanity takes precedence over the good of any smaller group such as the family, state, or nation. To summarize: for Bergson, knowing and acting move on two levels. When the intellect predominates, knowing and acting are circumscribed within the realm of well-established concepts, -' Henri Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics, (trans. T. E. H u l m e ) . New York G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912, p. 6. 28 See Bergson, Two Sources of Morality and Religion, p. 238. 29 Ibid., p. 216.

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When intuition predominates, creative knowing and acting take place to challenge the usual emotional and intellectual formulations. In this creative moment, which goes under-beyond sense and emotion and under-beyond intellect, the life of the individual moves along with the creative Impetus of the universe. Indeed, the mystic love "is this impetus itself, communicated in its entirety to exceptional men who in their turn would fain impart it to all humanity."30 In this state the mystic has "felt truth flowing into his soul from its fountain-head like an active force", and he can "no more help spreading it abroad than the sun can help diffusing its light."31 It now is clear that in the mystical experience at its best, Bergson finds a source of knowledge and a source of creative morality. The mystic \nows that there is a Being who communicates his life and power to man. While Bergson would admit that the mystic cannot be philosophically sure of his conclusions, he believes that his testimony as a whole provides grounds for the probability of a creative, personal, God of love.32 We must remember, he reminds us, that the mystic himself is not particularly interested in formulating what he usually believes he cannot formulate. He prefers to live in the light of the reality he experiences. After all, his intellectual formulas can express only negatively what he knows directly as beyond comparison. With these facts in mind, Bergson believes that we are justified in concluding from mystical experience that God is love and the object of love. "God is love, and the object of love: herein lies the whole contribution of mysticism.... But what he [the mystic] does state clearly is that divine love is not a thing of God: it is God Himself."33 Such passages might well be taken to indicate that Bergson believes that the intuition of the mystic could be trusted as final sources of knowledge about God. Yet even this strong exponent s

°Ibtd., p. Ibid., p. 32 Ibid., p. 33 Ibid., p.

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of religious intuition would deny that mysticism possesses "an original content" which justifies its standing aloof from philosophy.34 Bergson holds, rather, that the basic insight of the mystic—• his awareness of a loving God—confirms the suggestions which can be found in a philosophical interpretation of life. Thus he says: "... the mystical experience, studied for its own sake, supplies us with pointers that can be added and fitted to the knowledge obtained in an entirely different field by an entirely different method." 35 If, now, one compares Bergson's account to that of James and Otto, does he find basic agreement beyond the insistence that there is an objective presence which inspires the life of those who feel it ? The answer is negative. § 5. THE COGNITIVE VALUE OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

It would seem from the above arguments that religious experience does not provide a clear, independent light as to the nature of God. When there are differences of sincere conviction with regard to the physical world, we do not deny that persons in this area are having experiences which they believe justify their affirmations; we do, however, deny to each person any claim he may make that he has adequate evidence for the belief he professes. Indeed, when other equally convinced persons deny the interpretation given of the experience involved, we begin to wonder whether what all parties say is "there" actually is there. Is there any real ground for barring a similar interpretation of the conflicting accounts given of God (or the religious object) by religious persons and mystics? It may be argued that in this admittedly extraordinary area of experience we should not underestimate the importance of the common core of agreement among religious experts that there is a nonsensory reality of some sort. This in itself adds another dimension to our conception of what 34 35

See ibid., pp. 234, 237, 239. Ibid., p. 237.

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reality contains. To whatever we gain through sense experience must be added this realm gained through religious experience. As to differences of interpretation in this realm, we should remember that among mystics we must expect ( i ) varying depths of experience, (2) varying gifts of introspective analysis, and (3) differences in the character and quality of each life— all of which would lead to differences of interpretation. This kind of consideration might satisfy believers, but the question can still be asked legitimately whether the differences in interpretation do not justify the suspicion that even the socalled experts are deluding themselves. The question: Which God, if any? must always be asked of those who claim that through religious experience alone there is granted to man adequate assurance of the reality of (a given kind of) God. Let us underscore this crucial point. The fact that different persons have varying experiences does not necessarily mean that there is nothing objective which stimulates their responses. But it does mean that each experient may be attributing objectivity to his own interpretations of the experience. We simply cannot tell with finality whether the experience of the religious person or mystic is given to him in its entirety, whether it is taken by him to mean such and such, or whether it is given in him by the conditions which constitute his particular nature. One always can say that "prophets and poets are right in believing that intuition gives us an initial, if not a complete and infallible insight into moral and spiritual reality," and that such creative insights "can never be completely stated in philosophical terms." 3S But even this moderate statement is acceptable provided one leaves open the possibility that the particular initial insight, if inconsistent with other evidence, may be called in question. But it is not acceptable if it closes the door to inspection of the socalled initial but partial insight. And that is what happens when theologians affirm that by faith (or through religious experi36

George W. Thomas, The Nature of Religious Experience, ed. E. G. Bewkes and others. New York: Harper & Bros., 1937, pp. 53, 54.

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ence) they can provide adequate, independent knowledge of God's existence and nature. Are we not moving far beyond our evidence in holding that in the religious experiences of mankind itself we have enough data to justify belief in God—which really means belief in one \ind of God and not another? The moment we distinguish between the initial insight as given to men, and the additional insights as perhaps given by men, we have admitted the essential point in this critique—that there is ground for the thesis that all so-called religious insights are not independently valid but are subject to test by coherence with the rest of human experience. This means that affirmation about God's existence and nature cannot be grounded on faith alone or on the sensitivity of the acutest prophet, mystic, or poet, alone. This conclusion is strengthened by another consideration already mentioned. The conclusions reached by different mystics as to the nature of God have tended to coincide with what they already believed or were coming to believe. These experients do indeed have an awareness of Another, but the moment they begin to describe their experiences the attributes ascribed to that Agency reflects their own moral development, imaginative insight, and religious tradition. They seem to find what they expect to see. The biblical story of Samuel's being told what to say when he heard his name called is a very simple illustration of a much more subtle process which probably takes place. One speaks to a God whom he expects to listen; and listens to a God whom he expects to speak, and hears him say what, one is convinced, needs to be said. The history of religion is in part the sad story of immoral and wicked acts done on the authority of supposedly immediate experiences of God's will. Those who do not believe in a vindictive God immediately reinterpret these experiences as the prejudice of wicked men who identified their own moral standard with God's will. But would they be justified in concluding from their religious experience alone that their moral standards were God's revelation to them? Or would their

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moral standards have to be coherently related to the moral experience of the religious and nonreligious ? The situation is the same with regard to other attributes of God. Those whose philosophical bent led them to think that God is a Person, that his essence is love, that his essence is power, that he suffers and broods over his children, that he is an impartial, stern law-giver, have found in their "immediate" religious experience support for that very conviction. Indeed, if they believe, as in the Judeo-Christian tradition, that he is a Creator of the world, they find a Creator in the experience. But is it not difficult to understand how any experience of God would reveal him finally to be the Creator-Source of the world and not, say, an Immanent-Source of the world, at one with his world? It is equally probable, on the other hand, that persons who do not want to believe in God, and who say that they never have religious experiences, do in fact frequently enjoy what they call "exalted" rather than religious experiences. Here, again, their intellectual background and predisposition as "unbelievers" lead them to interpret experiences which are basically nonsensory and which seem clearly to come to them as "aesthetic" or as "subjective." It must be added emphatically that, as the reader no doubt already sees, this process of "reading in" or "reading out" is not as artful or artificial as our description might seem to suggest. The point is that there simply does not seem to be enough - stability in the nonsensory religious data experienced, or in the quality of the experience as such, to control the interpretation which can be called forth. Thus some persons, unbelievers, can have the experience and still hold that there is no God. If there were more cognitive control in the nature of the religious data, there would still be differences in the interpretation; but there would be much less justification for some interpretations. As it is, the religious experience seems clearly to be one in which the ferment of thought, feeling, and action already present

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in the individual comes into such focus that the individual finds through it the vivid conviction of a certain attribute of which he may be already partly, if not wholly, convinced on other grounds. The religious experience is as individual and as unique as the particular problem, or point of growth and appreciation, dominating a person's psychic level. To treat this experience as an independent source of knowledge about God seems to this writer to misconstrue the real value of the religious experience in the interest of particular religious dogmas. It will be our thesis, accordingly, that we can do more justice to the religious experience if we regard it not as a source of knowledge, certainly not as a unique and independent source of knowledge about God, but as a source of moral power and inspiration, and as an experience worth having for its own sake. This is not to empty religious experience of all knowledge-value but only of knowledge-value purported to need no support from other realms of experience. § 6. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE AS A SOURCE OF GROWTH

The upshot of this discussion of religious experience may seem largely negative. It is negative if religious experience is held to be an original and self-sufficient fount of information about the universe. We began the chapter, it will be recalled, with the purpose of discovering whether there was any source of knowledge which did not depend on growing, empirical coherence as a test of truth. And the answer is in the negative. By religious experience alone, unrelated to other parts of experience, we cannot reasonably affirm the existence and nature of God. But this does not tell the whole story, as we see it, about religious experience. In Chapter 19 we shall turn to the topic when we consider the nature and meaning of prayer. Our basic thesis is that religious persons and thinkers, in trying, understandably enough, to ground religious knowledge in religious experience, have not only made unreasonable claims but

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have tended to give less than full force to the inspirational value of the experience. They may have felt that the inspirational value depended on the knowledge value, but this certainly need not be true. The following interpretation may be closer to the facts of religious experience. The religious experience is an activity in which the total person, his feelings, thoughts, character, aspirations, and tensions are present; his life-growth with all its achievements and problems is involved.37 Let us now assume, what still needs adequate substantiation, that a cosmic Mind exists who can and does interact with individuals. When this God interacts with human lives, he does not run roughshod over their wills, over their past experiences, or the structure of their personalities. Nor does God merely conform to these, for the total effect of the experience is one of exaltation and moral challenge. God may well be at work in a particular life, though his influence may seem limited by the total level of receptivity in the personality. The individual, on the other hand, is yielding-receiving; his life as he ordinarily knows it is in ferment. What is happening to him does seem to take hold of him and move him in ways which are different from what happens in any other experiences. There seems to be a process working in him for or against what the issue in his life may be. He may, or may not, seem to be forced to some specific intellectual or moral conclusion. But whether or not he finds new ideas, he rises, at once renewed and fortified, at once confident and shaken. The experience may indeed be rich in intellectual suggestion. After all, his total lifeset, including his ideas, has moved perhaps to a new height. A new horizon, a new way of regarding things seems to open before him. But his attitude of mind seems to transcend any interest in formulation as such, since the experience he has been living through transcends formulation, or at least renders formulas uninteresting. Knudson well says that the religious experid

~ See Albert C. Knudson, The Validity of Religious Expenence. New York- AbingdonCokcbbury Press, 1937, pp. 25-28, 74.

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ence "is an act of faith rather than an act of perception. It is something generated within us rather than forced upon us from without." 38 The variety of religious and mystical experience is so great, the upheaval in the lives of persons so different, that all kinds of claims can be made in the name of an experience at once so unusual and so rich in potentiality. To interpret it in terms of some one interest alone (the moral interest, as we have done) is almost necessarily to discount some other. Human lives, beginning with differences in temperament, can take on different modes of adjustment, and the effect of these will be found in the ultimate response to God. Nor should we suppose that God is interested in one kind of growth alone. If we regard the religious experience as one in which the impact of the experient's own nature is always the limiting factor imposed upon the Source, we are able to account for the variety of experience and for the differences and similarities in testimony. For, given the cognitive, emotional, and spiritual level of the individual, we realize that any moral, emotional, or cognitive change cannot be attributed simply to the Source but must always be seen as what the Source could do with such an individual at that time. The Source, then, is limited by the sensitiveness of individual lives. He does not force some one intellectual interpretation, or some one moral-religious result, upon the individual, though it may seem to be so to the individual. God does not disregard the individuality of persons. He is concerned in the growth of that life and not in any final version of truth whose meaning would indeed be opaque to that individual. If God in religious experience were essentially a Source of Information about the universe, we should indeed expect to find a more specific, common, cognitive element in all reports by mystics. But the Source of power and inspiration, it would seem, is more concerned with the moral-religious growth of the individual than with 28

Ibid , p. 63.

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the individual as a transmitter of specific messages for all other persons. On the other hand, any individual might well be expected to come out of such stirring experiences convinced that the interpretation he is giving and the moral direction he is about to take had been "shown to him." 39 § 7. THE BASIC IMPORT OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

The interpretation of religious experience is so important to the argument for God that it is desirable to summarize the view which seems most consistent with the data before us. The religious experience is a constant source of insights about the existence and nature of God, man, and the universe. But it is not a source of independent information in these matters. In the human attempt to understand the nature of the universe, religious experience has been a fertile source of encouragement and suggestion. As a great historian of Greek philosophy has put it: "To anyone who has tried to live in sympathy with the Greek philosophers, the suggestion that they are 'intellectualists' must seem ludicrous. On the contrary Greek philosophy is based on the faith that reality is divine, and that the one thing needful is for the soul, which is akin to the divine, to enter into communion with it. It was in truth an effort to satisfy what we call the religious instinct."40 This is not to say that religious intuition can stand assured of its truth (no matter what happens in the other areas of life) as the steady arbiter of truth about the nature of God and man. Religious experiences, for those who have them, be they gradual or sudden, violent or serene, are occasions of growth and change. The focus of the life need not always be radically transformed or redirected by religious experience; but life is always at least revitalized. But, and this must be said firmly, the religious experience as felt is an effect of one's response to a Being deemed 39 40

See Moore, op. at., pp. 37 &.; Knudson, op. at., pp. 1, 3 ff. John Burnet, Greek Philosophy. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1928, p. 12.

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to be other than oneself. This effect embraces the emotional, moral, and intellectual life of the individual who in this experience is undergoing the effects of a new stimulus. New sensitivities and new perspectives (or the re-creation and refreshment of old ones) may be involved, but each experience represents what can be done with a given life at its stage of development. Bergson is faithful to the testimony of the mystics when he says that some of them are not as profound and do not penetrate as deeply as others in their responses to their God. The reflections which the deeds and pronouncements of religious experients sometimes cast on the God who is supposedly molding their lives would indeed be embarrassing to a moral and merciful God if such testimony were all there was to judge by. We cannot forget what Leibniz saw so clearly: that everything expresses the universe from its point of view, that what human beings say about God may tell much more about their natures than about his. In Bergson's view the "great" mystics agree in affirming that God is a creative Lover. There are those, on the other hand, who insist that the "truly" great mystics have witnessed the omnipotence and majesty of God towering above all other attributes. St. Teresa, a Christian mystic, was convinced, as a result of one of her visions, that she could see how God could be three persons; but the brilliant Plotinus by the same pathway affirmed that God, the Absolute One, was beyond any possible distinctions. And the Buddhist mystic knows that God cannot be personal at all. The religious person may have his conviction reaffirmed in his religious experience, or his religious experience may have been father to his conviction in the first place. But, granting the constant interaction between interpretation and experience, we are still left in a quandary if we decide to define God's nature only by the convictions which supposedly issue from the direct influence of God on human beings. If we find it impossible to follow Bergson's interpretation of the cognitive convictions of the mystic, we must express our indebtedness to his account of what happens in most creative

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mystical experience (though we need not commit ourselves to his view of reality). As he suggests, we may understand what happens in creative moments of mystical insight if we contrast two processes in artistic composition. Usually when a man writes, he keeps easily and fluently within the sphere of well-framed and commonly accepted words and concepts. Society has provided him with common coins of intellectual exchange, and he encounters little difficulty in making himself clear. But there is another method of composition. This works back from the intellectual and social plane to the plane of creation. The soul within which this demand [for creation] dwells may indeed have felt it fully only once in its lifetime, and it is always there, a unique emotion, an impulse, an impetus received from the very depth of things. To obey it completely new words would have to be coined, new ideas would have to be created, but this would no longer be communicating something, it would no longer be writing. Yet the writer will try to realize the unrealizable.41 He will be "driven to strain the words, to do violence to speech," 42 but try he must, in the hope that even partial success will enrich humanity "with a thought that can take on a fresh aspect for each generation." 43 This conception of creative inspiration does throw light on the import of religious experience in human life. Even if it turned out that we could prove conclusively that there is no God, there can be no doubt that the religious experience, as long as persons believed in the existence of God, has been a source of power in the world. This is not to say that mystics or religious people have always been the most sensitive moral prophets, but it is to say that the lives of those who have had religious experience have been richer than they would have been without it. 41

Bergson, Two Sources of Morality and Religion, p. 243.

i i 4 * Do We Know Qod Directly? We are here assuming, as a minimum, that in religious experience there is always, besides a sense of renewal and comradeship, a reaffirmation of loyalty to what is deemed to be the Supreme Source of Value. Another dimension of life is realized by those who have religious experience, a quality which is not reducible to the appreciation of beauty, or to the search for truth, or even to good will (though it cannot be separated from these). In religious experience, underlying any specific interpretations one may put upon it, a given life is permeated by a conviction that life in this universe is, or can be, worth while. Even though some such conviction may have come to the person by another path, the religious experience itself seems to provide not only a confirmation but a moment in life when the experient feels gripped by the very power he believes to constitute reality. The qualitative "feel of life" at that moment is different from any other moment; the experient's profoundest convictions are revivified, his deepest values find challenging support, and he has a new sense of the difference between what he is, what he can be, and what the ultimate is. He and his values are not alone; his values are not his alone. Each person will phrase his experience in words which mean the most to him and those with whom he communicates. Although the religious experience is not an aesthetic experience—though it may begin in one—it is the experience of experiences in which one feels that life for its own sake, in this moment, is supremely worth while. One returns to "the world" recharged, renewed, with his particular life and its purposes grounded. Such experiences are not vouchsafed only to "mystics" who live closer to the heights. Many are they who know that peculiar peace and quiet, suggested perhaps as they looked "unto the hills," as they contemplated the face of a sleeping child, or as they beheld, or participated in, a deed of mercy. Some need to close their eyes and fold their hands, kneel, and move out of the world; others move from things in the world to the overtones these things seem to have. However this experience of

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the essential friendliness of the universe comes into a particular life, and whatever the more specific interpretations which are put upon the experience, the main effect of the experience in the particular life is one of growth and renewal for the struggle as that particular life confronts it; the experience is one of recreative rest which produces new zeal for the best as that person finds it. The religious experience finds each person at his growing point, at the crossways in his particular life as he tries to center it in his God. Religious experience is more surely a matter of growth than of vision, though growth usually includes vision. Any one experience, of course, may have much more content, depending on the mental set provided by the individual's life, but this revivification in the presence of God of that which the individual finds unutterably priceless is a common factor. That, we may suspect, is the reason why the religious experience has given warring religious opponents the assurance that God was on their side, even as they struggled to subdue each other. That perhaps is also the reason why smugness can so easily enter into religious living, the reason why the person who has "escaped" thereby from the details and annoyances of living wants to stay in a somnolence of eternity and let the rest of the world go by! This also explains the intimacy between religion and morality as one finds it supremely in the main western tradition, in the life and teachings of Socrates, of the Hebrew prophets, and of Jesus. Several passages from a contemporary, herself unusually sensitive religiously, may be quoted not only for their intrinsic interest but also for the emphasis they also place on the total inspirational significance of religious experience. I have spoken of the barrier of words both in having and in describing direct experience of God. . . . Nearly all mystics speak of a "presence," and the sense of presence does most nearly convey what happens. Some declare that the presence assumes a form; for my part I can only say that it is more real and more intense than any form. It is a direct

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immediate contact with the very essence of the personal, undiluted by any image. The only words that come—and they afterward—are: yes this is it. The very core of the "I" is one with its source and its destiny, intensely alive but beyond self-consciousness. No one who has had such an experience could believe in self-annihilation, or doubt personal immortality. There is an awareness, at once individual and general, which can be faintly likened to artistic creation, and this blend of "me" and my strivings, of the knower and the known, makes one immediately sure that personality is only realized after the body is gone. Again speaking for myself, but I believe in agreement with many others, there are fainter kinds of direct experience of God. One is seized sometimes with a sense of direction, like a compass whirling to the north. No amount of reasoning will polarize one in just this way, and again the words that come are pitifully meager: I can do it. But the great, direct experience does not issue in any definite feeling of power or meaning or moral precept. It issues in certainty. . . . I strongly distrust anyone who returns with a message. It is possible to feel afterward as though one had been on a mountain top and got the right relations of things spread out below, to know therefore what one must do, but the experience itself is empty of content and pregnant with certainty. To get an order from God suggests false mysticism. . . . I think, although it is impossible to generalize on matters of inmost privacy, that when one feels the direct presence of God, beyond ecstasy and rapture, one knows at the same time that it is he who determines the mysterious touch, not we. The fainter states, when one is flooded with a sense of well-being, can be induced by cultivating awareness, but the experience of God himself is blown in on an uncharted wind. Mysticism is indeed subjective. It is a state in which the prime Subject penetrates our cloudy minds.44 4 * Barbara S. Morgan, Sceptic's Search for God. New York: Harper & Bros., 1947, pp. 186-188.

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In these words there are certainly interpretations of the experience, such as the conviction that immortality is assured. But Barbara Morgan is here stressing the total upsurge of the mystical experience as a source of power rather than a source of knowledge. And this is what seems to us to be the most clear-cut and valid interpretation of the experience. It is a good thing for human society to have persons thus invigorated. True, it may be that the reaffirmation of one's conviction of the good may result in a lesser good; for an habitual good may thus become entrenched in a life at the expense of an untried but greater good. But will humanity move faster toward the better life without any such confirmatory and frequently consolidating experiences? Confirmation and consolidation may be liberating attitudes toward life as well as temptations to smug conservativism. The indictment of religion as an "opiate of the people" is a half-truth at best; in any case, it presupposes that the persons thus "opiated" from the point of view of the social values involved would be better without the religious experience in their lives. One strongly suspects that without something akin to the religious experience with its sense of assurance that the growth of value is God's concern and ours as well, the total struggle for values in and through human beings would lose much more than it would gain. The problem is to improve as much as possible the persons who are having these confirmatory experiences. But persons are more likely to change if they believe that their transformation is the will of God and not simply a possible way human beings can live in a universe indifferent to (and unmindful of) their growth. It is also interesting to note that even atheistic naturalists have come to recognize both the intrinsic value and the invigorating power of "religious experience." Mark, for example, the moralegiving power of social sympathy as Edman speaks of the new beloved "communion of saints."

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In the older mysticism, too, those inflamed with the same spirit, directed toward the same goal, constituted a beloved community, a communion of saints. [But mark further:] That sense of a beloved community hardly needs supernatural support or supernatural sanction or a theological basis for its sacraments. In time a collective society may generate its own religion, its own mysticism, its own sacraments, without benefit of theology. Men will be bound together by the feeling of their mutual sense of being partners in a possible common happiness, ringed round with death, a common doom, and an enhanced human life, a common hope. They will recognize themselves and each other as mortal vehicles, not of the spirit of God, but of the spirit of Man, itself immortal. The co-operative adventure of mankind will enlist the mystical adherence of all men of good-will, and social institutions will be the sacraments of that beloved community in which all men are brothers.45 It may be seriously questioned whether religious experience minus the belief in a Universal Presence could continue to have the transforming power which even the confident naturalist feels that human beings need. § 8. PRESENT STATUS OF THE ARGUMENT

In this chapter we have contended that although religious experience cannot be used as an independent source of truth about God, it has been a vital source of growth in the life of individuals and mankind. We have not, of course, proved the existence of God. If there is adequate evidence for belief in (a certain kind of) God, the religious intuitions of men can be further reinterpreted in the light of that evidence. If this seems a very indirect approach to the validation of religious experience, let us remember that this indirection has probably been taking 45

Irwin Edman, Four Ways of Philosophy. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1937,

p. 221.

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place all the while anyway. The person having a religious experience is a human being responding to the world. The interpretation of his religious experience is not detachable from the conviction he has already developed. If it turns out that there is more reasonable justification for belief in a personal God than for any other conception of God, we shall have to reinterpret religious experience in the light of that conclusion. If there are steadier grounds for belief in a personal God, as we believe there are, we shall find reason for trusting the verdicts of some mystics more than others. We shall indeed be able to say that God in religious experience is working to strengthen and renew the lives of men, even as he binds them through the cords of love in greater loyalty to him and to each other. The religious experience will then be seen as the crucible in which God and man live together, in mutual appreciation, in continued growth, in constant creation. QUESTIONS

1. What is the difference between "faith" and "immediate ineffable experience" ? 2. What is the relation between religious experience, the life and testimony of religious leaders, and the faith of most religious laymen ? 3. a. Explain two dogmatic views o£ religious experience. b. What common feature underlies both positions regarding the analysis of experience? c. Why is the distinction between the "cause" and validity of religious experience important ? 4. a. On what grounds is belief in God said to be parallel to our belief in a physical world ? b. What is meant by the independent cognitive value of religious experience ? 5. Does the author accept the view that "faith is a kind of knowing" independent of other knowledge ? What is his contention ? 6. What difficulties face the view that God is known directly in religious experience?

120 • Do We Know Qod Directly? y. Why is the datum in religious experience different from that in sensory experience? Why emphasize immediacy of knowledge? Why consider immediacy no guarantee of knowledge ? 8. a. Evaluate the claim that there is a "common core" in all religious experience. b. What differences and similarities may be found in the description of religious experience by James, Otto, and Bergson ? 9 a. Distinguish between insights "given to" and "given by" mystics. b. How does this distinction affect the claim that there is independent religious knowledge rooted in unique religious data ? c. What view of religious experience seems forced upon us by the evidence ? 10. a. Why is the "inspirational value" of religious experience important? b. What does the author suggest about God's interaction with man? 11. a. What, then, is the "basic import" of the religious experience? , b. What part may it play in knowledge about God? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Bergson, Henri. The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, (trans. H. A. Audra and C. Brereton). New York: Henry Holt & Co., Inc., 1935England, Frederick E. The Validity of Religious Experience. New York: Harper & Bros., 1938. Hazelton, Roger. Renewing the Mind. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1949. Huxley, Aldous. The Perennial Philosophy. New York: Harper & Bros., 1945. Macmurray, John. The Structure of Religious Experience. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1936. Moore, John M. Theories of Religious Experience. New York: Round Table Press, 1938. Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy, (trans. J. W. Harvey). New York: Oxford Press, 1926. Pratt, James B. Eternal Values in Religion, (ed. Willard Sperry) New York: The Macmillan Co., 1950.

5 THE CONFLICT OF RELIGIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVES

ONE conclusion of the last two chapters is that there is no one experience, no one part of life, which provides conclusive evidence for belief, or disbelief, in God. Human experience is rich with suggestive intimations, and there are many ways of interpreting the meaning of what we know. For years now many persons have preferred to see the world and human experience from the scientific perspective. These persons regard the religious perspective as dangerous to the progress of man—but those whom they criticize are equally concerned about the perils of the scientific outlook. In this chapter we hope to clarify and to arbitrate the underlying issues in the conflict of scientific and religious perspectives. As we shall see, the issues go beyond the conflict of two disciplines. The conflict involves the whole problem of how to explain events. The tension is not between two kinds of people; it is one between two types of motives and interests which activate every thinking human being. We want to know the "how" of things and we want to know the "why" of things. As reasoning creatures we ask both questions; as reasoning beings we seek the best answer possible. § 1. THE RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE

It may help us to understand the conflict more clearly if we first take a familiar example of the religious perspective and note 121

122 • Religion vs. Science how the mind moves to the scientific perspective. There is majesty in the story of creation as imagined by the writer of the first chapter of Genesis. The account opens: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: . . . And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good." The author continues to outline the authoritative edicts whereby God gave order to the physical world and populated it with plants, animals, and man. But the descriptive account is interrupted seven times by the evaluation: "and God saw that it was good." It becomes clear that the God who produces the laws of physical and biological nature purposes not only goodness but also the good of man. He gives man domain over living and material things. As we read the first chapter of Genesis we are almost startled by the jump from the creation of animals to that of man. "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . so God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him" (Genesis, 1:26,27). In the seventh verse of the second chapter, however, we read: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." This second passage has been interpreted, in the light of the first, to mean that God, in breathing life into dust, made man in his own image. Even if this is not necessarily so, it is clear that God was especially interested in man and gave him prerogative over animals. The writers of the first two chapters simply would not consider man's entire being to be a compound of material elements. Why? Here we can only speculate, but it may be that the writers noticed tremendous differences between man and animals, between man, clod, and stone. Whatever else man is, he has aspirations as a poet, a moralist, and a seeker after truth. Could such a creature be a compound of dust alone, or even a complicated animal? He seems to be a stranger under the stars;

%eligion vs. Science • 123 he is a panic-stricken creature amidst the roar of thunder and water. But he knows that he is, and animals do not. He does not live long as a reflective being without wondering what kind of universe it is in which he lives. He alone knows what it means to die. He contemplates and loves beautiful patterns in nature and in the conduct of men; loss of them saddens him. He just is different from other beings; the fact is unmistakable. How explain him? Another principle is present in him. He is an artist made by an Artist, an aspirer after goodness made by the Good, a finite creator made in the image of the Creator, and an evil creature when he forgets that he lives and breathes by the grace of God in God's world. This creation story has expressed and inspired religious imagination and piety through the centuries. Studied in the religious perspective, four points stand out. First, the physical world is not all the reality there is. Another reality, God, exists, upon whom the orders of nature depend. Second, God is interested in goodness, and what happens expresses a plan or a dominant purpose. Third, God's interest in order embraces his interest in man. Man has a special and responsible place in creation. Fourth, man, like God, is in nature—but not reducible to nature. What happens in him adds the special purpose of God to all else in creation. In this religious world-view, purpose dominates whatever happens. In this perspective, there is no complete understanding of any event unless one knows the purpose behind the event—in this instance, God's purpose. § 2. BASES OF CONFLICT AND RECONCILIATION

It was inevitable, however, that religious people should try to understand more clearly the process of creation. For side by side with the spiritual yearning to make the right adjustment to God, there burned the passion of the mind to understand the will of God as it was manifested in the realm of nature. Worship, although it is not in essence a matter of intellect, does

124 ' %eligion vs. Science itself inspire the desire to understand the ways of God. And the practical needs of men tie in with the quest for understand' ing. True, when one is worshipping, one worships; the focus is upon appreciation and gratitude. It is also true, however, that when one is studying the nature of some complex of events, to determine how the basic parts are connected, he may forget, for the purposes of his inquiry, about the Creator of nature. To be sure, the same mind that seeks to know whether there is a God who cares may well seek to know how that God undertakes to manifest his care. In the attempt to understand "how," the mind may well question different accounts of the creation and be led eventually to improve the description of the way things happen in nature. Many persons who discuss these matters talk as if investigators of nature's way had to be atheistic before they engaged in their search. Some, indeed, were (and some became) atheists. But many were encouraged to search because they were convinced that an orderly Intelligence was at work in nature. Anyone at all aware of the different theological doctrines of redemption will realize that the intellect of man has expended much time and energy in understanding the "how" of spiritual events. Within the religious realm the how-intellect has functioned alongside of the why-intellect. The transition from the religious to the scientific interest in the world is not one, therefore, which divides the mind into two inconsistent and contradictory parts. What we see at wor\ are two kinds of intellectual and emotional needs, one for confidence in the total human and divine venture, and the other for understanding the structures of man and nature. Taking into consideration man's total intellectual and emotional life, there is, then, no necessary conflict between the scientific interest in the "how" and the religious interest in the "why" of existence. The conviction that God is the ultimate source of all order and goodness in the world need not conflict with the interest in understanding how the parts of the world go together to produce the order and goodness man knows. It

Religion vs. Science • 125 is historically true, however, that as religious men developed their central religious insight, and as scientists investigated and interpreted their observations, a sharp conflict has frequently arisen. When the religious person claims, for example, that God caused the Red Sea to separate long enough to allow a harassed people to march through and then allowed it to fall back upon their pursuers, he sees no inconsistency between this action and his notion that a Provident God looks after his people. A careful observer of nature, however, might note that many such claims could be better understood by more meticulous attention to the way things happen in nature. His interest is thwarted by this claim that God will act to break or suspend laws which operate at all other times. (He might also warn that if persons are encouraged to believe that at critical times they can expect God to suspend normal laws of action, it would be difficult to build a character or a law-abiding society.) Or when the religious person claims that a certain man, whose life served a certain moral-religious need, was born in a manner suspending the otherwise universal laws of conception, the scientist may well reply that, especially since we cannot be sure that normal causes did not operate, the interests of understanding require that we reject such a miracle. And he may go on to decry the fact that during the centuries in which people had formed the habit of seeking supernatural purposes as causes of events, men failed to take full advantage of their own powers to observe, organize, and interpret facts. Because some men did not want to interfere with what they thought was God's ordering of human goods and evils, they not only allowed men to suffer needlessly, but they frequently tortured each other, when, as a matter of fact, scientific understanding could have helped them. What we note at this point is a conflict in the interpretation of the same fact. An event is interpreted in one way to fit what is conceived to be the religious needs of men and in another way to fit what is deemed to be the scheme of things in which

126 • %eligion vs. Science the how-intellect may act with confidence. This conflict between religious and scientific perspectives ultimately forces us back to fundamental questions as to God's nature, man's nature, and natural law. But even here, it should be evident, there would be a basis for compromise if each disputant would not automatically veto any interpretation not felt to be in accordance with his own perspective. When the scientist has discovered the facts which point to error in a particular religious interpretation, the religious mind may well alter its interpretation. Meanwhile the scientific mind may well distinguish between avowals or denials based on well-established fact and those interpretations which are abhorrent to the scientific mind simply because they challenge its assumptions (but not its facts). If both sides insist that their claims alone can save man, there is no hope of solution. Let us, for example, take the issue regarding God's supposed infringement of scientific laws. Suppose a religious person were convinced that God is so interested in the good of all men that he would never suspend the laws he has ordained, since these laws were so fixed to protect the interests of men. Such a view would not destroy the possibility of God's adding to what he has already done, and it leaves the problem of miracles not to doctrinaire denials and avowals, but to specific, matter-of-fact investigation. The reality of God's purpose is not here denied; it is reinterpreted, and reinterpreted in a way that should give no disinterested investigator cause for complaint. Such a divine scheme of law for the world would coincide with the basic assumption of science that if certain natural events occur under certain conditions, then, given those conditions at any time, the same sequence of events may be expected. Thus a Louis Agassiz could well begin a demonstration experiment with the words: "Gentlemen, we shall now seek to think God's thoughts after him." 1 Furthermore, specific issues—such as whether Jesus' birth or resurrection is really inconsistent with a scientific or a religious 1 1 owe this quotation to D. Elton Trueblood, The Common Ventures of Life. New York: Harper & Bros., 1949, p. 34.

Religion vs. Science ° 127 interpretation—could still be argued with all the available facts at hand, and sincere thinkers might actually disagree about the final interpretation. But then the scientific and the religious mind could work cooperatively rather than in mutual suspicion. Unfortunately, however, the development of some segments of recent thought has not favored such cooperation between religious and scientific interpretations. In the name of Scientific Truth the distinctive contribution of religious experience has been disavowed. In self-defense the religious mind has all too generally replied that the limitations of science and scientific discovery should be evaluated in terms of the Higher Truth available in religion. Let us see how this sharp conflict developed. § 3. THE SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE

The real clash between science and religion came when those philosophers who grounded their arguments on scientific procedure claimed that since God may not be found among scientific data, or since he is not available for scientific observation, belief in him has no foundation. All religious doctrines not immediately in harmony with verified scientific conclusions, or not yet verified by science, they insisted, should, in allegiance to fact, be given up. This appears to be sheer dogmatism. When, on the other hand, any person (or sect) holds that he knows that a given act must be God's purpose, and insists that any observations or conclusions of science (or reason) must be regarded incomplete or untrue if they conflict with this knowledge, dogmatism seems once more to prevail. When, furthermore, the religious person claims that God himself revealed his will authoritatively to certain persons, he may well be asked to temper his claims in the light of two considerations (cf. Chapter 4). First, this claim to authoritative revelation has been made by equally sincere persons and groups whose revelations conflicted (for example, Christians and Hindus, Mormons and Christian Scientists). Second, even assuming an authoritative

128 • Religion vs. Science revelation, we must realize that human imperfection, ignorance, pride, and wishful thinking might make themselves felt in the interpretation of revelation. However, to both considerations the religious person may counter, first, that scientific experts are often in disagreement; second, that human imperfections apply to them and their conclusions as well; and, third, that possession of absolute truth may not be essential to good living. We are at loggerheads it would seem, for each side to the debate wishes to be the sole judge of the truth of its conviction. Before we make up our minds, let us attempt to understand the developments in the scientific interest which lead to these all-or-none contentions. Science, after all, is not an entity which exists apart from human beings. It is the intellectual venture of men disciplined in observation and logic, acute in discrimination, creative in imagination, and tirelessly serious about the task of understanding the nature of men and the world. "No man of science is really great unless he has that faculty of imagination which gives wings to his chariot of sober calculation." 2 Imagination, sober calculation, and observation lie behind the rules developed by the scientist to guide his procedure as he ferrets out nature's secrets. A basic scientific principle illustrates this fact. No scientist will consider a hypothesis well-established merely because it is logical or because it seems attractive aesthetically, morally, or religiously. A scientific hypothesis to be acceptable must be supported, or supportable, by sensory observation. Nevertheless, the history of science is the history of men who have been rethinking, rechecking, and expanding their thinking and observations of the world; it is the story of men who have been trying to ask nature the right questions and to develop every conceivable type of contraption whereby they could catch nature at work. Still they have learned not to pamper hypotheses which led to no differences in observation. 2 Ernest William Barnes, Scientific Theory and Religion. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1933, pp. 397-398-

Religion vs. Science • 129 As one might expect, however, the venture of science, like all pioneering into vast unknown realms, depended upon several "postulates." The value and validity of these postulates could not be proved ahead of time, nor could they ever be proved conclusively, since it is by faith in them that the scientist moves into a new, uncharted realm. If the scientist should question these assumptions, he would in consistency have to stop his work. Let us examine several of these assumptions. The first assumption made by the scientist is that the world is not a chaos. Now, the religious person also believes that the world is not a chaos. But the word chaos means one thing for the religious interest and another for the scientific. The world is chaotic for the religious mind if the most important values (love, justice, truth, and beauty) are not inherent in the grain of things. But the word chaos has another meaning for the more restricted scientific interest. As scientists we want to explain the world and not merely describe it. We describe or report an event when we simply state what happened. The apple fell from the tree to the ground. We are not here asserting that it will happen in the future or that it occurred in the past. But our intellectual and our practical interest in the future leads us to ask: "Is there any dependable relation between ground, apple, and tree, and anything else, or may we expect something else to happen on some other occasion?" If the occurrence is "accidental," we may expect something else another time. But if "falling to the ground" will always happen or will happen only most of the time, then we would like to know and to plan accordingly. The scientist expertly carries out our interest here. He observes and describes more carefully and tries to understand the conditions supporting and issuing from the event described. He wants to justify our common-sense reasoning that since instances of apples falling from a tree are instances of apples falling to the ground, then we can be assured that the next time an apple falls from the tree it will fall to the ground. (The situation is

130 • Religion vs. Science more serious, the scientist's discovery more valuable, if he discovers that a certain kind of blood indicates a certain kind of cancer.) In either case, it is clear that the scientist aims at a general statement of events whose truth can be applied to specific instances. A falling apple is then an instance of the law of gravitation, and its fall to the ground may be predicted. Here, then, the scientist passes from description to explanation: scientific explanation. In other words, a scientist knows the why (the cause of) an occurrence when he is able to regard it as a member of a class of such events and therefore can predict its occurrence. Explanation to him does not mean that he knows why in the sense that he knows the end or goal served by a process or event (such as "the apple grew and fell so that man could eat it"); nor does it mean that he knows the values which the event promotes, hinders, or embodies. The purpose (or value) of the apple's existence and of its falling is no part of what he observes, and he cannot, if obedient to self-imposed scientific procedure, appeal to what he cannot observe. He can describe and explain the fact that under certain conditions apples do fall, that under certain conditions they are good for man's health; but he cannot observe any end or goal at any step in the specific observations he makes. It is important to keep this restriction or limitation of the scientific meaning of explanation in mind if we are to understand what is meant by his postulate that the world is orderly and not chaotic. He is postulating, until his observations force him to a different conclusion, that all events in the world, once we see their connections with each other, are predictable.3 Order for the scientist, therefore, means predictable sequences among events; chaos means the absence of such regularity, the impossibility of discovering laws inclusive enough to be used in explaining particular sequences.4 3

To allow for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, even the scientist must today admit the existence of certain (exceedingly small) unpredictable areas. 4 See E. A. Burtt, Right Thinking. New York: Harper & Bros., 1946, p. 279 ff.

%eligion vs. Science • 131 The scientist, we have noted, goes to work on the faith that the world is not a chaos, or, in other words, "that every object which exists and every event that happens is capable of explanation." 5 If he did not make this assumption, he could never be sure that the lighting of a match or the moving of a body had to have an explanation! But the fact that he makes this assumption does not legislate "unexplainable" events out of the universe. It simply means that if the scientist should perchance meet such an event, he would proceed to observe and study it in the faith that it could be dependably related to other events. If he found that he could not explain the "unexplainable" his way, he would put it aside until the day that he felt able to explain it his way. But he would be tempted, at least, to refuse any other approach to its "explanation." Let us further describe this scientific predicament and relate it to a more basic predicament in which man finds himself. If the scientist assumes that not all events are capable of prediction, granted sufficient knowledge, then he never knows whether a particular problem is capable of explanation. Thus, the knottier the problem, the more tempted he may be to suppose that this is one of the occasions when scientific explanation is impossible. Suppose, then, that he gives up the attempt to "explain" cancer, or insanity? The results would not be beneficial to him or to mankind. In this predicament, surely it is the path of reasonableness to assume that there is an explanation. If he gives up the attempt, and there should be an explanation, a shameful loss results. If there should be no explanation, neither he nor the world has lost much through an intriguing intellectual pursuit. But note: the "reasonableness" here is not the conclusion of a syllogism in which premises are well-established; it consists of the willingness to take the only path which may lead the scientist as a scientist to solve an important problem in his life. The "reasonableness" 5

Ibid., p. 303.

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is not a statistical matter. It is a "reasonableness" born of the human desire to make the safest choice, the choice which might lead to confidence in the venture of living. This "scientific predicament," however, is simply a special illustration of the predicament all men face with regard to many human problems when the complete truth is hidden from them. One cannot know whether men are ultimately selfish or unselfish, for example. If one, however, assumes that all men are basically untrustworthy, his actions consistent with this assumption will almost certainly create suspicion and help create men who distrust each other. If, on the other hand, one assumes that men can usually be trusted, his actions will help to encourage mutual confidence. The predicament of the scientist, plainly, is not essentially different from that of any man who thinks about basic attitudes toward life. If he is "reasonable" he may be expected to make assumptions which will encourage him to find the answer to his enterprise. With no clear-cut evidence to the contrary, he may well assume that the universe is not a chaos, in the sense explained above. Once we grant that no one knows with finality the complete truth about the universe, we are then prepared to see that any step we take "into the dark" involves some assumption; and we can see that more than one kind of assumption can be made, depending upon the interests of the person making them. We should, therefore, remember that what guides life is not logical or scientific or religious certainty, but "trying out" some idea or hunch which, having been suggested to the mind by its past experience, seems "probable" or "reasonable" in the sense that this seems the safest, the most coherent hypothesis, for the human venture as a whole at a given moment. Thus, the man on the street, the poet, the philosopher, the scientist, does not know ahead of time which of his guesses is correct. If suspended judgment were either practically possible or lastingly desirable for man, he might well wait until "the light" came to him (but even then he would be assuming that

Religion vs. Science * 133 this is the way knowledge comes!). As it is, man launches out precariously. If he doesn't launch out, he is pushed out, for suspended judgment is more practicable during a debate than in the arena of trial-and-error existence. Those fortunate enough to launch out in the direction favored by the surrounding environment live to tell the tale and to be more systematic in their pursuit of better adjustments. Thus, as F. R. Tennant has so well said, "In science, as well as in other fields of thought, we have to purchase rationality—i.e. reasonableness—with belief which, used in all proving, is itself incapable of being proved: credo ut intelligam is an attitude that science did not drop, when it put away the childish things of man's primitive credulity." 6 Scientific "knowledge," like any other type of knowledge, does not rest on demonstrable knowledge to begin with; the probability which Bishop Butler said was "the guide of life" is also the guide of science. But as already hinted, although there can be no living without some assumptions, the nature of things seems to support some assumptions more than others. The scientific postulate that every event is capable of explanation in terms of predictability is one of them. It was suggested by many of the repeated sequences in nature (rain follows thunder, water quenches thirst). Moreover, as the scientist went to work on that assumption he found an increasing number of dependable sequences. The history of scientific observation is the history of a growing network of dependable sequences. But the scientist makes another fundamental assumption. Holding that every event is to be explained by understanding the class of events to which it belongs, he now goes a step further and adopts the postulate of causality. He asserts, accordingly, not only that the order of the future will be like that of the past, but that there is a specific set of conditions determining every event. Every event has a cause, and the same cause produces the same effect, 6 F. R. Tennant, Philosophical Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930, I, p. 278. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

134 * %eligion vs. Science other things being equal.7 Specific differences in experience do not occur without specifiable (if not yet specified) causes. Here again the history of scientific discovery has been encouraging, for scientists have been able to specify causes for effects which earlier seemed to have no definable cause even though the sequence was regular. For many scientists and philosophers it has been one step from these two postulates to the conclusion that all the events which occur are part of one causal system. They asserted therefore—and here they clashed with other philosophies and religion—that there is nothing at all in the universe which is not predictable or free from predictability. There must be no ambiguity here. From the postulate that every event must have a cause, it does not necessarily follow that all events are part of one causal order, though this may be possible.8 The event of my moving this pen has a definite set of "causes," but the fact that the effects of this writing are now influencing the reader in a given way does not necessarily follow from these causes any more than does the fact that his decision to study philosophy of religion necessarily involved his reading these words. One might hold, however (and many did) that if we knew enough, we would see all events as necessaiy interconnections in one vast system of events which compose the world. § 4. THE ISSUE: MECHANICAL EXPLANATION VS. TELEOLOGICAL

We have now reached the stage at which we can better understand the real point at issue between explanation based on scientific demands and explanation based on what we are here calling religious claims—though most of our practical living takes purposiveness in plants, animals, and man for granted. The scientist has systematized a procedure which all human beings use when they explain events by considering them to be 7 See Burtt, op. at., p. 307. Assuming the validity of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, exact predictability must give way to statistical probability in certain areas. 8 Ibid., p. 311.

Religion vs. Science • 135 particular manifestations of broader laws: infants usually cry when they are hungry; this infant is crying: he may be hungry. Neither layman nor scientist could explain in this way if experience were chaotic. Indeed, if there were no constancy in the world, man's own life would be impossible; if there were no constancy in the occurrences of nature, man could never anticipate events and adjust himself to nature's ways. What the scientist has done is to show that there is much more constancy than man had dreamed. The extension of the borders of scientific explanation to events which earlier had seemed inexplicable not only adds prestige to this scientific approach, but it also gives promise of greater success. We should be unwise to deny that any problem confronting human beings should be tackled and retackled from the scientific viewpoint. But when the scientist (or any philosopher who erects scientific method as the criterion of truth in all fields), flushed with victory, holds that any other type of explanation is invalid and obscures the issue, we must pause for inventory. Is it true that any interpretation of events not achieved by scientific method is thereby invalidated ? If any philosopher asks us to realize that any problem not amenable to the scientific approach is a false problem, is he being true to all the facts ? When he says that all events are part of one causal system, he is going beyond the evidence, even though to do so might encourage him in his inquiries. Whatever he may say, this conclusion about the known world as a whole is not arrived at scientifically—that is, it is not a generalization from events but a generalization imposed on all possible events by a philosopher. He may, indeed, suggest this generalization as a worth-while hypothesis for thoughtful men to consider. He may even decide that every human problem should be studied from this perspective in order to make sure that we do not overlook important aspects. But he is substituting dogmatism for reasoning when he disqualifies intellectual problems because his postulates and procedures cannot deal with them adequately. He may say, with some justification perhaps, that any other kind of explana-

136 • %eligion vs. Science tion is not as dependable as his, but this observation remains to be seen as each problem is thoroughly analyzed. The religious seer, we noted, is convinced that the events of the world are unexplainable apart from a God who planned the order of the world in a manner to suit certain purposes. And in this contention he would find much philosophical support. Many philosophers would also claim that we best explain events when we understand the goals to which the events tend or the purposes which they serve. For such philosophers any order of events is more intelligible to human minds if goals be discovered for each part of the world or for the world as a whole. Do we understand more about an automobile if we understand not only the relations between the parts but also the purpose of the car as a whole? Indeed, do we not have more insight into the parts of the vehicle ? These philosophers, carrying the analogy to the world, answer affirmatively. For them explanation does not stop with discovering the predictable order of events, which is explanation in the scientific sense. They do not deny the value of such explanation. But they seek a fuller and more coherent explanation which will satisfy the human ambition to know why (purpose) as well as how (cause). In their search for why-explanations, they regard how-explanation and facts about the causal order as means to a larger end or a part in a larger whole. For them the order itself (in part or as a whole) may well be intended to realize certain values or ends. Briefly, they seek to discover whether the causal order and uniformity of nature are not parts of a ideological (goal-directed) order and plan. Chaos to them means events (even a causal order of events) which have no discoverable purposes. Many of these philosophers find that the basic religious claim in the Judeo-Chnstian tradition does help to explain both the order of nature and the place of man in it. Man, they hold, is not completely subject to external or internal causal law, but he is able to be a law unto himself within limits, and he is free to use the dependable sequence of nature. God, also, is not part of the causal sequence, though it expresses his basic aim. God's purpose

Religion vs. Science • 137 for the world as a whole is in large part worked out through the causal order of events, but the causal order of events is not final and all-embracing. The purpose of God works through the causal arrangements of the world (wherever we find them), but God is not himself a mechanism. Such philosophers do not find it necessary to deny God's existence or to hold that talk about it is useless, since God's nature, being no part of the causal network, cannot be studied scientifically. They do not deny the freedom of man's will simply because this is inconsistent with the scientific demand that all events be predictably explained. (There are other types of teleological explanation, as we shall see, and at this point in the argument this particular Judeo-Christian conception is used simply to illustrate the basic contrast in philosophies.) The conflict, then, between science and religion turns out to be one between two ways of explaining events. One way, the scientific, satisfies the important human demand for accuracy with regard to the sequences of life; it easily develops into the conviction that man's salvation depends on his understanding and control of the laws of nature. The other, the teleological, satisfies the important human demand to understand the purpose behind events, what the aim of the universe and human life is. It should be clear that it will be more difficult to find agreement upon the purpose. A given event or set of events may well seem to have more than one purpose, and it will be no easy task to determine whether there is one dominating purpose. Furthermore, if there is a purpose for the universe, human beings who are parts of the whole and who can only know in part never can be as sure about that purpose as they are about the events which occur. The only way to find light is to study all the available data, scientific and nonscientific, and project imaginative hypotheses which do not "force" the data but rather allow it to fall into place as the working out of some purpose (which may of course have almost innumerable sub-purposes). To allow the scientific quest for accuracy and predictable knowledge to discourage the quest for purpose is to make the

138 • Religion vs. Science wager that the less illuminating scientific claim is the final answer. If there is even a chance that we can find an answer to the broader question, is it not worth while to make a persistent and honest attempt? There would be no need to disqualify the scientific enterprise. However, as we shall see, it would be important to distinguish between scientific facts and interpretations of those facts. Were the scientific enterprise able to answer all the human questions worth asking, we might well go no farther. But even the question: What is the value or aim of science itself ? cannot be answered without going beyond the realm of science and relating the scientific venture to human concerns as a whole. Again, both the scientific and the religious venture are man's thrusts into the unknown as he seeks dependable intellectual and practical adjustments. Both ventures have had a great influence on the course of human existence. If we take one side or the other, we are forced to turn deaf ears upon extensive areas of human experience. It would seem better to engage upon a different venture. Let us suppose that no one conclusion of science or of religion is closed to further inquiry and that each must stand trial before the court of total human experience and reason. This assumption means that neither science nor religion shall stand in judgment as to the ultimate truth of its convictions. Rather each conviction, "fact," doctrine, dogma, or law must be entertained as a hypothesis. Its acceptance or rejection shall depend on its ability to integrate and interrelate the vast ranges of human experience. There is an act of faith involved here, and it is better to be explicit about it. We are claiming that it is safer to trust the whole of human experience, systematically interrelated, than any one part, regardless of how immediately convincing and valuable it may seem. It may be after all, that some religious conviction, some value-judgment, some scientific conviction is unalterably true. Would it be better to hold to some one conviction as fixed, and dovetail all the rest of human experience with it, rejecting any other belief that is inconsistent with it ? We have given the reason for our negative answer. Too many sincere persons, some scientists,

Religion vs. Science • 139 some mystics, some poets have insisted on the privileged priority of one part of experience as the adequate guide to reality. As a result, whole tracts of human experience have had to be turned away without careful consideration. When we reason together we can do so only by appealing to the cooperation of experience in its variety and present totality. At the same time, if there is some crucial insight, its value may be realized in the course of investigation. Better, therefore, to "will to believe" that varied human experience, coherently interrelated, is a better judge than any one part. Better to believe that any hypothesis which enables us to honor as valid the largest amount of human experience is the one to accept as the guide to truth and reality. This is an act of faith. But it is a faith in the essential integrity of human insights in their total effect, and it is a faith which neither denies nor asserts the greater value of one part of experience until it is seen in the light it casts on the rest of human experience and experiment. QUESTIONS

1. a. Describe four typical characteristics of the religious perspective, b. What particular conviction dominates this perspective? 2. a. What is meant by the religious and scientific interest in the "why" and "how" respectively of every event? b. What tends to make them conflict? c. Explain concretely why (or why not) they need not conflict. 3. In what does scientific or religious dogmatism consist? 4. a. Describe the "scientific perspective." b. Explain the basic postulates made by the scientist. 5. What is the difference between the religious and scientific view of "order," "chaos," and "explanation" ? 6. What is meant by the "scientific predicament" ? 7. a. What leads us to suppose some assumptions are better than others? b. Do we need to make such assumptions ? 8. Why does the scientific ideal of complete predictability tend to result in mechanistic causal explanations ?

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9. a. What are the issues in conflict between science and religion? b. To what one problem may it be reduced ? 10. What "philosophic generalization" does the scientist often make regarding the interpretation of events ? 11. For what reason does the religious man find "how-explanations" insufficient? What is meant by "teleology"? 12. What are the difficulties in discovering "purposes"? 13. What characteristics do the scientific and religious perspectives have in common? In dispute? 14. How does the author suggest that this conflict may be resolved? Explain "the act of faith" involved here. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Brightman, Edgar S. Nature and Values. New York: AbingdonCokesbury Press, 1945Ferre, Nels F. S. Faith and Reason. New York: Harper & Bros., 1946. Harkness, Georgia. Conflicts in Religious Thought. New York: Henry Holt & Co., Inc., 1929. Hocking, William E. Science and the Idea of God. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1944. Knudson, Albert C Basic Issues in Christian Thought. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1950. Ramsdell, Edward T. The Christian Perspective. New York: AbingdonCokesbury Press, 195°-

Wieman, Henry N. The Wrestle of Religion with Truth. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1927.

6 THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD AND LIFE

WE have been trying to understand the conflict between two ways of explaining events. The reader may agree that a reconciliation of teleological and causal explanation is not only desirable but possible. But this reconciliation is still "on paper," as it were. If we are to decide whether or not the world as a whole has a purpose, and why, specifically, thinking men have been led to deny or assert such purpose, we must ourselves come to grips with some of the concrete problems they faced. Accordingly, in this chapter we shall outline some of the main features of the physical world and the evolution of life, with a view to correcting some of our common sense misconceptions of the world and man's place in it. In the next chapter we shall focus on various interpretations of the facts. Throughout we shall emphasize the facts and problems that are especially relevant to clearer thinking about God. § I. THE SHIFT FROM A PICTURABLE TO A THINKABLE WORLD

From childhood up we all develop pictures of the world in which we live, suited more or less to our imaginative range and the facts at our disposal. The four-year-old who saw the crescent moon for the first time exclaimed: "The moon is cracked!" He was doing his best to find the proper analogy (some cracked plate, no doubt), for this astronomical vision. When a seven-year141

142 • "Njiture of the Thy steal World old asks: "How does God fight? With his arms, or with big swords?" his ten-year-old brother may reply: "God doesn't fight that way, because he doesn't have arms." But he is eloquently silent when his younger brother persists: "Well, how, then, does he fight?" His imaginative range, built on his past experience, has reached its limit; theologians may be able to help him later. Most of us have the same kind of experience as we try to grasp the scientist's account of the world. Here again we soon find ourselves beyond the picturable range. If we are to understand at all, we have to be satisfied with a harder "thinkable" conception— that is, one which is consistent with the facts. With the help of the microscope and the telescope, the scientist can check much of his mathematics and "thinking" about the "population" of the universe, its nature, and its extension in space and time. But ultimately he has the right to ask our intellect to accept his conception of the physical universe, provided no facts are left out, even if that conception outruns imagination. Let us, then, first try to locate ourselves among the stars. § 2. OUR CELESTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD

Many minds received a jolt when they were told that the globe on which man lived was not the center of the universe. But this was to be only the beginning of a series of displacements, and he was eventually to learn, as Infeld recently put it, that "Our universe is a universe of islands." 1 It consists of islands of matter (or nebulae) on the sea of emptiness. Our globe has many fellowtravellers in its elliptical flight around the sun; over 1500 minor planets and nine great planets (such as Meicury, Mars, and Neptune). Rotating on its axis at 1,000 miles an hour, our planet has to move at the rate of twenty miles a second if we are to make our journey around the sun in a year. (It takes Neptune 165 years.) 1 Leopold Infeld, "On the Structure of the Universe," in Philosophy for the Future, eds. R. W. Sellars, V. J. McGill, Marvin Farber. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949, p. 173.

7S[ature of the Thy steal World ' 143 Our sun (diameter 864,000 miles) could contain our planet side by side thousands of times. Yet it turns out to be just an average star in size and luminosity, in a relatively crowded neighborhood of stars, our Milky Way. Yet, that brightest star in our sky, Sirius, is 500,000 times farther from us than is the sun—that is, 52,000,000,000,000 miles away.2 It takes 8.6 years for light from Sirius, travelling at approximately 186,000 miles per second, to reach us. If Sirius were as near as the sun we would get 40 times as much light and heat as we get now from the sun. Furthermore, this sun of ours is only one of about 100 billion individual stars in the Milky Way, of which the naked eye can see only about 5,ooo.3 Our sun is situated in the interior of this belt of stars whose shape resembles a thin watch; on this "watch" the sun is located about where the second-hand usually is. Using 5,900 million miles as a light year, this lens-shaped distribution of stars measures about 100,000 light years in diameter and 15,000 light years in thickness. If the reader is already lost in space, a few million more astronomical years will not matter. He needs to remember that our Milky Way is itself only one of millions of other "island universes." It has been estimated that, difficulties overcome, the 100-inch reflector at the Mt. Wilson Observatory could photograph approximately 100,000,000 galaxies, the farthest visible nebulae being approximately 300,000,000 light-years away. If size and space determine value in the universe, human beings crawling around on a spinning grain of matter are surely insignificant. But there are other questions and other criteria of significance; further investigation brings to light startling relations between the very possibility of man's existence and the nature of this stupendous universe. 2 See Roy K. Marshall's informative article "An Astronomer's View of the Universe" in Philosophy for the future, eds. R W. Sellars, V. J. McGill, and M Farber. New York: The Macmillan Co , 1949, pp. I53-I72. 3 The beginner should read George Gamow's The Birth and Death of the Sun (New York The Viking Press, 1940) for an excellent description of the sun and its place in the physical universe.

144 ' "Picture of the "Physical World § 3. OUR SUN-SYSTEM AND ITS FUTURE

' '

'

How did this whole stellar universe get going ? Did it start with stars and star clusters, or is the stellar system a development from a previous state of existence ? The present, tentative answer seems to follow these lines. "In the beginning" there was one continuous, relatively rarefied, and cool gas. About 2 billion years ago the break-up of this continuously distributed, primordial gas took place as a result of gravitational contraction due to internal irritability.4 This coalescing of the molecules of gas not only resulted in stars, but owing to operating gravitational forces, it also led to clusters of stars like our Milky Way. Actually, as galaxies form, the universe expands. Thus the galaxies of stars are still pulling away from each other as do points on an expanding rubber balloon. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is moving, with respect to other external, moving galaxies at the rate of 100 miles per second. The physical resources of our civilization depend upon the energies of our sun. These energies, scholars now think, can be explained in part in terms of the compression of cooler gases and the processes resulting within the sun. For example, our sun has a surface temperature of 6000° C. Any physical material which even approaches this temperature turns into a gas. If an average stove had a temperature of 20 million degrees, which is the temperature at the center of the sun, it would burn up everything within the radius of many hundred miles. The sun is in fact "too hot to burn," for the association of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen cannot take place under such conditions. This terrific heat at the center is walled in by outer gaseous walls which are pulled inward by the gravitational forces that originally built the sun. What of the future? Will this life-giving solar energy be dissipated, and will man live out his last days in a cold growing ever more deadly ? The present forecast is that the sun will grow much hotter before it grows colder and that life on earth will be gradu* Gamow, The Birth and Death of the Sun, p. 56 ff.

"Njiture of the Physical World • 145; ally burned out rather than frozen out. By the time the hydrogen, which forms 35 per cent of the sun's constitution, has been exhausted, solar radiation will have increased 100 times, thus boiling away oceans and seas. In 10 billion years our sun then may be as hot as Sirius now is. The sun may live about 10 times longer than it already has, but as its sub-atomic energy becomes exhausted, it will become a gigantic mass with a faithful entourage of frozen planets. "And the year 12,000,000,000 after the Creation of the Universe, or A.D. 10,000,000,000 will find infinite space sparsely filled with still receding stellar islands populated by dead or dying stars."5 This brief survey of the astronomic realm may serve to sharpen our appreciation of the magnitude and order of the physical universe. We have no light, within the scientific framework, on the "why" of occurrences in any ultimate sense. Why is star-gas unstable enough to create changes which, by way of other changes, produce one island universe which includes a globe from which the astronomer gazes around him and reflects ? It seems clear that once changes start taking place, they proceed in mathematically predictable order. Why there should be order—consistent, predictable order—the scientist does not tell us. Suffice it that he describes the constituents and their order and "explains" the changes which take place by another series of orderly changes in orderly elements. To account for these large-scale celestial events he turns from this telescopic world to the microscopic realm and constantly interrelates the discoveries he makes. Let us follow him. § 4. THE SYSTEM IN THE ATOM

There is no special reason why physical matter should not be one continuous substance as the stoics imagined, or why it should not be made up of distinct atoms, each with its own properties, 5 Gamow, op. at., p. 232. See also George Gamow, Biography of the Earth. New York: Pelican Mentor Books, 1948, for an excellent account of different views concerning the origin of our planetary system. '

146 • Tiature of the Thy steal World as Democritus postulated. But Dalton (1766-1844) found more evidence to support the conception of Isaac Newton (1642-1727) who pictured the world as infinite space inhabited by irreducible bits of matter (atoms) and governed by certain inflexible physical laws. This conception was the standard picture for two centuries, from 1687 to 1887, a temporal span which, as Jean tells us,6 may appropriately be described as the mechanical age of physics. That is, scientists thought that we lived in a world of particles coming together and separating in response to forces from other particles and forces. In this mechanical world, past events determined present and the future events completely. Thus, if only one knew the past completely, he could know in precise detail what worlds would be built and what structures would be destroyed. This conception of the world was definite: it satisfied the desire for accurate prediction, and it was free from any appeal to agencies that were unpredictable. After the Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887, however, this neat picture had to be emended. Once again the human mind was forced to give up more imaginable or more easily-conceived views for conceptions consistent with the observable data. Here is the over-simplified story. The average physical thing we see (such as a stone) is composed of "bouncing" molecules (whose motion we experience as heat). The vibrations of these molecules are the source of sound waves (which we experience as noise). The average molecule has a diameter of about a hundred millionth part of an inch. There are about half a million varieties of molecules. The molecules themselves, however, are composed of atoms which are billions of times smaller than the stone. These atoms have never been actually perceived, though their "traces" have.7 Some molecules consist of 6 Sir James Jeans, Growth of Physical Science. New York: The Macrmllan Co., 1948, p. 274. 7 See George Gamow, Mr. Tompkfns Explores the Atom. New York' The Macmillan Co., 1944, p. 66.

T^ature of the 'Physical World ' 147 one atom, others of two identical ones, and still others are composed of many different kinds. We have not gone far enough, however, when we think of a stone as made up of molecules which in turn are composed of atoms. For each atom is complex. Every atom is composed of a nucleus around which electrons revolve. These electrons revolve around the nucleus in different orbits. The atoms of different elements (such as hydrogen and carbon) differ among themselves in the number of electrons revolving around their nuclei. Thus hydrogen is courted by one electron; helium by two; and uranium, the heaviest known element, has 92 satellites. We are thus far reminded of the earth and other planets moving in their orbits around the heavier sun. And this analogy is valid. But if Newton's conception of the mechanical relation of bits of matter still held, the scientist should be able to plot the position that given electrons would have at given times. Physicists have recently noticed, however, that an electron's movement around a nucleus is irregular, so irregular as to be unpredictable at any one time. They can predict where an electron will be—but only more or less! Thus prediction of the whereabouts of an electron resembles the kind of statistical prediction made by an insurance company; there is not the exact prediction promised in the mechanical Newtonian conception of things. As George Gamow explains to the mystified Mr. Tompkins in his dream journey to the inside of an atom,8 if one were to try to shoot an electron as it moved on its orbit, it would be undesirable to shoot at a given spot; a better plan would be to scatter the shot, as with a shotgun, in a given area. If Newton's view were still correct, a well-aimed rifle-shot should find its mark. However, according to the "principle of indeterminacy" as developed by Werner Heisenberg, the elliptic orbits of the electron are not so well-defined that one could predict, as the Newtonian physicist could, the path of electrons around them. Although "gross" or 8

See George Gamow, Mr Tompkins in Wonderland New York The Macmillan Co., 947

148 • 'Nature of the Tbysical World statistical predictions are safe and predictions of the movements of large bodies (as in astronomy) can still be made with accuracy, the difference in the conception of the universe is notable. The mechanically predictable model may be useful and adequate for certain purposes, but it is no longer the reigning model of how things must happen in the universe. We can no longer maintain that mechanical interaction characterizes the underlying structure of things; nor can the limitation of predictability be ascribed to human ignorance.9 To go on with the story, later discoveries led to the conclusion that even the nucleus of the atom is a cluster of protons and neutrons. Thus we may say that there are three fundamental types of physical elements: protons, neutrons, and electrons, let alone the newly discovered neutrino and mesotron. It should be clear that the physicist looks for his more ultimate sources of energy in these sub-atomic regions. This complex nucleus of the atom is "protected" by the electronic "shell." The energy locked up in this atomic nucleus if liberated, would give us many million times more energy than we have in ordinary chemical reactions between molecules. The reason why the sun lasts for billions of years is that it possesses these sub-atomic sources of energy. A sun made of coal would last only about 6,000 years. The reader who is relatively new in this area must not suppose that the outline here given is even an adequate thumbnail sketch of the physical world. Fascination felt could be further enhanced by the simplest exposition of space and time and quanta. But even this inadequate picture may help us to appreciate the following generalization by Sir James Jeans.10 " . . . nebular astronomy, the physics of the infinitely great, is seen to tell the same story as radioactivity, the physics of the infinitely small, and physics is confirmed to be a consistent whole." The physical universe, then, 9 Thus our everyday experience of free will, although not confirmed by the principle of indeterminacy, can no longer be relegated to the realm of illusion for being inconsistent with the structure of the world as known to science. 10 Growth of Physical Science, p. 357.

7S[ature of the Thy steal World • 149 is a unified system whose order, while not predictable in detail of organization, is patterned and interrelated. It was about 2 billion years ago that the elements in this universe as we know them now were formed as a result of evolutionary processes in primordial gases. Our physical universe is not a composite of elements made that way once for all; it betrays the marks of changes—changes which, at least in one corner, allowed living organisms to creep and walk and fly. In our next chapter we shall pay some attention to the conditions which made the continuance of life possible. For the present we must examine the reasons which have led scientists to the conclusion that life as we know it now is the product of evolutionary processes. § J. DIVINE CREATION OR EVOLUTION?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.... And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature, that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.... And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was s o . . . . And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. For centuries the view of creation suggested in these passages from the first chapter of Genesis, along with the contrasting version in the second chapter, dominated the conception of the origin

150 * 1S[ature of the Thysical World of living beings. In our own day there are many who are still convinced that this biblical account is final. The truth, such believers hold, is that God first created the physical world as a habitat for man, then created animals, by successive acts of creation, in preparation for man, and then created man in his own image. The fundamental claim, however, is that God directly, by different specific acts of creation, established the basic types of physical and living beings, in a world previously prepared for their existence. Any suggestion that God may not have done it, or that he did it by some more circuitous route, is unacceptable. Now there are two issues here. One has to do with the question of God's existence and the dependence of all created beings upon him. This is a religious and philosophical issue, for it has to do not with any one set of events which occur in the world but with the nature of all events and of the universe as a whole. The second issue is scientific, and it involves the question as to whether the actual steps in the development of man were those indicated. Many persons brought up on the Genesis story of creation undergo considerable conflict when they read scientific accounts of the origin of the world and man, for their loyalty to their religious training conflicts with their admiration for the achievements of science. Many, thinking that only one assertion is involved, decide that they must either accept the biblical account of creation or reject altogether the conception of creation by God. They do not realize that two kinds of assertions are involved and that it is at least possible to maintain that God is creator without holding that he created by specific edict in the order suggested. It may be that the acceptance of evolution should modify only the conception of the way in which God creates the world. But what is evolution ? § 6. THE NATURE OF EVOLUTION

What conception comes to mind if we assume that the evolution of species is true? Let us imagine a cosmic spectator, a Methuselah, whose life spanned the aeons from about 2,000 mil-

TSlature of the Thy steal World • 151 lion years ago, when the earth solidified, to the present. He would observe slow but unmistakable development of more varied and complicated forms of life from very simple microscopic organisms. He would not see some separate force or entity (now called Evolution) at work; he would observe only changes taking place— changes in plants and animals that struggle to preserve themselves in their respective environments. After some observation, our keen Methuselah would come to expect different types of living beings to appear and, rather than continue the structure of the parent, forge ahead in some new direction seemingly in response to a challenge or opportunity offered by the environment. About 1,200 million years ago (in what is called the Eozoic Era, an era which lasted for about 500 million years), he comes upon forms of life of which geologists nowadays find traces only in beds of graphite, limestone and iron ore. These single-celled animals had solved the fundamental problem of food-getting, of digestion, of motion and procreation. Their solution was to be unbelievably improved as years by the million passed by. In the next 300 million years (the Archeozoic Era) Methuselah witnesses how soft-bodied invertebrates, such as worms and sea-weeds, flourish. But during the succeeding 250 million years (Older Paleozoic Era), he admires a higher development of such invertebrates (star-fishes, for example), even to include the protection of soft-bodies by soft shells (crabs, crawfish and lobsters). To be long-lived is to learn patience. Methuselah has to wait about 900 million years for the Paleozoic Era (extending for 250 million years) to see land plants become abundant and to see and marvel at animals with spinal columns (vertebrates) beginning to make their appearance. During this period flying insects and reptiles (such as lizards, turtles, and snakes) also come into existence. About this time Methuselah, having reached the venerable age of about 1,300 million years, begins to become accustomed to the animals which move close to earth or swim in water. But marvels never cease in the world Methuselah inhabits. He is not, therefore, surprised to behold (in the Mesozoic Era, lasting

152 • Mature of the Thy steal World 85 million years) some reptiles take to the air and become birds.11 Other reptiles develop into tremendous landlubbers like the dinosaurs (which added a large nerve center, a second brain, in the lower part of the spine, probably to control their huge limbs). Here Methuselah observes one of the failures in animal development. For though mammals have small secondary nerve-centers of this sort, "when Nature made a large-scale experiment in the dinosaurs, it failed." 12 About 60 million years ago (in the Tertiary Era) our aged observer, not having forgotten the child-suckling mammals who made their appearance 175 million years earlier in the Paleozoic Era, has the pleasure of watching them develop into more modern forms such as our monkeys, apes, elephants, hippopotami, rhinoceroses, and horses. More noteworthy still, perhaps, for Methuselah is the latest stage in the development—man, an apelike creature distinguished by a brain of size and quality superior to that of other anthropoids. Modern scientific writers would comment on these events as follows: In all physical essentials there is much less difference between man's brain and that of a gorilla than between the brain of a gorilla and that of a lion.13 "It is simply a matter of hard fact, which takes no account of actual human wishes or hypothetical bird wishes, that for some reason (probably their sacrifice of fore-limb for a tool of flight) the bird's braindevelopment has been restricted, whereas the mammals evolving along the lemur-monkey-ape line, were able to develop brain power, which finally culminated in man, and which has made man the dominant, most successful organism and has enabled him actually to beat the bird at its own game, producing machines more swift and tireless in the air than the 11 This required a change from cold to warm blood—that is from a system of heating which reflects the outside air to one which generates its own heat and preserves it by a coat of fur or feathers, ft also called for the development of the front part of the brain. 12 Ernest W Barnes, Scientific Theory and Religion New York' The Macmillan Co., 1933. P- 42713 Ibid., p. 525.

"Nature of the Physical World • 1^3 birds themselves, and music compared to which even the lark's and the nightingale's songs are but naive." 14 But, alas, our omnipresent and all-seeing Methuselah is, after all, a myth. Actually, no one human person has been able to observe this whole evolutionary change take place. One might well ask: If no one has ever seen the making of new species, why be so confident that evolution is true of the whole realm of living beings? How do we know that relatively simple structures and functions were transformed into relatively complex forms of life? The answer is that, although there is no certainty, here is an excellent instance of the coherence of a theory with facts which have been carefully gathered. For the evolutionary hypothesis was suggested to imaginative, disciplined minds by a vast amount of hitherto uncorrelated data. In the light of this hypothesis, the relation of the facts to each other became much clearer; the available pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. It is true that the theory of evolution cannot find conclusive proof by any one line of evidence. But: The real proof of the validity of the concept of evolution lies in the fact that all lines of evidence point in exactly the same direction and are fully consistent and corroborative of one another. Not only is this so, but each kind of evidence throws light upon all the other kinds. The obscure spots in one field are illuminated by facts derived from other fields. Thus the proof of organic evolution is cumulative.1* The many facts about life which have been discovered since Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of Species in 1859 strengthened the general hypothesis. The picture of evolutionary change which scholars today sketch is by no means as clear as is the detailed development observable when an egg gradually changes into a 14 Julian S. Huxley, "Progress Shown in Evolution," in Frances Mason, Creation by Evolution. New York The Macmillan Co., 1928, pp. 336-337. Reprinted by permission of T. Rupert Mason. 15 Horatio H. Newman, "Cumulative Evidence for Evolution," in Frances Mason, Creation by Involution, p. 363. >

154 * "Nature of the "Physical World chick. Nor is our knowledge such that the film could be turned back, as it were, making all the stages visible. The general scheme, however, is quite clear. We are asked to think of the evolution and differentiation of species as the branching of a tree in many directions without all loss of similarity among the branches. There are identities, despite differences, between a human arm, a bat's wing, a whale's flipper, a horse's fore-leg, a bird's wing, a turtle's paddle, and a frog's small arm. As Darwin exclaimed, "How inexplicable is the similar pattern of the hand of man, the foot of a dog, the wing of a bat, the flipper of a seal on the doctrine of independent acts of creation." 16 We have, therefore, in the theory of evolution an excellent example of empirical, growing coherence as the criterion of truth. The theory of evolution became more acceptable to critical minds because it left fewer facts to be explained than did the theory of special creation. Let us briefly review some of the evidence which led to the acceptance of the theory. § 7. EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION

Geological and geographical traces. The march of life through the ages has been recorded in the rocks at different strata of the earth's crust. Changes in the formation of the earth's surface left man, plants, and animals isolated, to develop life-prolonging adaptations in their new environment, and ultimately to leave evidences of these changes behind them. Detailed pedigrees are disclosed in the rocks, some of them with marvellous perfection, as in the evolution of horses and elephants, camels and crocodiles. For some animals, such as fresh-water snails and marine cuttlefishes, there is an almost perfect succession of fossils, forming a chain in which link 10 is very different from link 1, yet just a little different from 16 1 owe this quotation to J. A. Thomson, "Why We Must Be Evolutionists," in Frances Mason, Creation by Evolution, p. 16.

of the 'Physical World • 155 link 9, as link 2 is a little different from link 1. For such animals we can almost see evolution anciently at work." Vestigial evidence. A biological vestige in an imperfect remnant of an organ which has seen more complete development, having had a specific function in an earlier stage of the individual or in his ancestors. Thus, many cave animals have eyes which are no longer of use to them. Snakes, to take another example, are legless reptiles; but in the python snakes small claws, supported by bones within the body, may be found on each side of the vent—clear vestiges of hind legs.18 Indeed, in man himself we find some unusually interesting examples of vestigial organs. The familiar human appendix is perhaps, no more than "a pain in the side" to man, but it is a definite aid as a part of the digestive system of a rabbit. Most mammals, reptiles, and birds have a well-developed third eyelid which is used to clean the front part of the eye; in the inner corner of the human eye a useless relic of this eyelid is observable. Embryological development. The changes which take place in the development of embryos provide added support for the theory of evolution. Thomson once more guides us as to the interpretation of these embryological changes which recapitulate past achievements of the race. An embryo bird is for some days almost indistinguishable from an embryo reptile; they progress along the same highroad together; but soon there comes a parting of the ways and each goes off on its own path. The gill slits of fishes and tadpoles—the slits through which the water used in breathing passes—are persistent in all the embryos of reptiles, birds, and mammals, though in these higher back-boned animals they have nothing to do with respiration. All of them are merely transient passages except the one that becomes the 'eustachian 17 J. A. Thomson, "Why We Must Be Evolutionists," in Frances Mason, Creation by Evolution, p. 15. 18 See George H. Parker, "Vestigial Organs," in Frances Mason, Creation by 'Evolution, p. 37.

i$6 • Tiature of the Tbysical World tube,' which leads from the ear to the back of the mouth. They are straws which show how the evolutionary wind has blown. In a great many ways the individual animal climbs up its own genealogical tree, but we must be careful not to think that an embryo mammal is at an early stage of its development like a little fish, as some writers have carelessly said. Each living creature, from the very first stage of its development, is itself and no other; and though the tadpole of a frog has for some weeks certain features like that of a fish, especially a larval mud-fish, it is an amphibian from first to last. The embryo is the memory of a fish or of a reptile-like ancestor. There is no doubt that the hand of the past is upon the present, living and working; and this is evolution.19 Turning now to a suggestive account by Ernest W. MacBride, we can see why Darwin thought that the embryological evidence for evolution was the strongest. During the period of its life within the womb the human embryo develops a large organ like a sucker, which is closely pressed against the wall of the womb and which enables the tiny baby to suck nourishment from its mother's blood. This sucker, which is called the placenta, is distorted out of shape. Now no one imagines that some ancestor of man went about through life with a placenta protruding from its under surface; the placenta is a secondary outgrowth to enable the embryo to live in the womb. Such 'secondary' changes are known as falsifications of development; they may be likened to interpolations made by some later writer in an ancient historical document. But during the time that the embryo carries this extraordinary appendage, protruding from its under surface, its upper surface passes through a most interesting series of changes. Its mouth at first resembles that of a shark, and the nostrils, as in the shark, are connected with the edges of the mouth by grooves. Then the head grows to be like that of a tadpole, and, just as in the young tadpole, this 19 J. A. Thomson, "Why We Must Be Evolutionists," m Frances Mason, Creation by Evolution, pp. 18-19.

Tslature of the Thy steal World • 157 head is divided from the body by a narrow neck, which has nothing to do with the neck of a young child. Along the sides of the neck there are two series of gill slits, and, just as in the tadpole, these become covered by flaps of skin that grow back from the head and join the trunk. The neck indentation is thus obliterated, and the head passes without a break into the trunk, just as it does in the older tadpole. The blood vessels at the sides of the gill clefts resemble exactly those of the tadpole. There are four of them on each side, and with accurate imitation of the tadpole, the third on each side drops out. The salamander retains the four throughout life, but its near cousin the newt, drops out the third as does the frog. Thus the story of man's development from a water animal and his gradual closing up of his gill clefts is accurately repeated in the womb, and the distortion of this story by the development of the placenta is easily recognized As [human develop' ment proceeds] the limbs grow out and the embryo comes to resemble an ordinary four-footed animal, but the fingers and the toes are at first webbed like those of a frog. At this stage there is a well developed tail, and later there is a complete covering of hair, resembling the hairy skin of an ape. At birth the big toe is widely separated from the other toes, just as the big toe of an ape, and the legs curve inward at the ankles, so when the child is held upright only the outer edge of the sole rests on the ground. This arrangement of the legs is identical with that seen in the legs of an ape; it is an adaptation that makes it easy to press the soles of the feet against opposite sides of a branch in climbing.20 § 8. FACTORS INFLUENCING EVOLUTION

There has been little doubt among scientists, since Darwin, about the fact of evolution. But there has been disagreement on the factors influencing evolution, or the so-called "machinery" of evolution. 20 Ernest W. MacBnde, "Evolution as Shown by the Development of the Individual Organism," in Frances Mason, Creation by Evolution, pp. 56, 57, 58.

158 • "Nature of the'Physical World Natural selection. Darwin, following the suggestions of Malthus, was impressed by the large number of children that any two parents could have. This seemingly innocent fact actually meant that if all the children and their offspring survived, there would be no place left on earth for other beings, and certainly not enough food to insure survival for them all. As Barnes points out, a yearold pair of song-thrushes who normally produce eight young ones a year for a period of 10 years would actually be ancestors of 20 million birds (assuming that all survived) by the time they themselves died. If, in 30 years from the beginning of their breeding, one could line up all the descendants next to each other, the earth would be covered over 100 thousand times. Assuming that there were many variations of species to begin with, it is easy to see why Darwin suggested that the basic cause of evolution was the elimination of the less fit, or the survival of the fit. Since nature could not support all of her children, those who were unable to cope with the competition of the forces of nature and the abilities of other animals simply did not survive. Accordingly, what Darwin called "natural selection" means that the race for survival has favored those animals equipped to endure the challenge confronting them.21 Contemporary scientists are emphasizing that natural selection and the so-called "struggle for life" refer not to the fact that animals devour each other but that any given environment provides only a limited amount of space and food for growth. Nor must the expression "survival of the fittest" be taken "necessarily" to "connote even a superior ability of an individual to survive."22 Indeed, as George Simpson's recent study reminds us, "fittest" must be taken simply to mean those that do have the most offspring. Emphasizing that natural selection "does favor those that have more offspring," Simpson continues: 21

Ernest W. Barnes, Scientific Theory and Religion, pp. 506-507. Th. Dobzhansky, "Heredity, Environment, and Evolution," in Science, 3 (Feb. 17, 1950)) P- 164. 22

"Nature of the Thy steal World • 159 This usually means those best adapted to the conditions in which they find themselves or those best able to meet opportunity or necessity for adaptation to other existing conditions, which may or may not mean that they are "fittest," according to understanding of that word. Moreover the correlation between those having more offspring, and therefore really favored by natural selection, and those best adapted or best adapting to change is neither perfect nor invariable; it is only approximate and usual.23 Natural selection, therefore, must not be considered as a negative process of elimination. Advantage in differential reproduction is usually a peaceful process in which the concept of struggle is really irrelevant. It more often involves such things as better integration into the ecological situation, maintenance of a balance of nature, more efficient utilization of available food, better care of the young, elimination of intra-group discords (struggles) that might hamper reproduction, exploitation of environmental possibilities that are not objects of competition or are less effectively exploited by others.24 Mutations. One other of the "forces of evolution" operating in connection with natural selection must command our attention here. Assuming that there are many variations to start with, may it not be that those animals which survive actually outdistance others because their parents have passed on to them the "tricks of the trade" ? In other words, have the characteristics acquired by the parents in their adaptation to the environment been inherited by the children? Chevalier de Lamarck (17441829) had made this suggestion and Darwin accepted it in part. Thus, Darwin argued, assume variations in living beings at the beginning, add the passing on of favorable acquired character23 George G. Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949, p. 221. 24 Ibid., p. 222.

160 •

TS^ature of the "Physical World

istics to the offspring, and it becomes clear why some species survived in the struggle with nature while others died out. Today, however, most scholars reject the Lamarckian view of the transmission of acquired characteristics. A. Weissman (1834-1914) discovered that the reproductive germ-cells of animals (which carry heredity) live within the body but are relatively unaffected by the habits of the organism. This meant that the germ-cells are the same in the parent and descendant. If the Lamarckian view were true, the germ-cells, affected by the bodily habits of the parents, should not be the same in parents and children. Thus, the transmission of acquired traits had to be disavowed. But this left certain other facts unexplained. How account for new characteristics which do arise within a species to form a new variety? The answer accepted widely today is that mutations occur in the genes, or self-reproductive cells, of the organism. A mutation refers to a more extensive change than any consistent with the relative instability inherent in living matter. New varieties of species would arise from the fact of such instability and the fluctuations of environmental pressure. But some changes do occur which are more radical and unpredictable departures from all that would be normally expected. As Professor Dobzhansky says, mutations "arise whether or not the organism needs them for purposes of adaptation, and irrespective of whether the change may or may not be useful in some existing or possible environment." 25 These changes in germ-plasm are in turn transmitted to the descendants, and thus a new species is constituted. Natural mutations do not occur often, comparatively speaking, and some mutations are very small, others exceptionally larger ("sports"). Some of the structural or physiological effects of mutation give the organism an advantage in the struggle for survival, but some actually are a handicap and lead to extinction. 25

Th. Dobzhansky, he. at, p. 165. See also Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution, p. 215 ff.

TS[ature of the "Physical World

•

i6r

Why such mutations occur, the scientist cannot answer confidently so far,26 but that they occur and constitute part of the raw material of evolution is clear. The fact of mutations does force one important conclusion about the evolutionary process. Evolution is not the simple unfolding of some preformed structures in the history of living beings. Therefore, if a given scientist knew everything about all living beings at a certain stage and knew all about the environmental conditions in which they were to struggle, he could not predict—as some mechanistic philosophers and scientists have asserted—exactly what would take place in the future. He could never know what mutation in the structure of germ-cells would initiate a new development. Evolution is not a mechanical unfolding; it is a process in which novelty occurs; it is a creative evolution, or, as it is usually called, emergent evolution. § 9. THE PLACE OF MAN IN THE EVOLUTIONARY PATTERN

Among the mutations, a new line of creation (but similar in many respects to other lines) produced man. Many persons have found the theory of evolution offensive because, they say, it reduces man to an animal, and ultimately lowers the level of human aspiration and conduct. Any such claim, however, is based upon a false conception of the place of man in the evolutionary ascent. It is true that "bone for bone, muscle for muscle, 26 "Several environmental agents that speed up the mutation process are known. X-rays, ultraviolet radiation, high temperature, and certain chemicals." But Professor Dobzhansky continues: "The effects of these agents are, however, unspecific, in the sense that they enhance the probability of occurrence of mutations of all kinds (although not necessarily to the same extent)." Convinced that mutations are "in the last analysis, physico-chemical alterations in the genes or chromosomes," and that they are "caused by environmnetal influences," Professor Dobzhansky thinks "there is no theoretical reason why geneticists could not eventually learn to induce at will specific mutations in specific genes. Such a feat may already be within our grasp in the t>pe of transformation of pneumococcus bacteria. But the interpretation of these transformations is not yet quite clear and, undeniably, complete control of the mutation process is still not in sight " Dobzhansky, loc. at, p. 164.

162 • 1S[ature of the Thysical World nerve for nerve, we are remarkably close counterparts of our anthropoid relatives.27 But the fact remains that over a million years ago the ancestors of man and of the apes parted company from their common parent, now extinct, which was neither man nor ape. Human beings forged ahead, constituting an independent development, representing a new thrust on the part of Nature (or God), and being a law unto themselves. To be even more specific, sometime in the lower Eocene age, a number of divergences took place among the mammals at the same time that primates began to be differentiated. One divergence led to the carnivorous animals (like the lion), another to hoofed quadrupeds (like the horse), another to elephants and rodents. Of all the orders that thus arose the Primates had the most splendid efflorescence, because of the development of the brain and the coordinated nervous system which in the end produced man. But this whole mammalian development appears to have been unique: it happened once and only once. Out of a particular combination of circumstances, some conjunction or series of conjunctions of environments and mutations, the Primates emerged: on this earth of ours the necessary combination has never recurred.28 It may be that one day we shall discover much more about many intermediate forms (missing links) between man and the common source from which both man and the anthropoids developed. The fact still would remain that man, and evolution with him, must be judged by what has survived, what has been attained, and not by origins alone. Exactly what was added in the development of man will be clearer to us after our studies in Chapters 8, 9, and 10. 27 Samuel J. Holmes, "The H u m a n Side of Apes," in Frances Mason, Creation by Evolution, p. 293. 28 From Scientific Theory and Religion (1933), p. 539, by Ernest W. Barnes, by permission of the Cambridge University Press, publishers.

1S[ature of the Physical World • 163 § r o . THE TOTAL OUTLOOK IN EVOLUTION

In the course of cosmic evolution we have seen many developments taking place. Are they parts of one cosmic plan, or are they individual excursions strung along in time with no basic relation to each other? We shall have to study different views of this development in the next chapter. Here let us take a quick backward look to note the main process in development. In a world in which only physical and chemical elements existed, there one "day" came into being creatures dependent on their environment but also able to maintain their uniqueness in that environment. Life began with single cells. The first advance came as these single cells grouped themselves into colonies. This made possible greater growth in size and function; division of labor among the colonies of cells produced degrees of specialization. Without such specialization the development of digestive, muscle, bone, and nerve systems would have been impossible— let alone the organizing and controlling brain. Adaptation and specialization of function, along with favorable mutations, have been responsible for this evolutionary ascent. As already indicated, the production of new \inds of beings were unpredictable on the basis of anything known about the elements or ancestors which attended the development. The word emergence heralds this fact of unpredictable novelty. What has not been emphasized enough is that the evolutionary story is by no means one of continuous success. Throughout, if we read the geological records correctly, animals and plants have disappeared—for example, the trilobites, ammonites, and dinosaurs. Again: The disappearance of camels and horses from North America was part of a vast extinction of the higher mammals which occurred shortly after early man first appeared in Europe. It is said that over more than half the land surface of the earth a great variety of important mammals was rapidly exterminated. Many strange and powerful

164 • 1
TStature of the Thysical World • 165 Two others reflecting on the same facts speak otherwise. Julian S. Huxley comments, in humanistic vein: But the fact of biological progress does show that our ideals and efforts, our whole scheme of values, are not merely isolated flames burning in the darkness of a universe which is neutral or hostile to the effects of its working. It shows, at least as regards the course of events for the several thousand million years during which life has existed on this planet, that the cosmic forces have worked in such a way as to produce a movement that has been not only the most successful movement in evolution but that also chimes in with our sense of values and our idea of the direction in which we ourselves desire to move.31 And William Morton Wheeler, the noted Harvard biologist, remarked: "To the observer who contemplates the profuse and unabated emergence of idiots, morons, lunatics, criminals, and parasites in our midst . . . the emergence of deity is about as imminent as the Greek Kalends."32 These contrasting appraisals will serve to introduce us to the literal "war of interpretation" into which we must now enter. QUESTIONS

1. What is involved in the change from "picture thinking" to scientific thinking? 2. What are some of the facts in astronomy which have made man's physical size and power "shrink"? 3. Why was the strict mechanistic theory of the universe proposed, but later abandoned? 4. Is there any similarity between the microcosm and the macrocosm ? 5. What is the difference between creation and evolution ? Must these conceptions conflict ? 31 Julian S. Huxley, "Progress Shown in Evolution," in Frances Mason, Creation by Evolution, p. 338. 32 William M. Wheeler, Essays in Philosophical Biology, selected by G. H. Parker. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939, p. 150.

166 • Mature of the Thysical World 6. Discuss the theory of evolution as an example of empirical coherence. 7. Cite some of the evidence for organic evolution from the field of geology, biology, and embryology. 8. a. What factors have brought about these changes in physical structure ? b. Are all changes for the good ? 9. a. What did Darwin mean by "natural selection" ? b. How has his view been expanded? 10. What is meant by the theory of transmission of acquired characteristics ? 11. a. Is evolution mechanistic? b. How has the theory of mutations affected the answer to this question ? 12. Expound two different interpretations of cosmic and animal evolution suggested by this chapter. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Barnes, Ernest W. Scientific Theory and Religion. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1933. Chapters I, II, XII, XX. Barnett, Lincoln. The Universe and Dr. Einstein. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1948. Chapter XIV. Gamow, George. One, Two, Three,.. .Infinity. New York: Viking Press, 1947. . Biography of the Earth. New York: Pelican-Mentor Books, 1948. Huxley, Julian. Evolution: The Modern Synthesis. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1942. Jeans, Sir James. The Growth of Physical Science. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1948. Jennings, H. S. The Universe and Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933. Mason, Frances (ed.). The Great Design. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1934. Simpson, George G. The Meaning of Evolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949.

7 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION

§ I. PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETATION

ARE living organisms to be "explained" as the product of chemical and physical events, or do they come upon the cosmic scene as a new order of existence? May plants and animals be classified as another variation of matter, or do we find in them a new principle, irreducible to physical modes of activity? Is the human mind, in turn, to be seen as a complication of biological events, or does it too represent a new development? Indeed, are values like truth, justice, love, and beauty to be seen as by-products of senseless electronic energy? Or may they be seen as ends to which physical and biological processes are important means? These questions cannot be solved by any clear-cut observation or experiment. The facts lend themselves to more than one interpretation, as we began to see at the end of the last chapter. And this takes us back to the problem of choice of perspective. Two conflicting ideals of explanation are involved. If the thinker espouses the scientific ideal of accurate predictability, he will try persistently to see life, mind, and values as examples of the principles which control the more observable and predictable events in the physical world. If he adopts the ideal of empirical, coherent inclusiveness, he will want to examine each type of event or being with a view not only to its relation to antecedent events but also to ends possibly inherent in their nature and in the system as a whole. In this chapter we shall observe this conflict of ideals of explanation at close range. 167

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§ 2. CONDITIONS FAVORING THE APPEARANCE OF LIFE

The physicist, chemist, geologist, and astronomer have told us to think of the physical world as an inconceivably spacious and an inconceivably small universe, alive with interacting systems of electrical energy, and for ages devoid of the slightest sign of life. Then something happened which provides ample food for reflection: no impersonal nebula, no cliques of electrons needed these strange visitors, or celebrated their coming—and yet they came, and they stayed! A noted biologist, C. S. Sherrington, vividly imagines the beginning: Life appeared. Perhaps in some warm runnel of tidal mud or frothy ooze. It would, we must think, be a tiny thing, perhaps clustered and numerous; to all outward appearance impossibly fraught with what it has become today! It was, we may think, perhaps numerous, but in microscopic specks. Yet its destiny was to invade the land and clothe continents with its growth. To venture ocean and in time to populate it. To populate it with countless millions of feeding mouths, and to feed them, while their fins oared them about, fins prophetic of the birds' wing, and of the human hand. Millions of feeding mouths voiceless but yet potential of bird's song and human speech. Mere mechanism and yet charged with germinating reason.1 So life appeared, but the conditions favorable to life were there, too. The biochemist Lawrence J. Henderson, in his book, The Fitness of the Environment, sets forth the facts upon which he rests his conviction that life as we know it could not have appeared under conditions better suited to its nature than those on this dense, crusted earth of ours. Henderson adds to "the size of the earth, which enables it to retain its present atmosphere," other favorable factors, such as "the size of the sun taken in relation with its distance from the earth, and the eccentricity 1 Charles S. Shemngton, Man on His Nature. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1940, p. 91.

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of its orbit and the inclination of its ecliptic," as well as "the relative amounts of land and sea." These together with many other factors probably make the earth, in comparison with other bodies, an extremely favorable abode for the living organism.2 There is no particular reason for example why any cooling planet of minimum size, rotating around a sun, could not have an atmosphere containing the water and carbonic acid which living things need, and it might well be that thousands of planets contained these compounds. As a matter of cold fact, however, Professor Henderson finds that the most favorable conditions for the formation of these compounds exist right here on earth. Of the 96 elements known to man, he knows no others so fit for life as those present on earth—hydrogen and oxygen, which form water, and carbon, which with oxygen forms the needed carbon dioxide. More specifically, were it not for the fact that water has an unusually high heat capacity, the temperature of the whole environment (of air, land, and sea, and in the living organism itself) would not be stable enough for life as known to us. Nor would the production of winds and ocean currents be better facilitated by any other known physical compound than water (though ammonia in these respects might be a close second). Again, if water contracted rather than expanded as it froze, "It is impossible to say how great would be the disadvantage for living organisms. Certain it is that life upon the earth would be thereby greatly restricted." 3 Accordingly as a condition of life, "it seems, therefore, almost safe to say on the basis of its thermal properties alone [let alone its ability as a solvent] that water is the one fit substance for its place in the process of universal evolution." 4 After a careful analysis of the properties of carbon and other 2 Lawrence J. Henderson, The Fitness of the Environment New York • The Macmillan Co., 1913, pp. 52, 53. 3 Ibid, p 108.

i

Ibid., p. no.

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As one reads Henderson's book, he is aware of a conflict which goes on in that author's mind. He cannot escape the pressure of the teleological explanation; it seems incredible that the preparation of the world for life was a series of chance events. "Matter and energy," he says, "have an original property, assuredly not by chance." T And yet he thinks that science [not the 5

Ibid., p. 271. Ibid., p. 276; italics mine. 7 Ibid., p. 308. 6

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facts!] cannot do business if one supposes that there is some designer who keeps on readjusting parts of the world to each other. So Henderson asks himself: Is there any conception that would allow one to hold to the mechanistic relations which satisfy the requirements of science and, at the same time, avoid the conclusion that what takes place is the result of chance? And he replies: Why not conceive all the parts to be tied together mechanistically (and thus avoid explaining any event by purpose),8 and at the same time realize that these mechanistically related parts are members of one total purpose ? In such a scheme, mechanism and teleology, need not war with each other. For now we need not account for any event in nature, such as the healing of a wound, by reference to other than mechanical relations between the parts; and yet we can hold that the mechanical system, far from being the product of chance, was so designed that the interrelations of parts to each other are mechanical. "Given the universe, life, and the [teleological] tendency, mechanism is indirectly proved sufficient to account for all phenomena." 9 Accordingly, Henderson quotes Royce's excellent description with approval: An evolution is a series of events that in itself as series is purely physical,—a set of necessary occurrences in the world of space and time. An egg develops into a chick; a poet grows up from infancy; a nation emerges from barbarism; a planet condenses from fluid state and develops the life that for millions of years makes it so wondrous a place. Look upon all these things descriptively, and you shall see nothing but matter moving instant after instant, each containing in its full description the necessity of passing over into the next. Nowhere will there be, for descriptive science, any genuine novelty or any discontinuity admissible. But look at the whole appreciatively, historically, synthet8 9

Ibid., p. 307. Ibid., p. 308.

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ically, as a musician listens to a symphony, as a spectator watches a drama. Now you shall seem to have seen, in phenomenal form, a story.10 § 4. SCHRODINGER's VIEW OF LIFE

Professor Henderson's struggle to keep both the mechanistic view of the parts which he believes science needs and the teleological view of the whole which renders facts^in-their-togetherness more intelligible may well seem a good compromise. But the more specific question still remains: Is life itself mechanical? Can the events which occur in living creatures be explained as a variation, pure and simple, of the forces which govern neutrons, electrons, and molecules? The answer may seem obvious (for is there life where there are no molecules?), but the experts disagree. Professor Schrodinger is convinced that a new kind of being is present in life. He says: The arrangements of the atoms in the most vital parts of an organism and the interplay of these arrangements differ in a fundamental way from all those arrangements of atoms which physicists and chemists have hitherto made the object of their experimental and theoretical research.11 Matter which is alive no longer acts like matter. For example, if a nonliving material system is placed in a uniform environment, motion comes to a standstill owing to various kinds of friction; equalization of electrical and chemical potential takes place; temperature becomes uniform, and soon "the whole system fades away into a dead, inert lump of matter." 12 But a living thing resists such decay, maintains its own order by 10 Quoted by Henderson, op. cit., p. 31111., from Josiah Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1896, p. 425, by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. 11 Erwin Schrodinger, What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946, p. 2. 12 Ibid., p. 70.

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"sucking orderliness from its environment," 13 and reproduces its like. This process of reproduction must not be passed over lightly, for it is nowhere repeated in the world of chemistry and physics. Schrodinger remarks: In biology, we are faced with an entirely different situation. A single group of atoms existing only in one copy produces orderly events, marvellously tuned in with each other and with the environment according to most subtle laws. . . . Whether we find it astonishing or whether we find it plausible, that a small but highly organized group of atoms be capable of acting in this manner, the situation is unprecedented, it is unknown anywhere else except in living matter.14 Life, then, is not simply the effect of the order of atoms and molecules; it produces its own kind of order, which is different from that of molecules and atoms. But another scholar would suggest that Schrodinger is unnecessarily postulating a miracle; and the scholar insists that the origin of life can be understood in materialistic terms. Thus George G. Simpson writes: Recent work in biochemistry, and especially studies of cell structure and physiology, of viruses, and of gene action are converging hopefully on this mystery. The solution has not yet been reached and it may be near, or distant, or even unattainable. Yet these studies show that there is no theoretical difficulty, under conditions that may well have existed early in the history of the earth, in the chance organization of a complex carbon-containing molecules capable of influencing the synthesis of other units li\e itself. Such a unit would be in barest essentials alive. It would be similar or analogous to a virus. . . . Even more impressive is the suggestion that this first form of life was a "protagene" which, after the chance basic chemical combination into an organization capable of reproduction and of mutation, was 13 14

Ibid., p. 75. Ibid., pp. 79, 80.

s. 74 • The ^Meaning of Evolution slowly developed by mutation into the gene combinations of organisms more indisputably alive in the full sense. There is, at any rate, no reason to postulate a miracle. Nor is it necessary to suppose that the origin of the new processes of reproduction and mutation was anything but materialistic.15 The reader will recall the passages in the last chapter from this author and Dobzhansky (page i6of.) asserting that life is physicochemical and that mutations could be explained eventually as physicochemical changes. But the analysis provided by H. S. Jennings in The Universe and Life (1933) supports Schrodinger's views. It is clear that our experts do not agree about the interpretation of the facts, even when their interpretations do not color the facts themselves. Rather than continuing to oppose the authorities to each other, it seems best to study more thoroughly the interesting conflict which goes on in the mind of another distinguished scientist. § 5. SHERRINGTON's CONCEPTION OF MATTER, LIFE, AND MIND

In a recent philosophical study, Man on His Nature, the physiologist Sir Charles Sherrington sets forth his convictions on the relation of matter, life, and mind. He denies the belief of Henderson, Jennings, and Schrodinger that life is an irreducible addition to the world, and he works out a conception of the universe as a whole (and man's place in it) which finds many supporters among those who want a "close-to-fact" account of the human predicament. To follow Sherrington's argument is more than to review some of the ground we have been over; it is to study a peculiarly instructive example of the conflict between the two conceptions of explanation influencing the broader synthesis which Sherrington is attempting. 15 Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution, pp 14, 15, (italics mine). Simpson's view is strongly supported by Julian S. Huxley in Evolution- The Modern Synthesis. New Yoik: Harper & Bros., 1942.

The ^Meaning of Evolution • 17 j Sherrington would have us conceive of the ultimate constituents of physical matter as "packets of motion" or "units of doing" of different degrees of complexity. The least complex system of "unit doing" (energy, or electricity) is the atom. Next in complexity are the molecules. But living cells come into being when certain atomic systems, especially carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, assemble. The living cell is simply a much larger "unified system of doing, whose behavior is intelligible in terms of the sub-systems composing it. The character of the 'doing' in the cell is such that a cell, much more than the ordinary molecules, is a continually moving equilibrium in constant giveand-take with the environment." 16 When systems of cells combine in special ways with other cells, there result the structures we know as plants and animals. Sherrington emphasizes the interrelation of living things as we know them and this globe of ours. Note two well-phrased passages: Life as an energy-system is so woven into the fabric of Earth's surface that to suppose a life isolated from the rest of that terrestrial world even for the shortest space gives an image too distorted to resemble life. All is dovetailed together. The very place of each concrete animated thing is its own place, and any other would misfit it. . . . All of life as we know it could exist probably nowhere else than on this planet's surface, where it is. Even our near neighbor, the moon, offspring, as are we, of our own planet, would be too uncongenial, too cold and waterless and airless; life there would perish. Nor would it tolerate Earth's nearest sister, Venus. Nor could our good neighbor Mars in all neighbourliness give, virtually without oxygen as it is, hospitable asylum to any life vagrant from us. The types of system which here 'live' would not subsist or maintain themselves there. A life on Jupiter would be bathed in clouds of solid particles of methane and ammonia. Mars, 16 Charles S. Shernngton, Man on His Nature. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1940, p. 300.

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however, is said to have a something of its own which exhibits seasonal growth and change.17 But is a living cell, a growing plant, an animal organism, no more than a more complex energy-system? This has been enough to give pause to other scientists and thinkers. And Sherrington himself realizes that the mysterious transition from nonliving to living has seemed inexplicable by use of any of the principles known in the realms of atoms and molecules. Organisms are constantly replenishing their vitality from lifeless things. We know that this replenishing never goes on until life is already on hand, as it were, to take charge of the process. A living stomach takes dead matter; somewhere a transformation goes on in order for the dead to supply food for the living. Again, a cell seems to be selective in what it takes from its environment. More than that, it does something atoms and molecules never do as such, it reproduces itself! Still, Sherrington, like Simpson and Dobzhansky, is unwilling to grant that any new principle is involved in this seemingly new type of existence. This is irrevocably asserted in the following passages: Broadly taken however there is in 'living' nothing fundamentally other than is going forward in all the various grades of energy-systems which we know, though in some less rapidly and less balancedly than in others. Whether atom, molecule, colloidal complex or what not, whether virus or cell or plant or animal compounded of cells, each is a system of motion in commerce with its surround [environment], and there is dynamic reaction between it and the surround. The behaviour of the living body is an example of this, and we call it 'living! The behaviour of the atom is an example of this and we do not call it 'living.' The behaviour of those newly discovered so-called 'viruses' is an example of this and there is hesitation whether or not to 17 Charles S. Sherrington, Man on His Nature. Cambridge: Cambudge University Press, 1940, p. 90.

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call it 'living.' There is between them all no essential difference.™ [Again:] True, there is between the elbow and the table the difference that one is 'living' and the other is dead. Chemistry and physics say nothing of this. Or rather they say a great deal about it but do not in saying it make use of either of these words. If we tell them that the table was at one time living wood and is now dead wood, that the wood was at one time part of a living tree, they do not recognize the wood as conveying any radical distinction between the two. Chemistry tells us that the table has such and such a chemistry now and that when it was part of the growing tree it had such and such another chemistry. But both were chemistry the one as much as the other.19 In Sherrington's view, then, the dragonfly, the rock, the tulip, and the cloud are simply different kinds of organization within one basic type of being, energy-systems. This conclusion is all the more noteworthy because the scholar who is speaking is uniquely aware of the marvelous harmonies which must operate if there is to be integrated activity in a living organism. In his own words, again: The eye prepared in darkness for seeing in the daylit world. The ear prepared in water for hearing in air. In the repair of the cut nerve, provision against a contingent accident possible enough which yet may never happen. Or, to take one sample more. The body practically never can suffer a wound without the tearing of some blood vessels. That means loss of blood; and severe loss of blood can be fatal. The loss would always be severe and probably fatal if the bleeding did not stop. It would not stop, did not the blood solidify when and where and as it escapes.20 But he will not appeal to any nonchemical or nonphysical purposive principle. Rather: ls

Ibid., p. 85, (italics mine), and p. 86. Ibid., p. 299, (italics mine). 2 0 rz.- J _ _ - . •>(! Ibid., p. 134. 19

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The solidifying is the work of an enzyme. The enzyme is ultimately traceable to a source in a particular gene. Some few of us are born deficient in this innate styptic. It is a defect which runs in families. It is sex-linked and that helps the genticist to trace its gene to a particular element. Now, to do that is to trace it, and the normality it departs from, to chemistry.21 If one should ask Sherrington whether the whole "wisdom of the body" can be explained by appeal to nonpurposive energyprinciples, he restates the issue and makes his answer clear: Evidently the physics and chemistry of the cell can do much. Can they account for all that the cell does? That is, in short, can they account for life? Chemistry and physics account for so much which the cell does, and for so much to which years ago physical science could at that time offer no clue, that it is justifiable to suppose that the still unexplained residue of the cell's behavior will prove resoluble by chemistry and physics?'2 Here clearly is a statement of the mechanistic faith: Even though we cannot now account for all the data of life in terms of physical energy-units, let us work on the faith that one day we shall be able to explain them; let us not now appeal to any new type of principle. We can now summarize the underlying reasons for Sherrington's unwillingness to believe that the unique capacities of living organisms force us to adopt another, purposive principle. First, a unified explanation proceeding on one principle is more satisfying intellectually. Second, chemistry and physics seem actually to be tracing the properties of these living beings to the properties of chemicals. Third, what seems so far unexplainable t>y physics and chemistry may well be explained in the future; we may then possess information enabling us to predict the 21 22

Ibid., p. 134, 135. Ibid., p. 135, (italics mine). See also G. Simpson, op. at., Chapter XVII.

The
Sherrington, op. at, p. 136.

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The mind has no sense which it can turn inwards so to say upon itself. The idea which mind favors of itself lacks extension in space, because sense is required for such extension as a datum, and mind does not derive its idea of itself through sense. Mind as an object belongs to the insensible. When mind is the object of its own experience, it, unlike the objects of sense, lacks spatial extension.24 What molecular energy-system has activities which can begin to compare with this nonspatial activity? The mind senses a brilliant yellow sphere; it perceives, with the aid of memory, that the sphere is (represents) the sun; it reflects that staring at the sun will hurt the eyes; it decides to avert the eyes, so that the values gained through good eyesight may be preserved. The only thing to do, therefore, is to admit that physical explanation is here blocked and turn to the next best thing: note as carefully as possible the correlation between mind and brain. Of the latter there is no doubt. "Between the individual human mind and the individual human forebrain considered in time and space there is a ioo per cent correlation." 25 But a correlation is not a reduction; something new has indeed been added. "For myself, what little I know of the how of [the brain] does not, speaking personally, even begin to help me toward the how of [the mind.] . . . the two for all I can do remain refractorily apart. They seem to me disparate; not mutually convertible; untranslatable the one into the other."26 At the beginning of each life "in the purely germinal system of the individual there is never strict evidence of mind at all." 2T There is no denying a bodily continuum; the body and the geological past are part of one system. But there is no similar mental continuum: "mind seems to reappear ex nihilo at each 24 25 26 27

ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

p. p. p. p.

348. 316. 312. 317.

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repetition of the soma [body] after the soma has reached a certain stage of ripeness." 28 Should such consideration affect our basic conception of the universe into which mind comes ? So begs to be set forth this story of our planet in its newer light to be a frame to set our lives against and within. It is a story not remote for us because it is our own. The planet in travail with its children. With the Universe as heroic background for what to us is an intimate and an heroic epic. A birth in cataclysm. Aeons of seething and momentous shaping. A triple scum of rock and tide and vapour—the planet's side—swept on through day and night. Then from that side arising shape after shape, past fancy. And latterly among them some imbued with sense and thought. And still more latterly, some with thought eager for Values.' The planet, furnace of molten rocks and metals, now yielding thoughts and 'values'! Magic furnace.29 Is this conception of the universe as a "magic furnace" to be taken literally, or does Sherrington see in it the continuous labor of some Agency faithfully at work first preparing the physical universe for life and then preparing certain types of life for the kind of existence in which thought, values, and ideals are distinctive factors? Is the universe a whole which blindly grinds out parts, or does it manifest a purpose within which mechanisms may play a part? There are moments when Sherrington, sufficiently impressed by the way in which the energy-system supports the interests of the mind, seems to see a pattern of purpose in the realm of nature. In the following passage he seems to discern a total economy in the interrelationship of mind and energy which suggests that the world is a unit "of which energy and mind seem the two ultimate constituents." 30 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., p. 321. Ibid., p. 262.

30

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By means of the brain, liaison as it is between mind and energy, the finite mind obtains indirect liaison with other finite minds around it. Xnergy is the medium of this the indirect, but sole, liaison between mind and mind. The isolation of finite mind from finite mind is thus overcome, indirectly and by energy. Speech, to instance a detail, illustrates this indirect liaison by means of energy between finite mind and finite mind. . . . Philosophical speculation might be tempted to suppose the main raison d'etre for energy in the scheme of things to be this. Energy provided as a medium of communication between finite mind and finite mind. It might be objected that such a view is undiluted 'anthropism.' To that we might reply, anthropism seems the present aim of the planet, though presumably not its enduring aim. . . . If mind, as we experience it and argue it in others, seem to itself that which the programme of the planet has aimed at, and if 'more mind' seem what the planet would and the communication between mind and mind foster more mind, then to hesitate to read this message because it seems 'anthropic' is to be blind to our cause and to that of our planet, of which latter cause, it would seem for the moment, ours is a part.31 No blind reshuffling of energy-systems seems acceptable to Sherrington. The "working contact" between mind (which is not reducible to energy) and energy is so close, the brain so collaborates with the mind, and the mind so effects a higher degree of coordination and integration of bodily activity that he is willing to see the growth of mind as a key to the earlier development.32 This is not, however, to hold that a Cosmic Mind guides the 31

Ibid., p. 261. At this point also Sherrington would not have the support of George Simpson, for the latter holds: "Man was certainly not the goal of evolution, which evidently had no g o a l . . . . His rise was neither insignificant nor inevitable. Man did originate after a tremendously long sequence of events in which both chance and orientation played a part." {The Meaning of Evolution, p. 292.) See Sherrington, op. at., pp. 166 ff., 179 ff., 279 ff. 32

The ^Meaning of Evolution * 183 changes in development.33 When Sherrington does consider whether a good and omnipotent Mind operates within nature to produce goodness, he is so impressed by the pain and suffering among living beings that he exclaims: "What is it then that poisons Nature? If man could answer in one word that one word might be, I think, the cruelty of life." 3i As Sherrington sees it, when life appeared it was innately gifted with "zest-tolive," 35 but this meant that it must kill or die. When mind came, values gave its efforts meaning, but suffering became even more acute. Accordingly, if man looks at the facts squarely, Sherrington holds, he must realize that "an aim of conscious conduct must be the unselfish life." But this very realization must be accompanied by the sense of contradiction that in aspiring to altruism he is disapproving "the very means which brought him hither, and maintains him," 36 namely, self-centeredness in the evolutionary struggle! Such contradictions between good and evil in nature make it impossible for Sherrington to believe in a cosmic Designer. But this conclusion has a way of easing his mind. "The appeal to Design has lapsed as an argument and that leaves Nature acquitted not only of good but of evil." " We must not penalize Nature, as if she knew what she was about; she is a vast nonmoral energy-system which has produced mind. "The hateful abounds in her; but she knows no better. There is also loveliness and matter for rejoicing. . . . But that does not prove her or evolution benevolent." 3S Indeed: "More literally than ever 'there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so'; and Nature has in that sense no 'thinking' outside man's. He and his ethics alone. There is nothing good or bad except himself." 39 Man's 33

Sherrington, op. cit., p. 357. Ibid., p. 376. 35 Ibid., p. 381. 36 Ibid., p. 383. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 88 Ibid.

34

,

.

184 * The ^Meaning of Evolution highest blessing resides in his own unique conscious realization that nature is a harmony, indeed, a coherent harmony . . . revealing to us the 'values,' as Truth, Charity, Beauty. Surely these are compensation to us for much. . . . Even should mind in the cataclysm of Nature be doomed to disappear and man's mind with it, man will have had his compensation: to have glimpsed a coherent world and himself as an item in it. To have heard for a moment a harmony wherein he is a note.40 Thus our philosopher-biologist, pondering a vast system whose evolution brought finite man into being, leaves us on an aestheticethical note. In "nature" Truth, Goodness, and Beauty exist only insofar as man expresses these values. Nature, he thinks, is too much of a heartbreak house to grant any unity of cosmic purposes. § 6. J. S. HALDANE'S INTERPRETATION OF LIFE

Let us take a final example to show how the same facts may lead another philosophical biologist, J. S. Haldane, to an interpretation which diverges from Sherrington's at critical points. First, J. S. Haldane is adamant in his contention that life cannot be understood in physical and chemical terms.41 Any living being is a unified, persistent coordination of parts which maintains itself in its interaction with the environment and reproduces itself. Such self-maintenance and reproduction, "from the standpoint of the physical sciences... is nothing less than a standing miracle," because "coordinated maintenance of structure and activity is inconsistent with the physical conception of self-existent matter and energy. But the fundamental difference between Haldane and Sherring40

Ihd., p. 401 The reader should not confuse J. S. Haldane with J. B. S Haldane, especially since the latter, as we shall see in the next chapter, would interpret life and mind materialistically. 42 John Scott Haldane, The Philosophical Basis of Biology. New York Doubleday Doran and Co., 1931, p. 11. 41

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ton involves the interpretation of the place of science itself in life. Sherrington holds that the assumptions and discoveries of the physical sciences are not themselves subject to further interpretation. In other words, what we discover within the area of biology should not lead us to reinterpret the postulate of the physical sciences, namely, that "dead" matter is ultimately real. But Haldane sees no good reason why this assumption is sacrosanct. Indeed, he boldly suggests that if the so-called physical energy-systems are themselves interpreted as elementary forms of life, more elementary than the simplest we now know, we could solve the problem of how living things can interact with and assimilate nonliving things. Further, if what we now call matter is, in the last analysis, mind, then all interaction is between minds, and we escape the problem of how mind can affect matter.43 Sherrington solved this problem by reducing living systems to energy-systems—and he was then forced by the facts to wonder how mind and nonmental energy systems interact! But Haldane finds greater coherence in the interpretation of matter, life, and mind as different steps in the development of one fundamental kind of being—namely, mind. § 7. THREE BASIC APPROACHES TO THE FACTS

In the last three chapters we set ourselves three goals: first, to expose the roots of the conflict between scientific and religious perspectives (or two conceptions of explanation); second, to assemble some of the basic facts about the physical world and biological evolution; third, to understand some of the basic problems of interpretation which face any thinker as he reflects upon the facts available to him as to the nature and interrelation of the physical world, life, and mind. If our discussion has led to any conclusion, it is that there is no sharp line which can be drawn between fact and acceptable hypothesis and that the interpretation of the facts is influenced not by some clear-cut mandate from the 43

See J. S. Haldane, op. at., pp. 35, 36, 89.

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facts so-called, but by the ideal of explanation recognized by the interpreter. If the interpreter believes that the scientific ideal of knowledge must be the model, or the paradigm, of all knowledge, he tends to restrict his interpretations in three ways: (a) by accepting as final the scientific interpretation of the physical world and life; (b) by discouraging, as far as possible, explanation of any part of nature or the whole of nature in terms of purpose; and (c) by being reluctant to postulate any principle of being (or any kind of reality) which might tend to discourage scientific analysis by virtue of its inaccessibility to sensory observation. Thus, beginning with the ultimacy of the electrical energy in the structure of atoms, the "scientific" thinker is willing to admit that life seems to introduce a goal-tending kind of being which is not scientifically observable. But disturbed by the intrusion of this nonobservable and less predictable kind of being, he emphasizes the dependence of living processes upon physical and chemical elements and claims—like Sherrington, but unlike Schrodinger —that there is really no new principle involved in the advent of life. There are scientists, motivated by similar considerations, who would be willing to reduce mind to the activity of brain and bodily chemistry—but we noted that Sherrington was not willing to go this far, no matter what the consequences might be for the scientific ideal. When thinkers who are dominated by this ideal (of explaining all types of events by one set of principles) meet resistance in their reduction of a higher to a lower type of being, when they are confronted by some seemingly obstinate fact—such as the fact that hydrogen does not reproduce but a living cell does; such as the fact that a cell is a spatial event whereas the mind which can think logic and seek values is nonspatial—they reply that one day they will remove the sting of these obstinate facts by producing life from chemicals, and that, in any case, they are willing to take their chances with this process of scientific reduction which has proved so successful in the past. They are therefore willing to

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explain the appearance of life as a reshuffling of the atomic universe which gradually, and indifferently, produced life and mind, and which one day will, with equal indifference destroy them. For such thinkers, then, no scientifically unobservable forces are at work in the evolution of the biological species; no unseen Mind plans the appearance and survival of such creatures as scientists and artists, who are inspired by visions of goodness, of beauty, and of truth. For no purpose or reason—there is no Mind to experience either—life arrived (even under unusual conditions and the best of preparations, if we are to believe Henderson), and it survives for the same reason that a stone survives as stone: no larger force, no new interaction with the environment, has yet destroyed it. The world we live in is ultimately one inexorable series of events which just happens to produce men, who just happen to have minds which, by discipline in mathematics and in observation, come to understand, during their brief stay, even this unpurposive colossus of energy, or "magic furnace." Insofar as such thinkers are willing to see life, mind, and value as complex variations of principles inherent in life-less, mind-less, value-less matter, they are called materialists.4'4' But if our analysis is correct, the fundamental reason for their conclusion is not the facts but their faith that the ideal of "objective," predictable knowledge will in the end be vindicated, and that this present interpretation of the facts—obstinate or not—must be consistent with that ideal. But there are other thinkers who in the name of the scientific ideal refuse to accept this extreme materialistic philosophy. They call themselves naturalists (or "modern Materialists") and ask us not to yield to those aspects of the materialistic philosophy which 44 The author is aware that some "modern" materialists disavow "reductionism" as one of the blunders of classical materialism. But it is a real question whether their substitution of "integrative levels" is adequate or can maintain itself against the reductionist tendencies within its "explanation" of levels. The reader should consult Philosophy for the Future, edited by R. W. Sellars, V. J. McGill, and M. Farber. New York: The Macmillan Co, 1949, especially the articles by J. B. S. Haldane, C. Judson Hernck, and T. C. Schneirla.

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are not supported by the scientific ideal strictly speaking. What is this unscientific sin of materialism, according to the naturalist ? It is the willingness to accept the reductionist formula which, after all, is no necessary part of the scientific spirit of humility before the facts. If the observable facts seem to indicate the emergence of new types of being, then the formula should be discarded but not the facts. If an appeal to ends or goals needs to be made to explain the behavior of animals and human beings, then by all means let us accept such inferences and not legislate these unique and unpredictable beings out of existence. Naturalists may differ among themselves as to the best interpretation to be given to the data about life, its relation to the mind, or to the mind and its relation to values. At one point they all agree, and at this point they join hands with the materialists. Though they may grant that purposes and mind and values are present as different levels within nature, they insist that there is no purpose to the universe as a whole, that no mind can be discerned behind or within the processes of the world. Naturalist and materialist accuse theists of going beyond the evidence and postulating a scientifically uncheckable Being to suit his interests rather than "the facts." We shall, in our argument for God (Chapters 13, 14, 15), consider whether theism is simply a matter of personal interest. Here we are underscoring the fact that the naturalist's willingness to accept scientific interpretations of the universe as basic (or his willingness to deny interpretations which cannot be checked by scientific appeal to observation) constitutes the main source of his loosely knit conception of the world. But others, J. S. Haldane, for example, are not willing to allow the demands of a scientific criterion of truth to restrict the hypotheses they project. They also want no hypotheses that conflict with incontrovertible scientific discoveries. But they are anxious that all the data of human experience—scientific and nonscientific—be brought before the court of reason in any attempt to interpret the world. On the one hand, they find the contentions of the naturalist more congenial than

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the restrictive, reductive dogmatism of the materialist. On the other hand, they consider the naturalist's restriction of knowledge to what can be checked publicly uncongenial to the human demand for the kind of explanation which allows the data of human experience as a whole to be presented before the court of reason. J. S. Haldane, H. S. Jennings, and others are willing to use teleological explanation either to explain the relations of the parts to each other or to understand the universe as a whole. Theirs is really a third approach, what we called, in Chapter 3, empirical coherence. This is not to say that the use of empirical coherence as the criterion of truth necessarily leads to a theistic conclusion, for there are many thinkers who simply do not find that the organization of the facts leads to belief in some sort of divine principle in the universe. But this conception of the ideal of knowledge—this conception of reason—does enable one to speculate without leaving known facts out {and without distorting them) about the interconnection of man and the universe and the nature of the universe as a whole. To be sure, it is clear at the outset that any hypothesis about the whole of things cannot be checked by the kind of observation which scientific method, restricted as it is to connection between the parts of the world, practices. The reader will be reminded of these three approaches, and the issues they involve as we turn to a closer analysis of the nature of man. QUESTIONS

1. What is meant by "the preparation of the earth for life" ? 1. a. How does Henderson conceive the relation between mechanism and teleology ? b. What are advantages and disadvantages of this ? 3. Summarize the Schrodinger's view of life. 4. a. At what points does Shernngton side with Simpsaa and Dobzhansky against Henderson and Schrodinger? b. Why does he disagree with the former ?

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5. What does the author mean in this and other chapters by the "faith of the mechanist" regarding explanation ? 6. Summarize Sherrington's thinking with regard to matter, life, and mind, and concerning the aims of human existence. 7. What conclusions about the universe as a whole does Sherrington draw from examining the problem of pain ? 8. How do J. S. Haldane's views differ from those of Sherrington, especially regarding the interpretation of science and of values ? 9. What is the author's conclusion regarding the relation of hypotheses to "the facts"? 10. a. Why does the scientific ideal of knowledge tend to influence the interpretation of what really is ? b. Relate the answer to the problem of interpreting matter, life, mind, and values. 11. a. Differentiate the materialistic and the naturalistic approach to problems. b. In what way would the materialist and the naturalist criticize those whose approach is empirically coherent? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution, (trans. Arthur Mitchell). New York: Henry Holt and Co., Inc., 1911. . The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, (trans. R. A. Audra and C. Brereton). New York: Henry Holt and Co., Inc., 1935. Boodin, John E. Three Interpretations of the Universe. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1934. du Noiiy, M. Lecomte. Human Destiny. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1947. . The Road to Reason. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1949. Haldane, John Scott. Mechanism, Life, and Personality. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1921. Huxley, Julian. Essays of a Biologist. London: Chatto & Windus, 1923. Morgan, C. Lloyd. Life, Mind, and Spirit. New York: Henry Holt & Co., Inc., 1925. . Emergent Evolution. London: William & Norgate, 1923. . Mind at the Crossways. New York: Henry Holt & Co., Inc., 1930.

8 HOW SHALL WE THINK OF MAN?

THE discussion in the last two chapters was intended in part to clarify our conception of man's relation to the physical universe and to the animal kingdom. We must now consider at closer range man's own nature and the fundamental issues involved in the interpretation of human activities. § I. IS MAN A COMPLICATED PHYSICAL MACHINE?

Are human beings complex animals? An unsentimental look at a newborn baby is a blow to our egos. Here, certainly, is physical incompetence—especially if the human infant is compared to a newborn calf or kitten. One might seem a bit generous even when he defines this infantile creature as a skin stretched over a bundle of appetites—for food, for rest, for exercise. Surely, at this stage, "man" is no rational animal; he is closer to an awkward animal. Even through his first two years, the baby might remind one more of a digestive system on legs, aided by arms, than anything else. "Man is a mass of protoplasm moving about on the face of the earth. His movements are lawful. He interacts with other protoplasmic masses in a variety of ways...." And the psychologist, Professor Boring, concludes: "That is what a person is: needy protoplasm with all these properties."1 Of course we know that the child will soon outstrip any animal in his ability to adapt to varied living conditions. Nevertheless, this portrait of the human being is more of a caricature than the 1 Edwin G. Baring, H. S. Langfeld, and H. P. Weld, Introduction to Psychology. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1939, pp. 6-7.

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192 • How Shall We Think of truth. This outlook must be given up, however, not because it is unflattering, but because even physiological psychologists are confronted with some additional facts. If the only needs man has are for physical survival and comfort, how shall we explain those needs which clearly distinguish man from animal—his craving for knowledge, for companions and friendship, for sympathy and love, for adventure, for creativeness and mastery, for laughter, for beauty and holiness ? This problem of accounting for the development of uniquely human cravings is one of the knottiest problems confronting modern psychology. This is hardly the place to debate all the issues. But it is the place to examine some of the assumptions which have been made by many thinkers in the last quarter century. Let us take a closer look at this view which sees man as a physiological creature. Is man a complicated robot? In starting with an infant and comparing him to an animal, in comparing the animal in turn to a plant, and the plant to a nonliving thing, some scholars, as we saw in the last chapter, have been tempted to explain the higher developments as complications of the lower. All living things— the human body as well as plants and animals—are revelations of what chemicals can become under certain conditions. Indeed, if only we knew enough about chemistry and physics we could produce life from the ingredients of our test tubes. For Nature is a great Mixing Machine whose many facets in its own good time yield all kinds of creatures in accordance with the various laws of mixture. When we understand the secrets of combination, we shall understand the animal and human worlds which at first glance seem to operate on quite different principles, seem impossible to compute, and seem at many points unpredictable. For the time being we may go on using words like "life" and "purpose," terms like "mind" and "soul" and "spirit," but at some future date we shall be able to rid ourselves of any lingering notion that they refer to something nonphysical or nonspatial. So the materialist holds. And he will point with just pride at

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the way in which men have been able to rid themselves of the idea that planets have souls, that physical things move in obedience to some inner purpose. One by one, as he tells it, the strongholds of "spiritual powers" have fallen to hard-boiled, accurate observation and analysis. Whether we studied the atom, the white rat, or the chimpanzee, we have gotten along very well without bringing in any reference to "mind" or "soul." Why, then, when we come to man, not think of him merely as a complicated network of braincells, nerves, muscles, bones, and glands, a marvelous robot working with hidden machine-like precision.2 A contemporary psychologist is explicit about this mechanical model for explaining human conduct. Professor C. L. Hull says that in order to keep himself from succumbing to the temptation of regarding man as a purposeful creature, he forces himself "from time to time" to regard "the behaving organism as a completely self-maintaining robot, constructed of materials as unlike ourselves as may be." 3 Such imaginings are encouraged by inventions in the field of "self-regulating" machines, such as torpedoes which "respond" to sound, and mechanical "brains" capable of highly complicated mathematical computation. "Something analogous to a memory," in the words of J. B. S. Haldane, is well-illustrated in the operations of the Eniac calculator, which he describes as follows: This calculator has two recording systems. On the one hand the results of former calculations are recorded on punched cards, which can be automatically used to motivate a subsequent calculation. On the other hand the results of the 2

C. M. Campbell at one time graphically characterized this perspective: "The enthusiastic endocrinologist will translate not only the bodily traits but the whole personality of Cassius into his endocrine formula, and with his glance focused on the pituitary gland have little interest in the organization of all the other forces which make up that sombre personality.... For this worker not Wellington nor Blijcher is the agent of destiny, but providence worked out its will by determining an early failure of the great man's pituitary gland." C. MacFie Campbell, "On Certain Contributions to the Study of Personality"' in C. M. Campbell, ed., Problems of Personality. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc., 1925, p. 66. 3 C. L. Hull, Principles of Behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1943, p. 27.

194 ' How Shall We Think of Jttan? current calculations are kept in being as a system of electrical pulses passing through a mercury trough and then repeated by a series of valves so as not to lose any precision. They can then circulate for a considerable time, becoming available again at a later stage. Further, the action of such a machine is quite irreversible. [Haldane concludes:] It is certain that the study of such machines will throw a great deal of light on biology and particularly on the action of the nervous system.4 Haldane himself cautiously adds that a materialistic explanation may be of service though finally inadequate.5 But the materialistic ideal of explaining mental experience and nervous and glandular processes by involving no principle new to physics and chemistry is clear. "Objective" psychologists operate on the assumption that this clear-cut materialistic picture of man will turn out to be true. For them thinking is an activity of the association areas of the brain, sensing takes place in the appointed lobes, emotion is a thalamic function, will is a product of habit formation, and moral obligation is a residue of the tussle which has gone on between the individual and the demands of society. The words "mind" or "soul" are simply ways of designating different levels of organization: the primary one, physical; the secondary one, physiological. If we really desire to improve mankind, we must discover which constitutional types produce weak personalities and, by discriminate breeding, as one author suggests, eliminate the undesirable types.6 Or is man more than physical? As already suggested, there have been, and are, biologists and psychologists who are far from satis* J. B. S. Haldane, "Physics, Chemistry, and Biology," in R. W. Sellars, V. J. McGill, and M. Farber, eds., Philosophy for the Future. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1949, p. 210. See Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1948. 5 J. B. S. Haldane, op. at, p. 211. That some contemporary materialists disavow such "reducaonism" is clear from this volume. But whether the materialist can succeed in this effort or, if he does, can still remain a materialist requires more analysis than is possible here. 6 Cf. W. H. Sheldon, "Constitutional Factors in Personality," in J. McV. Hunt, Personality and the Behavior Disorders. New York: The Ronald Press, 1944, I, p. 6.

How Shall We Think of ^Man? • 195 fied with this one-dimensional physicochemical picture. The cost of simplicity in explanation is too high, especially when it makes so many significant features of the behavior of higher animals and of human experience actually harder to understand. Have the experiences of love and friendship been clarified by saying that they depend altogether upon the action of glandular secretions? Do we better understand one's longing for truth by saying that it results from the particular way in which the atoms in the brain fall together? Is the devotion of a mother, or the bitterness of a slave, even remotely suggested by the twitches of nerves and the currents of electricity? No wonder that this objective psychology has been stoutly contested. Professor Gordon W. Allport, the strongest proponent of the personalistic emphasis in psychology, opposes any attempt to regard the many-faceted adult as the mere product of biological forces interacting with cultural influences. For, as he says, the "personality itself supplies many of the forces to which it must adjust." 7 Of course the chemistry of the body will influence the emotions of persons, but "there is still no reason to suppose that a specific and proportional relation exists between the chemical and psychic constitution of normal people." 8 Imagination and reason play an important part in the development of personality; the way a person acts depends on how he regards any particular situation, given his own unique attitudes, traits, and even philosophy of life. More specifically, on Allport's view, as a child grows in intelligence and imagination in his social setting, he develops a wide range of motives or interests which are different in quality from the physical needs of infancy. Growth is not simply outgrowth but new growth. An individual's adjustments to life reflect these new motives which are not variations on old themes. For example, a man who in his youth worked skilfully in order 7 Gordon W. Allport, Personality: A Psychological Interpretation. New York: Henry Holt Co., Inc., 1937, p. 119. 8 Ibid., p. 120.

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to keep his job does not necessarily give up his accurate craftsmanship the moment he is "well-off." We should expect this, if working skilfully were simply a means of making a living. But the fact is that a good craftsman who develops his skill in order to survive may go on working skilfully when he no longer needs a job. His new motive for masterly work is not his hunger or physical comfort but rather the present "go" (ego) of his personality. The child who wanted only comfort has now become a personality whose motives are transformed; his personality has new dimensions. Allport, then, resists every attempt to reduce the uniqueness of human personality to forces either within or outside it which fail to explain the growing dynamic, possible and actual, in human existence. Other developments in contemporary and recent psychology might be cited against the one-dimensional physiological view of man. But we must now turn to a philosophical level of analysis and see why still other thinkers have renounced a purely physiological view of mind. § 2. DOES MAN HAVE A NONSPATIAL MIND?

Ideas are not spatial. Let us start with a two-year-old's brain. The brain areas controlling language have developed and the child is beginning to talk. Now, there is no doubt that in the brain cells something is happening when a little girl is talking. But as the child speaks the word tulip she certainly is not conscious of such changes. What is happening in the brain is measurable on a physical or space-time scale. But the child is conscious of no vibration, no rapidity, no weight, when she says tulip. Assuming she knows what she is talking about, we say she is thinking about something which is outside her skull, there in the garden. The word tulip is at one point air-vibration, and then a complex sound, but the thought is not experienced as a vibration, and we certainly are not conscious of it as occupying space. Not only is the thought not experienced as spatial, but upon analysis none of the qualities we attribute to spatial entities applies to it.

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Again, the physical tulip may be long or tall; it has a certain pattern, and it bends in the breeze. The thought, however, is certainly not tall or long! But it has some physical pattern as a spatial brain-event, I am told. Granted, but does the idea of a tulip have any spatial dimension or spatial pattern ? Surely not! If we insist that the idea is in the brain, then we must suppose that, in addition to the space-time components of the brain, there lies in the brain something which as experience has no sides, no longitude, no vibration, no space-pattern to it! Faced with this absurd consequence we may still blink our eyes and say: It can't be! An idea must be spatial; it must be in the brain; it must be brain! The reply: There is no characteristic of a conscious experience which has any of the properties of brain-events as described by a physiologist. In this instance, once we stop to think, we are forced to recognize that our thought about the tulip is nonspatial even though we think the tulip as spatial. Furthermore, most of our mental experience has no reference to any spatial quality. Can the reader discover any spatial quality in his experience of the meaning of n, let alone of equality and love ? Again, can he spatialize the idea of "since," "therefore," "because," and "although"? Surely, all these unpicturable things do not lie encased in cells which lie side by side in the skull. There is more in human experience than a space-minded ideology can explain. Thinking is neither spatial, nor controlled by laws of physics. But this is just the beginning. Soon the little girl exclaims: "Tulips are flowers, too!" Do these word-symbols lie in the brain side by side, as they do on paper ? Of course not, although they are probably related to electrical brain-events which are spatially and temporally connected with each other. Another kind of connection is now called for which makes no sense in terms of electrical energy. When the girl says: "Tulips are flowers, too," she means that tulips are in the class of entities which have certain common properties. That does not mean that they are spatially in that class, for there are in fact no such things as "flowers," anywhere in space. There are roses, daisies, tulips and so on, but no flowers as

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such (and, strictly speaking, there are no "roses"—only particular roses). We thin\ flowers. Thus, to exclaim: "Tulips are flowers, too!" is to say that included in the thinking of persons who can notice this common factor among all other flowers and tulips is the consciousness of that connection. But a moment's introspection shows us that the connection or relation we are thinking of is not a spatial inclusion or connection. All we can say is simply that a person sees the connection, which is not a spatial connection, between tulip and flower. Indeed, it is this easily overlooked capacity to make nonspatial connections, this capacity to "see" some common factors hidden amongst differences, which we call thinking. But this capacity is certainly no more spatial than the logical connections it considers. When we say "mother is good" or "x2 -f- y2 = 0," we are undergoing a certain kind of activity which we call judgment, an activity of mind, expressed by words, which connects ideas and experiences with each other in different ways. As we introspect this kind of conscious activity, do we note any of the qualities which we attribute to anything in space ? Would we say that these activities are long, wide, or deep, as we should say of any spatial object or brain cell? What would a wide or narrow thinking-process be? If I am told that electrical activities are going on in the brain cells, what else can I reply but that these ideas, and the thinking of them, are certainly not experienced as electrical activity? Whatever the final relation of thinking and ideas may be to electricity, they are not, as experienced, electrical, if only because experience is mental, whereas electricity is nonmental. We must follow this line of reasoning a step further. Conscious thinking itself, once it is going, is not controlled by the laws of physics and chemistry as are the brain cells. Thinking is an activity different from any other type of activity we know in the physical world. When we think, we relate experiences to each other in different ways (as being the same, different, after, larger than, added to, contrary to, and so on).

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Let us suppose that a person hears two statements: "Tulips are flowers," and immediately following, referring to the same object: "These tulips are not flowers." If he understands what those statements mean, he will not say: "That's heavy," or "That's hard." These assertions might apply to physical relationships, but they certainly do not apply here. What he does say is: "That's illogical! That can't be so. If tulips are flowers, then these tulips must be flowers!" And he will not have it otherwise, unless he be shown his inconsistency. What have we discovered here? We have discovered that this activity of thinking seems not satisfied, like a vacuum cleaner, to take everything that lies in its path. It seems to conform to certain laws—not laws of physics, but laws of thought—the laws of logic. Without adherence to these logical laws, human beings would be in hopeless mental confusion. For example, a basic law of thinking, comparable to the law of gravitation in the physical world, is the law which insists that we keep our meanings constant: boy is boy; tulips are tulips. If we could allow the meaning of boy to be non-boy, or to be boy and non-boy at the same time, we could have no order in our minds, and no language or speech, let alone mathematics. Note that this law: A is A (called the Law of Identity) "pulls" together ideas which belong together—but not as the law of gravitation does. No "force" operates here, but a curious "ought." No one is compelled to say: boy is boy, or, boy is not non-boy. Physical laws we cannot escape, whether we wish to or not. Logical laws, however, are ideals that we have to observe if we expect to make sense either to ourselves or to others. We respond to known inconsistency by urging: "It ought to be so and so," or "It must be this, since you said that, and this is implied by that." Thus, thinking, a nonspatial activity, introduces us to a new realm of law, logical law, which exists only for thinking beings. The connections of logic, of implication, and of inference are certainly not in space, nor are they spatial in any sense. Here is an absolutely unique kind of connection. To say that it takes place

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Similarly every activity in space, every event in the brain, is the product of other spatial events immediately or indirectly affecting it. But when human beings do something "on purpose," they do something now because they are being influenced both by their consciousness of the past and also by their anticipation of the future. No purposeful action can be completely accounted for by surrounding circumstances. A person must think about his experiences and aim his present action toward an end he has now in mind but of whose accomplishment he has no assurance. Let us take a simple example. No baseball may be said to go over the left fielder's head in order to swell a batting-average and win a game; it is not a "homer" by any intention of its own, but because of the impact of a certain bat and other conditions, such as wind, constantly impinging upon its nature as a baseball. But the human batter had his mind on left field and his eye on the ball, with a view to improving his batting average and to winning the game. What does he do in hitting his home-run ? He coordinates his movements, themselves spatial, to achieve his objective, which, as he thinks it, is not spatial. The same batter might be satisfied with a sacrifice-bunt under different conditions (such as the purposes of his manager or the plans of the pitcher who pitches one kind of ball rather than another to satisfy his own purposes). But whatever adjustment the batter pursues, after the ball has once been hit, one could trace its movements to the forces in the environment, to the movements of muscle and bone, to brain-events, without leaving the circuit of "caused by some impinging event." Yet the thing which makes the real difference between a home-run and a "sacrifice" is the end or goal held "in mind." It was that purpose in mind which called for the coordination of means to that end; the relation of the means to each other is not understandable without reference to that purpose. While logical thinking introduced us to a new type of activity and law, purposeful thinking introduces us to an activity which can alter the course of events within the person and the world by relating them to an unrealized event or end. (Later, when we

202 • How Shall We Think of <Man> consider the nature of moral obligation, we shall note another level of uniquely human activity.) When William James said that mind was a "fighter for ends," he put his finger on the activity which, concentrating mental energy on a nonpresent goal, is an outstanding mark of mental activity, as opposed to physical activity. For man wants; and he can think out purposes or ends which will allow him to satisfy those wants with a minimum of conflict. The conclusion that there is nonphysical activity (or, as we shall now say, mental or psychic activity) as well as physical and physiological energy could be further vindicated by analyzing what we mean by sensation, imagination, feeling, and emotion. Here the above must suffice as background for the conception of mind now to be considered. There are many other problems to be solved (such as the exact relation of the mind and body), but the present purpose has been simply to justify the claim that the human person cannot be reduced to biological or physical energy. A more thorough investigation of the ultimate nature of what we call organic and inorganic matter would be necessary to throw further light on the relation of mind to body.9 Whatever the ultimate solution of that problem, what we now assume is that the human mind is an irreducible kind of being, not identical with its body and not dependent upon the body for its existence, though affected by the body. We shall examine this matter further when we discuss the grounds for immortality. Now we need to be clearer about the positive structure of mind and its basic activities. 9 If the body itself is constituted by the activity either of subhuman mental units or of the activity of a superhuman Mind, as is held by two types of idealistic philosophy, we could solve the problem—among others—of how a nonspatial being can interact with a spatial being and vice-versa But we shall not argue for either position here The basic argument of this book does not presuppose an idealistic solution of the mind-body or mind-matter problem, though the author believes that the most satisfactory solution will be found in this direction.

How Shall We Think of <Mat$ * 203 $ 3. WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A PERSONAL MIND

When we inspect our mental activity from within, what do we find? We discover conscious activity; that is, we find ourselves being aware of ourselves, or of ourselves being conscious of something or other. We soon discover that we can be conscious without being aware of consciousness: thus I may be aware of my writing without being aware that I am aware of it. What we mean by / refers both to this fact of self-conscious existence and of conscious existence without clear-cut awareness of itself. I am my consciousness, my conscious activity. Whatever else / may be discovered to be, I am at least consciousness and self-consciousness. But what is consciousness ? We soon realize that we cannot tell what it is without referring to what happens whenever we are at all conscious. Whenever we are conscious we are feeling pleasant or unpleasant, we are sensing, remembering, imagining, perceiving, thinking, purposing, wanting, willing, oughting. But we are more than these activities—each nonspatial, note!—as activities. Each of us realizes that at every moment, whether he is absorbed in sensing or wanting, he is a one existent, on-going, unified being. Thinking, feeling, willing, wanting and the others—these activities are not compartmentalized; they are not separable faculties which, if put together, would compose each one of us. Nor do they seem to be properties of some underlying subject which is itself not conscious (or not thinking) but "capable" of thinking and the other conscious activities. These activities constitute all that it means to be one subject. The /, the self, the person, the conscious being (all used as synonyms here) is the complex unity of activity which consists in sensing, thinking, wanting, imagining, willing, oughting. The unity of this conscious activity cannot be overemphasized. There is no moment of feeling in which there is not at least the background of thinking, sensing, and wanting, and vice-versa. Accordingly, to say that the self or person things is to say that the person is focally active in thought and peripherally active in various de-

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grees of feeling. At the moment that I am focally aware of what I am trying to say, I am also conscious, but not so focally, of the paper and the movement of my pen, and even less focally conscious of the emotion present. Let us venture a minimal definition of a person as known from within, realizing that analysis would isolate more activities than appear in this definition. A person is the unified experiences of sensing, remembering, imagining, perceiving, -judging, or thinking, feeling, emoting, oughting, and willing. We must not miss the significance of remembering, for it points to an inexpressibly important fact. Without remembering, the unity of experience would be impossible as we "flit" from moment to moment; without it no man can maintain his self-identity as he grows from infancy onward. Because he can remember, a man can imaginatively visualize what may be but is not yet, and thus he may improve his adjustment. No, it is not enough to say that man is a complicated animal. The most complicated animal mind and body is not a person. A person is not only more plastic than the highest animal; he is capable of self-consciousness and of self-direction, unknown in them. Because persons can remember, think logically, and speak, they are capable of communicating their experience and knowledge by means of word-symbols. Unless men could do this they could not preserve their own discoveries for their children; there could be no reservoir of culture unifying men into a civilized community. Furthermore, man would have no values to pass on to his children if he could not conceive plans of action (ideals) and conform his actions to them. The choice before a person is not to be a better or worse animal; when a person tries to be even a good animal, the animals, if they could, might well bow their heads in shame.

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§ 4. ARE ALL THE MOTIVES OF MEN PHYSIOLOGICAL?

The difference motives make. If what has been said has merit, it reopens another very important question concerning the nature of man, namely, what motivates him. Human beings, like animals, experience desires, emotions, and wants which move them to respond to their environment selectively. A hungry dog or a hungry man is more sensitive—other wants allowing—to edible things in his environment. Both man and dog apply their abilities, mental and physical, to satisfying that want when it is dominant. In general, we may say, any segment of human behavior can be understood in terms of the wants and abilities that constitute the individual, as affected by the environment of things and persons in which he lives or conceives himself as living. Owing to his generally superior and plastic physiology, owing to his capacity to imagine, to symbolize and to think, a person can satisfy his wants in more varied ways and in more varied environments than can animals; and he can vary the satisfaction of his wants to suit both his abilities and environment. (Compare the varied satisfaction of hunger in human beings with that of animals.) Clearly, what a man does with his superior abilities in his environment is influenced in large measure by the nature of his wants. It might well be said: "Tell me what a man wants, and I'll tell you in what environment you will find him, granted certain abilities." Indeed, persons with similar abilities (but moved by different goals) live in different worlds, as may be seen by comparing the man who wants wealth above all things to the man who wants knowledge as well as money, or in preference to money. Our insight into the nature of man is deepened as we approach the answer to three questions. First, do men have any wants in common, simply by virtue of the fact that they are men—that is, regardless of the environment in which they find themselves? Second, if there are such universal wants, what is their nature?

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Third, to what extent can human learning redirect, transform, add to, or eliminate a man's given innate drives ? Grounds for considering all motives physiological. Each of these questions is quite involved, and controversy is still keen among scholars who are interested in what may be expected of men and to what extent they may alter themselves, their society, and their environment. This is hardly the place to debate all the issues, but the decision one makes as to the essential nature of mind may well influence his thinking about the innate or unlearned wants or motives of men.10 Thus, those psychologists who are convinced that there is no such thing as uniquely mental energy have defined what they called primary or innate drives in the individual in terms of bodily components. Certain that all men have bodies, but doubtful that they have "minds" in any way definable apart from body, they have insisted that in the last analysis all basic human needs can be localized in the unstable equilibrium or tensions of bodily organs. Such motives can be objectively identified, and this meets the scientific demand for public knowledge. Consequently, no psychologist has denied that there are universal, innate drives or motives for food, for rest, for exercise, for sexual satisfaction, and other physiological needs which enable the body to survive; few men have denied that the emotions of anger and fear are universally present to enable the individual to ward off danger. These so-called primary drives and emotions, localizable in the nervous system and glands, create no basic problem. But what has happened to other motives and emotions which activate normal human behavior, especially urges like tenderness, sympathy, mastery, submissiveness, curiosity, and creativity ? They are said to be learned as a result of pressures experienced in the course of adjusting to one's society. Thus most contemporary psychologists would insist that everybody, regardless of ability and environment, may be expected to experience the desire to satisfy hunger and sex. 10 The words instinct, fundamental urge, propensity, tension gradient, need, and drive are applied to motives by various schools of psychology.

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But whether every person is motivated to be sympathetic or tender depends upon his ability and environment. Such "nonphysiological" motives may become second-nature, and second-nature, to be sure, can be very potent; but sympathy and tenderness cannot be expected to activate a human being simply because he is human. These motives and others like them, frequently called "psychogenie," are secondary or derived from interaction with one's culture. Certainly, it is no easy problem to determine what the uniform, unlearned motives of men are, once localization in the body is impossible. So many different lists of universal motives have been proposed that agreement seems out of reach. Why not then agree with the present psychological orthodoxy and settle the problem by denying that there are any unlearned and universal motives except those which can be objectively related to human physiology ? And why not agree that all mental or psychogenic needs are learned in the process of living in a society? In this way, whenever people do have the same motives, they can be ascribed to similarities in ability and in culture. Grounds for postulating mental motives. The author of this book is not satisfied with a solution which seems more convenient than penetrating or one that neglects certain aspects of human experience. Several difficulties stand in the way of confidence in the view that only physiological motives are universal and all others acquired through learning under the pressure of one's society. The fundamental question is: Can society create a positive urge, want, or motive? For example, can society create the want to understand, the want to protect the helpless, the want to overcome obstacles, the want to alleviate suffering ? We can understand how society, by appealing to the individual's fear lest survival-wants be denied, might force the frightened and insecure individual to help others, to overcome obstacles, and to learn what is necessary for social approval. So society can also force the individual to eat, to fight, and to have sexual experience when he does not want to.

2o8 • How Shall We Think of <Man> But the question is: Could it force him to want such experience and behavior ? Could it force persons to want to create, to wonder, to respect, if there were no tendencies to do so already in the human person ? Furthermore, if the underlying pattern of human motivation includes such mental urges, how do these originally come to be present in society ? If, on the other hand, persons, over and above their bodily constitution, also have a mental or psychic structure, it becomes more plausible to believe that human beings have innate mental motives as well as physical drives. This does not mean that the psychic motives exist without reference to physical motives. But it does mean that inability to localize psychic motives in the body fails to justify the view that all motives have a physiological origin. If there is an unlearned readiness in the physical make-up of human beings to act in certain ways once an adequate stimulus is felt, why should we not expect the mental structure also to have latent within it, along with its cognitive capacities, certain tendencies-torespond (or motives), which express the mind's demands upon the world? Such motives would no more be the by-product of social interaction than are the physiological motives (though, like the latter, they would be expressed and modified in accordance with the physical and mental abilities of the individual in response to environmental pressures). Lest it still seem that we are separating mental motives from physical motives, we must recall the actual facts of experience— that there are varying degrees of "mental" and "physical" components in each motive. In any case, mental motives are woven together into the fabric of the interacting mind-body we call man. But the fact we would emphasize is that for a normal human being, psychic motives are not the mere by-products of the struggle to satisfy physical needs in a social environment. Indeed, psychic motives not only make themselves felt on their own account, but they may enhance, restrict, and redirect physical motives. Thus a man may be willing to eat less, or put up with less physical or economic security, in order to keep a position

How Shall We Think of <Man? • zo? which gives him the opportunity to increase his understanding or to help relieve the needs of others. The alert reader may now observe: Granted, as you say, that some conception of native mental motives is plausible, does analysis of human experience allow the listing of any universal motives latent in the mental constitution of man ? Will not the thesis that there are universal psychic motives succumb to the same old difficulty—human beings will be found who do not seem to be activated by such motives ? What then happens to your thesis that there are universal motives which express the nature of the human being in his psychic aspect as do the physiological motives on the physical side ? The answer must be brief, but it will serve to suggest the core of our contention. The test of universality of psychic motives is not whether every individual at some time or other overtly behaves as if he were curious, or sympathetic, for example. This obviously is going to make "scientific" agreement more difficult, since no common pattern of behavior will be visible to the outside observer. The test is whether individuals ever feel the impetus, whether they ever want, to explore, to master—and not whether they actually do or seem to others so to want. Our sole contention is that at whatever time in the individual's experience the following motives are felt, they are not the products of learning and adjustment but themselves motivate learning and adjustment in a given environment. Why can they not be learned? Once more the answer must be so brief as to appear dogmatic. But let the reader ask himself whether the experience of wonder (or of sympathy, or of elation) could ever be a development or by-product of fear, of hunger, of anger, of sex, or any compound of these. And let him remember that the essence of each of these experiences is a certain felt want to act in one way rather than another. We would, in the last analysis, rest our case for fundamental psychic motives on the fact that whenever they do make themselves felt in the life of a person,

zio ' How Shall We Think of *Man? they each carry their own unique inner "push" and "pull"; the person motivated by wonder feels the impetus to explore (and not run away from) a problem; and if there is no serious conflict with other motives, such as fear or anger, he usually does so. As this example illustrates, there is nothing about mental motives which drives one willy-nilly to their fulfillment, though the strength of these motives will vary with the individual, as happens with physical motives. (Witness the individual who, in the throes of sympathy, gives without intelligent restraint.) But the whole notion that mental motives should follow the "must-pattern" of the physiological survival motives illustrates the bias which has operated in the thinking about basic psychic motives.11 Mental motives do not, in most of us, make themselves felt as regularly and as persistently as physiological drives. But does this prove that they are not as important to the survival of what it means to be a human mind—as physiological motives are to the life of the body ? The question for the reader to ask, therefore, as he considers the validity of the following six psychic motives, is: Does the normal man ever experience the urge,'the want, to pursue the course of action designated ? And is the motive as experienced one which he could learn if he had no potentiality for it in advance of the actual stimulus ? § J. SOME PSYCHIC NEEDS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS

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Mastery. Other things being equal, if a person is pursuing some goal and encounters an obstacle, he will want to overcome the obstacle. He actually may defer to some other motive and yield to the obstacle, but he does not do this without experiencing the 11 The truth is that the "must-pattern" of physiological motives such as hunger and thirst is not an absolute must, since persons can allow themselves to die of self-imposed starvation of thirst. 12 The author has been especially influenced in his conception of motivation by the work of William McDougall and Gordon W. Allport, though both would find the above view of motivation inadequate.

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want to assert himself against it. If he overcomes the resistance, he experiences elation ^ It would be easy to assert, as so many psychologists have done, that this experience is simply a form of anger. When one is angry he struggles against an unwanted restriction. But the initial reaction to an obstacle need not be anger, even though continued resistance and frustration may call anger and aggressiveness into play. The urge to mastery as experienced does not feel the same as the urge to vent one's anger. Can it be a by-product of it, or of any other emotion ? It is also easy to see how the desire to overcome resistance can develop into selfishness. Other persons and their desires may be seen simply as obstacles to the satisfaction of one's own wants. But there is nothing about the motive of mastery itself which forces individuals to hurt other persons. In a word, selfishness may spring from the mastery motive, but so may the desire to overcome obstacles in the way of helping other persons. Succor-Sympathy. Other things being equal, in the presence of another's suffering (understood as suffering) a normal person experiences the want, or inner urge, to relieve that person s distress^ This does not mean that every time a person views suffering, he immediately does something (or the right thing) to relieve that distress. Human beings are not mechanisms that must respond automatically with a specific kind of behavior when they experience a certain attraction or undergo the stirring of emotion. What is asserted is that the inner ferment, here called sympathy, which makes the person want to do something to alleviate suffering cannot be learned. What can be learned, and what can be taught, is the mode of response. Children and adults may feel the urge to help; in helping they may do the wrong thing, or their 13 See Robert S. Woodworth and Donald G. Marquis, Psychology, 5th ed. New York: Henry Holt & Co., Inc., 1947, Chapter X. See also William McDougall, An Introduction to Social Psychology, rev. Boston: J. W. Luce and Co., 1926, Chapter XI. 14 It will be observed that this definition of sympathy involves more than the consciousness of kind, or the desire to seek and remain in the company of one's fellows, as McDougall, to whom we are otherwise much indebted, emphasized.

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effort to help may be so ungraciously received that they may decide to suppress sympathetic action in the future or even to "ignore" their own feelings. Certain it is that, for one reason or another, we all learn to "harden our hearts" to our own sympathetic impulses. But certain it also is that there would be no necessity for such hardening if we were not already peculiarly sensitive to (known) human distress.15 There is all the difference in the world between "helping" another person because one fears disapproval and helping him because one experiences sympathy for him. But just as some have made the mastery-motive the root of all selfishness, others have made sympathy (and the next motive, tenderness) the spring of all altruism. Once more, it is easy to see how sympathy can become a motive for altruism. But assuming, in Kantian terms, that altruism means the willingness to respect other persons as ends in themselves, and the unwillingness to use them only as means to our ends, sympathy does not insure altruism. It is possible for persons (a mother or a doctor, for example) to feel so "pent-up" in sympathy for a sufferer that they end up by "doing something" which in fact simply relieves their own inner emotional tension. Sympathy is a motive for altruistic action, but it does not necessitate the intelligent other-regarding behavior involved in altruism. Parental Tenderness. Other things being equal, in the presence of a helpless being, a normal person experiences tenderness, the emotional stirring to protect that creature. Sometimes only! one may say, if he expects human motives to work with clock-like precision. But, once more, there is a difference between the feeling of tenderness and the performing of any act (or the appropriate act). Here, as in the case of the other motives, the person experiencing any one impetus may be restrained from carrying out this urge because of the dominance of still other motives and factors 15

The reader will profit from L. B. Murphy's study of the conflict and interrelation between the aggressive and sympathetic feelings of children in Social Behavior and Child Personality. New York: Columbia University Press, 1937.

How Shall We Think of ^Man? • 213 in the situation. But let the reader ask himself whether the tender emotion he feels in the presence of a helpless kitten or child could be produced by training. Persons can be forced to protective behavior by appeal to such other motives as fear, anger, and mastery. But the same behavior feels different if the person experiences tenderness toward the helpless. The neglect of this motive in recent psychological literature probably results from the fact that it has been identified historically with the maternal instinct. Criticism of this instinct called attention to the fact that not all persons wanted children, that helpless children had been killed, sacrificed, left on doorsteps, and otherwise neglected. Whereas some animals might protect their offspring almost automatically, this certainly did not occur among human beings. Therefore the parental tendency was no part of the innate human constitution; rather it was assumed to be the product of social training. But only uncritical reliance on the continuity of man with animal, on the one hand, and the supreme confidence that social pressure could produce such a motive have led to the neglect of one of the most characteristic of human experiences. The emphasis is to be placed on the experience of tenderness that persons— parents and nonparents—feel toward the helpless. And it is easy to see why parents might feel especially tender toward and protective of their child. To be sure, society will do much to determine the specific ways of expressing this motive and in defining the meaning of helplessness. But can it create the inner want to protect? Indeed, if we remove the motives of sympathy and tenderness from the inner tendencies of plastic human nature, we face the difficulty of accounting for human intercourse in which concern for the suffering and the helpless have always been a part of the social cement. Human beings are not insulated psychological atoms who are pushed together only by the fears and angers generated by their needs for food, physical security, and sexual satisfaction.

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Awe-Respect. Other things being equal, in the presence of a being recognized as superior to him in some way, a person experiences awe and the impulse to respect or defer to that person. The word "awe" may be too strong here, but our language of emotion is poor, and this term does seem to designate the fundamental experience of respect. A human being will "salute" what he admires, even if the lauded object is not admired by others. Once more, parents and society will have considerable effect in determining standards of admiration, but they cannot produce that inner experience of awe-respect. The reader may wonder whether this deference or respect (or "submissiveness," as McDougall called it) is not a refined by-product of fear. Many psychologists evidently agree, for the word hardly appears outside the context of fear in contemporary discussion of motivation. It is true that much deference in behavior (or submissiveness) is due to fear. But we are once more led astray if we look to behavior for the clue to innate motives. There is also the submissive behavior born of positive admiration and respect! By the beauty of the sun and stars, by the breath-taking qualities of many works of art, by the scope of ability of many human beings, and by the majesty of God we are overwhelmed—but not with fear. What a difference between the child who defers to his parent or teacher out of fear and the child who defers out of respect! Again, so much that enters our experiences of friendship and love, let alone our religious and aesthetic experiences, is impossible to explain without this responsiveness in human beings. How stilted the suggestion that a person can be pressured by society into respecting another person! Society may and does influence our valuation, and a person can so read the evaluations put upon him by others that he may lose his "self-respect." But to suggest that society produces the responsiveness itself is to make unproved claims or to proclaim miracles which slip by under the label "conditioning."

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Wonder-Curiosity. Other things being equal, in the presence of an object or situation which is strange or novel, and yet not so strange or novel as to call forth fear, a person, will experience wonder and feel the impulse to explore (mentally, or physically, or both) the nature of that object. This particular tendency has not disappeared from as many lists of innate motives as have the others; but only a psychologist embarrassed by the problem of localizing this motive in some part of the nervous system (or by the fact that so many different things make people wonder) could possibly miss it. It is also hasty to conclude that, since curiosity is aroused frequently and urgently in the process of satisfying other drives, like hunger, or is present when drives conflict, it is a by-product of the working of other needs. This is to identify important occasions for the arousal of this urge with the urge itself. To be sure, we are forced to explore areas in which our physical security and comfort are involved; necessity is frequently the mother of invention, but what would have happened if we had always had to wait for necessity before inventing? Wonder operates along with such other motives as hunger, mastery, sex, sympathy, awe; but it is hardly their by-product. It is an independent kind of self-activity, a need of the mind to understand and come to terms with its world. We philosophize in the midst of tragedy, but we also philosophize, as Aristotle said, when we have leisure. Creativity. This word is used to designate an area of experience for which it is difficult to find the appropriate name; creativity is certainly no emotion-word. There is in men, other things being equal, the demand for novelty, an emotional thrust toward some new form of expression and satisfaction}* It is tempting to identify creativity with curiosity, but wondercuriosity is restricted to the area of knowledge, whereas creativity 16 There is support for this motive in the work of C. Jung, and, in a different form, in the assumptions regarding the creative nature of man by Carl Rogers and other adherents of nondirective therapy.

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may apply to every aspect of human activity. Human beings get bored with activity which has lost all variety; being tired is not always a matter of fatigue. Creativity calls for novelty in the satisfaction of all the motives, and, in a sense, is life itself calling for more adequate self-expression. (See moral obligation in the next chapter.) Creativity has no one object or set of objects. It cooperates with no one need more than any other, and it is found in work, in play, in art, in religion; no phase of life escapes its vague or specific spur. Yet it must operate, of course, within the level of abilities and the total calibre of the individual self. However, if creativity suggests the automatic demand for improvement, it is the wrong word, for "creativity" frequently leads to spoiling something good. The problem is to keep the self in its adjustments from growing stale and repetitive; but the novelty may not be an improvement.17 § 6. ARE MEN INTRINSICALLY SELFISH?

Our consideration of the basic motives of men is relevant to the question: Are men by nature selfish? Is there in man an unlearned motive to favor himself at the expense of others? Are the motives of men such that consideration for the needs of others goes against the grain? We shall make no progress in answering this question if we do not define our terms carefully. By selfishness is meant the conscious purpose to achieve one's own ends without regard for, or at the expense of, the relevant needs of other persons. By unselfishness, or altruism, is meant the conscious purpose to aid others to achieve worth-while needs and objectives. This second 17 The importance of creativity is emphasized by Kurt Goldstein when he says: "The tendency to maintain the existent state (self-preservation) is characteristic for sick people and is a sign of... decay of life. The tendency of normal life is toward activity and progress.... Normal behavior corresponds to a continued change of tension, of such a kind that over and again that state of tension is reached which enables and impels the organism to actualize itself in further activity according to its nature." See The Organism. New York: American Book Co., 1939, p. 197.

How Shall We Think of JXfan? • 217 definition leaves open the meaning of the word "worth-while" until an adequate scale of values is supplied. Yet we may suggest that Kant provided basic guidance for defining selfishness and unselfishness when he urged: "Act so that in your own person as well as in the person of every other you are treating mankind also as an end, never merely as a means."1S It must be added immediately that Kant is fully aware—that is the point of the words also and merely—that men cannot live without each other's help. What he considers unethical is the use of other persons simply and only as a means to one's own ends. If, with these definitions in mind, we review the unlearned motives of men as defined above, we realize that there is no one motive whose fulfillment would necessarily entail either altruism or selfishness. The motives of hunger and other needs for physical survival (the sexual urge, and the impetus to overcome obstacles in the way of an on-going activity) might well be considered powerful temptations to selfishness—and the story of human greed and lust for power testifies to the control these may come to exercise over human behavior. The motives of sympathy, tenderness, and awe, on the other hand, might be considered inner springs of altruistic behavior. But such considerations collide with the facts. Reminding ourselves that we are speaking of relatively plastic human beings, there is nothing about the mastery motive (or the sexual motive, or any motive) which forces one willy-nilly to be inconsiderate of the needs of others; and the same may be said about sympathy and tenderness and any other unlearned motive. We have insisted that the particular way in which these motives are satisfied depends upon situation, training, and ability. (The nature of moral obligation, of values, and of will, to be discussed in the following chapters, will affect the complete answer to this question.) But it cannot be emphasized enough that these motives are not coiled inner springs ready to leap into specific action 18 Immanuel Kant, The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics, (trans. Otto Manthey-Zorn). New York: D. Appleton-Century, Inc., 1938, p. 47.

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once their compartments are unlatched. They are distinctions (not separations) open to introspection; they are different manifestations of the total activity of that unified being we call a person. Accordingly, the person motivated by tenderness or sympathy need not fly into altruistic action; and the person motivated by hunger, mastery, fear, anger, or sex need not give way to them by acting without regard to the growth of others. It may also help, as we consider whether or not human beings are innately selfish, to distinguish between self-centeredness and selfishness. There is no doubt that a child is self-centered, but this does not mean that he is necessarily selfish. The child relates the world of things to himself; he is not born with a full-grown conception of what he is in relation to other things and people; he does not know what his own powers are, and his limited understanding, far from yielding adequate insight into the meaning of his actions, tends to relate other people to his wants— what others can do to him and for him. Indeed, he cannot know himself except in relation to the effect he can exert upon his environment of things and people. None of us ever ceases to be self-centered in this sense. But this does not mean that the self around which the world revolves is intrinsically selfish, that it cannot but use others as a mere means to its own security. Whether self-centeredness becomes selfishness or altruism depends upon the conception a person develops of himself and of his relation to others. But some will say: Since the person who helps others get satisfaction from the act, is not the action necessarily selfish? Indeed, since Jesus got satisfaction out of dying, and Judas got satisfaction out of betraying him, why call one act selfish and the other act unselfish? Here, however, the fact that the self is involved in every situation (and is affected by every satisfaction) has been allowed to blur the real difference between the two actions. Suppose we thus express the situation. Every act is a self-act— that is, initiated by a self and satisfying the self at the moment

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when the want is being fulfilled. All satisfaction of wants is self-satisfaction, then, at least at the moment the self is realizing the want. At this point there is no difference between Jesus and Judas, between a person who lives to help others to grow and the person who lives for himself at the expense of others. Both acts are self-satisfying to the self who wanted the act. But the question remains: Are the self-act of Judas and the self-act of Jesus, both of which, to be sure, gave immediate satisfaction, the same? One got immediate satisfaction by being willing to give up his life for what he considered to be the good of others. However, he got satisfaction out of that \ind of act! The other got satisfaction out of using another person, and an innocent friend at that, as a means to the improvement of his own financial and social status. He got satisfaction out of that kind of action. Surely the two actions were not equal just because they were self-acts and, as wanted, brought satisfaction to each person at the time. Selfishness is not identical with unselfishness simply because both bring satisfaction to the respective agents. There is no denying then that there are motives in men which may encourage, without necessitating, selfishness and altruism. No human being escapes the choice as to how and to what ends he will direct his urges. It is outside our present problem to argue whether or not persons ought to be selfish or unselfish. But research in recent psychology keeps reminding us that human beings, regardless of their abilities and needs, prefer to love and be loved, rather than hate. Thus G. W. Airport asserts: The truest statement that can be made of a normal person is that he never feels that he can love or be loved enough. [And Allport continues:] Unless one first loves, one cannot hate, for hatred is an emotion of protest directed always toward real or imagined obstructions that prevent one from reaching objectives that are positively valued, i.e., loved.19 19

G. W. Allport, "A Psychological Approach to the Study of Loie and Hate," Chapter 5 in P. A. Sorokin, ed., Explorations in Altruistic Love and Behavior. Boston: Beacon Press, 1950, pp. 147, 152.

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As Allport further points out, persons want to be recognized and respected, but they also desire to live in harmony with other self-respecting persons. An individual does find it difficult to love another who wounds his self-esteem, but, although the saints among us are few, we know that the best in human society would be impossible unless human beings were able to overlook slights as they strive for a more comprehensive good than their own immediate welfare. It is clear, at any rate, that more than the "raw," uncultivated motives of men is required for the development of lives dominated by love or by hate. § 7. SUMMARY

A human being, then, is a person—a complex unity of mental activity related, but not reducible to, his body. He is endowed in body and mind with abilities that enable him, within limits, to adjust his environment to his wants and his wants to his environment. His wants reflect the intimate interconnections of mind and body: some, like hunger, are clearly localizable in his body; others, like mastery and curiosity, have no special (known) locus in the body; but such wants reflect, nevertheless, the bent of personal striving. Affirming the functional unity of mind and body, we have sought, contrary to the present tendency in psychological theory, to give more adequate recognition to the psychic dimension in human motivation. We have resisted the view that psychic motives are derived through social learning from more basic and unlearned physical wants. This is not, of course, to deny that all innate wants are capable of variation and development in accordance with the abilities and the total attitude toward life learned by the individual. The struggle in every life between selfishness and unselfishness is not resolved at the unlearned level; but, given leanings in both directions, every man faces the problem of choosing the most satisfactory life. We are now ready to consider the problem of free-will, of

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moral obligation, and of values—problems unique to man's nature and situation in the world. QUESTIONS

1. Why is a clear understanding of the nature of man important for a philosophy of religion ? 2. What leads some thinkers to consider man "needy protoplasm" or a robot ? 3. Explain some considerations which would suggest that such a conception is incomplete. 4. Explain the meaning of "materialism" as a way of conceiving the world and man. 5. a. What is the essence of Airport's view of personality ? b. Contrast it with the objectivisms position. 6. a. What is meant by saying that the mind is nonspatial ? b. Suggest some of the evidence for this view. 7. How do the laws of logic differ from physical laws ? 8. Can mind be only another name for the brain, or a part of the brain, or a "function" of the brain ? Explain. 9. What is meant by considering purpose to be a temporal conscious activity ? 10. What is the constitution of a self or person ? 11. What is meant by "the unity of conscious activity" ? 12. What difference do needs and wants make to human behavior? 13. a. What reasoning is given for regarding all motives to be physiological ? b. How does one explain common secondary motives on this view? 14. Are all needs reducible to primary physiological deficiencies? Explain the author's view. 15. How would the author test for the universality of mental motives? 16. a. Enumerate and explain the six psychic needs mentioned by the author. b. Do you think of others which should be added ? Why ? c. Do you think any of those listed should be eliminated ? Why ? 17. Does the drive for mastery mean that man is basically selfish? Explain.

iiz • How Shall We Think of 18. Would the satisfaction of these drives always, in all forms, serve the best interests of the persons affected? Discuss. 19. a. How is selfishness defined ? b. Why is it important to distinguish between selfishness and selfcenteredness ? 20. Write a concise but inclusive description of human nature as suggested in this chapter. At what points would you differ most? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Akhilananda, Swami. Hindu Psychology. New York: Harper & Bros., 1946, Chapters III, IV, V. Allan, Denison M. The Realm of Personality. New York: AbingdonCokesbury Press, 1947, Chapters II, III. Allport, Gordon W. The Nature of Personality: Selected Papers. Cambridge : Addison-Wesley Press, Inc., 1950. • . Personality: A Psychological Interpretation. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1937, Chapters I, IV, VI, VII. Brightman, Edgar S. A Philosophy of Ideals. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1928, Chapter I. Fromm, Erich. Escape from Freedom. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1941, Chapters I, II. Horney, Karen. The Neurotic Personality of Our Time. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1937. Klineberg, Otto. Social Psychology. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1940, Chapters IV-VII. Loos, A. William, ed., The Nature of Man. New York: The Church Peace Union, 1950, Chapters I, II, IV, VI, IX. McDougall, William. The Energies of Men. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933, Chapters IV-XIV. Munn, Norman L. Psychology. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1946, Chapters XI-XVI. Vaughan, Wayland F. General Psychology, (rev.). New York: Odyssey Press, 1939, Chapters I, VI, VII. Woodworth, Roberts S., and Donald G. Marquis. Psychology, 5th ed. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1948, Chapters X, XL

9 PERSONALITY, FREE WILL, AND MORAL OBLIGATION

§ I. WHAT IS A PERSONALITY?

THE human being we described in the last chapter is a psychophysical being whose wants render him sensitive to the world around him. His problem is to find adequate satisfaction for these physical and mental wants as allowed by his maturing physical and mental abilities. In learning to adjust his needs and abilities to each other and to the environment, he builds habits of thinking, acting, and feeling both toward himself and toward his world. Thus, he walks and talks in certain ways; he listens, converses, and forms conclusions; he favors some people and things more than others, and some situations find him responding with considerable emotional excitement. As he grows older these habits, sentiments, and dispositions become related to each other in various ways and gradually come to form what we call the personality of the individual. A human being's personality, we may say, is his unique and dynamic mode of adjustment to his own nature and the world. In the process of living, a person's nature is affected by the influences coming to bear upon him; the home, school, playground, church, social organizations, work-environment challenge his capacities and leave their marks on his particular structure. However, he is far from neutral to these influences. He is more respon223

224 ' 'Personality, Free Will, ^Moral Obligation sive and plastic in some ways than others, and he ploughs the course his own basic developing nature makes possible. Thus, children brought up in the same home and community develop different personalities because their natures differ in responsiveness to their world as they each seek an adequate modus vivendi. As they grow older they find themselves having to deal not only with other persons and the world but also with the habits and dispositions which make up their own developing personalities. Once certain habits and attitudes are formed, they stand as obstacles to new adjustments the children should make; the personality pattern, itself a product of learning, is beginning to restrict ease of choice and further development. This is a very interesting and important fact. Even language habits illustrate it. Do we not learn to express our thoughts through a specific language and then find that it becomes almost impossible for us to think except in terms of that language? Similarly, we find that the personalities we develop restrict the channels for the expression of native wants and abilities. Other persons see us in our personalities. However, although what other people think of us may be important, our personality is our own more or less unified pattern of adjustment, much of which is hidden from observers, and some of which we ourselves are not aware of. The patterning of our responses is more intricate than we understand, but we cannot deny the fact that as our personality-formation "sets," our adaptability is reduced. How difficult it is for us now to act like persons who worked out their life-adjustment in China! Yet had we been born in other homes, we could (with the same innate constitutions) have developed different emphases in our personalities. It should now be clear that we as persons (as unified activities of wanting, knowing, feeling, willing, and oughting) are not coextensive with our personalities. If these unified activities {persons) had been brought up in China, they would have developed different modes of adjustment {personalities). These same wants and abilities might have found different expression—other per-

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sonalities could have been built from the same raw materials, as it were. Now let us assume that a given person comes to the point where he does not approve his personality (or parts of it). Can he change it? Indeed, given the inheritance he had and the environmental forces which surrounded him from the moment of conception, could he really have developed any other personality than the one he has? This brings us face to face with the problem of free will. Is it true that a person's personality is wholly the product of the forces, hereditary and environmental, which meet in him? § 2. FREE WILL AS EXPERIENCED

We are here confronting one of the most important problems of philosophy and life. The argument of this book is much affected by the answer to this question. So many other issues come to lodge at the entrance and at the exits of this problem that one hardly knows where to begin, especially if the discussion must be brief. It seems best here to define what we find in our conscious experience before moving to other considerations. It may help if the description is expressed in personal terms so that the reader may check the account by his own introspection. From the time that I began to be conscious of myself as an active agent, I have had many experiences of confronting at least two alternative courses of action and then of choosing to enact one. A book falls. I consider: Shall I pick it up now or not? At the moment I have no doubt that I can, if I decide to, but I actually decide not to pick it up now. Again: the telephone rings. Shall I start at once to answer it, or shall I let it ring while I finish a sentence? I can go immediately, I feel, but I decide to finish the sentence. There are many examples of such simple choices. And they are not to be confused with those run-of-themill routine actions in which the strongest impulse is obeyed before any question comes up.

zz6 • "Personality, Free Will, sMoral Obligation In most instances where alternatives come before my thought as problems of choice, I find myself leaning toward or wanting one alternative more than the other; to stay in bed rather than shiver temporarily in the cold, and to work in the garden rather than study, for example. If I did not stop to think about the situation, the ensuing action would surely be the one toward which I had the stronger leaning, and too often, even though I do stop to think about it, the wanted action still ensues! Two things are clear so far. When I am conscious of alternatives, I am free at least to think about them. Since I do not have to go on thinking about them, and since I frequently do not want to continue thinking about them, the first act of will is the willing to thin\ or not to thin\ about any alternatives. I use the word will to designate not the fact that I want to think but that I shall try to think even though it would be easier not to think. My will seems to be an activity of my person and an activity whereby I concentrate on an alternative which would have died had I not exerted effort on its behalf and withheld consent from the other wanted activity. My self (person) is a complex activity-unit whose life in the main consists of moving along in the wake of the dominant concourse of feeling, wanting, and thinking. But as conflicting courses present themselves in it, I must try (or try not) to "make up my mind" as to which course I, as a whole, will pursue. In the last chapter we emphasized the importance of considering personal activities as different modes of one complex unity. It is equally important for us to remember that fact here. For the will must not be thought of as some separate faculty of the self, engaged in a struggle with other faculties or "components" of the self. It refers to that one of my self-activities in which I hold possible courses of action before myself, and, at least, think about them before I allow any one simply to dominate the path of action. While we shall, for brevity, go on speaking about the will as if it were one of the players on the team composing the person, it is untrue to fact to consider it in this way.

"Personality, Free Will, eTtforal Obligation • 227 A person is nothing apart from his varied distinguishable activities. The next point to note is that I may not only will to think and, to that extent, delay the course of possible action, but having thought that one alternative is the better one for me to pursue, I may then will that one. William James properly, I think, called this effortful act, fiat} Since I cannot define it further, I can only appeal to my reader to identify in his own experience the state of consciousness in which one throws the total energy at his disposal on the side of one of his alternatives and "pushes" that. This fiat—this setting oneself in support of one course of action in opposition to another—is the most vivid and the clearest expression of the will. The self may not succeed in the course it thus sets itself to realize, but that it can think about the alternative and that it can assign itself to the task of supporting the approved goal seems clear. So far as I know, nothing, can keep me from exerting whatever energy I have toward the realization of an approved objective. But note: I have not asserted that I know or can guarantee the amount of control I have. Furthermore, I do know there are some things I cannot do. Free will does not mean that I can add an inch to the stature of any given endowment beyond the limits set by nature. Free will does not mean that I can create some new ability. I can operate only within the limits and possibilities of my given wants and abilities and of my environment. All free will, then, is freedom within limits of a person's inborn capabilities and of the world in which he lives. However, whereas I cannot add to the ultimate potentialities of my wants and abilities—to my I. Q., for example—is it, then, the environment which comes in to determine what form my adjustment, given my capacities, will take? Not completely, for the environment cannot force me to do my best. Between the 1

See William James, Psychology. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1896, II, 559 ff.

228 * Tersonality, Free Will, ^Moral Obligation "floor" and the "ceiling" of my nature I can choose. Thus it is up to me, whatever environment I am in, to decide whether I will think my hardest and go on thinking even though fatigue is setting in. It is up to me whether I will persevere in certain activities beyond the point at which they would normally "carry themselves," especially when difficulty or pain are involved. If, however, I develop habits of work and other attitudes which do not take full advantage of what is really available to me, if my personality is more limited than my endowment allows, I may not be able to realize my full endowment later when I might wish to. In other words, the choices I made along the way have determined my present mode of adjustment, and this in turn may restrict the range of freedom I now have. § 3. WILL-AGENCY AND WILL-POWER

Here we are brought to a point at which a distinction must be carefully drawn between free will (or will-agency as we shall now call it) and will-power. Our conception of human freedom will be clearer if this distinction—it is a distinction and not a separation—is kept in mind. To what in experience does will-power refer? It is one thing to will to think, to do one's best to realize one alternative. But it is another thing to succeed in the face of the obstacles, internal and external, one confronts. The power of will (will-power) refers to the actual efficacy, as opposed to the effort being expended by the person, of the willing to realize a chosen objective. How much power willing has is frequently a matter of great uncertainty, for we never can be sure what obstacles willing may confront. Free will is not acquired. The power of that will to realize the approved goal depends not completely on the activity of willing but on factors within the personality and the environment impinging upon the person at the time of choice. Thus power or strength of will refers not to the possibility of free will (will-agency) to begin with, but to the ability of

"Personality, Free Will, ^Moral Obligation • 229 will-agency to overcome opposition or actually to bring the approved to fruition. To repeat, the basic capacities of the individual, the strength of the opposition, be it conscious or unconscious personality-segments already formed, or those external conditions surrounding a given choice—all of these may be more influential than the agent realizes. It should, therefore, be clear that the question of whether there is free will (will-agency) is a different one from the question of how much power (in terms of effect) the will actually has in given situations. Only one with complete knowledge of all the ingredients in a situation of choice could predict with high probability whether the person, if he chose to will one alternative, be victorious (that is, would have enough will-power). It is at this point that psychological analyses could contribute to our understanding, since the light thrown on the formation of personality is light thrown on the nature of the organization which will-agency has to face as the person chooses to effect changes in his life. A person with an ingrained trait of honesty, gradually built into his personality through the years, may try (will) to be dishonest, but he may actually fail (have no willpower in this respect). When the author urged a graduate student to borrow available funds in order that he could complete his graduate work, the student replied that much as his mind approved of finishing his work, he simply could not bring himself to get into debt; the training his mother had given him was telling more than he or she had ever realized that it would. Will-power, then, is one of the by-products of the organization of the personality; but will-agency itself is a property of the person who builds and changes his personality within the ultimate limits of his given nature and the opportunities or obstacles afforded by his acquired habits, attitudes, and traits. To press the point of our distinction: if a psychologist knew the ultimate potentialities of a given person, and if he knew the present structure of habits, sentiments, traits (and other ingredients) of his personality, he might be able to predict

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failure or success in objective terms because he knows the relative hold of these upon the person. He might well have predicted, for example, that this graduate student would not borrow the money. But from such facts would the conclusion be warranted that the student has no will-agency? No. All we can say is that the student has inadequate will-power at present to alter the course of events in a certain area of his life. The fact that a person does not seem to alter his behavior is far from proof that he has no free will. The psychologist did not witness the battle going on in the individual as he fought his strong sentiment about indebtedness. The student was willing to break his sentiment, and his willing delayed the failure. The story is told of the young student who, in a candid moment, asked his favorite professor, who had a reputation for being cantankerous, why he didn't control his temper. Replied the professor, irritably (!): "Young man, I control more temper in five minutes than you do in a week!" How true this is! How many times the most effortful exertion of our will proves to be ineffective. In such situations we seem to exert no more than a delaying action. And yet, even a delay is important to us. § 4. IS FREE WILL INCONSISTENT WITH THE FINDINGS OF SCIENCE?

Some would aver that this assertion of limited free will runs counter to the basic presupposition of science. In discussing scientific method (Chapter 3), we have already considered the contention that the scientist must presuppose that all occurrences could be predicted if he knew the forces which combine to produce them. This contention gained much favor especially in the days when physicists believed that they could predict exactly what would happen to a given atom. For a long time whenever any event was unpredictable, the comment was that it really could be predicted if we knew enough about it. As long as this view was unopposed by what was known of the physical

"Personality, Free Will, zMoral Obligation • 231 world, it seemed sheer unenlightened stubbornness to hold that man's will was free from the formula that all events are the outcome of the forces coming to bear upon it. The argument that whatever happened in the physical world did not necessarily apply to the realm of mind did not deter those psychologists who, anxious to be as "scientific" as possible, adopted the postulate that every human action could be predicted once we acquired sufficient knowledge of the hereditary and environmental forces impinging on the individual. As we have already noted, however, contemporary physicists are not so sure that they can (or ever will be able to) predict what will happen within particular atoms. While they venture to predict what will happen to gross events, they are forced to hold that the future of subatomic entities is variable within limits. Indeed, their situation with regard to physical events resembles that of social scientists when they venture predictions about the future of variable human beings. Everyone realizes that it is much safer to predict what a group of people will do than to tell what a particular person in a group will do. Thus the phrase, "if we knew enough," is giving way, in some quarters at least, to the realization that we may be dealing with entities which, variable in their very structure, are simply not subject to accurate prediction. But most contemporary psychologists seem to remain under the influence of the earlier picture; and for fear of allowing anything to exist which might destroy the validity of their predictions—as if their predictions had ever been close as regards either the individual or the group!—they still write as if free will is a concept which has no place in the description of human beings. But even if modern physics had not removed the basis for complete confidence in the predictability of all physical events, the experience of free will in conscious life is still there, along with the fact that neither we ourselves nor external observers can be sure what we shall do on many occasions. It is an important fact about human life that there are broad areas in which we have

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There has been some fear that a recognition of free will would actually demoralize human beings. For, it has been argued, if one can alter his behavior at will, then what point is there in struggling to form good habits. The child who has been brought up to be honest or to hate indebtedness can at any time change that habit. Thus neither he nor his parents can expect stability in his character. This objection would be serious against any view which asserted freedom of will without limits, but it certainly does not hold against views, such as the one here presented, which hold that the effect of habit and of personality structure will constantly influence the amount of will-power one actually can exert. When a person wills, he wills as a person with definite capacities, innate and acquired. He wills to think this, to continue wanting that—he wills, in other words, to realize what another part of his total nature makes possible. What his willing accomplishes is not the simple result of "an act of will" but of the total situation he confronts at the moment of willing. Thus the honest person will not find it easy to do something dishonest, and the habitually dishonest person will hardly become honest overnight because he has free will. Stability of character is not undermined by the existence of a will which operates within the total possibilities his nature and development allow. But deny free will altogether and take the denial seriously. Then the very possibility of a moral or immoral life vanishes; moral development becomes a meaningless process. To a person intent on realizing ideals, the fact that the effort can be made, the fact that the evil action is at least delayed, the fact that a person goes down in defeat against his best willing—all these are considerations which determine whether he can have any

"Personality, Free Will, zMoral Obligation • 233 self-respect. If a person were convinced that he simply could not alter his behavior, what good reason would there be for trying or for urging trying?' Indeed, if his trying is simply the outcome of circumstances, if it is "in the cards" to try, he will; if not, he will not, and that's the end of it. For any action will be the by-product of what was going on in him at a given moment in the light of the past and of the environmental forces venting themselves through him. Are not those who say that "one can still praise or blame a man for what he really had to do" using words without meaning ? Praise and blame are meaningless unless there is both will-agency and obstacle to will-agency in human life. We do not praise a man for being a male, but we do praise him for being one kind of man when he could have been another. We do not praise him simply so that he will be influenced to be better. We praise him because we think that he has already chosen a path which was not forced upon him, and because we believe that he will be able to make our praise help him in the future. We as part of his environment influence him, but we do so because he is willing to let praise help him. Similarly, to consider actions morally right or wrong is meaningless, unless the possibility of choice is real. (See section 6.) When we say: "John did right to tell the truth," we presuppose that he meant to tell the truth when falsehood was open to him. Otherwise we might as well say that John did right to breathe, to digest, to blink his eyes—all actions appropriate for survival but not right in the sense intended when we say he did right to tell the truth. Right and wrong as moral terms are nonsense syllables if we apply them to actions which involve no choice. For if any action is the only action really possible to the person, the problem of right or wrong does not apply. If we do not say it is right for the match to burn the paper (since we know that given the proper conditions no other effect is ever produced), why say that a given act is right (or wrong) if we know no other could have resulted?

234 * "Personality, Free Will, zMoral Obligation § 6. THEORETICAL CONSEQUENCES OF DENYING FREE WILL

But an even more far-reaching consequence issues from the denial of free will. If there is no free will, then "true" and "false" become meaningless. If this is so, it makes no sense to say that determinism is true and free will is false. Let us see why this is so. What do I mean when I say: John's conclusion is truer than Mary's? I mean that given the problem and the data, John had developed a better evaluation of the data than had Mary. But the process of discovering truth is not a simple one. In solving the problem there were likes and dislikes, sympathies and antipathies in both Mary and John which might tempt them to favor solutions not adequately grounded in the data. This of course would hold all the more if their interests were vitally affected by the solution. Accordingly, in saying that John's solution is truer than Mary's, I am asserting that John was able, whatever the difficulties in the problem and whatever the prejudices affecting him, to develop a solution which was fair to the evidence. Assuming that Mary and John had the same ability and opportunities, I am asserting that Mary was not able to control her desires or to use her ability in such a way as to arrive at an unbiased interpretation of the problem. But if I believe in determinism, I must say that given John's nature and given Mary's nature there could be no other account of the data than the one each actually gave. If Mary denied John's conclusion (or if John denied Mary's), both condemnations would be the result of past and present determination. All we could say is: This is what John concluded, and this is what Mary concluded. They could do nothing else! If then someone should ask me: Why do you think your observation about John and Mary is any truer than Mary's conclusion ? the situation becomes quite serious. For if all my actions are determined, then my judgment too is as determined as

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236 * "Personality, Free Will, <±Moral Obligationrepresents the capacity of man to build his own world within the possible worlds provided by his environment and his capacities. But in willing man wills what is possible to his own nature, and in doing so he finds himself effective to different extents. Thus man is more than a responsive creature; he is a responsible creature. His plastic needs and abilities provide the raw materials from which he must build his own character and personality. He cannot be blamed for the raw materials, but he can be blamed for the kind of structure he wills to create out of them. There would be no point to considering man's experience of moral obligation, as we now must, if man could not will the good to which he aspires. § 7. THE NATURE OF MORAL OBLIGATION

We shall make no headway in thinking of man as a moral being unless we classify the meaning of 10 words: moral; immoral; nonmoral, or amoral; good; bad; right, wrong, ethical, unethical. The following diagram may guide the exposition below. Acts Within Control of Individual Moral Action Immoral Action

good right ethical bad wrong unethical

Open to praise or blame.

vs.

contrast with

Acts Beyond Control of Individual Nonmoral (inclusive of all actions approved or u n a p p r o v e d , which would be called beneficial or good, evil or harmful, but are strictly nonmorally good or nonmorally evil).

Open to approval or disapproval.

Tersonality, Free Will, eMoral Obligation • 237 In normal discourse we use the term moral interchangeably for good, right, and ethical. And we normally use the term immoral for bad, wrong, unethical, and even evil. (Some thinkers would not identify right with good or wrong with bad.) What, then, do we mean when we say a man is nonmoral (or amoral) ? We do not mean that he is immoral (wrong or evil or unethical), and we certainly do not mean that he is moral (good or right or ethical), since we specifically say he is nonmoral. But if a nonmoral act is neither moral nor immoral, what can the word nonmoral mean? The answer is clear the moment we realize that we use the word moral in two senses: first, in contrast to nonmoral; second, as a synonym for good, right, and ethical. What we need to be clear about is the distinction between moral and nonmoral. We say that an act is nonmoral if it results from necessity and not choice. If a human being could not possibly control an action, we should not judge him to be right or wrong, good or bad, ethical or unethical in that action. We say: "He couldn't help it!" His action may not be that desired either by him or by society, but we do not blame him if he simply could not have done otherwise. His action might be called evil or harmful because it produced undesirable consequences, but it would not be called immoral. If, on the other hand, he could do something about an act, we should call his act moral in the first sense, even though we had not yet decided whether the act was desirable or undesirable, for it would properly be subject to moral praise or blame. A moral act, therefore, as opposed to a nonmoral act, is any act in which choice is involved. A moral being, by the same token, is one who can choose, to some extent at least. When we judge fairly we take into account the degree to which the act was controllable by the individual being judged. We are now ready for the second meaning of the word moral as a synonym for good, right, or ethical. If a human being were not moral in the first sense (that is, if he could not choose at

238 • Personality, Free Will, ^Moral Obligation all), there would be no point in calling any of his actions moral in the second sense (that is, good, right, or ethical, as opposed to bad, wrong, or unethical). A nonmoral being, like a stick or an amoeba, or a human being having convulsions about which he can do nothing, cannot be considered moral (good) or immoral (bad). In sum, an act is moral (as opposed to nonmoral) if, and to the extent that, it is within the control of the (moral) agent. Such a moral act is moral (good, right, ethical) or immoral (bad, wrong, unethical) if it is deemed consistent with the ideal. If an act could not be helped it may be evil (or good), but it cannot be termed morally good or morally evil. Actually when we use the terms good and bad about a person, we imply what we usually take for granted: that the person could have done otherwise but did not so choose. Therefore, we blame a person whom we judge to be immoral, and we praise a person whom we judge to be moral. But any judgment about man's moral goodness or moral badness presupposes that he is a moral creature (in the first sense) and not a nonmoral one. Furthermore, if a man had no choice there would be no point in saying that a man ought to be good and not bad. If man has no freedom, he can have no moral obligations. If man's actions could be completely predicted in advance, either by man or God, there would be the same kind of distinction among men as there is between a piece of steel and a piece of tin, and there could be no more. That is, a piece of steel can do things because of its given nature which a piece of tin cannot do, and vice versa. But there is no point in blaming any piece of steel for not being better than it is or in praising it for being better than tin. On the other hand, if there is free will and if there is intellectual capacity to discern which of alternative acts is better, the statement: "I ought to do this, and I will try my best!" does make sense. And this experience of obligation introduces us to another unique characteristic of human nature.

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§ 8. THE EXPERIENCE OF OBLIGATION

Let us then focus upon another illuminating fact about ourselves as we choose between alternatives. We often find ourselves disagreeing with others about what is good or about what is right. Yet, despite that disagreement, we still conclude that we ought to do what is right. However we finally interpret this phenomenon, this stands as a striking fact about us as human beings: as we consider the alternatives before us and decide that one is right or better than the other, we immediately say, "I ought to do this!" If we fail to will what we approve, we feel guilty. When Nietzsche said: "Man is a red-faced animal," he had this kind of experience in mind. Man blushes! When he does not will what he thinks he ought to will, he is ashamed of himself. This experience is so easy to neglect that we should pause a moment to reflect upon it. For a human being the question is not: "To be or not to be," and Shakespeare's Hamlet realized it. Man is a creature who demands quality in his life. He feels morally obligated to will that quality of life which he thinkj is the best. We must not minimize this fact. For whatever else we have said about the universe in which we live, we must now realize that it contains, besides the order of atoms and stars, human beings whose nature it is to feel obligated to the good as they see it. § 9. DOES MORAL OBLIGATION REVEAL GOD's PRESENCE?

This experience of obligation has, however, received different interpretations. Many people have testified that when they confronted difficult alternatives, an "inner voice"—a voice which they regarded as the presence of God—guided their final decision. Now, whether we agree with this interpretation or not, we can specify the kind of experience which leads to it. There is little doubt about the fact that when we confront most of our

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There are, however, difficulties facing this interpretation of moral obligation. To hold God responsible for the decision reached in moral experience is to hold him responsible for contradictory guidance to equally sincere persons. If conscience is the voice of God, then contradictions in moral verdicts reside in God. The impartiality of God is impeached, and the value of any guidance he gives would be destroyed. § 10. IS MORAL OBLIGATION THE VOICE OF SOCIETY?

Many who have had to reject the view that moral obligation or "conscience" is the voice of God have turned to society as their source of authority. Vox dei has become vox populi. Impressed by the differences in the moral judgments of people and observing the gradual evolution of moral ideals as men developed different institutions, many men believe that the experience of obligation— the imperative to choose quality—must be the effect in each individual, of societal pressure, exerted especially through mother and father. Thou shalt and Thou shall not are residues of the training individuals have received as they felt the influence of this upbringing in the home, school, and other social institutions. This view, developed in different ways by many sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers, is widespread in the intellectual world today. We now have before us two views of moral obligation and the source of its authority. The one finds the experience of obligation to be the presence of God; the other, the accumulated residue of social training now making itself felt automatically as the voice of conscience. The author is convinced that neither view is correct, though each view is stressing a fact which must be incorporated into a more adequate theory. In the next section he invites the reader to inspect his own experience and decide whether it is reasonable to hold either that God or other men are present in his experience of moral obligation.

242 • "Personality, Free Will, ^Moral Obligation § I I . OBLIGATION: NEITHER DIVINE NOR SOCIAL?

Does the reader find, as he introspects, that his experience of ought or moral obligation as felt seems unique in its psychic "feel" or tone? Does it feel like wanting or thinking? Does it feel like some fear, or does it feel like any other emotion ? The author finds that though his experience of obligation is accompanied by wants, thoughts, and emotions, it does not feel like any of these but adds its own "tone" to the total mental complex. When I say, "I ought to do this," I don't experience what I do when I say: "I want to, or I prefer to do this." I do not experience "I must do this." The ought always stands outside of any feeling of wanting or of compulsion. "I ought" simply does not feel like any kind of compulsion or fear. What is more, I cannot imagine how I could ever experience "I ought" simply because I have been told for years that I must! Now, of course, the fact that I cannot imagine how ought-ness comes from mustness does not disprove that this ought-experience is a by-product of the subtle fusing over a period of years of fears, approvals, and, in general, the nurture of wants. Jealousy, for example, is a peculiar experience which seems irreducible to other forms of emotion. Yet closer attention reveals that its essential components are love, hate, and fear. One is jealous only if he is afraid that the person he loves will be won from him by another whom he, therefore, hates. So, too, it might be argued, ought may be a kind of feeling blended from subtle fears and desires for approval. To which I must answer: Maybe indeed! Examine the experience of ought. Note that inexpressible imperative, so different from the psychic quality we experience in wanting and feeling compulsion. Doubtless there are complex factors in this feeling of obligation; but the unique feeling of oughtness is not reducible to (or derivable from) other feelings associated with it. Of course one can go on saying that this experience which feels sui generis is in fact not. But why should we apply this logic to

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"oughting" but not to "wanting" or "thinking" or "fearing"? Yet what psychologist would hold that thinking, which on its face certainly is a unique and sui generis experience, is in fact a compound of other psychic ingredients like sensing, wanting, and fearing? Unless we can actually point out the elements and the process of compounding psychic states, we had better follow historic procedure and assume that we have a unique dimension of consciousness when the experience it allows us does not seem to be forthcoming from any proposed compound. Assuming then that a human being does experience irreducible moral obligation, let us move to the second point of description. This experience of ought is always connected with what the individual considers to be the right alternative. "I ought to do this" means not only that I am not forced to do the right; it means that I expect the right of myself. When I think a certain alternative is right, I experience the obligation—not the compulsion— to do it. I do not have to do it, and too frequently I fail to will what I ought to do. Nevertheless, I go on expecting the right of myself. Others may disagree with me about what is right, and I may change my mind about what is right. But the moment I say: This is right!—at that very moment I feel the imperative, the ought to do it. There is in this experience no iota of compulsion or of must. I may be experiencing fears and anxiety while I experience ought; I may be wanting something other than the goal of my oughting: "I don't want to be honest in this situation, but I ought!" Ought lends a new note to the conscious complex from which my analysis has torn it. In a sense its only language is a cry, an invincible demand upon myself to do the right, whatever that seems to be in any choice-situation. Third, when I do will what I ought, and even if the willing does not achieve its objective, there is a unique experience of moral approval. This experience feels different from any satisfaction I get when friends or society approve of my actions, pleasant as that approval may be! On the other hand, if I do not will what I ought, and I then achieve what I willed and find society approv-

244 ' 'Personality, Free Will, ^Moral Obligation ing, I am still afflicted by the experience of moral guilt. To put it crisply: when one has failed with his best, when he has been conscientious but unsuccessful in doing what he considers right, does he feel guilty ? The answer, it seems to me, is clearly in the negative. He may be disappointed and unhappy at his failure, but he does not feel guilt. Again, he may feel anxiety and fear because the consequence of his failure may be serious, but he does not feel guilty. One of the poorest bits of introspective analysis committed in the name of psychoanalysis is the suggestion that anxiety and guilt are the same thing. I can be anxious without feeling guilty; and I can feel guilty without feeling anxious. Moreover, I can feel both guilty and anxious, as I would feel if I did what I thought to be wrong and fearful of possible undesired consequences. To repeat, when we do not will what we believe to be right, much as others may actually approve what we do, our consciousness that we did not will the good we approved results in the experience of moral guilt. This sense of guilt may so plague us and gnaw at our peace in mind that we human beings are tempted to suffocate it, frequently by trying to drown our sorrows in a merry-go-round of raucous pleasures. But the sense of guilt can so pervade the unrepentant consciousness that one can understand why many religious people interpret their guilt as the condemnation of an omnipresent God. But someone will still insist: Surely this experience is no more than the residue of subconscious anxiety that one will lose the approval of those he so depends upon, his father and mother, and the society they represent. Again, this may be so. But then it is hard to explain why we still experience guilt when we have the approval of our peers or why we feel resentment instead of guilt when they disapprove unjustly. Is it not true that one may experience fear or anxiety for himself or others but still feel moral approval in taking the course of action he approves? Thus a Socrates or a Jesus certainly wished that he might be spared premature death. But both followed their ought in the face of fear and anxiety, even as a soldier faces bombshell and fire despite

'Personality, Free Will, zMoral Obligation • 245 anxiety and fear for self and dependent loved ones. If ought were a special product of fear for one's life and "happiness" developed since childhood, as some psychologists would say, it is hard to understand why a person is willing to sacrifice his life when he so fears for his own life and others, and why he can feel moral satisfaction to boot! But the fourth aspect in the total experience of ought allows for the influence of nurture. When we analyze the experience "I ought to do this" we find that "this" always represents the alternative which more closely approximates what is conceived to be the best. True, what a person thinks is best may change from year to year as his intelligence grows and as he comes under the critical influence of other persons. Any specific decision about what he ought to do, therefore, may reflect the impact of upbringing and social nurture. Yet true as this is, the remarkable fact is that persisting through the changes in the idea of goodness, the ought to the best remains dauntless, a fixed orientation in the midst of shifting valuations and circumstances. Thus it would seem that the "I ought" when completely formulated is more than "I ought to do this." "I ought" really means "I ought to do the best I know." To repeat, it does not matter what the best is or how the individual knows it or what the source of the best is. Once he comes to the best decision possible to him, a person feels "I ought to do this." The experience of moral obligation, then, is absolute; it applies to every situation in which the person makes a decision about the nature of the best in that situation. If and when he changes his mind as to what is best, he feels obligation to the new best. Many choice-situations may be depicted thus: "I want this. I want that! I thin\ this want is better than that. I ought to realize this want. I will!" We have thus found four important characteristics in this experience of obligation. But we have not found God in this experience. However, we must bear in mind that if God created man, then we must say that God made man with this unique capacity to experience moral obligation, moral satisfaction, and moral guilt.

246 • Tersonality, Free Will, ^Moral Obligation § 12. SUMMARY

In this chapter we have found ground for believing that man's basic nature includes two activities, willing and oughting, which are formative factors in the development of men's total mode of adjustment (personality). They are not simply resultants of personality structure, as is often held. The personal self, faced with the problem of developing a personality structure which will meet adequately the many demands from within and without, is free to choose (once it can think) among alternatives and to will the one it chooses. In so willing it cannot predict exactly what degree of success will ensue, since the actual efficacy of the will depends on influential factors within the personality and the environment. But another factor that has been neglected is present in human choice situations. When a person reflects upon a choice, he not only feels free to will, but he also feels that he ought to will what he considers best. In the very structure of a person, then, is the moral imperative to quality. Along with the emotions, feelings, wants, and abilities he has, the person experiences the obligation to pursue the best open to him. Then as he thinks about his wants with reference to a total environmental situation, he may feel the pressures and influences of many factors; but in the last analysis he alone can will what he decides he ought to do about satisfying his wants and abilities. The crucial question for him is: What is best? What is right? For his answer to these questions will determine what he will feel morally obligated to will. We now turn to this problem: the nature of values. QUESTIONS

1. a. How does the concept of person differ from that of personality ? b. Why is this distinction relevant to the problem of free will ? 2. What experiences give rise to the conviction of free will ? 3. What does the author mean by saying "all free will is freedom within limits" ? 4. Explain the difference between will-agency and will-power.

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5. a. Is there any real evidence that no will operates with a degree of freedom ? b. What two facts should deter a "scientific" denial of limited free will? 6. Evaluate this contention: If we only knew enough we could predict all that will happen in a person's actions. 7. Does the existence of free will undermine the possibility of a stable personality ? 8. a. What happens to morality if free will is denied ? Explain. b. What happens to truth and error if free will is denied ? Explain. 9. Why does any discussion of the nature of right and wrong acts presuppose some free will on the part of the actor ? 10. Explain what the author means by saying "when we will, we will as persons who have a structure." 11. a. Distinguish moral, immoral, good, and nonmoral. b. How is each related to freely willed activity ? 12. What is the relation between "ought" and "right" ? 13. What is the relation, morally speaking, between the intent of an act and its actual consequences in behavior ? 14. On what grounds do some people assert that the feeling of ought is the voice of God telling us what is right ? 15. Explain the theory that conscience is the internalized voice of society. 16. Why does it seem unreasonable to suppose that the experience of moral obligation is the voice of God or of society ? 17. Why is the experience "I ought" irreducible to "I must" or "I want"? 18. What is the difference between moral approval and social approval? 19. Under what conditions does moral guilt occur? Is it reducible to anxiety ? 20. Is the experience of moral obligation consistent with the growth or change of moral ideals ? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Allan, Denison M. The Realm of Personality. New York: AbingdonCokesbury Press, 1947, Chapters I, III, V, VI. Cunningham, G. Watts. Problems of Philosophy, (rev.). New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1935, Chapters XI, XIII, XIV.

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Dewey, John. Human Nature and Conduct. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1922, Parts I, II, IV. Drake, Durant. Invitation to Philosophy. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1933, Chapters XII, XV. Hartmann, Nicolai. Ethics, (trans. S. Coit). London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1932, Vol. I, Chapters I-VI; Vol. Ill, Chapters I, XII, XVIII. James, William. Psychology, 2 volumes. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1893, Chapters IX, X, XXIV, XXV, XXVI. . The Will to Believe (and Other Essays). New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1927, Essays I, II, V, VI, VII. Klein, David B. Mental Hygiene. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1944, Chapter XII. Stace, Walter T. The Concept of Morals. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1937, Chapters I, II. Tsanoff, Radoslav A. Ethics. New York: Harper & Bros., 1947, Chapters III, V, VIII. Wyatt, H. G. The Psychology of Intelligence and Will. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1931. Urban, Wilbur M. Fundamentals of Ethics. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1930, Chapters XVI, XVII.

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ARE THERE VALUES VALID FOR ALL HUMAN BEINGS?

§ I. THE ARGUMENT FOR VALUES INDEPENDENT OF MAN

IN the last chapter we argued that the experience of moral obligation to the best we know is neither the voice of God nor the voice of society. This view, however, is under attack from two sides. Some thinkers (moral objectivists) believe that in their experience of obligation they become aware of values, or of a Source of values, not of their own making. Other thinkers (moral relativists) hold that the experience of obligation is not irreducible and certainly not a specific way of knowing values. It is simply the product of the training the individual has undergone in a given society. We must try to understand the kind of thinking which supports each view before we once more suggest a view which profits from the partial truth in both. The intuitive justification. Those who deny that values (or the good, or right) are man-made would insist that we experience moral obligation because we are actually aware, even if dimly, of certain values which ought to be willed. Moral obligation cannot be reduced to social nurture because values represent not what society is doing or has done but what society ought to do. Our moral experience is more than an imperative to the best we know. It is the actual cognition of values which, once known, make imperative demands upon us. Indeed, moral obligation is better called the moral consciousness, since in it we are conscious of some good which ought to be realized. 249

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It is important to realize what exactly is being proposed here. As human beings we are, on this view, not only aware of such spatial realities as tables, birds, and planets; we are not only aware of colors and temperatures and smells which already exist; but we are also conscious of values, love, beauty, freedom, justice, and truth which, whether they exist or not, ought to exist. Again, as human beings we are citizens of two worlds: one, a visible, tangible world of specific, changing things to which we need to adjust our bodies; the other, an invisible and intangible world of values, norms, or standards for existence—a realm open only to the inner moral consciousness. Thus, when we say "I ought to do this," we say it because we are glimpsing the meaning of a valuedatum which can no more be reduced to some want or desire than the experience of blue can be reduced to an emotion.1 The experience of value-data, in sum, is not awareness of what is in one's own consciousness, for his moral consciousness reveals qualities which call for realization in his life, qualities that are no more dependent on his knowing them than are the qualities of tables or planets. The things we know through sense-perception are only part of reality—indeed, the pale, washed-out part. Reality also includes, though in a necessarily different way, these ought-tobe s, these values, to which our spirits are really as much akin as our bodies are to physical nature. Objectivists support this intuitive position by pointing to the disastrous consequences of holding the opposing view that values are subject to no law other than the convenience of men. Let us see why they think that the denial of values as independent of man threatens the foundation of ethical living. The weakness of relativism. The moral life involves the making of choices. The more far-reaching choices are very difficult to make because they invariably call for the sacrifice of some lesser 1 The reader will have already noted the general similarity of this theory of moral Value to that of those thinkers who hold that man is conscious of uniquely religious data, mch as the holy, which in turn are not reducible to moral values, or to wants, or to the objects of sensory experience. See Chapter IV.

zAre There Values for aAll? ' 251 but surer good for the sake of some greater value of which we cannot be certain. But even the everyday problems of deciding how to deal with our fellow-men call for sacrifice. Here is a person who has purposely deceived me and then inflicted upon me undeserved evil. If the time comes when I can weaken and hurt that person, why shouldn't I ? Again, suppose I make a discovery which will help others, including my enemies, and actually hurt me. Why should I share it with them, when secrecy will protect my interests and give me power over them ? Once more, here are persons who would profit from my time, energy, and ability. But while I am helping them, others are finding and taking advantage of positions and values I have always wanted. Why should I then help these persons who may never turn out to be any good, let alone grateful ? Such everyday problems by no means plumb the depths of the many-sided moral situations which so often confront men, but these problems force into the open the fundamental question: Why make sacrifices? What makes them worth while? It is in such situations that we, like Pilate, ask: What is truth? In other words, we wish we had a standard of goodness by which our own actions and those of others might be guided. If we knew that some values are more worthy than others; if we knew that it is not simply a matter of what we human individuals want; if we knew that such values represented the inner structure or goals of all reality, we could reconcile ourselves to sacrifice. In sum, the moral intuitionist would hold that if there are some ultimate standards of value applicable to all persons whether they happen to want them or not, then we can proceed to alter our lives in accordance with that value-order. We can also live in the conviction that even if our cause does not win today, if it is the right cause, it will win; for in this universe none other can rule, even though it may gain in the ascendancy for a while. "Our little systems have their day, they have their day and cease to be," but only if they are our little systems, born in our lives and out of the

252 • tAre There Values for
<±Are There Values for zAll? • those anyone may want ? Why not realize that we human beings need each other for many purposes and, accordingly, come to a convenient compromise? But let us not prate about respecting human beings because we "ought to." Let us be realistic and realize that we can never give a good reason for one person's respecting his neighbor, let alone his enemy. And let us face the fact that whatever order exists in our society is supported only by this compromise of convenience or calculating prudence. What shall we say about this line of reasoning? If the words "better" or "worse" and "right" or "wrong" can never specify more than my own or a few people's feelings or wants, can I ever with reason ask anyone to live according to some standard not rooted in his wants ? Can I ever blame or praise anyone for doing merely what interests him? If I know that the only reason or cause my fellow-citizen has for living up to an agreement is that he happens still to want what I want, is there any good reason for helping or respecting him? If he stops wanting it, I cannot rationally expect him to go on abiding by our agreement since there is no good reason for holding that the new change is worse than what we had already agreed to. I simply have to admit that our human relation is based on a very insecure foundation which may shift at any time. For, once his wants change, no reason can forbid the breaking of his promise. Promises, after all, are not "right" or "wrong." These words "right" and "wrong" do not carry any other meaning than "I want it" or "I don't want it." We have been elaborating what it means to believe that there are no absolute or universal values because we believe that many persons who take this relativistic position rarely seem to draw the conclusion forced from their premises by logical thinking. They seem to be able to nestle comfortably in the "in between" position that there are no absolute or universal values; to them there are only values sanctioned by the mores or by the individual. They are willing to rest their case on the fact that people are influenced in their valuations by the group in which they live. For them the problem of values, therefore, is mainly one of adjusting one's

There Values for wants to those of the group and of "getting along" and making the best bargain possible. Those who believe that altruism (and moral standards generally) are independent of the human mind are swift to press these unwelcome conclusions of relativism which we have been suggesting. If the relativist has the final truth about human relations, if right and wrong or better and worse do have so little meaning, let people once become aware that this is all there is to morality, and there will be moral and social chaos—except as someone or some group or some nation rules by an iron hand and makes it very imprudent for anyone to challenge its power. On this view, in the last analysis, only might makes "right"! Define relativism in value carefully, they continue, and the consequences will drive you to take our introspective account more seriously. For a strict analysis of relativism will have no comfortable resting-place "in between" where we can rest. Relativism implies that the very same thing which one person thinks is good and valuable is in fact not good or valuable if another person does not want it. Nay more, it implies that what one person considers valuable at one moment is valuable at that moment and that the same "value" is no longer a value the moment that person, or some other person, does not want or desire it. Thus, not even one individual can have a standard to judge his wants by, since each want is the "standard" and he actually has no ground for holding that one of his own wants is preferable to another! And the final blow now falls. If relativism is true, then it makes no sense to say that any life as a whole has value. What else follows if every want is its own "standard" of value? It cannot make sense to say that life, in part or whole, has value, for this also presupposes some standard by which to judge! We can only say that people live and that they like and dislike, want and do not want, feel for and feel against; but we could never maintain that it is better to prefer one choice to another. Nor can the relativist escape another devastating consequence.

tAre There Values for zAll? • 255 On his view truth can never be said to be better than falsehood, for this presupposes that we have a standard of some sort for judging the one to be a greater value than the other. Once we have gone this far—and there is no stopping short of this conclusion—once we have denied that one course of reasoning cannot be judged better than another, reason has committed suicide. Now this conclusion may still be true, and it may be true that if we wanted to be consistent, we should never act as if one thing really was better than another. But before we accept a position which makes all choice groundless and reason itself ridiculous, the objectivist invites us to reconsider our moral intuitions and the case for the objectivity by values. § 2. THE ARGUMENT FOR VALUES AS UNIVERSAL BUT NOT INDEPENDENT OF MAN

We are now better able to understand why the moral intuitionist would remain unsatisfied with the conception of moral obligation suggested by the author. The author holds that moral obligation is felt as an imperative to do the best we know. It is not an intuition of value or a way of knowing the best. But this is essentially what it is for the moral intuitionist—namely, some sort of insight into the content of the best, a direct cognition of values independent of man's mind. Any other view of moral obligation, the intuitionist is convinced, will lead to the sinking sands of moral relativism. If our moral consciousness does not reveal some value which is no part of our own nature, then the moral experience is reducible to some kind of human feeling and wanting; moral approval becomes social approval; and moral guilt becomes social disapproval. It would seem, then, that we are faced with stark alternatives: Either affirm the irreducible quality of moral obligation and the cognition of independent values open to this moral consciousness, or deny both and accept the consequences of relativism. But this is exactly what we find it unnecessary to do, and in what follows

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we shall outline an alternative which cannot go all the way with the intuitionist or objectivist view of moral obligation and yet escapes the consequences of relativism. Moral obligation as noncognitive. We shall hold fast to the conviction that all normal human beings do experience the moral imperative to will the best they know. When they obey it, they experience moral approval; when they disobey it, they experience feelings of guilt. Whether values are independent of mind or not, this imperative "I ought to do the best I know" is absolute. Values as universal but not independent of man. But where do we stand on this matter of the independence of values? Let us first state our conclusion and then indicate the reasoning for it. Values, we suggest, cannot exist apart from human minds which prefer them and feel obligated to will their realization. This does not mean that values are entirely man-made or that they depend on the whims, interests, and needs of human minds. The alternative is not either relative or absolute (that is, independent of the human mind). The alternative is either relative or universal or absolute. True, if values are absolute they are independent of human minds and also universal. But values can be universal (applicable to all human beings) without being independent of human experience. There are standards of value for all normal human beings, we are about to suggest, but they do not reside beyond the potentialities and activities of man's life in this world (though, as we shall see in Chapter 14, they cannot be adequately explained apart from the moral structure of God). Value-claim distinguished from value-possibility. Our whole view depends on the validity of three distinctions, namely, between value-claim, true-value, and value-possibility. A value-claim is any experience or object which is consciously desired. If a person dislikes a certain experience, it is a disvalue-claim. Obviously there would be no value-claims in the world if there were no minds by whom or for whom some experience could be desired. What we want, speaking cautiously, is not a friend but the experience made possible through friendliness; what we want

There Values for zAll? • 257 is not the sunshine but the experience it allows us to have. The "object" of value-experience is an experience. To speak about anything being valuable in itself—that is, apart from anyone's wanting or desiring it—misplaces the emphasis, even though a truth is hinted at. The apple which I do not want is hardly a value-claim to me as long as I do not want it. This statement does not mean, however, that the apple does not have properties or possibilities which in relation to the properties of my body would make for improved health, or would ma\e for a value if I wanted health. But if I did not want health, and as long as I did not want health, it would not be a value for me. And, let it be added equally emphatically, that if I wanted the apple and if the apple was in fact not healthful for me, it would still be a value-claim for me as long as I wanted it. It is clear, then, that I may be wrong about the value-making possibilities of things in their relation to me. But as long as I remain in ignorance and go on regarding that apple as valuable, indeed, until I discover that the apple does not ma\e for the experience I anticipated, the apple is a value-claim. The meaning of true-value. It is because we can desire experiences which can turn out to be other than we expected, and because we can discover that experiences which we earlier did not want are more desirable than we realized that we are now forced to make a distinction between value-claim and true-value, between disvalue-claim and true-disvalue. We find through sad experience that the fulfilling of some desires makes impossible the fulfilling of others, that value-claims conflict with each other. At the moment I so greatly want that suit (all the experiences conceived as connected with having and wearing it), I forget that I wanted to save money for that set of records. Or, I come to appreciate the value of accuracy in arithmetic when I discover that mistakes actually decrease the number of value-claims I can satisfy. Our experience of the conflict of value-claims—our discovery of the fact that we can be mistaken in our evaluating—forces us

258 * zAre There Values, for <sAll? to relate our desires to each other and to understand their relations to the world around us. We have to study our own nature, the structure of the world, of plants, animals, and people, in order to find out what they can do to each other. When we understand what potentialities they have for the satisfaction of our wants, we are better able to choose among the value-claims we constantly experience. It is clear, then, that things and people can have value-possibilities for me and for others and that these value-possibilities (not values) do not depend upon my knowing them. It is also clear that if these value-possibilities in me, in the physical world, and in other persons did not exist, there would be no satisfying valueclaims. We do not make up the basic value-possibilities in the world. This, it seems to us, is the essential truth in the claim of the objectivists, namely, that the values which men experience do not depend upon their wants alone; it appears that unless there was support for their value-claims in the value-possibilities in things, there could be no continuing value-satisfaction and correction. But this is a statement different from the claim that there are values independent of man's wants altogether, or that values exist independent of man's wanting and consequently knowing them.2 It makes little sense to say that values for man can exist independent of him; but it does make sense to say that value-possibilities exist and await man's desiring and willing them before they become value-claims—but we shall have to indicate more clearly why this is so. We have just noted that value-claims may not be all we wished them to be. We realize, accordingly, that all value-claims (or disvalue-claims) are not true values (or disvalues). Yet each valueclaim may be a true value. How do we come to know this ? We move from our value-claims to our conception of true-values by 2 If we can show that there is a God, then we can hold that, independent of man's wants and will, there is a Person whose rational will for man constitutes what man ought to want and will. But this step in the argument, from true values in man's experience to the norms for these values in God's experience, must be developed later in Chapter 14.

There Values for zAll? • 259 trying to be as coherent as we can about the actual facts of valuerealization. That is, we must understand the relation of valueclaims to each other and to the value-possibilities in our own natures, other people, and the world around us. Of every value-claim, then, a reasonable person asks: Is this coherently related to all other known value-claims and with all the known facts of experience? If the answer is affirmative, the individual may act on the reasonable hypothesis that his valueclaim is a true-value. As E. S. Brightman, to whom we are indebted for this criterion of value, says: "When value-claims conflict with other value-claims, error about value is present. When value-claims are consistent with each other and with the other facts of experience, then the claims are verified; such value-claims are true values."3 Every youth, for example, has to decide whether the valueclaims of temporary, though pleasurable, experiences of sex, are consistent with the desire he has for a home in which mutual respect and love prevail. If he decides, as he considers the valueexperience of others and the value-possibilities realizable in a home, that he can enhance the value and meaning of sex in his life, that he can better guarantee the protection and nurture of children and assure the confidence of his mate and the desired respect of his community, he may well condemn the value-claim of sexual indulgence for the truer value of the home and proceed to act accordingly. Obviously, in all these calculations his answer will depend on his ability to think out the relations of many factors to each other and on his imaginative awareness of the experience of the human race. But his judgment of value will be the truer according to the accuracy of his analysis of the facts of desire and human consequences—in other words, the more he understands the relation of any one set of value-claims and truevalues to all others. The meaning of "conscience." We are now ready to consider 3

E. S. Bnghtman, A Philosophy of Religion. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1940, p. S3-

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*Are There Values for zAll? • 261 by its coherence with all other value-claims and disclaims in order to know whether, and to what degree, it is a true-value. Grounds for objective but not independent true-values. If, then, a person tries to think out what would be truly valuable for all persons, and not only for his own life, community, and nation, he must face the problem illuminated by the debate between the relativist and the objectivist. Are there any values applicable to all people? The objectivist answers this question by saying that an affirmative answer is possible only if we grant that values exist independent of man's nature. But we may now suggest another alternative which does not reduce to relativism. In order for value-experience to be objective, values do not have to be independent of man's nature. They can stand in judgment over against any particular set of wants, but not over against all human wants. In other words, all true-values are the result of human experience and reflection about human value-claims. Based on the past experience of man, they are hypotheses which promise the greatest protection and support of other true-values and valueclaims acknowledged by man. They are hypotheses that certain patterns of experience, if made the goal of persistent and dedicated willing, would in fact allow each person to maximize not only his own wants and abilities but the advantage of the value-making possibilities in other people and in the world. In other words, we would say to the objectivist: In seeking a standard of values for all men, we do not have to reach for a realm of values independent of man. If there are grounds for maintaining that true-values are value-claims which are more reasonable ends for human striving than others, we can escape from the disasters of relativism. Man's reasonable ideals are objective not because they stand outside of his nature, but because they represent his reasoned reflective estimate of what can be achieved by him, giving his nature and the nature of the world he lives in. There are no values independent of man's nature but there are value-making possibilities in the world and in man to which true-values are relevant. The processes in the world and in man.

262 • cAre There Values for if supported by man's reason and will, help him to grow with a minimum of fruitless conflict. These value-making possibilities, however, are neither value-claims nor true-values until man becomes aware of them, wants them, and then approves of them after critical reflection as to their coherence with all the rest of his value-experience. The objectivity and universality of true-values depend, therefore, not on their being independent of man's mind; but they depend on the fact that man's nature is such and the valuemaking possibilities of nonhuman nature are such that their interaction in man's life can and does produce values which man finds satisfactory. The relativist, to be sure, never takes adequate account of the fact that man does not create his own or the world's valuemaking abilities and possibilities. But correct in his attack on relativism, can the intuitionist do justice 10 the following objection ? Let us assume that man does have specific perception of independent true-values. Could he possibly understand what they meant for him until he lived according to them ? Only by having the experience of realizing values can man discover their relevance to his life—that is, the difference they make. Is value not revealed in living and experiencing rather than in the so-called intuition ? Can man, for example, realize what the disvalues of living selfishly are without actually experiencing them and contrasting them to his experience of generous living ? Our point then: even if there were an intuition of values made possible by a specific moral consciousness, there would still have to be the process of rational reflection in the presence of conflict and competition among values. We are proposing that the coherent organization of value-claims, in the light of all the knowledge we have, can lead us to hypotheses about true-value which are relevant to human existence because true-values come to life in the very struggle of human beings to sort out their experiences and to live up to the obligation to the best they know at every stage in their development.

zAre There Values for cAll? • 263 And turning to the relativist, we would insist: man creates his value- and disvalue-experiences, given his abilities to take advantage of, neglect, or destroy value-making possibilities in himself and others. Man's true values, accordingly, are not statements simply about man, but rather they are statements about man in this kind of a world or about this world with man in it! Truevalues are those generalizations about human experience in this world which are most coherent hypotheses as to the nature of man's strivings in this world. There could be no values of any kind apart from man's desire and effort to satisfy his desires. But man's efforts would be in vain if there were no value-making possibilities in the world that he himself does not create. We may, therefore, agree with the objectivist that values are not man-made; and we may agree with the relativist that values have meaning only in and jor man because he is the kind of a human being in the kind of a world which makes these values possible through him. Human values are made by man in this universe. They are products of human interaction in the kind of universe which humanity inhabits. Grounds jor universal values. But at this point both relativist and objectivist may chime in together: If true-values are desirable forms of experience which man approves in his concrete experience with value-claims, the question still remains: Are there any true values for which all men ought to strive? Do not the differences between the morals of equally conscientious and sincere persons (let alone the great differences between the mores of societies) force a negative answer to the question? The reply must begin by calling in question the presupposition that men are "so" different. Men are different, but men are also the same. They have many common physiological and mental abilities, even though they are not equal in these abilities. Nor do we have to presuppose agreement on the particular list of biological and psychic motives we argued for in the last chapter to make our point. For despite the differences in their physical environments, the fact that men can have societies at all bespeaks sufficient

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similarity of ability and need to weaken seriously the claim that men cannot agree on common values. Furthermore, particular societies do succeed, in varying degrees, in calling forth from the individuals that compose them the approval of some values—the value of truth, of science, of love, of courage, of loyalty, for example. If individuals are so different that they presumably cannot come to agreement on any values, how account for the fact that societies, which after all represent a common search for basic values, do exist ? Even grant that fear and selfishness play their part in creating social organizations, the fact still remains that living itself brings into the open the values which can be shared in common and must be sought through cooperation. This line of reasoning could be developed further. But if, as the author believes, there are common physical and psychic motives in all normal men, there is all the more ground for the contention that there are, despite differences, universal value-claims which upon investigation may turn out to be true-values. To the extent that men are made of the same stuff, to the extent that they have common motives (like hunger, sex, sympathy, tenderness, wonder), to that extent at least there are common value-claims whose relevance to the value-possibilities in their own natures and the world can be investigated. What "ought to be," then, is that system of values which takes account of the similarities and the differences among men in their environments, which protects values already acknowledged and realized, but which also takes into account the possibility of growth. The final test of any true-value, as we have said, is not the vividness, the directness, or "immediacy" of any one cognitive act; but the final test is the ability of that value to knit other values together more harmoniously and lastingly. Thus, we should contend, for example, that any marriage built upon mutual affection and respect is more valuable than one built on economic convenience. Why ? Briefly, because such a marriage, while sustaining and encouraging other values, including the

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economic, promotes and conserves love and comradeship-ingrowth—both value-experiences which human beings actually find more satisfactory because they are human beings. In a good home, built on love, each person is encouraged to feel responsible for economic security and for other values such as sympathy and recognition of effort which economic power cannot command. The demand for economic security alone, without the binding ties of love, might lead the members to resent any member who seems to need more economic aid than he himself can produce. Thus, love is not a higher value than money because we in some intuitive manner "see" that it is, but because we do find that when we love we are better persons physically and mentally. Indeed, as long as love and respect for the growth of other persons prevails—and this we suggest would be valid for all cultures—none of the values available to man will ever become a weapon to be used to control someone else's life. But it takes time, courage, and criticism to discover the universal value of love. From the experience of the meaning and effect of love within a smaller group, we gradually try the same kind of action, even if it is not accompanied by the same warmth of feeling, in a larger circle, in a club, in a school, in a church, in an economic system. We do not find the results always and immediately satisfying or protective of other interests. There are times when, despite our own attempts to respect and take careful account of the interests of others, these persons respond by taking advantage of our good will. Still, when we think about these situations imaginatively, we realize that even though good will has not produced good results in many situations (and sometimes because we ourselves have been unintelligent about our ways of dealing with others), good will represents an ideal of life for man which must be pursued assiduously and intelligently. If we are convinced that individuals are so constructed that they can and do respond to love, that they are not intrinsically selfish, we must take many "chances" and be willing to suffer for the ideal of companionship-in-care. For even when the ideal is not

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receiving the loyalty it deserves, we realize that human beings would be happier if it did, and we realize that any other way of living actually forces us in this world to waste more valuepossibilities and to endanger existing experiences of value. Thus persons who do not have good will toward each other are forced to spend more time and energy "watching" other persons, setting aside reserves to be used "in case" other persons try to hurt them; in short, instead of enjoying what is good and using the good to produce new values, their appreciation of life is decreased and other values are not realized. At any rate, this is a line of argument which could reasonably be given to support the moral principle: all persons ought to respect the needs and abilities of others and try to help them find growing satisfaction. Although this is hardly the place to discuss all the values which may be considered universally valid, several other comments may serve to quiet some doubts. It is a curious phenomenon that many theorists (in the very name of science, which seeks universal principles) espouse the relativity of all values. But do these theorists also include the value of science as being good for some human beings and not for others ? Do they not in their very statement suggest that it is better for all people to be scientific than to be unscientific ? Surely they would hold that truth is always worth discovering, that truthfinding is an ideal and an experience in which all people ought to participate and that the principles discovered are universally valid. So also for those who think that the experience of freedom is not a universal value. Some freedom—including the freedom to reason about life's objectives and including at least the opportunity to question socially accepted values without being punished for it —is involved in all human activity. The value of freedom is universal, and there is nothing about it which necessarily involves evil. And the same is true about the value of beauty, of character-

tAre There Values for cAll? • 267 traits like honesty, courage, meekness, forgiveness, tolerance, kindness, gratitude, and good humor. Yet some reader may complain: But such principles as love, truth-seeking, freedom, or the creation of beauty do not tell us what to do in particular situations. This complaint, however, misconceives the whole situation in which we find ourselves morally as human beings. There is no way of knowing exactly what to do specifically in each situation. There is no escape from moral conflict. There is no substitute for the art of living, for the keen insight into the problem of deciding what concrete pattern of values to pursue in helping one child, for example, as opposed to another. But there is no point in mutual aid unless we are convinced that there is some common standard applicable to our experiences. Unless there are general principles to be considered in any situation—as a general map guides us on a journey—it becomes impossible to think out and act wisely in the concrete situations which confront us. (For further discussion, see Chapter 11, pages 286-303. § 3. THE THEORETICAL IMPORT OF MORAL OBLIGATION AND TRUE VALUES

1. If our analysis is sound, we may conclude that though man does not intuit an independent realm of values, he is nevertheless always obligated to the best that he knows. Conscientiousness is absolute. There are no exceptions to the rule that one ought to will the best he knows in every situation. 2. True and universal values represent the coherent organization of man's value-experience. True-values are actions which will sustain, protect, and increase the value-claims and value-possibilities in man's life in this kind of universe. Disagreement about their exact nature and difficulty in realizing them adequately in concrete situations are to be expected by any mature person who realizes the complexity of the problems and the limitations of human insight and character. But that some universal principles,

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at least, can be approximated seems clear from our human experience thus far. 3. Furthermore, the principles by which we think we ought to live do reveal, in part at least, the kind of world we live in. Given our innate nature as human beings and given the nature of the world, these values represent our conviction about the kind of living relevant to this world. Man's moral life, his free will, his feeling of moral obligation, his experience and reflection upon values—all these are part of the evidence as to the nature of the world. 4. The value-experience of man, therefore, must be allowed to testify as to the nature of the world, along with the nature of physical energy, life, and mind. Some things this universe allows; other things it discourages and makes impossible. Through man's reflection on the goals of living, the world we know seems to be saying that man cannot insure the widest and highest realization of value-possibilities unless he, given his mental, physical, and psychological constitution, chooses certain values and not others. 5. The world in which we live, which nurtures our roots but allows us a limited freedom to produce our own values, will "take a lot" from us. But beyond a certain point, "the wages of sin is death," spiritual, psychological and physiological. We may not know as much about the "ways of value" as we do about the ways of things; but we do know that the universe is not indifferent to many of the things which we think makes life worth while— love, truth, beauty, and freedom, for example. Such values do not exist outside of us, but those we have we shall continue to have only as long as the constitution of the world including our own human structure remains more or less consistently what it is. 6. The world, then, is not a value-vacuum; it is not indifferent to our values. The history of our critical valuation is not the history of our imaginings or whims, but it is the history of what the world-order would allow to stand, would allow to develop, would allow to totter, and would allow to die. We may not be clear on many important principles or details, but our lack of clarity or

There Values for *All? • 269 our moral weakness must not lead us to the conclusion that although there are cosmic ways of things (physical laws), there are no cosmic preferences, or that we can do anything we want with the power gained through understanding physical and psychological laws. QUESTIONS

1. a. What reasoning lies behind the belief that man has an innate moral consciousness? b. How does this view of moral obligation differ from that of the relativist? From the author's? 2. Outline the moral intuitionist's case against the relativist. 3. Expound the author's middle ground between moral intuitionism and moral relativism. 4. a. Distinguish value-claim, value-possibility, and true-value, b. How is each related to the other ? 5. Do men create their own value-possibilities from wants? 6. What interpretation of conscience is suggested ? 7. What does it mean for values to be objective, yet not independent of man ? 8. What difficulty faces the view that values are independent of man's experience ? 9. a. On what nonintuitive grounds does belief in universal values reside ? b. What would be the criterion of a "true" system of values ? 10. a. How do we relate general values to particular situations ? b. How do ethical hypotheses as norms differ from descriptive scientific hypotheses ? 11. Does the truth of values depend on the fact that society has or has not lived by them ? Explain. 12. Why is moral obligation called "absolute" ? 13. Does the world or universe seem to demand certain kinds of behavior, and punish other kinds ? Explain.

270 • zAre There Values for SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Bertocci, Peter A. The Empirical Argument for God in Late British Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938, Chapters I, V. Brightman, Edgar S. Moral haws. New York: Abingdon Press, 1933, Chapters III, VII. . Nature and Values. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1945, Chapter III. Dewey, John and James H. Tufts. Ethics, (rev.). New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1932, Part II. Geiger, George. Philosophy and The Social Order. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1947, Chapters IV, VI, VII, VIII. Hill, Thomas E. Contemporary Ethical Theories. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1950. Joad, C. E. M. Philosophy for Our Times. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd., 1944, Chapters VII-XII. Roberts, W. H. The Problem of Choice. New York: Ginn & Co., 1941, Chapters XI-XIV. Wheelwright, Philip. A Critical Introduction to Ethics, (rev.). New York: Charles Scnbner's Sons, 1949, Chapters I, II, IV, V. See also Suggestions for Further Reading at end of Chapter 9.

II PATTERNS OF REASONING ABOUT GOD

IN Chapter 4 we studied the argument for God from religious experience. In this chapter and the next we shall attempt to understand the remaining basic patterns of reasoning which led to the conceptions of God that have especially dominated our western tradition. The reader should be warned that we make no attempt to include all variations of the traditional arguments and the conceptions. We are interested in the major trends in thought and will differentiate the views of major thinkers only as these may serve an expository purpose. While remaining within the spirit of the argument, we shall take liberties with the actual historical presentations. A turning point in the intellectual history of the argument for God came when St. Anselm of Canterbury in the twelfth century brought to a head the arguments which he felt would compel intellectual assent. These famed arguments, which themselves summarized much discussion and became the center of much disputation, are referred to as the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, and the teleological argument for God. § I. THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR GOD

Exposition of the argument. The purpose Anselm had in mind as he framed the ontological argument is interesting. I set to seek within myself whether I might not discover one argument which needed nothing else than itself alone for 271

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its proof; and which by itself might suffice to show that God truly exists, and that he is the sumtnum bonum needing nothing else, but needed by all things in order that they may exist and have well-being.1 A fundamental problem for any critical mind is to give an account of the idea of perfection. Every human being (Anselm said even a fool) has an idea of perfection, that is, of a being than which nothing better can be conceived. Now the very suggestion that we all have an ideal of perfection may strike the reader as preposterous. For most of the time we are not consciously thinking about perfection. We are ordinarily occupied with noting that this and that is so, that yesterday we did this and tomorrow we plan to do something else. It comes as a shock to be told that all the while we were making judgments of truth and error, right and wrong, value and disvalue. And the exponent of the ontological argument would insist that we would not be making such judgments unless we were being guided by the idea of perfection. In order to get inside this argument, let the reader try to clarify for himself what he would mean by a perfect as opposed to an imperfect being. Indeed, let him take something he values very much, say his mother, and then try to explain why he regards her as imperfect rather than perfect. But can he regard her imperfect in any way without thinking what it might mean for her to be perfect? Is she considerate? Yes, but there is a limit to the number of considerate things she can do! Gradually there comes before the mind the conception of a considerate person unlimited by ability, or time, or msight, everlasting and able to embrace all beings into a considerate plan. She would be that perfect mother than which no better could be conceived. Is there any line of thinking which sooner or later does not involve us in comparing one thing with another in terms of perfection at least in kind? One watch keeps more accurate time than 1

From the Preface of Prosiogium as quoted in Henry O. Taylor, The Medieval Mind London: Macmillan Co., Ltd., 1925, I, p. 279.

'Patterns of Reasoning about Qod • 273 another, and the perfect watch would keep perfect time under all conditions. One mechanism is better than another, we say. But can we say it without reaching, however feebly, for the idea of a perfect mechanism ? And if we bring together our perfections in kinds, we find ourselves thinking of a Being who is perfection itself. Without an idea of perfection, then, all judgments of better and worse lose their point of reference. To repeat, we may not always be comparing our ideas and actions to the ideal of perfection, but actions and judgments sooner or later can be criticized as better or worse. When we encounter conflict among evaluations, we do judge better or worse according to some idea of perfection. There seems no way out of it. No idea of perfection, no real meaning to better or worse; no meaning to better or worse, no significance in living. It soon dawns on us that the idea of perfection cannot be an idea like any other idea, that is, capable of existing only in the mind of the thinker. For example, the idea of a perfect desert island is an idea which, like any other idea, may exist only in the mind of the thinker. These ideas refer to limited kinds of being, perfect in their kind, but not perfect altogether. We can think about a perfect desert island, for example, without being forced by logic to conclude that such an island exists. But not so an idea of perfection, of a perfect being! A perfect being who has all the characteristics of perfection except existence is not as perfect as the thinker, who, with all his limitations, exists. No, the idea of a perfect being, unlike the idea of a perfect island (or unlike the idea of a hundred dollars, to take Kant's illustration), forces us logically to decide that it represents an existing being. Again, an idea of perfection either involves the existence of that perfection or it just isn't an idea of perfection! It is crucial to remember in thinking about this argument that existence is asserted as necessary for the object of only one idea, namely, perfection.

274 * "Patterns of Reasoning about Qod However this argument may surprise at first, as we think it over, we feel that there is something to its underlying aim. And this aim is to prove that the very best the human mind can think is not just an idea like any other; it is in the human mind because it is rock-bottom in the universe. It is man formulating the heart of religious motivation in intellectual terms. It is man insisting that the most complete ideal he can think is not without cosmic support. Somehow, our highest intellectual and ethical conception cannot exist only in our minds. For, as we saw in our discussion of values, if ideas about the intellectual, aesthetic, and moral best are without support, all other ideas lose a corresponding degree of assurance. Can thousands of lesser ideas be true of reality while our guiding conception remains in suspension only in our minds ? This, at any rate, is the problem that confronts any thinking mind. If we cannot avoid lesser goods and lesser truths as parts of our lives, can it be that the idea through which we count them lesser is false ? Can the mind be that wrong ? Objection to this argument. As already suggested, this argument has had a long history and the problem has been rephrased in every age. It is being restated in our own time with penetrating insight by thinkers like W. E. Hocking and Charles Hartshorne. It must suffice here to say that the essential objection to this ontological argument for God is that we cannot deduce the existence of any being from the idea of that being. Even from the unique and solitary idea of perfection we can never move with indubitable assurance to the existence of the object of that idea. The logic of the idea of perfection does involve the idea of existence, but only the idea. We can never hold with confidence that this necessary connection between ideas is necessarily supported by reality. The gulf between idea and reality can never be bridged by deduction alone. Granting even that this idea is different from all others, the very weight of its content and the significance of the promise must have more than logic alone to support it. This general and basic objection is further supported by the fact that perfection, as we shall see in the remainder of this book, is by

Tatterns of ^Reasoning about Qod ' 275 no means an easy notion to define. Horrible things have been said about God in the name of what was considered his perfection. Thus, to say that the perfect must exist does not enlighten us about the nature of what that perfection is. § 2. THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

Exposition of the cosmological argument. The exponent of the traditional cosmological argument maintains that there must be a cause for everything and for everything's being what it is rather than something else. He points not to the presence of a guiding idea of perfection in the mind but to the sensible changes which make up the world of physical and biological nature. He insists that these changes are not self-explanatory or self-sufficient. The only way he sees to account for the dependence of given changes on other changes, and so on, is by going beyond them to an ultimate cause of change, which is itself unchanging and uncaused. Only a self-sufficient First Cause will keep us from an infinite regress. We must pause to understand why the infinite regress is objectionable. Briefly, rather than supplying an explanation, a causal regress explains nothing. That is, if we care to account for any change that occurs in the world, we shall not be explaining it by looking back to its preceding finite cause, for this in turn will take us back to another, and so on forever. The regress never ends, since all such ^'explanations" do in fact put off the explanation. They tell us what went with what (that the wind blew off the shingle which hit the man whose head was cut, and so on); they keep on pushing the explanation further and further back—which, to repeat, simply means that the event to be explained is never explained. To know merely what goes with what, that is, to know merely the sequence of events, may be satisfactory for the purposes of prediction, but this does not really account for these particular changes or for the order of the changes. To avoid such hopeless

276 • Patterns of Reasoning about Qod regress, our intellect must postulate a First Cause which will explain both change as change and the particular order of changes which, after all, conceivably might have been otherwise. The cosmological argument, then, calls to our attention three fundamental facts: (a) the fact of change, (b) the fact of determinate change, and (c) the fact of a universe as opposed to a pluriverse of change. Our curiosity is excited by the fact that there are changes, that these changes constitute a particular order, and that they occur when they do occur (for example, the formation of our planetary system, the later appearance of life and, last, of mind). To repeat, the order of changes, for all we.know, might have been different. Thus we must seek some cause within the complex, or beyond, to explain the fact of change and the order of change. Many theologians and philosophers, following Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, find their solution in the contention that there exists a self-sufficient Being, a being who could not but exist, a being who is perfect by that very fact. These theists are unwilling to accept the philosophical positions known as materialism and naturalism? Evaluation of objections to the cosmological argument. Both materialist and naturalist agree that any arguments to explain nature either by infusing it with some sort of divinity or by connecting its events with the activities of a supernatural being are riddled with fallacies. Materialists and naturalists, as opposed to theists and pantheists, therefore regard the order of nature and man's place in it as all there is to know, or at least all that man can know in accordance with scientific principles. Many other philosophers representing different schools of thought have been unsatisfied with the cosmological argument, and these critics have 2 For our purposes the words materialism and naturalism may be used synonymously, though there are significant differences, well-expounded for beginners in J. H. Randall, Jr., Philosophy: An Introduction. New York" Barnes and Noble, 1942. The two positions agree in denying that there is any purpose behind or within nature as a whole, which is the point of special relevance to our argument.

Tatierns of Reasoning about Qod ' 277 inspired more careful restatements of its essential contentions.3 Now, if the central considerations urged against the costnological argument are valid, then all arguments for God, such as ours, which see\ to find in the observable world and man the main grounds for belief in God, must be set aside. It becomes all the more important, therefore, to scrutinize carefully four of the basic objections to the cosmological argument. The very concept of a First Cause is absurd. Those who hold that there is a First Cause, unchanging and self-sufficient, beyond whom there is no appeal, are being arbitrary about a stopping place. But, what is worse, they are abusing the idea of causality. As we saw, when the scientist explains or assigns a cause for any event, he relates that event to a class of events which in turn find their places in other classes of events. Once an event is fixed in a sequence of cause and effect, the scientist is satisfied that he has explained the event. We also noted that the scientist was justified in assuming that any new event will have some cause and will be followed by some effect. Accordingly, whatever now exists is causally continuous with what has already occurred. For a scientist, therefore, if an event is a cause, then that very event is already an effect. In other words, the scientist knows only caused causes. In the realm of nature all causes are caused causes, that is, events which fit into a broader classification. If there were no repetition of events in nature, all talk of cause would be silly, since, if an event occurred only once, there would be no way of knowing its cause. Once this background of scientific thinking about causality is clear, it is easy to understand the objection to a First Uncaused Cause of the world. The very idea of an uncaused cause is a contradiction of the scientific definition of cause. Any scientific cause must be a caused cause. From this standpoint, these cosmological 3 Tfte best recent analysis of the cosmological considerations are to be found in John Lairds Gifford Lectures: Theism and Cosmology and Mind and Deity. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1939, 1940, and in John Wild's Introduction to Realistic Philosophy. New York Harper & Bros., 1949.

278 " ^Patterns of Reasoning about Qod thinkers, therefore, have been beguiling themselves and others* into thinking that an uncaused cause makes sense! What meaning can be given to a First Cause beyond which we cannot go? No, the supposed First Cause, if he is to be a cause, must also be an effect, or in other words, no longer a First Cause! This means that the First Cause is not God as defined. No God, defined as First Cause, could mean anything to us, that is, if we are to take our scientific concept of causality seriously. Now, it may be that there is no gainsaying this argument, granted that the only definition of cause is the scientific definition. But, though much has been made of this argument (and it has been stated with an air of withering finality), it is in fact beside the point. For it is interpreting the word Cause in the expression "First Cause" in the light of an analysis of cause foreign to those thinkers who proposed the cosmological argument. For them the word cause meant a productive power initiating change, and it did not simply mean the relation of regular antecedence and consequence which satisfies the scientific purpose. The First Cause, therefore, did not refer to an event in a fixed sequence but to a source productive of the particular changes observable in the world. For very good reasons, at which we can only hint here, scientists found it desirable to drop the notion of productive power from their conception of cause and effect relations. For their purposes of description it did not matter whether there was any productive causality. They left for philosophers to work out the question as to whether some such power had to be postulated. All they needed in their study was assurance of dependable sequences. They had to be able to say that under certain conditions, such as the application of a lighted match to dry paper, certain effects could be expected. It didn't matter whether something in the match produced the burning in the paper; suffice it to know that this burning, given certain conditions, would occur. But surely for most of us the notion of cause—of a hand causing a pen to move, of the ink causing the paper to be stained, for

Tatterns of Reasoning about Qod • 279 example—suggests more than fixed temporal sequence. It includes the power-to-alter-in-some-way-or-other-to-some-extent. We come closest, perhaps, to such vital causality in our willing to do one thing rather than another, despite resistance. Let a David Hume argue that our senses never observe any such power; let him point out that all we really observe is the customary sequence between events, and let him insist that never, never do we observe the activity of some power exerted between events—we still wonder whether he has not been taken in by his trust in sensory observation. To be sure we do not see power as power passing from one billiard ball to another when they meet; to be sure we see only a certain sequence and not what makes one ball move the other. But does this mean that we have no reason to postulate what we do not see, if that seems to be reasonable ? The proponents of the cosmological argument, at any rate, did think of cause not simply as antecedence in time but as a kind of activity that originated the effect and coexisted with it. The First Cause was not simply some great reservoir from which the world at some one time was poured. We were not to think that once the First Cause had completed its work of creation it remained for the world to undergo the changes appointed to its restless nature. Cause is not simply the first member in a series of events, a first member no longer present in the remainder of the series* Why? Without an unchanging God there could be no understanding of the changes which occur or of the order of changes. In order to explain the fact of change and its continuity, the so-called First Cause must be first and last, that is, he must exist as the basic continuant in all change. To suggest what is meant more concretely, let us return to our simple example. My hand does not move first, to be followed afterward by the movement of the pen. The pen moves as my hand continues to move with it. And my hand continues to move as long as I keep the thought I have in 4 See John Wild, Introduction to Realistic Philosophy New York Harper & Bros., 1949. p 359. Also see W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1930, pp. 318-319

• 7? at terns of Reasoning about Qod mind and the conscious purpose to write. Persisting through the changes, and not merely antecedent to them, is my nature as a certain kind of self and personality. Change that self or that personality and the effects will be different. The First Cause, then, both originates and operates as continuant in the series of changes which make up the observable realm of nature. Without him there is no way of understanding the fact that there is change. For change as change, change as nothing but change (as opposed to change in some unchanging direction) is simply unintelligible. There must be something in the universe which is the contemporaneous sustainer of the changes that are. No being who is himself in absolute flux (nay, in any flux, these thinkers insisted) can serve the purpose of explaining change, for then he himself requires a permanent source. Such a First Cause is perhaps better called a World-Ground,5 as some thinkers have called God. This term, World-Ground, avoids the confusion with the scientific view of causation which omits power and continuous productivity from the conception of causality. The reader will have already noted that the issue at this point narrows down once more to the conflict of perspectives between philosophizing which would stick close to what can be scientifically observed and philosophizing which attempts to give the most reasonable account of human experience as a whole (including, but not limited to, the scientific perspective). If one decides to abide by the version of the world yielded by scientific study, then he will be inclined to sweep aside as sheer gibberish all this talk of a different kind of cause; he will suggest that we spend our time more creatively than in speculating about a WorldGround which is never open to sensation or about a kind of productive power which we never do observe in scientific experimentation. And he may support his first objection to a First Cause of 3 I am indebted here, as in other parts of the main argument of this book, to the writings of Borden Parker Bowne: Metaphysics. New York: Harper & Bros., (1882) 1898; Theory of Thought and Knowledge. New York: Harper & Bros., 1897; Theism. New York- American Book Co., 1902; Personahsm. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.,

'Patterns of Reasoning about Qod ' 281 the World by a second which in fact follows closely the same line of thought. There is no point in attributing a cause to the world as a whole. We can assign a cause to any event only after the event (and its conditions) have occurred more than once. Causality presupposes repetition. To speak of a First Cause of the World, therefore, is to talk as if there were more than one occurrence of cosmos-making. Moreover, by the very nature of the case, we can know only the events which constitute the history of this world. There simply is no sense in the idea of a God's causing a world when the world of which we are a part is the only world we know anything about. There is no need of repeating here that this objection misses the real point of cosmological reasoning. If cause must mean fixed sequence and only that, the objection is conclusive. But the question in the mind of the person who reasons cosmologically is still unanswered. If we are living in a world which has an order of change which we ourselves do not create, how shall we explain that order ? True, we are parts of this world only, and it may seem like idle talk to speak of a different order than the one that is. But is it ? Must we think that the particular astronomical, geological, and biological evolution we know could not have occurred in some other way ? Surely not. The cosmological thinker holds that there is an Ultimate Nature in things which accounts for the fact that this order of nature is a dependable whole. What the cosmological thinker is trying to explain is the particular orderly wholeness of this world; he is not simply trying to attribute a "cause" to the world as a whole. What he sees is that while many orderly changes in the world come and go, while biological creatures arrive and depart in their own way, there is an underlying order always present and always presupposed in our thinking. And Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, to mention only the germinal figures, felt that this order, silently present but as necessary to the existence and continuance of things as the air we breathe is neces-

282 • Tat terns of Reasoning about Qod sary to our existence, was of the nature of Mind. For them this meant that the First Cause was a self-moving kind of being who knew what it was about when it created the world. But why a mind and not something impersonal and nonmental? Because, so far as we know, only mind can organize as nature is organized. Once more, such considerations are not likely to impress those who have decided that such thinking is altogether too speculative, that there is no way of checking such conclusions by "observation." But the person who believes in using his reason to organize all of the experience and knowledge in his ken may grant that such conclusions are not as verifiable as are scientific conclusions, and yet he may insist that such thinking takes him further in understanding his place in the world. More than that, he may argue that such questions call for an answer once we ask for the presuppositions of the scientific venture itself. Let us take a very simple example. It may be all right for the scientist to start with the fact of change and not scrutinize more than the order of change. But once we look closely at what is involved in the fact of change, we begin to see a case for the cosmological thinker. When a seed changes into a rose, more is taking place than meets the eye. For here is a seed which, as a seed, is not a rose. Yet it can become a rose. We can scientifically ascertain that without a certain kind of seed and certain accompanying conditions, a rose will never come into being. But the deeper question is: How can a seed which is not a rose become a rose in the first place unless there is something common to the seed and to the rose which is the final source of both? Neither seeds nor roses come from nothing, and if a rose which is not a seed and a seed which is not a rose are related to each other, must there not be a common source whose nature will account for that kind of seed, that kind of development, and that kind of rose ? We stand here in the midst of the prof oundest and most difficult problem of philosophy, and it is not our purpose to undertake what the serious study of the history of metaphysics alone can achieve. We are simply trying to show that the proponents of the

^Patterns of Reasoning about Qod • 283 cosmological argument, continuing this line of thought, are contending, at bottom, that there must be something in the universe which does not change. Otherwise we would have to contemplate, if we could, the possibility that the world we know, the world whose orderly change allows us to call it a cosmos, might have come into being out of nothing or might some day be replaced by nothing. Let the reader seriously contemplate this thought, assuming that he is to attempt to understand his world. He will see why earnest metaphysicians have insisted that there simply must be a basic structure to things which can never come to be or cease to be. At this point, a critical reader, sympathetic with the basic contention, might still ask: Must this underlying structure be God? This, in fact, constitutes a third objection to the cosmological argument. To the author it seems to score. Must the First Cause be God? The cosmological thinker adduces as evidence the existence of a determinate order of change in the world and concludes that there must be an uncaused, unchanging Ground. But the idea of God actually includes much more than that, for it involves the idea of perfection, of perfect wisdom, goodness, and power. It is true that one might deduce that an uncaused, unchanging Being would have to be omnipotent, all-wise, and morally perfect, but such deduction carries one beyond the facts adduced. However, careful empirical reasoning would have to justify each attribute by reference to the actual facts of existence. In the course of world history there seems to be much evidence of imperfect planning and insufficient wisdom. There is so much evil that the goodness of a World-Ground, let alone his omnipotence, might well be called in question. The thinkers who concluded that there was a First Cause assumed without adequate justification that an unchanging being had to be perfect, and then they unconsciously identified the unchanging Being with their religious conception. Furthermore, and we shall discuss this further when we analyze the attributes of God, does it necessarily follow that the First

284 * "Patterns of Reasoning about Qod Cause must be completely unchanging in every respect? Indeed, can he be unchanging and really be related to a changing world ? The cosmological argument has indeed struck a snag here. § 3. THE CLASSICAL TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

A third argument for God completes the classical trilogy. This argument does not limit itself to the causal order of existence but emphasizes the aim, plan, or design which the order of changes seems to be serving. A design seems to be working out in cosmic history, a design which seems at once to be intelligent and benevolent and testifies to the goodness and wisdom of the First Cause. Since a reformulation of this teleological argument for God constitutes the burden of this book, we need not expound it at any length here. Suffice it to say that it represents the attempt to account not only for change and order but for the adaptive order of the world. The amazing manner in which one order of being is adapted to another, and the particular adaptations without which human and animal survival in nature would be impossible are especially stressed in the classical teleological argument. The kind of adaptation which stirred the imagination is illustrated in much of the literature before the acceptance of the Darwinian explanation of evolution. Thus Henry More wrote in his Antidote Against Atheism: I demand therefore concerning the cock why he has spurs at all, or, having them, how they come to be so fittingly placed. For he might have had none, or so misplaced that they had been utterly useless, and so his pleasure in fighting had been to no purpose Thus fittingly does nature gratify all creatures with accommodations suitable to their temper, and nothing is in vain. [And he continues:] I will rather insist upon such things as are easy and intelligible even to idiots, who if they can but tell the joints of their hands or know the use of their teeth, they may easily discover that it was counsel, not chance that created them. For why have we three joints

"Patterns of "Reasoning about Qod • 285 in our legs and arms, as also in our fingers, but that it was much better than having but two, or four ? And why are our fore-teeth broad to grind, but that this is more exquisite than having them all sharp or all broad, or the fore-teeth sharp and the others broad? But we might have made a hard shift to have lived through in that worse condition. Again, why are the teeth so luckily placed, or rather why are there not teeth in other bones as well as in jaw-bones for they might have been as capable as these? But the reason is, Nothing is done foolishly or in vain; that is, there is a divine Providence that orders all things 6 It was the order of nature, so resplendent with intricately contrived specific harmonies building up to the harmony of the whole, which called for a Source of order who was as good as he was wise and all-powerful. This argument has had a great attraction for all kinds of men; even the idiot, as More suggests, cannot fail to be impressed by such conspiracies of goodness. The argument does not seem to require delving into difficult metaphysical problems concerning change. But the Providence it appeals to is the ultimate Ground or Cause of nature, and the same arguments can be assembled against it which seemed to invalidate the cosmological argument. We repeat, if the cosmological argument has no validity, then no argument based upon the nature of the world and man can be valid. In our own exposition of the teleological argument we shall attempt to avoid the weaknesses in the cosmological and the teleological argument, but it should be clear that the teleological argument is in fact a broadening of the cosmological argument as traditionally expressed. The ultimate question is: How shall we conceive of an orderly world in which so much does conspire for good ends? Is such an order intelligible apart from a Personal Providence who underlies the orders and rhythms which constitute our world a whole ? It is interesting to note that the facts of 6 John Laird, Theism and Cosmology. London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1940, pp. 261, 262.

286 • Tatterns of Reasoning about Qod evil forced Kant, who favored the teleological argument, sadly to pronounce it inadequate to prove an omnipotent good God. § 4. THE MORAL ARGUMENT FOR GOD

Each one of the arguments for God which we have outlined so far takes root in a problem confronting human intellect and imagination. The ontological argument clarifies the implications of the unique human awareness of the idea of perfection; the cosmological argument gives an interpretation of the meaning and significance of the existence of determinate and orderly change; and the teleological argument fixes attention on the significance of the interconnected harmonies which pervade the order of nature. The moral argument for God was developed not simply because these other arguments seemed inadequate but because the moral life of man itself needed an interpretation. Immanuel Kant exclaimed: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them; the starry heavens above and the moral law within." T These words neatly summarize facts about human existence which have always impressed sensitive men. But it remained for Kant to formulate the argument which has been very influential in the last hundred years. We shall continue to take the liberty we have been exercising in expounding the other arguments and try to present the moral argument for God at its best, by-passing even the specific Kantian formulations of it.8 The argument will be presented in eight steps. 1. Every normal human being faces the moral choice between good and bad, right and wrong. His freedom of will cannot be 7 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, (trans. T. K. Abbott), 5th edition. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1898, Conclusion. 8 The more advanced reader would do well to study J. Seelye Bixler, Religion for Free Minds. New York: Harper & Bros., 1939; W. G. DeBurgh, from Morality to Religion. London: MacDonald & Evans, 1938; A. C. Garnett, Reality and Value. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937; W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1918; and A. E. Taylor, The Faith of a Moralist. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1930, 2 vols.

'Patterns of Reasoning about Qod • 287 denied. No matter how much we may think that every atom and molecule in the universe is caught within an unalterable pattern of order, when we turn and observe our inner conscious world, we find ourselves frequently choosing one course of action rather than another, and we do it in the conviction that we could have tried another action. This fact about human beings is a fact about the world, and any interpretation of the world must not overlook it. 2. This experience of conscious choice is, however, tied in with another experience which is also unique in human beings. We choose what we think we ought to choose (or ought not); we choose between right and wrong; we choose among values. Let the reader reflect for a moment on the actions he has performed in the last 24 hours, and he will probably be amazed at the number of times he has found himself saying: "I ought to do this and not that." Obligation (I ought) is an experience which is irreducible or sui generis; that is, it cannot be reduced, as some would have it, to the strongest want, or fear, or the gradual solidifying of past experience. It stands on its own feet as a constitutive phase of a mature human mind—as constitutive and irreducible as the experiences of sensing, emoting, desiring, and thinking. No account of the universe in which men live is complete without attention to this unique experience of obligation. (See Chapter 9.) 3. But human beings are not simply obligated. They feel obligated to do so and so. This right action is obligatory; that injustice ought to be eliminated; that act of kindness ought to be done. The experience of obligation is a kind of knowing; it is a vision of quality, quality which obligates him who is aware of it. When we experience obligation, we know what we ought to do; our duty is clear, and all that remains is that we do our level best to execute it. We have purposely expressed the second and third points in very general terms so that the common core of agreement among different exponents of the moral argument for God might be clear. The specific analyses of obligation (not compulsion!) differ. Some moralists are convinced that they intuit, or are immediately aware of, particular actions as being right or wrong. They hold

288 • Tatterns of Reasoning about Qod that the moral consciousness is immediately aware that such acts as telling the truth or keeping a promise are obligatory. As directly as our perception knows black, or white, or blue, so directly does a person who understands what a promise entails know that he ought to keep it. Other moralists are convinced that our experience of obligation is due to a moral reason which intuits the rightness of principles of conduct only, suggesting that we need to work out the application of the principles to individual cases. Still others would hold that man's intuition of good so transcends his sensing and reasoning powers that reason will never reveal the nature of true value. The knowledge of true value comes by way of a nonrational intuition; reason is restricted to applying the ideal in concrete situations. Other views could be referred to, but for our purpose the central affirmation is enough. What is it ? The moral consciousness of man is autonomous. The experience of obligatory ideals is not the product of the struggle for survival, though, like the capacity to think mathematically, it came late in the evolution of man. The fact that man's moral consciousness is at the end of a long evolutionary process does not mean that the ideals we envision are resultants of successful struggles in the past. Beware of the logical fallacy: after this, therefore, because of this! Man's evolution does not mean, as some would have it, that what man now considers good is simply the residue of his struggle to satisfy his desires with a minimum of inconvenience and a maximum of longevity. Keeping a promise is not right just because it helps people to live with each other amicably; sometimes the breaking of a promise might ease the situation considerably. The moral life is more than harmonizing desires with each other. There has always been and there is the necessity of adjusting abilities and desires to the demands of the environment in order to assure survival. But all this does not mean that man's moral sense is a by-product of that conflict and a reminder of the adjustments which have survival value, though this may frequently be true also! No, whenever the experience of moral obligation did appear, in whatever circumstances it became a part of man's equipment

'Patterns of Reasoning about Qod • 289 for life, it introduced new goals to be achieved; it created new conflicts and, as it called to higher adjustments, it shifted the perspective on old conflicts. For man now became aware of values and ideals which opened new vistas before him and set before him new tasks. This does not mean that the moral consciousness is to be isolated from the desires of men, or that there would be any point to its existence apart from the concrete problems which men face as they try to adjust themselves to each other and their world. But, standing in the very midst of the world of sense and the impetus of desires, the moral consciousness intuits qualities of life, such as loyalty, justice, forgiveness, truthfulness, beauty, by which the person judges the Tightness or wrongness, the goodness or badness, of his desires. It provides the standard and goal toward which he feels the obligation to strive. The autonomy of the moral consciousness, then, means that man's moral life—like the world of sense—must be understood on its own terms. For the realm of moral ideals and values which the moral consciousness opens to man are goals which he feels are valid for his life, even though they no more grow out of his strivings than do the sensations of red and green. But the autonomy of the moral life means something else also. The moral life, we have been saying, is not to be justified simply because it helps man to adjust. How can it be so justified if it determines what makes adjusting worth while ? The moral life is not a means, therefore, to biological survival. But it is just as important to emphasize that the justification of the good life is not "pie in the sky," or any other religious justification. The moral life is an end in itself; we are to be good because we realize that nothing else is worthy of substitution. Certain actions or certain kinds of actions are good, and there's an end to it. These actions may be pleasant or be accompanied by pleasure or other good consequences, spiritual or physical, but none of these accompaniments in themselves justifies our obligation. No future consequence could render actions more moral than they are to the inner

290 • ^Patterns of Reasoning about Qod vision (though of course life will be more agreeable if the consequences are favorable). The point is that neither God nor man can add anything to an act to ma\e it right. Indeed, God and man and anything they might add are themselves judged by the standard of goodness which the moral consciousness envisions. Again, an act is good not because it is commanded by God, or by the struggle for personal existence, or by society. Rather, it is good, and God commands it (if there be a God); it is good, and society ought to command it if it already does not! 4. The fourth step in the reasoning recognizes the predicament man seems to be in. Here he is, a free being, feeling the obligation to perform some actions and not others. He is not always correct about the direction in which he ought to go, but the inner imperative is to realize certain qualities of life to the best of his ability. Once he has become aware of these visions, the whole problem of man's place in the world takes on a new and different meaning. The physical and biological world illustrate one order, the order of cause and effect, an order which man does nothing to create. The sun does not await man's desires; man is compelled to adjust himself to the sun or die. The word "ought" makes no difference to physical events, biological sequences, or psychological causes and effects. These are what they are, and man must take them for what they are. But the experience of obligation transforms man's predicament. He now realizes that he ought to live by another order. This order of value cannot force him to do this or that, but it nevertheless lures him on, obligating him to transform his daily life in accordance with certain ideals. Man does not create these ideals any more than he creates his sensations. Yet this vision of ideals beckons to him without forcing him; he feels that only as he conforms his mind and his actions in the physical world to this vision will he be "at home" in the universe or make the most of his existence. In other words, man finds himself an inhabitant of two worlds; one of is and must be; the other of ought and "if you will." He lives in both, and his question is: Are these two parts or aspects of

'Patterns of Reasoning about Qod • 291 one world, or are they two distinct worlds, casually connected with each other and having no underlying unity or purpose ? This question acquires all the more point from the fact that the good man is not necessarily favored by the physical, the biological, and the psychological world. The good man, so far as we can see, does not escape physical catastrophe, biological disease, and mental breakdown. The biblical Job stands as the perfect example of this point—a good man who was denied the very things which render a human life content and happy while so many vicious men knew nothing of disaster. Is this world a moral unity at some point ? Is this the kind of world in which the Good gives unity to all there is, as Plato suggested ? Let us press the problem, for it is fundamental. We may not be able to define the Good adequately; we may be surer of what it is not than what it is. But is it sheer moonshine when a man says: "It (the Good) is the name we give t o . . . that something which in his heart of hearts a man knows that he wants, which ever retreats before him on the pathway of justice and beauty, and of which he gets a far-off glimpse in moments of satisfied conscience. It is the assurance that this want of the soul is not an illusion but the feeling after a reality which lies at the heart of the world as it lies in the heart of man." 9 To be sure, there have been men, sensitive to a vision of beauty and goodness, who could not conceive of the order of beauty and goodness as a basic, formative force in the process of world development. They would rather accept a breached universe as a more honest conclusion than what seems to them a wishful projection of a deep desire. There are men who would be willing to accept the first three steps, who would insist on the autonomy of the moral life but who cannot believe that this desire for a moral unity in the world is justified by the facts. We ought to be good, but goodness, they say, does not involve Godness. 5. At his best, however, the proponent of the moral argument 9 Paul E. More, The Sceptical Approach to Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1934, pp. 66, 67.

292 • Tatterns of Reasoning about Qod for God goes beyond an appeal to intuition. Asking for no concessions, he insists that his case is based on the same kind of logic which leads philosophers to grant the reality of the physical world. Here we come to the core of this moral argument for God. (a) Our conception of the physical world is based on the evidence of sense-perceptions. Thus the oar which we perceive as bent in the water is not regarded as really bent, because every other perception of the oar is inconsistent with the perception of its being bent. We cannot always trust every sense-perception, but we do not on that account deny the validity of sense-perception generally. We reason that those perceptions most consistent with other perceptions are to be taken as true. In other words, coherence among sense-perceptions is our test of truth. In this way we build our conception of "the physical world," and we stand prepared to change our conceptions of "the physical world" as experience shows us that what we earlier regarded as true was incorrect. Since we find if easier to check senseperceptions, we come more readily to agreement on the nature of the physical world presented to us. But basically our logic is that of checking one part of perceptual experience by the whole system of sensory experiences. Nor is this the whole story. We have not only assumed the general validity of sense-experience and the validity of our logical and inductive reasoning, but we have made certain assumptions about the world. We have been willing to accept what we had not already proved, namely, what we call the uniformity of nature. Moreover, we made another assumption whose significance is even greater, for the whole of life as well as our scientific investigation. We assumed that truth is worth while. Had we not believed that truth is worth while, we hardly would have been willing to make assumptions, such as the uniformity of nature, without which the venture could hardly promise results. The belief in the value of truth, born, to be sure, within the struggle for survival, has led men to accept the responsibility for discovering truth. The moment we recognize this fact,, certain serious conse-

Tatterns of Reasoning about Qod • 293 quences for our whole conception of the universe follow. For truth is a value. It is the fundamental value for every human being and especially for every scientist or philosopher. We never know the whole truth, and yet our intellectual enterprises rest on the conviction that without truth no adequate adjustment to the world is possible. And here we draw our conclusion. If there is a real rift in the universe between all values and facts, between what we ought to achieve and what actually exists, then there is a rift between the scientific or intellectual pursuit of truth and the universe. If it is moonshine to believe that values and our obligation to realize them tell us nothing about the inner structure of the universe, then it is moonshine to believe that the truths of science are valid. If all values, if all goods are simply projections of our wishes, then, since truth is a value, a good, it too is a projection and nothing more! Thus complete scepticism results, and the scientific enterprise is built on the same quicksands which engulf other ventures in value. Accordingly, we cannot, in the name of science or scientific accuracy, hold that we can trust our thinking about nature but not our thinking about values. For our thinking about nature and our experiments with it rest in the value-judgment that truth is good and that nature will yield this good to the disciplined mind. We cannot label "subjective," "unreliable," and "wishful" the thesis that values do somehow pertain to the realm of existence without shaking the foundations on which we stand when we make each accusation. We shall not argue against scepticism here, since the accusation about the unreliability of value-judgments comes not from the sceptic but from one who stands on the rockbound shores of scientific reliability and holds that judgments of fact are dependable but judgments about value change like the waves. In a word, then, the exponent of the moral argument holds that if his belief in the validity of values is a delusion, the belief in the validity of science is also a delusion, since it rests on the conviction that truth is valuable.

294 * "Patterns of Reasoning about Qod (b) But supposing one grants such an argument and then holds that although man's assessment of truth may be trusted (especially when reasoning about sense-perception is involved), the truth is that he cannot trust the validity of his judgments of goodness and beauty. One may admit, in other words, that there is a serious breach in the argument that all values are illusory, but, the value of truth excepted, he may maintain that his defenses are still strong against the contention that judgments about goodness are trustworthy, or tell us anything about our universe. What can the exponent of the moral argument say to this ? First, he may be willing to grant that men are not so likely to agree about intuitions of value, especially as compared to senseperception. No one will deny the fact of atomic energy, but we differ as to whether it should be used to destroy human beings. However, does disagreement mean that our moral faculties cannot be trusted at all? Shall man give up his faith in his moral consciousness because it is frequently wrong? Of course not. We do not give up our faith in our sensory processes just because we sometimes "see double" or hear a sound when there was none. Why then should we give up faith in our basic capacity for moral insight? To do so is to accept moral scepticism with its tragic consequences for all human ventures. We cannot forget that when the scientist courageously and sacrificially fights for truth (or for the freedom to find the truth), and when he shares the truth with others, he is pursuing moral insights! We simply cannot cut the moral life away from the intellectual life; if we undermine the one, the other falls to the ground also. What we must do is to follow the same procedure we pursue in gaining scientific knowledge. We must accept the general validity of the moral consciousness. We must realize that moral truth, like scientific truth, is a growing body of knowledge. Because moral judgments are not easy to check, because our human situations differ so much, because every man has something to say about moral truth, regardless how imperfect is his training and selfdiscipline, we should expect slower progress in agreement. But the

Tatterns of Reasoning about Qod • 295 test of truth must be the same in the moral life as it is in the realm of sense-perception. Those intuitions of value which are most consistent with the remainder of our value-experience may be accepted as true. In other words, the most coherent system of value-intuitions must be the guide of our moral living. The late Knightsbridge Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University was clear-cut on the matter. Any moral judgment which is valid must be coherent with all other valid moral judgments: at least it cannot be inconsistent with any. Freedom from contradiction, coherence, and thus possible systematization are criteria by which the validity of any moral judgment may be tested. If any such judgment is inconsistent with some other judgment known to be valid then it cannot be valid also; if it is consistent with other valid judgments then it may be valid. And if it is capable of entering into a system of moral judgments along with them and thus harmonizing with them, the probability of its validity is increased. This probability may be of various degrees. When the judgment in question is logically implied by other judgments known to be valid, its validity is certain.10 However, our modest claims about the certainty of moral knowledge must not underestimate the knowledge which the race has accumulated. We are clearer about underlying principles than we sometimes realize, so impressed are we by the conflicts in moral judgments. Thus, to use one of Sorley's illustrations: when a headhunter is proud of the scalp which proves his prowess, other "civilized" people condemn such action as immoral. Such examples of conflict seem to prove the contention that there are no universal moral principles. But we here overlook the underlying allegiance to his commmunity which the head-hunter feels and which civilized persons approve in principle. Thus, although the condemnation of head-hunting contradicts our approval of the warrior, there is, on reflection, agreement on the underlying prin10 William R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God Cambridge- Cambridge University Press, 1930, p. 96. Reprinted by permission of the Cambridge University Press.

296 * "Patterns of Reasoning about Qod ciple that the good of the community justifies personal risk. Such conflicts prove not that there are no universal moral principles; they rather indicate the need for more intelligent application of fundamental moral insights. And so it is with other moral principles. When principles themselves conflict, we must seek and give our allegiance to some deeper principle which most comprehensively includes the goods protected in the narrower principles and avoids the bad. For example, political nationalisms contain good, but they must give way to a kind of internationalism which takes up and develops the good in nationalism at the expense of the bad. The history of critical morality, like the history of science, shows the necessity of giving up some generalizations considered to be true for the sake of others. Indeed, it was Professor Sorley's conviction, and he spoke as a historian of moral philosophy, that: Throughout the history of moral ideas, in spite of constant change, we may nevertheless trace a certain persistent content. In each modification the new stage is not entirely new; it brings out more fully something that was already suggested at an earlier stage. It is a permanent characteristic of the moral consciousness to find value in certain kinds of experience rather than others. At every critical turn the moral judgment pronounces for the superiority of the spiritual to the material in life, and recognizes the importance of social ends when confronted by the interests or apparent interests of the selfseeking individual. The higher life and the wider life—the life of the spirit and the life for others—these the moral judgment approves with a constancy which is almost uniform.11 6. From the above argument the conclusion follows that moral knowledge is not essentially different as \nowledge from the knowledge gained by way of sense-perception. The mind of man introduces him to two worlds: a nonsensible realm of moral values 11

Sorley. Moral Values and the Idea of God, p. 106.

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and a realm of sensible fact. If man is to trust his "facts," he must trust them for the same reason that he trusts his "values"—namely, they form a system which is coherent or reasonable. Each system is autonomous. Neither the realm of fact nor the realm of value is dependent for its validity upon the other. If a man is dying, it does not alter the fact to claim: "He ought not to die." But the moral claim: "He ought not to die" may be no less correct because he is dying! Judgments about existence are tested by other judgments about existence; moral judgments are tested by their coherence with other moral judgments. We need to go a step further, however. Although judgments about what exists and judgments about what ought to exist are logically distinct, in practice we cannot separate them. For, in moral judgment, we are asserting that certain kinds of action which do not now exist ought to exist, and others, which do exist, ought not to exist. The moral agent (the person) makes both statements about what is and what ought to be. And we have seen that there is no more reason for discrediting his judgments about what ought to be than there is for discrediting his judgments about what is. But if this is so, then may we not infer some underlying unity in the world ? It becomes increasingly difficult to think of the world of existent things and the realm of values as realms unrelated to each other. Man's mind seems rather to be in some sort of connection with a world of things and persons which can be organized in terms of value. If the world of nature is seen as a means to the realization of value in the lives of persons, then values may be seen as the goals in terms of which things ta\e on deeper meanings. Nature is not separate from value, and values do not stand by themselves irrelevant to the processes of nature. For man is now to be conceived as part of a whole universe in which existence and value can go together. In other words, the dependable order of nature is to be seen as the steady, predictable means to the creation and realization of values. The growth of complete persons is the end which can be

298 * 'Patterns of Reasoning about Qod served by the order of nature. Indeed, as persons grow in the "higher" life and the "wider" life, they find the proper relation between the means of life and the ends of life in a universe which supports the interrelation of values and natural processes. We thus come upon a theory of the cosmos in which values and facts are coherently related to each other. The postulates of science and the insights of morality are seen to be consistent with each other if the moral ends of life are made fundamental in the interpretation of experience. 7. The exponent of the moral argument for God is now ready for the last step in the argument. If the world seems to be ultimately a "realm of ends," an order in which values give us an insight into the whole, how is this interconnection possible or conceivable ? 12 Only, he replies, by postulating a Supreme Person who, with these values in mind, has been and is seeking constantly to realize these ends through the laws of nature and the lives of men. If we postulate such an Ultimate Purposer, we are able to understand the final source of all the values in existence, for they are now seen as the purposes of a God whose plans embrace the order of nature and the order of values we know. When human beings are not aware of values, or when they do not yield their lives to the values before them, values are still God's goals or norms. Values depend ultimately not upon the mind of man but upon the reality of God. The Good is at the heart of things, and all that is, making allowance for the use and abuse of human freedom, has its final source in that Good. The world as a whole can now be seen as the work of a good God who is at once the source of value and of existence. This conclusion of the argument must not be accepted too readily. For there have been great thinkers who, while insisting that the moral consciousness is aware of a realm of eternal values, would deny that the hypothesis of a Supreme Mind is necessary as a "home" for values. Independent of man's mind, they would 12 See James Ward, The Realm of Ends, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920.

'Patterns of Reasoning about Qod ' 299 hold, there is an order of values which is valid in its own right and which man ought to realize in his own life as an existent being. These values never change; they are uncreated, and they remain eternal ends worthy of man's allegiance. Man is aware of them through moral intuition, and he finds himself obligated to realize them in this world which is governed by the laws of nature. There is no need for a Supreme Mind to bring the two worlds together.13 This version of the universe, however, leaves many questions unanswered. How shall we conceive of such independent values ? If they are independently real, how did it come about that human beings could be sensitive to them, or that action in conformity to them should be relevant to the laws of nature? We have a pluriverse on our hands by definition—nonexistent but valid values are one realm, and the order of man and nature another—and yet the parts seem to be interrelated as if they were parts of a larger unity. Why not render these facts intelligible by hypothesizing a Mind whose intelligence and goodness are the ultimate source of values, persons, and nature? Human beings at their best plan their activities in accordance with values. Why not follow this analogy and postulate a cosmic Being whose very nature it is to be intelligent and good, whose eternal purposes gradually take concrete shape in the course of cosmic and human history? 8. The critical reader is no doubt ready with the ultimate objection: If Goodness is the ultimate source of things, how is evil to be explained? We are later to devote two chapters to the explanation of evil, for the problem stands across the path of all approaches to belief in God. Here we shall emphasize simply the unique point in the reply of the exponent of the moral argument. He can reply, as do others, (a) that much evil is the result of human carelessness and callousness; (b) that much which appears now to be evil would be seen to be good in the 13 See, for example, Nicolai Hartmann's Ethics, 3 vols., (trans. Stanton Coit). NewYork: The Macmillan Co., 1932.

300 • Tatterns of Reasoning about Qod long run; (c) that the presence of difficulty helps to heighten our appreciation of the good; and (d) that this life does not tell the whole story. But after all these things are said, this proponent stands by the deliverance of the moral consciousness. If man did not have the vision of a realm of values independent of him, there would be no basis for argument. Sorley, for example, does not believe that the actual history of the world as we know it justifies of itself belief in the goodness of God. "I do not say that experience of the relation of natural forces to moral ideas and moral volitions justifies of itself the inference to divine goodness at the heart of all things. The mere fragment of life with which we are acquainted is too scanty to bear so weighty a superstructure." 14 The conviction that "goodness belongs to the ground of reality" ultimately roots in the realization that man does discover ideals of goodness, and that these ideals, which he himself so inconsistently follows, must exist in the mind of a moral being, God. Sorley's own statement is an excellent summary: Further, persons are conscious of values and of an ideal of goodness, which they recognize as having undoubted authority for the direction of their activity; the validity of these values or laws and of this ideal, however, does not depend upon their recognition: it is objective and eternal; and how could this eternal validity stand alone, not embodied in matter and neither seen nor realized by finite minds, unless there were an eternal mind whose thought and will were therein expressed? God must therefore exist and his nature be goodness.15 What may be said in criticism of the moral argument for God? Those who object to the cosmological argument would no doubt find similar objections to this argument. For the moral argument is basically an extension of cosmological thinking to 14 15

Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, p. 346. Ibid., p. 349.

"Patterns of Reasoning about Qod • 301 include the facts of the moral life; the moral order as well as the order of change is grounded in the reality of an ultimate Moral Agent. But the same considerations which weigh against objections to the cosmological argument could be called upon here. The most critical objections to the moral argument for God are objections to the analysis of the moral consciousness outlined in step three above. Here we present only what seems to the writer the most telling difficulty. (See also Chapter 10.) The argument, as we saw, proceeds on the theory that man is aware of an objective order of values, values which do not depend upon his recognition of them and which reveal an order of their own. This order is later identified with the Mind of God. What calls for pause here is the implication that man could know what is good for him in this world by an intuition of value which is, by presupposition, no form of his own experience. Values such as love, justice, loyalty, courage—what does it mean to say that they could be independent of man's mind and yet be valid for his life in the world ? We may expand our meaning as follows. The exponent of the moral argument, impressed by the difficulty of conceiving values to be independent of all mind, finally thinks of them as inherent in God's mind. Values, he realizes, are meaningless abstractions unless they constitute the way some mind is at work. If they exist independent of God's mind, how do they become relevant for any mind? Accordingly, he thinks of values as objective in God's mind, believing he has solved the problem. He has in part. But to regard the values as inhering in God's mind does not relieve the basic difficulty. What needs to be clarified is how moral values like courage, loyalty, justice, and love as we know them in human experience can ever be conceived as qualities in any being, God included, independent of man's mind. For if it is hard to understand how any values or ideals could exist by themselves, it is even more difficult to see how values which are simply unintelligible without inspecting human life and experience can be said to exist independent of

302 • Tat terns of Reasoning about Qod man's mind, whether he knows them or not, and yet be revelant to his striving. Love as we know it is a form of human experience. What can it mean to say that love (as we know it) exists independent of man's mind, even as ultimately inherent in the mind of God? Of course, the answer might be that a God motivated by love so made human beings that they would become aware of the meaning of ideal love. But here the argument is being patched up and to no avail. For human beings could be "aware" of the love, justice, and loyalty in God's experience and yet find it meaningless unless their own struggle with life led them to appreciate what love, justice, and loyalty mean. But then would they be aware of God's mind or merely of what was possible in their own experience? Values relevant for man and yet independent of his mind (whether he knows them or not) are unintelligible.16 What can be said intelligibly is that God purposed the kind of love we experience and approve when he created us. Indeed, the case is being put in this fashion by thinkers like Brightman who are aware of the problem involved when we treat values as a realm objectively inherent in God. But this is not the way the moral argument is stated by its exponents. It begins with the intuition of value which is irreducible to any form of human experience and which is yet valid for human beings. Having established the validity of such moral judgments, it then infers the existence of God. God is no part of the original intuition of objective value. He is an interpretation of the objectivity of value. In conclusion: as we have seen, the moral argument calls for an interpretation of a world in which the orders of value and 16 See Peter A. Bertocci, The Empirical Argument for God in Late British Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938. See especially Chapter V for further analysis of the moral argument for God. See also "The Authority of Ethical Ideals," Journal of Philosophy, Ma> 1936, "The Faith of a Moralist," Review of Religion, November 1938, and "An Empirical Critique of the Moral Argument for God," Journal of Religion, July 1938.

'Patterns of Reasoning about Qod • 303 of existence are both valid. This insight we hold to be a permanent contribution of the moral argument for God. However, as we have suggested in Chapter 10, the theory of value and moral judgment needs to be reformed. This forces the whole argument for God to take broader lines. The "wider" teleological argument for God, as we shall present it, will include an account of a world in which change and order, moral law and natural law, and values and facts may be seen as one basic interrelated realm of purpose. But before turning to this part of our task, we must attempt to outline the conception of God's attributes as they presented themselves in the main western tradition. QUESTIONS

1. a. Why is the idea of perfection held to be different from the idea of a perfect island or any other idea? b. What reasoning leads to the conviction that we have an idea of perfection ? 2. a. Criticize the ontological argument, b. Is it illogical or too logical ? 3. To what does the cosmological argument draw attention? 4. Why is infinite regress undesirable ? 5. How would the materialist and naturalist criticize this argument ? 6. a. Is the argument against a First Cause tenable? b. Explain two meanings of cause, and demonstrate which mean ing applies to this argument. 7. Why does the problem of First Cause lead to the hypothesis of a cosmic Mind which is orderly and abiding? 8. a. If a First Cause exists, does this prove that God exists? b. Does the cosmological argument seem to depend on the validity of the idea of perfection ? 9. What fundamental controversy does reasoning about the cosmological argument illustrate ? Explain. 10. a. Outline the traditional teleological argument for God. b. What is its relation to the cosmological argument ? c. Why did the acceptance of evolution undermine this classical teleological argument ?

304 * Tat terns of Reasoning about Qod 11. In studying the moral argument for God, the reader should be clear about the following points: a. the relation of free choice to obligation, b. the conception of values perceived as independent of man, c. the meaning of the autonomy of the moral consciousness, d. the resultant conception of two worlds, e. the reasoning for holding to the general validity of moral experience as parallel to sense-experience, f. the impossibility of separating the value of truth from other values, g. the final conception of the "home" for values. 12. According to the moral argument, how does one conceive the relation of existence and value ? 13. a. How may the moral argument for God be criticized ? b. How might the basic criticism be avoided ? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Bixler, J. Seelye. Religion for Free Minds. New York: Harper & Bros., 1939Garnett, A. Campbell. A Realistic Philosophy of Religion. Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1942. Gilson, Etienne. God and Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941. Hawkins, D. J. B. The Essentials of Theism. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1950. Randall, John H., and Justus Buchler. Philosophy: An Introduction. New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1942, Chapters XIII, XVIII. Sheen, Fulton J. Philosophy of Religion. New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, Inc., 1948, Chapters VIII, IX. Taylor, Alfred E. Does God Exist? New York: The Macmillan Co., 1945. Wild, John. Introduction to Realistic Philosophy. New York: Harper & Bros., 1948, Part II.

12

THE CONCEPTION OF GOD IN THE WESTERN TRADITION

THROUGHOUT this book we have emphasized the fact that belief in God is meaningless unless one has a clear conception of the nature of God. It makes a difference whether or not one believes in a God who holds every event in the world in his inexorable grip, having established every detail from the very beginning, and leaving no play for freedom. It makes a difference if God is conceived as one who chose one nation or race to rule over all others. It makes a difference if one believes in a God whose love leads him to create and respect the freedom of his creatures. In this chapter our concern is with basic attributes of God as conceived in the main western tradition.1 Our main purpose is to present essentials of that conception as clearly as we can, so that the reader may keep it in mind as we continue in the remainder of this book to ask the question: Can we believe in this God? We must understand the reasoning which led to this view of God, if we are to appreciate our heritage even as we address ourselves to the problems it raises. 1 See Albert C. Knudson's The Doctrine of God. New York: Abingdon Press, 1930, and Basic Issues in Christian Thought. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1950. See also articles on the attributes of God in The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vergihus Ferm, ed. New York: The Philosophical Library, 1945.

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306 • Qod in the ^Western Tradition § I. GOD AS A PERSON

The essence of God's nature, according to the western conception, is that he is an infinite, perfect Mind or Person. The moment we utter the word person, we think of the human person with all his limitations and imperfections. In fact, many take person to mean a human body—"Do not touch my person." These associations of limitation are so strong that many have been led to deny that God could properly be a person. Spinoza, for example, asserted that the similarity between God and the human person was no greater than that between a real dog and the constellation which we call "The Dog." But his is but one voice in a chorus which pleads that the grandeur of the Godhead be not demeaned by any comparison to finite men. The reader has probably heard more than once that to think of God as a person is to be "anthropomorphic," to attribute to God the mode or form of being which characterizes man. There are two things to be said about this condemnation of anthropomorphism. First, there is no doubt that many human beings endow God with their own qualities. Xenophanes years ago complained: "Aethiopians make their gods black and snubnosed; Thracians give theirs blue eyes and red hair." But the really interesting point here is that when this Greek philosopher came to describe the fundamental being in the universe he said: "The whole of him sees, the whole of him thinks, the whole of him hears." 2 Anthropomorphism for Xenophanes seemed to mean not the attributing of human qualities to God but the attributing of minor qualities, without careful criticism, to God. Second, we must distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate anthropomorphism,3 just as we distinguish the proper from improper use of analogy. It would be improper reasoning to 2 Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers Cambridge • Harvard University Press, 1948, p 8. 3 See Etienne Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, (trans. A. C. H. Downes). New York. Charles Scnbner's Sons, 1940, pp. 77 78.

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infer that since a certain automobile is in some respects like other automobiles we have seen, it is in all respects like them. In other words, when we think analogically, we must not succumb to the temptation of concluding without supporting evidence that the unknown, in certain respects similar to what we do know, is in other respects also similar. One is amazed at the number of people who aver that God is a Spirit and yet picture him with a physical body. (Still no serious theologian has asserted that a personal God has a physical body, except perhaps Swedenborg.) Here we see a good example of the \ind of anthropomorphism to be avoided. To say that a human person could not exist without his nervous system, muscles, bone, and skin is in no way proof that God too has a body. Indeed, the historic contention is that absence of bodily form constitutes a major difference between the divine Person and the human. Surely God does not breathe and eat; and he does not "rest" on the seventh day as the writer of the first chapter of Genesis quaintly suggested in an "anthropomorphic" moment. God, then, may or may not be like us in certain respects. The intellectual problem is to weigh the evidence for saying whether "he" is or is not. To cry "anthropomorphism" the moment someone says that the fundamental Being in the universe is in some respect like a human being reveals a bias—or indicates that the human process, of reasoning from the known to the unknown has been misunderstood. Curiously enough, many who cry "anthropomorphism" when God is considered to be a person are willing to grant that ultimate reality may be considered to be a mechanism. Yet is there any basic difference between reasoning that the ultimate Being in the universe is something like a mechanism which human minds have constructed and reasoning that "he" is a mind somewhat like a human mind? In both instances we are moving by analogy from something known in human experience, to a similar attribute in the ultimate Being, only important consideration is that we attribute to God,

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or to any other being we are thinking about, only those attributes for which we can adduce adequate evidence. This is legitimate use of analogy; this is legitimate anthropomorphism. What the traditional thinker was trying to capture in calling God a person was the fact that his being had inner conscious unity, that he knew what he was doing, and that he cared for certain ideals. The traditional thinker wanted to herald the fact that God is not the victim of circumstances but the controller and creator of circumstances. These considerations were vital and still remain vital in attributing "personality" to God. In the tradition, once more, the characteristic which distinguishes persons from animals is the fact that men are conscious of what they are doing. Human beings not only can reflect, but they can also be guided by these reflections in their willing. If man is such a rational being, God, as perfect, is not less than this; he must be the most rational being that the human imagination can conceive. Indeed, as we have seen, he must be that than whom there is nothing greater. His reasoning cannot be loose, inconsistent, and intermittent as ours is. His knowledge is not sparse and incomplete, and his will is not wavering and undependable. God's life, furthermore, was conceived of as enjoying complete unity of aim and activity. For God and man the processes of thinking, feeling, and willing are not separate "faculties" which by "compounding" make up the mind; they are various functions of one being, the person. However, God's unity is the most complete and comprehensive unity that can be conceived. All of his being is "all-at-once"; the beginning and the end of time are one experience for his consciousness. God's unity is the original unity, the fount of all other unities. His unity, unlike ours, is not created and dependent to some extent upon what happens in the environment. His unity is the source of the uni-vtrse and all the unities therein. Nor was it deemed necessary that God should be limited as we are to knowledge by way of concepts. He knows directly

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and immediately and does not have to reflect: "Since this is so, this also must be so, and so on." Furthermore, God does not have all the emotions we have—any more than we have those of animals. Traditional theologians have been keenly aware that human beings cannot discern the nature of God in exact detail. They were insistent, however, that those imperfections (in accuracy, or range, or duration) which characterize human persons are absent in the Person, God. This is not to say that the qualities attributed to God were always consistent with each other, untainted by illegitimate anthropomorphism, or consistent with the facts of experience. It was all too easy to attribute qualities to God without making clear exactly what they meant. We shall note some of these difficulties as we move along. Some of them are very real and issue from the nature of the problem being discussed. Others, unfortunately, spring from attempts to picture God, or from loose analogical thinking without benefit of contact with the facts. To summarize, the central affirmation about God in JudeoChristian thought is that he is a Person, an everlasting self-dependent unity of thinking, feeling, and willing. In God these activities have none of the imperfections to be found in human nature. Concretely this means that the divine Person has other "infinite" attributes of which we shall briefly discuss five: immutability, creativity, omnipotence, omniscience, and goodness. § 2. GOD AS IMMUTABLE AND ETERNAL

A perfect being, one who is "all finished" cannot be a changing being. Why? Because change, be it in a cabbage or in God, must involve either adding something, for better or worse, or losing something, for better or worse. If a being is perfect, what can there be to add or to subtract ? He would not allow himself to lose anything good, and, being perfect, nothing better could be added to his nature. The conclusion is inevitable: God does not change; he is immutable. Human beings and all finite things

310 * Qod in the Western Tradition change and from this very fact, ultimately, spring their limitations. If the reader would catch the spirit or motivation behind this argument, let him recall the poignant regret he experiences when the beauty of a rose vanishes, when the grandeur of a sunset is dissipated, when the life of a cherished and admirable person passes away—all are victims of time. (Without time there can be no movement or change.) In such moments we feel that change is perversity itself. Surely, we find ourselves insisting, everything in the universe cannot be victimized by time. A perfect being there must be beyond the reach of time, change, and decay! Let us pause to examine the implications of this insistence on God's immutability. For if change, in our imperfect experience, might bring an increase of good or a decrease of evil, this cannot be so for a perfect Being. In God there is no beginning and no development; therefore, there is no end. He is the Alpha and the Omega. That is, the Omega does not follow the Alpha but is the Alpha; there is One Being, all at once, and complete at once. As a mind, he knows, he enjoys, he wills, all at once; for this kind of perfect mind there can be no before and no after, no part and then a whole, no some and then all. To think otherwise is to misunderstand what immutability involves. The reader may feel that too much is happening here too fast. We started by saying that God is immutable or unchanging. We end by saying that he is complete Being, in whom time makes no inroads, and for whom improvement is meaningless, since this Being enjoys all the best there ever is. But let the reader go back over the steps and see if there is any way out of this conclusion! Indeed, this is what is meant by speaking of eternity and by considering God eternal. We usually contrast the eternal with the temporal and therefore think of God as everlasting. But for many thinkers this is not "following the argument." Can anything last forever if it is not a totally complete being, a being who can brook no loss and no gain ? Yes, temporal does contrast

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with eternal but not as succession differs from nonsuccession o£ moments. Succession, coming into being and passing away, is important to us because it introduces new qualities, for good and for ill. He who needs no improvement, he whose very life enjoys the total and highest quality of all that is—only he knows eternity. Hence, the life everlasting, on this view, is not simply the continuation "forever and ever" of befores and afters. What point is there to befores and afters if there is no state better than the one God constantly enjoys? Accordingly, to speak of God as being immutable is to give his experience the quality of eternity. More is involved than the denial that God's nature is subject to change, improvement, or decay. The eternal God, for othodox Judeo-Christian thought, is the complete God, the Being who resolves the mystery of change, who satisfies our yearning that there be something complete in our universe—something so complete that he can be the self-sufficient source of all that takes place as history. But at the very moment we clear our minds of the idea that God changes, the idea enters that he is dead, that he rests inactive, a mere thing. Better were he to change, then; better were he to have a few limitations so that he can enjoy growth, as we do! The defenders of the tradition make rebuttal: To say that God does not change from better to worse or worse to better does not mean that he is inactive. He is active but not changing. That is, all that God enacts does not improve or hurt his nature but expresses the very fullness of his being. Let the reader recall some moment in which he has reached "perfection," be it in playing tennis or in perfectly performing a piece of music. When he is in such "top form" he is not lacking in any way with respect to that performance; he is, indeed, completely active,-for he is doing all that can possibly be done, and he is omitting nothing. Is it not such moments of complete, perfected activity which he would defend against diminution said death? To be in "full possession" of all his potentialities, so

312 • Qod in the Western Tradition that all he ever could be he now is—perfect symphony: is not such a life really eternal ? Never to wax or wane, ever to remain in this perfect equilibrium of all powers enjoyed at their best: this is the life! For the tradition, especially from Aristotle on, this is the life of God—not one of dullness or monotony, and not one of always reaching for something lacking, or struggling to keep what good one has! He does not change; he acts! God's being is an eternal now of activity, a state of complete symphonic fruition of all the good there can be, a state never to be surpassed by any ensuing state, since there is nothing better to ensue. God is perfect "form"; his is the perfect "enjoyment" of every enjoyment. If the reader is now tempted to think that God is having "a good time" in the usual pleasure-sense of that expression, that notion should be dispelled immediately. For God, the CosmosMaker, is enjoying the fruition of the kind of being he is; his is the steady, eternal activity upon which every other limited activity and change depend. He is the eternal Creator Knower, Lover: these are activities which constitute other attributes of his nature and which we shall also need to analyze. § 3. GOD AS TRANSCENDENT AND IMMANENT

There is, however, one attribute we must consider now, since it is closely related to the eternity and immutability we have been discussing. In the tradition, the unchanging, complete, and eternal God is immanent in a world imperfect, incomplete, and temporal. The problem faced by the traditionalist takes this form: How is the immutable, eternal mind related to the changing, imperfect world of which man is a part? But the issue he confronts is: How can an unchanging and complete Being be said to be in some sense responsible for the changing, incomplete, and finite world and still remain so unified, unchanging, and perfect? It seems clear that one cannot be responsible for, and contemporaneously active in, a changing, temporal, and imperfect

Qod in the Western 'Tradition • 313 world without being himself less than immutable, eternal, and complete. Yet that is exactly the view taken by traditional philosophy and theology. In this connection three fundamental conceptions of God's relation to the world were developed, and these we must pause to define. The first and dominant view is called theism. According to theism, God is a Person who is responsible for the changing world but not identical with it; his activity is engaged in the world, but his own being and perfection are no part of it. God, as the theist defines him, is, therefore, both transcendent and immanent. This relation will be clearer when we discuss the idea of creation, but for our present purpose it is important to emphasize that the one, immutable, eternal God is not identical with the world, but transcendent. That is, he is more than the world, and his nature is not exhausted in it; he is above and beyond the change that permeates it. At the same time he is constantly at work in the world and is therefore immanent. A second view, deism, differs from theism at a crucial point. The deist insists on the transcendence of God and denies God's constant immanence, once God "made" the world according to the order he had in mind. The deist, anxious to discourage the explanation of events in nature by appeal to the miraculous intervention of God, holds that God did not interfere with the working of the world once he had set the hands and wound up his cosmic clock. But does the deist (any more than the theist) escape the question of how a nonchanging, perfect God could be responsible for a changing, imperfect world and not be himself tainted by the change and imperfection? On the third view, pantheism, the world, including man, is absorbed in God. All is God, meaning by "all" literally everything that is: nature, plant, animal, and man, and any other possible being. God or Nature, said Spinoza, as he asserted that nothing can or does exist apart from God and that God is everything, One Being, immutable, eternal, complete.

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Of course, there are different forms of pantheism and different ways of regarding the relation of the parts to the whole; but all pantheisms emphasize immanence and deny the transcendence of God. Every pantheism which holds to the unitary, unchanging, complete being must still grapple with the difficulty of clarifying how such a God can be reconciled with the changing multiplicity of things, let alone their imperfections. It is very well to explain that if only human beings could enlarge their visions and see things as they really are, their imperfect vision of things as many (or as imperfect) would yield to the truer vision of everything as interconnected aspects of one total, complete, unchanging Reality. Yet does the pantheist explain why there are two perspectives, one of eternity and one of time, in a universe that is supposed to be a single unchanging unity ? We have been underscoring the difficulty in which a thinker is involved the moment he argues that God must be an unchanging, unified, complete Person, and at the same time insists that this changing, imperfect world is God's world.4 The student of the history of philosophy will know that apart from any theological idea of God, philosophers from Thales to Whitehead have been trying to decide whether time and change constitute the very foundations of the universe or whether they are important but not "ultimate" expressions of the core of things. As we saw in studying the cosmological argument, there seems no way of understanding change unless there is an unchanging being that persists through change. Yet, if there is an unchanging core, how can it be both responsible for change and unaffected by it? Slanting the same problem in a different perspective, how can there be an ultimate One if that One appears to us in the everyday world as many? Yet, if all is many, how can it be known to be many unless there is one common denominator some4 In Charles Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1941), the serious student will find a thoroughgoing analysis of the conflicting attributes of God. This study should be followed by the succeeding book, The Divine Relativity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948.

Qod in the Western Tradition • 315 where? The student will want to ponder these problems and study the different solutions. In the main, those who accept unchanging transcendence have tried to indicate how immanence could be compatible with it. Those, on the other hand, who have held to immanence have struggled to show that unity and plurality and time and eternity could live together. Suffice it here to say that in the western tradition believers in God have stressed his immutability, be it in a pantheistic, theistic, or deistic philosophy, and have let changing events in the history of the world find their sources "somehow" in that unitary being. In the last 50 years, and quite boldly in our own day (in the philosophies of Hastings Rashdall, Henri Bergson, Samuel Alexander, Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, John E. Boodin, and Edgar S. Brightman, for example), there is a break with the tradition. All of these thinkers, in different ways of course, have declined to assert that ultimate reality or the fundamental structure of God has to be thoroughly and totally immutable and totally perfect. To quote from Hartshorne: "There is no being in all respects absolutely perfect; but there is a being in some respect or respects thus perfect, and in some respect or respects not so, in some respects surpassable, whether by self or others being left open." 5 § 4. GOD AS CREATOR

The cosmological argument, we saw, advanced the thesis that the changing order of the world was ultimately dependent upon the activity of an immutable Being. In discussing immutability we became aware of the problem involved when an unchanging being is said to be the First Cause or Ground of a changing world. As we have said, much painstaking attention has been given to showing how an eternal, immutable being could be related to time and yet not undergo change. But when we come to the 5

Hartshorne, op. at., p. 15.

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attribute creator (which is intended to specify the relation between God and the world, his creation), the earlier problems come back to haunt us with special piquancy. We have noted that Greek and Christian philosophers both agreed that ultimately, ex nihilo, nihil fit. There could be no beginning from nothing; something ultimate there must be as a source and sustainer of what now is. And the Greeks persisted in that conviction. The notion of creation ex nihilo, however, was forcefully introduced by Judeo-Christian thinkers. The very conception of creation without pre-existing or coexisting material was simply absurd to the Greeks, and it has been to many others. What can be said for it? It must first be granted that the notion is very difficult, especially if we try to picture what is meant. As Gilson says: "All the Christian philosophers recognize that if the creative act is conceivable, it is not representable." e That is, all the works of man, even his highest creations in art, seem to be made of something else, something that exists which he himself did not make. The moment we try to imagine, therefore, how any being, including God, could create a world without having at hand something other than himself, our minds simply go blank. As Gilson suggests: "Nothing is easier than to repeat that God has created things and created them ex nihilo, but how can we prevent ourselves imagining, even while we deny it, that this nothing is a kind of matter from which the creative act draws its effects ?" 7 We cannot imagine, or conceive, anything more than change or alteration in something that already is. And yet, let it be said equally firmly, this is exactly what the doctrine of creation calls upon us to believe. Its specific intent was, on the one hand, to deny that any kind of being other than God was even partly responsible for the creation, and, on the other hand, to deny that God was one with the created world. 6 7

Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, p. 91. Ibid.

Qod in the Western Tradition • 317 Indeed, partly in reaction from the absurdity of God's creating ex nihilo (and also to solve other problems), at least two other conceptions of God's relation to the world recommended themselves to philosophers. It has been suggested that God and everything in the world are in reality one (pantheism). Spinoza, for example, held that given God's nature, the properties of the world followed from it with the same necessity as, given the structure of a triangle, it follows that the sum of the angles equals one hundred and eighty degrees. Or, developing suggestions in Plato and Plotinus, some have held that the world emanated from God as the rays of light emanate from the sun; or that everything in the world— past, present, and future—is not the result of any development in God or in the world but rather the expression of what was pre-formed in God. But all such noncreational views pose the problem: How is such identification of the world and man with God compatible with the conception of human responsibility for good or evil? Is man simply a "pipe-line" of God's energy? Is God then directly and indirectly responsible for both good and evil ? What particularly influenced Christian thinkers like Augustine at this point was the unalterable conviction that man, through the abuse of his free will, was responsible for moral evil. If man and God are one, then God, and not man, is responsible for evil. On the other hand, if God is either forced to create by something beyond himself, or if he is dependent upon some other kind of being not created by him, then he cannot be considered omnipotent. Now, for the orthodox Christian philosopher to question either the goodness of God or his omnipotence was to question his very existence. God is, and his being is all-powerful and all-good. These attributes could not be maintained, the orthodox Christian philosopher felt, unless God was the creator of the world and of free human beings. To deny God was to be faced with too many insoluble mysteries. Not that mystery—and creation certainly involves mystery—could be crowded out of the human

318 • Qod in the Western Tradition situation. No one was more certain of this than those who insisted that Faith was the last word in such situations! The writer recalls Alfred North Whitehead's remark in class one day to the effect that the purpose of philosophy was not to solve all mysteries—since some mystery will be left on all world views —but to "corner the mystery." Thus, however mysterious the notion of creation might be, the orthodox Jew and Christian were convinced that in the doctrine of creation the mystery was "cornered." For them even more mystery was involved in understanding how God and the finite world could be identical. While the notion of an emanation from God might seem more picturable, since one might use analogies like that of the sun and its rays., God still remained identified with the world. God, and not man, was responsible for moral evil. On the other hand, whatever uneasiness the Christian felt about the notion of creation, he could partly pacify himself by a not unreasonable reflection. If mystery there must be, one can see why man as a created being can not understand the act of outright creation. Here man stands before an ultimate mystery, to be sure, but one dictated by the very nature of the fact that he exists and must have been created. The foregoing may have at least clarified the reasons for belief in creation. But more needs to be said about the Creator. We have already seen that the conception of God as unchanging did not mean that he was inactive. A long tradition in Greek thought, gaining impetus in Plato's realization that to be is to be active, was heartily embraced by the main Christian tradition. The divine Person is a certain kind of activity—thinking activity, willing activity, loving activity, and creative activity. Ultimate reality could not be real and remain inactive. Here was the vital core of the Christian doctrine of creation: God as ultimate reality was the kind of activity which could and did create finite beings, all kinds of finite beings—nebulae, stars, planets, the many forms of plants, animals, and men—the richest conceivable variety of

Qod in the Western Tradition • 319 beings from the simplest to the most complex.8 In the words of Thomas Aquinas: For He brought things into being in order that His goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them. And because His goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, He produced many and diverse creatures, so that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another.9 Here we come close to the motive for creation. Creation is grounded in the abounding fullness of God's being, the unfathomable, outgoing love that constitutes his essence. Only such perfection could be the contemporaneous, creative Ground of the world in its multiple aspects. To talk of the abundant overflow of God's perfection might easily lead to misconception. One might conclude either that the world and man simply emanate from God or that God is not a free agent in creation. But in the main the Christian philosophers rejected the idea that in order for God to be, the world, including man, had to exist. In their thinking, if God cannot be God without a world, he simply is not perfect. Moreover, to say that the world emanates from a perfect God does not account for the imperfections which are in the world. Accordingly, these thinkers insisted, God created freely in accordance with a rational purpose. In connection with our discussion of human free will, we noted that freedom does not call for arbitrary or capricious action; but it does call for unforced action consistent with the capacities of the being exerting it. God, as a perfect being, chose to create the world, which, correctly understood, manifests that perfection. This still leaves the how of creation unclear. Many analogies 8 The reader is advised to consult the kindling presentation of this theme in Arthur Lovejoy's The Great Chain of Being. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936. 9 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Anton C. Pegis, ed. New York: Random House, 1945, Question 47, Art. 1.

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have been expended uselessly on this problem. It must suffice to repeat that "creation out of nothing" does not mean that God took nothing and made something out of it. "Creation ex nihilo" simply means that it is the very structure of reality to bring into being what was not actual in any way before the creative act. We shall analyze the idea of creation further in Chapter 18. What now needs underscoring is the difficulty involved in maintaining that an active, creative God could be immanent in the changing world of matter, life, and mind, could be as concerned about what goes on there as the orthodox Christian and others hold, and could yet in no respect be unchanging; that he could feel the reality of the changing world in time, and could yet be impervious to time in his own structure. We can readily understand that a perfect Creator would, in order to create at all, have to create finite beings, with different degrees of likeness to himself. For the very nature of perfection, defined as completeness, makes it impossible for two perfect beings to exist. The created world has to be less than complete; it has to be dependent. The realm of nature can suggest the richness of the Agent behind it, but it cannot be equally endowed. But how a perfect God can be in this created world and still be complete in every respect is beyond our understanding. We shall feel the repercussions of this difficulty in the ideas of divine omnipotence, omniscience, and goodness. § 5. GOD AS OMNIPOTENT

In view of what has been said about the traditional view of God as immutable and of God as Creator, it should be easier to sense the basic thrust in the attribute of omnipotence. Given his own eternal structure, there is nothing within him or outside of him which in any way can compel him to act in one way rather than another. Since all creation depends upon God, all power is derived ultimately from him. Now, this traditional doctrine did not mean that God left

Qod in the Western 'Tradition • 321 nothing for other beings to do. It meant simply that God could not be forced to do anything; it meant that all other powers were "delegated." When God created man with a certain degree of free will, he delegated power to man—with consequences serious for himself and for man. He now was forced to "put up with" the use human beings made of that power. God conceivably could annihilate man and thus withdraw that power, or he could destroy the works of men which displeased him. But, since God persists in his purposes and keeps his contracts, he will not destroy the freedom of men simply because they abuse it. Note that here a moral attribute of God has entered. What is evident already in this discussion is that the omnipotence of God cannot be intelligently discussed unless one asks: power for what? Indeed, the failure to realize that the attributes of God must be seen in their togetherness has been the source of much misunderstanding and has led to the creation of false problems. The danger lies in the fact that one can become so engrossed in defining what a given word (such as "omnipotence") literally means that he forgets that it is an attribute of a certain \ind of being. Who has not heard the questions: If God is omnipotent, can he square a circle? Can he make a mountain without a valley? And, the prize of them all, can he kill himself? These questions must be answered affirmatively—even though every logical nerve in us rebels—if the literal meaning of omnipotence is accepted. For the literal meaning calls for the power to do everything and anything. And there have been theologians who have insisted that it did not matter whether or not logical contradictions were involved in stressing God's power. These thinkers have been so afraid of limiting the awful majesty and transcendent power of God that bridging a mere logical contradiction was simply a part of the day's work, so to speak. Nothing, humanly conceivable or not, was beyond God's power. If God willed to square a circle or to get the sum five out of two plus two, he could, whether human beings could understand it or not.

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Such thinkers seemed, in their dionysiac moments at least, to forget that the God they worshipped was also the most logical of persons, that his nature was to love and protect all sources of value. In worshipping power they little realized that were not this the power of a good and wise Person, God might be the greatest monstrosity, far from deserving worship. For power as brute force may inspire fear in individuals, but it rarely inspires love and worship. As we shall see, it makes a difference whether love, be it on the human or the divine level, is made to conform to power or power to love. Here, to repeat, it is important to remember that the attributes of God have their true significance only as they are seen in relation to each other as descriptive of the activity of the Godhead. Thus, why it would even occur to a rational God to square a circle, or to a responsible God to kill himself is not clear. The power of God must be seen in the light of God the rational being and God the loving being. Let us go back, then, to our description of omnipotence. It should be clear that exactly what is meant by God's omnipotence depends on whether he is a Creator or not and on what his purpose in creating was. Omnipotence, at any rate, is better defined as the power to do all that is worth doing. We are finite in power because we cannot do all we deem worth while. An omnipotent God is one who can and does do all that he deems worth doing. This immediately forces us to consider the goodness of God for some indication as to what is worth while. § 6. GOD'S GOODNESS

The essence of God's moral nature, in Judeo-Christian, let alone Greek, thought is goodness. The Christian joined Plato in the conviction that the Eternal Good (and not the eternal motion of atoms) is the fundamental reality in the universe upon whom all else depends. Indeed, the very goodness of God, especially if goodness is identified with love, is the only clue to the creation of a world. Love by its very nature is outgoing,

God in the ^Western Tradition * 323 creative; it always overflows itself in order to enrich another. We have used the broader word goodness, and not love, to designate this attribute so that we could avoid the debate as to whether the goodness of God is to be conceived of as predominantly justice or as predominantly love. The exact meaning of these terms as pertaining to God, is still under debate, with sustained agreement, however, on one point. If God is the Creator it was God's goodness which motivated him to create and sustain free human beings. God could have created men as automatons that would, by their very nature, carry out his will, just as a machine carries out the purpose of the inventor. But because God is not the kind of being to whom power as such means everything, he would not use his power to create human machines, even though he would have to accept the possible undesirable consequences of human disobedience. Thus, when human beings use the chemical and physical laws in God's world to blow each other up, God, who sustains these laws and human freedom, actually has to support actions which are no part of his plan for man or for the potentialities of the orderly physical world. Why does God permit such actions? Because he preferred, as a loving being, to create free moral agents and not puppets, even though this might frequently bring grief to both himself and man. Thus the goodness of God, interpreted as love, became the explanation of the creation of man as a free being in a world whose laws, once understood, might serve both God and man—or be abused by man in disservice to God. At this point, however, many thinkers would immediately call upon another aspect of God's goodness, namely, his justice. If man freely obeyed, he was rewarded. If man voluntarily disobeyed, God's justice demanded punishment and retribution. Thus some felt that because Adam sinned, the whole human race after him was condemned by a God of justice to estrangement from God. True, such theologians immediately reasserted the merciful love of God as a basis for the redemption of sinful man.

324 * Qod in the Western Tradition We shall not discuss the various schemes of salvation here, but it should be clear that the exact interpretation of the relation of justice and love would influence the specific conception of the meaning of God's goodness. What here concerns us does not depend upon the exact meaning of God's goodness as long as it is granted that God in his boundless love freely created the world and free men. The exact meaning of God's omnipotence is at stake. For it is clear that if God in his goodness created free human beings, he, in so doing, limited his power so that he could not do everything. As a moral being, he had to keep his contract with man and not interfere when man put his ability and delegated freedom to use. But since this limitation of God's power was God's own decision, and not one forced on him by anything in his nature or outside of his nature, God was still in essence omnipotent. Orthodox Christian thought, therefore, justly used the word omnipotence to express the fact that God was not limited by anything other than his own purposeful choice. But this self-limitation of God did bring up a problem in connection with the omniscience of God, as we shall now see. § 7. GOD AS OMNISCIENT

In attributing omniscience to God, the traditional theology meant to say that God knows everything—everything about the past, about the present, and about the future. This would be all the more so since for God there is no beginning, development, or end. This view is confronted, however, with a problem to which different answers have been given. There is no difficulty in the idea that God the creator of the world knows all the past, all the present, and all the future of the world. For, as Creator, God would know all there is to know about each thing, including its interaction with other things. If a scientist is given adequate information, he can predict whaJ will take place in certain stars

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over a period of time. How much more would this be true of a creative God? But the situation seems to be changed if one holds that God created human beings with free will. If a person is really free to choose among alternatives, then how can anyone know exactly what that individual will choose ? We grant that there are times when anyone who knows our psychological structure may well predict what we actually would do in the fact of certain temptations, despite our own predictions on the matter. Here, however, the predictor, being more aware of our habits than we ourselves are, knows that we are less free than we think. But to the extent that we are free, is it possible for him to predict, exactly, what we shall do? If it is, then are we really free? Must not foreknowledge imply predetermination? Yet significant thinkers have at once held that God created free individuals, and yet foreknew everything which would happen to them. These thinkers are willing to limit God's power (indirectly) but not his knowledge. God, they insist, especially as Creator and Sustainer of free beings, must know ahead of time all that will (not simply all that can) happen. The writer must confess that, like some other thinkers, he can conceive of no way in which this is possible without asserting that God does coerce free individuals—that is, without actually denying human free will. God, to be sure, knows all the moves on the cosmic checkerboard; there will be no move which will be a complete surprise to him, since he knows all the moves possible. Even so, he cannot predict the specific move of a free human being, to the extent that the individual is free.10 10 If it is said that in God's eternal now our future is as a past, the consequences of this view must be accepted—the creative freedom of individuals is really denied. To use Tennant's illustration: "We can only take in a symphony as a whole after we have heard its successive notes, and if the world process is similarly presented as a finished whole to God, it can only be presented to him as composer, not as hearer or spectator. Then, however, it is implied that there is one sole composer, not many. The world process is but a performance of a perfected score." From Philosophical Theology (1930), II, 177, by F. R. Tennant, by permission of Cambridge Um\ersit5 Press, publishers.

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Many other questions, even more perplexing, are involved in an adequate understanding of God's omniscience. It should be clear already that much depends upon how the ultimate nature of the world and its relation to God is conceived. If human beings and the world are a part of God himself, God's knowledge will have to be interpreted accordingly. But certain questions may be raised here to which we shall give more attention later. The reader will already have asked, no doubt: Does God know what suffering is? Does he really, being perfect, know what imperfection means and what it stands for? And further, if he is sinless, can he know what sin means ? In different ways, each of these questions raises the fundamental question: Does God know all that the human mind, an imperfect instrument, knows? And this raises another question: How does God know the human mind? The answer to these questions touches the heart of personal religion. For how can God understand the predicaments from which human beings raise their hearts in prayer unless he knows what they confront ? As Professor Charles Hartshorne has pointed out, orthodoxy has been far from consistent at this point. For, on the one hand, it has insisted on a God who knew the suffering of man, on a God who enjoyed man's worship and thanksgiving, and yet defined him as a Being impassive (that is, whose personal life was affected neither by suffering and worship), since he already enjoyed all there was to enjoy! In the last two chapters we have sought to indicate that the conception of God as a cosmic Person, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and loving Creator was clearly related to the solution of certain problems which have persisted in human experience. We have also tried to point out difficulties which have led many acute thinkers to deny that a being of such dimensions could reasonably be said to exist. In the remainder of this book, we shall attempt to construct an argument for God and suggest a conception of his nature which will take advantage of the in-

Qod in the Western Tradition • 327 sights and errors of the past. Traditional notions, it will appear, need to be modified and developed at certain points if our conceptions are coherently to interpret and not arbitrarily dictate to our experience as a whole. QUESTIONS

1. Does it make a difference what kind of a God one believes in? Why? 2. Distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate anthropomorphism. 3. a. Must God have a body if he is a person ? b. What was meant by calling God a person? c. What characteristics distinguish God's mind from the human? 4. a. What is the meaning of the attribute "eternal" or "perfect" ? b. Why was God, with good reason, held to be unchangeable? 5. a. How have traditional thinkers met the contention that God must change and grow if he is related to the changing world ? b. Why did they insist that God be unchanging in every respect ? 6. a. How does theism differ from deism and pantheism? b. What fundamental difficulties confront pantheism ? 7. a. What is the relation of the change-identity problem to the onemany problem ? b. What position has the tradition consistently stressed here ? c. How is it being revised ? 8. a. What is meant by creation ex nihilo? b. What difficulties does this view confront ? 9. What are the difficulties of creation ex nihilo? 10. What reasons are given for preferring the difficulties of creationism to pantheism ? 11. Does the appeal to creation "corner the mystery"? Explain. 12. a. Why demand that the Creator be a Person ? b. Must he be omnipotent ? c. What reason can be given for God's creation of the world ? 13. How is God's love for man related to the problems of change, time, and omnipotence ? 14. Expound the conflict between the love of God and his justice. 15. a. What is involved in the traditional conception of God as omnipotent ?

328 • Qod in the Western Tradition b. Does it mean "power to do anything" ? c. Relate the concept to God as creator and loving Father. 16. Why do the attributes of omnipotence and goodness interpenetrate? 17. a. Expound the concept of God's omniscience. b. How does the freedom of men affect the definition of this attribute ? 18. Why does traditional thought seem to face difficulty in properly defining God's knowledge of human suffering? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Boodin, John E. Three Interpretations of the Universe. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1934, Parts I and III. Brightman, Edgar S. 7/ God a Person? New York: The Association Press, 1932. Drake, Durant. Invitation to Philosophy. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1933, Part V. Farmer, Herbert H. God and Man. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1947, Chapters V, VI. Ferm, Vergilius, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: The Philosophical Library, 1945. See the articles on the attributes of God. Knudson, Albert C. The Doctrine of God. New York: Abingdon Press, 1930, Chapters VIII, IX. Pratt, James B. Personal Realism. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1937, Chapter XXIII. Sheen, Fulton J. Philosophy of Religion. New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, Inc., 1948, Chapters VI, VII.

THE WIDER TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR A PERSONAL GOD • THE INTERRELATION OF MATTER, LIFE, AND THOUGHT

OUR task in this and the next two chapters is crucial. In clarifying our ideas of the natural world, of the structure of human experience and value, and of thinking about God in the western tradition, we have been laying the foundation for a reasonable solution to the problem of God's existence. Is there any conception of God which, in accordance with the demands of empirical coherence (a) harmonizes the facts about the world and the experience of men, (b) decreases the amount of unnecessary mystery in human experience, and (c) provides reasonable encouragement to the human effort in moral, scientific, aesthetic, and philosophic fields of endeavor? § I. THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE WIDER TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

The argument we are to present is cumulative. That is, no one link in the chain is adequate to carry the burden of conclusive conviction about the existence and nature of God. This, to be sure, is disappointing. Would that the evidence were unambiguously direct. Had we been able to accept the testimony of the mystic without reservation, we should have arrived at the kind of direct evidence we prefer. In every area of our life, direct vision helps belief immensely. 329

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But any reader who has followed the scientific method in under-' standing the world should not be disconcerted by the fact that our argument is cumulative. Did we not see that the argument for evolution, which now is the background for biological research, is cumulative ? Must we remind ourselves that most of the critical decisions we make with regard to life—for example, whether we shall get married and build a home, whether we shall believe in democracy and work for its development—are based not on incontrovertible arguments but on the total effect of each less-thanconclusive argument ? Our cumulative argument may be called the "wider" teleological argument for God, in order to emphasize an important change in the nature of the evidence adduced. Proponents of the "narrower" teleological argument 1 were wont to insist that a designing Mind was required to account for the many amazing adaptations of animals to the environment. As we saw in discussing creationism versus evolution, it was held that God created specific species and that each one was perfectly adapted fiom the beginning to survive in the part of the world it was to inhabit. Even as an architect guides the building of a house from plans already worked out to meet the requirements of the tenant's furniture, so God designed the world with the specific needs of man in mind. Thus the world was made to fit man's nature, and man's nature was made to fit the world. It was such an argument, from specific, pre-arranged adaptations, which was undermined by the doctrine of evolution. For now the adaptations, far from being specifically planned, were the result of chance variations which enabled certain living things to survive in the struggle with other animals and the environment. It consequently became no longer necessary to postulate specific actions of a Creator to account for the harmonious interplay between the abilities and needs of living things and their environment. 1

See Joseph Butler's Analogy of Religion, 1736, and Wilham Paley s Natural Theology,

1802.

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—1 • 331 For many minds the theory of evolution put an end to the validity of any teleological argument for God. Many philosophical theologians therefore turned to the re-evaluation of other approaches to the problem; in the main they turned to the moral argument for God, and to the argument for God from religious experience, or to more adequate statements of the ontological argument. Others, and most notably Dr. F. R. Tennant, to whom our own exposition is heavily indebted,2 set to work reconstructing the teleological argument for God in the conviction that this approach, moving closely to the empirical data of science, reflective thought, and moral experience, still could yield the most valid argument for God. The wider teleological argument for God, then, rests properly not on the specific restricted evidence of design and fruitful adaptation, but on the interconnectedness of physical nature, life, and human experience. This argument is content to rest its case not on the surface harmonies, but on the ultimate conditions which make harmonies possible. It stresses not the mere fact of survival of the fit, but it points to the arrival of the fit (or fit-able) in the first place. The broader teleological argument for God as here presented will consist of seven links. Since the course of the discussion will take us, as experience does, into diverse realms, each with its own problem and contribution to make, the reader must understand each link and then see its connection with the next and with the whole. Although we shall extend the discussion of the seven links through three chapters, it is essential that the argument first be seen as a whole. The links may be set out in topical form as follows: Link One: The Purposive Interrelation of Matter and Life. Link Two: The Relevance of Thought to Reality. 2 Frederick R. Tennant, Philosophical Theology, Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1930, 2 vols.

332 • The Wider Teleological ^Argument—I Link Three: The Interrelation of Moral Effort and the Order of Nature. Link Four: The Interrelation Between Value and Nature. Link Five: This World as Good for Man. Link Six: The Significance of Aesthetic Experience. Link Seven: Religious Experience as Confirmatory. § 2. EXPOSITION OF THE WIDER TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT LINK ONE

The Purposive Interrelation of Matter and Life Life as dependent on, but not reducible to, matter. In Chapters 6 and 7 we reviewed the account given by the physical and biological sciences of evolution, and of the relation of the physical universe to life. We noted that the facts do not lend themselves conclusively to any one interpretation. Yet the main issue, as it turned out, was not about facts but about the ideal of explanation. There is no doubt about the fact that the conditions favorable to the appearance and survival of life on this globe were unique. It seemed unreasonable to reduce the characteristic functions of living organisms (such as their selectivity, their ability to maintain their own equilibrium in interaction with the environment, and their capacity for reproduction) to the unselective and nonreproductive activities of chemical substances. Reduction does not account for both the appearance and the survival of living things. Still, there are those who believe that science must insist on the possibility of reducing purposive living processes to non-purposive chemical interactions. In this debate it should be clear that no basic prerequisite of science is at stake, but only a conviction of some who think that science cannot admit that goals of any sort are among the determinants of events. For them the effects of the present field and the past antecedents are the sole "causes" of anything that happens.

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—1 • 333 . But the fact is that the scientist—as distinguished from the scientist become philosopher—needs to assume only that there is order among events when and where they appear. There is no intellectual necessity for reducing facts of one order to those of another unless this can be done without forcing the data. The biologist finds processes at work within living beings—such as healing and reproduction—which force him to develop descriptive terms that make no sense—unless distorted—in the field of chemistry and physics. Nonpurposive physical and chemical processes are involved in living processes. But chemical processes in living beings are very difficult to explain if goals for survival are not considered. There is simply no denying the amazing interrelationship of living beings and purely chemical beings. Developments in biochemistry underscore this intimate interrelation. But they do not prove the conclusion that life is reducible to the interaction of chemicals. For example, no matter how narrow the gap between the chemical and the living becomes—and discoveries about the nature of viruses and colloids do indeed narrow that gap—we must remember that the gap is a qualitative and not a spatial one. Suppose we consider the colloids the "missing link" between living and dead matter. This may impress our minds with the wondrous continuity of degree between one order of being and another. But let us take a closer look. Has the gap between life and matter really been crossed, let alone explained? Even though a colloid may reproduce as living things do, it otherwise behaves like a chemical. But a cell acts throughout like a living being and not like a chemical. The fact still remains that when life appeared, life appeared. If life crept in gradually in the reproductive capacity of some colloids, for example, the point is that however modestly it put in its appearance, it was life that appeared in addition to chemical activity. And the fact still remains that life's activities are situated in a world which supports them. This collocation of events, this close interrelation of living and nonliving beings, is an opaque fact unless we postulate a purpose

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which uses one order as an aid to the continuance of another. Obviously this appeal to a broader purpose will not explain how the food that enters the stomach becomes part of the living blood, bone, nerve, and brain. Any biochemist can give us the sequence, but he is as silent before this fact of transmutation as we are. However, we are not trying to introduce a Purposer to describe what science has not so far described; here we seek to explain the harmony between two orders of being, the harmony between two differing and interacting qualities of existence. We are seeking a view which, far from denying established scientific facts, will allow them to fit into a broader scheme which decreases the mystery. What mystery ? The fact that living beings should appear and be so closely interconnected with nonliving beings—especially if all there was to begin with was the nonpurposeful, nonliving, nonthinking hustle and bustle of units of energy. True, this interrelation between life and matter may not seem to tell us much about the purposes or the Purposer. We must stop to think of what this means concretely. But as we reflect upon the preparation of the universe for life and the constant interaction of myriads of living things upon each other and the physical order, it becomes increasingly difficult not to see an intelligent Purpose at work. And the evidence for such intelligence multiplies as we recall the climb from lower forms of life to the possibilities in man who uses lower forms of life and the physical order as a basis for his own survival. "Emergent evolution" inadequate as explanation. We must pause here to take note of what may seem to be better explanations because they do not involve the concept of a cosmic Being who is not observable as such among the facts. There are thinkers who are not able to reduce life to matter as materialists do but who, nevertheless, find the concept of emergence (or emergent evolution) adequate. The word emergence, however, is simply the name for a fact and in no way explains the fact. It refers to the fact that in the course of evolution novel developments do take place which could not have been foretold by analysis of any ante-

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cedents, in particular, the existence of life as a possible effect of chemical and physical elements. As we saw, although Sherrington was not willing to concede that life was an emergent, he was driven to insist that in mentality something new and irreducible had come on the cosmic stage. But to hail a novel occurrence by the word emergent does not account for its possibility and continuance. To substitute the nonreductive conception of emergent evolution for the mechanical or materialistic view of development still does not account for the appearance of the new qualities, for their intimate correlation with other qualities which by definition did not need these new qualities for their own existence. If the new developments seem in the main to advance the quality of existence and the assurance of survival, as they do, have we explained these novelties when we say that they emerged ? If we use Bergson's phrase to describe the appearance of unique and novel existents, namely creative evolution, we are no clearer about the explanation. Greater clarity comes only if we think of a Creator creating, under certain conditions, new developments which were unpredictable in the light of anything we already knew simply because they represent additional creative acts on the part of the Creator. Our choice, then, seems clear. We may seek no further explanation of these additions that evolution brings up, and we may be content merely to stare at them with their novel qualities. Or, mindful that such additions are interrelated with antecedents and that they do introduce new qualities into the whole system, may we postulate an Intelligence who seems to be interested in developments which enrich the quality of the world and its agents ? This hypothesis grows stronger as we consider not only the coming of later variations but also the fact that they come together. An example used by H. Bergson 3 will illustrate our point. In the eye of a vertebrate like ourselves, thousands of parts cooperate to 3

Bergson, Creative Evolution, pp. 70 ff.

336 * The Wider Teleological ^Argument—J perform one function. If the evolution of this wondrously cooperative structure is explained by accidental variations, our credulity is strained beyond limit. For we are asked to believe that the variations composing the different elements of the eye fit in with each other even though no one variation had anything to do with the other variations. Yet the fact is that the many parts harmonize so well that better vision results. It was not surprising to find this mechanical view given up in favor of conceiving the evolution of the eye as the result of sudden leaps or mutations. According to this theory, chance does not have to account for an indefinite number of developments which so amazingly complement each other. But as Bergson says: . . . how do all the parts of the visual apparatus, suddenly changed, remain so well co-ordinated that the eye continues to exercise its function ? For the change of one part alone will make vision impossible, unless this change is absolutely infinitesimal. I agree that a great number of unco-ordinated variations may indeed have arisen in less fortunate individuals, that natural selection may have eliminated these, and that only the combination fit to endure, capable of preserving and improving vision, has survived. Still, this combination had to be produced. And, supposing chance to have granted this favor once, can we admit that it repeats the self-same favor in the course of history of a new species, so as to give rise, every time, all at once, to new complications marvellously regulated with reference to each other, and so related to former complications as to go further on in the same direction ?" Both the theory of the gradual accumulation of accidental variations, and of chance mutations, we see, have difficulty in the face of the coordination required by the total structure of the eye. And the difficulties increase when we learn that the structure of the eye in the mollusk has a structure analogous to that of the vertebrate. Since mollusks and vertebrates developed eyes long after i

lbid., p. 74. (Italics mine.)

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—7 • 337 they separated from their common parent-stem, what needs to be explained in either theory is this common structure in such separate species. "How, especially, can we suppose that by a series of mere 'accidents' these sudden variations occur, the same, in the same order—involving in each case a perfect harmony of elements more and more numerous and complex—along two independent lines of evolution ?" 5 As Bergson says, "Some good genius" must be appealed to in order to account for the accumulation of accidental variations or for the convergence of simultaneous changes and their continuity. Readers who know Bergson's philosophy will recall that Bergson himself postulates a creative Elan Vital, an original, purposive impetus which is common to the efforts of all members of all species. "This impetus, sustained right along the lines of evolution among which it gets divided, is the fundamental cause of variations, at least of those that are regularly passed on, that accumulate and create new species."e We need not subscribe to Bergson's specific theory of the Elan Vital to be impressed by his case against mechanistic explanations of life. Our interest here is to emphasize the greater coherence which comes into our thinking if we consider the interrelation of the physical universe and life and the developing evolution of species as the handiwork of a creative Intelligence intent on producing a world rich in life, and, in the existence of man, rich in mind and value. The evidence so jar adduced enables us to envisage a Mind which is responsible not only for the ultimate physical preparations for life but for the first appearance of life in its many forms and for the additional mutations and variations discovered by our scientists. We deny that the physical evolution of the world and the biological evolution of species are intelligible without postulating a creative Purpose to which they testify. The Purposer did not create a world and its biological fittings in six days, but his 5 6

See Bergson, op. at, p. 70. Ibid., p. 98.

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presence alone helps us to see why the orderly laws of physics, of chemistry, of biology and of psychology are orderly. An orderly mind uses ordered means to accomplish its ends. The physical universe revels in order—in the nucleus of an atom, in the sublime procession of the stars and planets, in the evolution of living beings, or in the structure of the human psyche. Does not the interrelation of these levels of order become much less mysterious if they are seen as the expression of another Level, of a cosmic Mind? Is this to forget "nature red in tooth and claw" and the suffering that animals inflict upon one another ? 7 Is it to neglect the fact that variations and mutations, as we saw, are not always conducive to survival, and that whole species have been lost in the evolutionary struggle? How do these facts, the reader may well ask, justify faith in a creative Intelligence ? We must point out that the evidence so far reviewed has not been used to establish the existence of a morally good and an omnipotent Intelligence. The evidence thus far does indicate the presence of an Intelligence at work in the order of the world— even decay is an orderly process. It also suggests that the creative Intelligence does not, or cannot, succeed in all his undertakings. If there were no other evidence and no other factors to be considered, the author would still find it more coherent to believe in a universe largely governed by Intelligence than in a universe in which mind-less, purpose-less units of energy somehow fathered and protected living things and their evolution. But we shall have to take the whole human enterprise into account before we can complete the conception of God or can deal with the difficulties suggested by suffering and tragedy. Indeed, the problem of evil is so critical in relation to the goodness of God that we shall devote separate chapters to it, as well as to such other questions as the exact relation of the creative Intelligence to his creation. Now, however, we must consider the second link in our 7

See Chapter XVI, 5, for the treatment of animal suffering.

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argument which will reinforce our thesis that the order discernible in the world is most intelligible if it is seen as the purposive expression of a cosmic Intelligence. LINK TWO

The Relevance of Thought to Reality Knowledge as a joint-product of man's interaction with nature. Every person, with the exception of the absolute sceptic, is convinced that both his mind and the world are so constructed that proper discipline and training will enable him to understand enough of the world to make reasonably adequate adjustments possible. We need not here enter into a discussion of different philosophical theories about how the mind gets to know the world. The important consideration is that any theory of knowledge represents the attempt to explain the possibility of both knowledge and error. But even to speak of error presupposes that some human mental operations are trustworthy enough to be used as a basis for knowing error. Our minds do make many and serious mistakes in interpreting the world. However, we would not be making mistakes very long were it not for the fact that what goes on in our knowing minds and what goes on in nature are relevant. The word relevant is used in order to avoid the suggestion that our minds ever copy or mirror the world. If any reader should think that in knowing our minds do mirror the world, it would not matter here. The important point is that our knowing, in order for that knowing to be trustworthy, need not mirror reality. Our knowledge must, however, be relevant, in the same way, for example, as a road-map is relevant to the nature of the road situation. The map is certainly not the road; nor is it a copy of the road. It represents the geographical relations between roads in a manner capable of guiding human beings. If the map is accurate, the individual will be able to make his way from any

340 * The Wider Teleological ^Argument—I one road to his destination. The map can be added to, and subtracted from, as changes in the human experience of the road actually occur and are recorded. Knowledge, we may safely say, is a joint-product of what is in the world and in the nature of human faculties. Man does not create his knowledge out of nothing; nor is it simply implanted in him by the events which occur. His is the \ind of mind which can thin\ about relationships and develop hypotheses to guide him in his interaction with the world. As we have seen, man has been able to develop scientific and philosophical methods which facilitate his understanding of the world and then lead him into satisfying relations with that world. The achievements of philosophy, of science, of art, and of religion are the achievements of human beings who have to some extent solved the problem of understanding. Man knows very little, but the fact that he can \notv, that operations in him are not hopelessly unconnected with the operations in things, this, in a sense, is the most important fact about human experience and about the world. In other words, the order of mind and the order of things have a correlation which in itself promises well for human adjustment. Man's logic, as we have seen, will not solve all problems. But his logic, memory, and creative imagination have developed the hints provided by experience into that fundamental knowledge upon which civilization is based. Our ideas may not enjoy one-to-one correspondence with nature or the people among whom we live, but no one can look upon the history of man and declare confidently that his ventures in knowing have been discouraged by reality (however finally defined). Human beings, then, have minds which are not disoriented strangers in a universe they cannot hope to understand. The world might have been a sheer chaos of independent events in which there was neither rhyme nor reason. It might have been a world in which the mental tools we have—of sensing, perceiving, of thinking similarities and contrasts, and of noting sequences among events—were completely at odds, as, for example, a

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—I * 341 plumber forced to work with the tools of a piano-tuner. The fact is that, whatever the evolution of things and minds, man the mathematician, man the scientist, man the artist, man the tooluser, and man the inventor has enjoyed the kind of cognitive capacities which have made for experiences of profound value, theoretically and practically. It is so easy to take man's intellectual experience as knower for granted that we pause to stress it. Knowledge as a growing point in the universe. Most of us confine the use of our cognitive equipment to practical problems. Planning for this need and that so absorbs our intellectual ability that we become unappreciative of thinking and knowing for their own sakes. It is only when we see the arrested development of cognitive abilities in subnormal persons that we realize what it means to be intellectually normal. The least disciplined thinker can enjoy the experience of planning, of reflecting upon his past, of bringing together different experiences in a manner which makes sense to him. But see what it means ideally to be a historian; here is a mind whose grasp goes back through the years, finds and enjoys the panorama of civilization his studies have opened up! Reflect upon the experience of the novelist and dramatist. What an achievement it is to be able not only to observe the particulars of the work and play of human beings but also to fit these activities artistically into patterns of character and events true to human experience! And do not minimize the intellectual joy of the theologian and philosopher, of a Plato, an Aquinas, or a Hegel. What an experience was theirs as each tried to weave into an intelligible system the varied content of human knowledge! Fortunately, most of us, in varying degrees, are able to enjoy the experiences of the scholar, inventor, and artist. We know what it means to say that a man's mind is his kingdom. Were we offered the option of giving up our intellectual functions for an eternal existence without them, would any of us who understands the option be desirous of living in a secure eternity without kjiowing it? How remarkable: to be a hydrogen atom for eternitv without

342 • The Wider Teleological ^Argument—I knowing it! One experience of eyes which stare but do not perceive, one experience of words spoken without making sense, one experience of sounds heard without appreciation of sequence and contrast, and we would choose the better part! In our day it has become all too easy to speak derisively and condescendingly of the contemplative life, but we do so only at the risk of forfeiting the qualities of experience which constitute men human. We are, then, in a universe in which reflection can guide human planning and be as an end in itself. The universe must not be interpreted without regard to this fact. Whatever else the universe has or will produce, in one geological epoch at any rate, it did produce rational urges and abilities not enjoyed by the wind and stars; it opened to creatures capable of reason a quality of experience, practical and theoretical, enjoyed by no other being. Man the knower is a part of the cosmos.8 The astronomer may for his purposes leave his own mind out of the account he gives of the stars, but no philosopher can do this and be faithful to his quest. The interrelation of the moral and cognitive life. But if the mind has a place in nature, only self-discipline will bring it knowledge or keep it fertile. We must not forget that the intellectual pursuits of man rest upon the moral development of the individual and society. The power to think is not a light that is turned on and off, flooding every obscure niche with illumination. Thinking, we know too well, may be used artfully as a "rationalization" to protect the individual against unpalatable truths; it may be put to work fitfully and nervously by those afraid to face disappointment in the struggle for truth. Some men "think" who are strangers to discipline, to patience, to courage, to disinterested 8 This is not to say that this evidence alone justifies the conclusion that the cosmos itself enjoys a Mind or is the effect of Mind. Some thinkers have moved more rapidly than wisely to the conclusion that the "mind is organic to nature," and then to the further conclusion that nature therefore enjoys a Mind. We maintain only that the working of mind and the working of reality are sufficiently interconnected to enable mind to find its way and guide the total adjustment to reality. See Chapter VI of Andrew S. Pringle-Pattison's The Idea of God. New York: Oxford University Press, 1920.

The Wider T'eleological
344 * 'Fhe Wider Teleological ^Argument—I And we have not gone to the files containing the records of the subnormal and abnormal to support this judgment. We must herald a universe which honors and rewards creative mental discipline by the best we know in civilization, but our final account must do justice to the limitations of cognitive powers as we know them. Professor Ulich impressively summarizes the human predicament in this regard when he says: Our daily experience teaches us the continual interdependence and interaction between reasoning and being; we feel that human life is spanned between them like a fine, sensitive, and extremely perishable spider-web. Sometimes reality seems to flow around us like a friendly wind which widens our lungs and warms our body; and sometimes we feel our mind like an ever restless fighter with the hostile and impervious forces of reality. Sometimes it seems to us like the 'Great Mother,' but we also know that soon it may change into a tempest and destroy the cities of man which generation after generation have built up in the hope that they might last forever.9 Summary of argument so far. To summarize the progress suggested in the first two links: We human beings find ourselves, then, in a world whose ultimate collocations, far from making life and mind impossible, are involved in their development. The kind of existence we know and enjoy as human beings is rooted in, if not confined to, orderly forces in the inorganic and organic world. That there should be life and mind and that these levels of existence should add new qualities to the world into which they come and upon whose support they count suggest the work of a purposeful Intelligence. What the purpose is and whether it is the purpose of an all-good and all-powerful Mind cannot be ascertained from the evidence thus far. In any final assessment the 9 Robert Ulich, Man and Reality. The Hazen Pamphlets, Number 21, p. 11. (New Haven: The Edward Hazen Foundation, 1948.)

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failures of evolution and the limitations of human cognitive Power must be taken into account. But we have already seen that what the human mind achieves depends upon its willingness to discipline itself so that it can make the most of its endowment. We are now forced to examine another set of interrelations, which, as we shall see, will shed more light on the nature of the human and cosmic enterprise. QUESTIONS

1. What are three qualifications for an adequate hypothesis concerning God's nature? 2. Would it be a legitimate criticism of the argument in this book to hold that the argument for God is not "direct" but "cumulative" ? Why or why not ? 3. What is the difference between the "wider" and "narrower" teleological argument for God ? 4. Outline the major considerations in the wider teleological argument for God. 5. a. Why does Bergson find the mechanistic explanation of the evolution of the eye inadequate? b. How might his view of creative evolution be criticized ? 6. a. Why is the interrelation of matter and life considered evidence for cosmic Purpose? b. What do other hypotheses leave out of account ? 7. a. What do we mean by the "relevance" of thought to reality ? b. State the argument for such relevance. 8. Why consider knowledge a growing point in the universe? 9. Under what limitations does the human search for knowledge proceed ? 10. a. Indicate areas in which man might be better able to meet the demands of life if he had a better native endowment. b. Is man's moral effort important here ? 11. a. Summarize the argument in this chapter. b. What view of God emerges so far ? Suggestions for Further Reading for Chapters 13,14, 15 will be found at the end of Chapter 15.

346 • The Wider Teleologicd ^Argument—I SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Boodin, John E. God. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1934. Ensley, F. Gerald. "The Personality of God," Personalism in Theology, ed., Edgar S. Brightman. Boston: Boston University Press, 1943. Garnett, A. Campbell. A Realistic Philosophy of Religion. Chicago: Willett, Clark and Co., 1942, Chapters V, IX. Temple, William. Nature, Man and God. London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., (1934) 1949, Chapters XVI, XVII. TsanofI, Radoslav A. Religious Crossroads. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1942, Chapters V, XVI, XVII.

H THE WIDER TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR A PERSONAL GOD • THE INTERRELATION OF T H E GOOD LIFE AND NATURE

LINK THREE

The Interrelation of Moral Effort and the Order of Nature MAN, we saw in Chapter 9, is free to will, within limits, those goals which he deems worth while and to which he feels morally obligated. Man's cognitive capacities, in the main, prepare him for the high drama of life, that of understanding his own abilities, needs, and wants, and of relating himself reasonably to others in the environment he shares with them. Unless man is free, there is no real point to moral effort. But moral freedom is not enough. For moral freedom in a creature with insufficient ability to control himself in his world would be cruel mockery. Still other conditions are required, however, if enduring moral effort is to be justified. What are they ? First, there must be limits to what moral beings can do, and these limits cannot be altered too radically or abruptly. Choices must have limited consequences and predictable consequences (though not completely predictable). If some human being could alter the sequences of physical nature, or if he could alter the basic laws of human nature—of thinking, remembering, and wanting, for example—laws upon which persons depend as they make their 347

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choices, any ethical order would be endangered. For his so-called "freedom" to change "at will" the basic structure of his own nature or of the world in any way might well create havoc. There would then be no order other than that which he would impose upon himself. If, for instance, a man labors in imagination to build a house for his children, and another man could alter the laws of physics upon which the builder was planning, nay, if all human beings could do what they wanted without conforming to some dependable structure imposed upon them, there would be no reason to work for ideals. Fortunately, then, man is not free without limitations. He acts within the limits of the natural world into which his own restricted nature is born. He may act freely within these limits, but he does not determine the limits. He can select and sow his seeds, but he cannot make the seeds or provide the laws of growth. He may follow impulse rather than thought, but, if he does, there are consequences he cannot avoid. The first condition of any ethical universe, therefore, is that controls exist within which freedom may operate creatively. The second condition extends the first one. Man must be able to depend upon his own structure and that of nature to preserve what he has done, good and bad. If he builds an automobile after having disciplined himself to understand and use the laws of chemistry and physics, he must be able to depend upon the continuance of those laws. What would happen if gasoline ceased to ignite under the same conditions which prevailed in the past? So, also, if man trains his body and mind to perform certain tasks, good or bad, he must be able to depend upon their doing so in the future. The universe must not go back on its promise to him. A certain amount of contingency and "chance" might add challenge and variety to his effort, but the moment the laws of physiological or psychological nature became so undependable that he really could not know how to train his children (because he could not know what to predict), moral effort would be unreasonable even if possible. Man could no longer guide himself by past experience.

The Wider T'eleological ^Argument—II • 349 This point cannot be emphasized enough, for it enters into the consideration-of the problem of miracles. If by miracle we mean the intervention of some power into the actions of nature so that what man had learned to expect from the past could not in fact be expected, then those persons depending upon the laws to work as usual would be sadly disappointed and their planning might well be discouraged. Nature, or the power behind it, had not kept her word. She had promised that rain would follow thunder, that suspicion would follow hate, that trust would follow love, but, lo, this did not happen as persons were led to expect from past experience. The so-called scientific objection to miracle is more than "scientific": it rises from the realization that unpredictable miracles would play havoc with the moral effort (and with faith in a reliable God). To sum up: if there is to be a universe in which any consistent moral effort is justified, there must be freedom within limits and a world in which the consequences, good and evil, are allowed to stand until man himself does something to change them. If some power beyond man unpredictably interferes, or if there is not enough order in the universe to sustain the expectancies developed from studying it, the moral life is to that extent discouraged. This is not to assert that moral effort requires a broad margin of safety everywhere or a universe in which there are no chances to be taken. But it is to insist that unless a dependable relation exists between man's abilities and the biological and physical orders upon which he depends for the embodiment of his values, then the quest for increase in values is a hopeless one. True, a man can always will; he can always try. But the moral agent has to be sustained, and if there is no assurance of reasonable success in preserving and increasing his values, there is no point to the moral life. What the right amount of assurance is cannot be measured in detail. Suffice it to say that, as a minimum, at any one time there must be a challenge reasonably commensurate with a man's ability to realize a balance of true values over disvalues. As we shall see later, when we consider the problem of evil, the

350 • The Wider Teleological ^Argument—II relation between challenge and ability is not always in the proportion here suggested. But even at this stage of the argument we cannot escape the conclusion that the universe in which man seeks to realize his nature does provide a sufficient degree of freedom and stability to justify moral effort. Certain it is that there is not so much freedom that man is foolish to plan his experiences of value and pass them on to his children. He may not be able to realize all for which he labors, but that his life can maintain a balance of value over disvalue is attested by the fact that there can be organized society or culture at all. LINK FOUR

The Interrelation Between Value and Nature Human values as not man-made. Fortunately, the nature of man's experience with value further corroborates our thesis that man's moral effort is not being carried out in a cuckoo-land. Not only does man's own nature make moral choice and effort possible, but his past ventures in the realization of ideals indicate that his world makes possible a wide range of values, more than enough, certainly, to whet his appetites and spur his efforts. Let us see what is involved here. In our discussion of the nature of values, we concluded that a value is a joint-product of man's nature and of the world in which he lives. There are no values independent of man, but there are value-possibilities in his nature and in the world whose realization awaits his criticized and marshalled efforts. Man does not make his own basic nature, and he is not responsible for the possibilities of value in the world beyond him. The values he does approve and realize must, therefore, be taken as testimony to the fact that man's criticized wants and the constitution of the world do not work at cross-purposes. To expand this point: man's wants lead him to seek satisfaction

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of many sorts, and his abilities enable him to discover the ways of satisfying these wants within his environment. Thus, were the structure of atoms, animals, and other persons unsuited to the demands of his own growth, he would die. Were he to die the world would remain with its value-possibilities: a fertile realm with no being to bring forth and enjoy those possibilities. To the extent that man wants, criticizes his wants, and develops into a creature sensitive in appreciation and dependable in his creations, the whole world is the better. When man, feeling the imperative of duty, thrusts every effort into the realization of value, he does not find a constant rebuff in his own nature or the world's. Accordingly, in man's desire and will-to-value s, in nature's response to his efforts, a new realm of quality becomes reality; we may say that "Nature" reaches a "new high," a new range of fruition as each life labors for and enjoys the values possible in it. Human values as revealing what nature can be. The reader must be alert to the particular theory of value advocated here. Man's true values represent, we have said, coherent generalizations about his own experience in a world he did not create. These values tell us what nature can be, but they also tell us what man-in-andthrough nature, what nature in-and-through-man can be—and has been. Man does not simply intuit values (be they in a Platonic realm or in the mind of God), which may or may not be relevant to his nature in this world. The values he knows are the consequences of the experimentation of some human being, some family, some society. Man has not known what would really satisfy his nature before experimentation with his own life, with the nature of others, and with the physical world. Fortunately, the race of men has been blessed with members whose lives were unusually productive in the search for values. (Were they mere accidents in a churn of atoms?) These men pioneered in new areas when their more conservative and shortsighted brothers would not "take the chance." A host of prophets in all lands, sensitive to the suffering and sins of the dispossessed

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and aesthetic responsiveness, nature (including his own endowment) is the bank from which man draws, the project in which he invests his capital, and the source of the interest his venture earns. Surely there is basis for Tennant's conclusion: "The world is thus instrumental to the emergence, maintenance, and progressiveness of morality." 1 It is time to summarize and reassess the whole argument thus far before adding a new link to our reasoning. We have held that man's cognitive enterprises are supported by nature; that his freedom to will is not unbounded (and yet not predetermined in efficiency); that the values he achieves represent what he can do with the nature given him and with the environment he lives in. His physical home, we have seen, is uniquely prepared for the survival of living creatures, and its lawful structure is a necessary support for his adventures in the realization of truth and goodness. Is the materialistic interpretation of values coherent? Now there are convinced mechanists who are intellectually satisfied with the view that whatever happens and has happened is simply the product of the continuous, blind, reorganization of energy. No reason binds one stage or moment of existence to any other. Rather, some nonrational force or forces within the elements— elements, remember, which themselves have no insight into what is happening in themselves or elsewhere—are the only sources of the order we know. When one understands what such a thinker really proposes, one wonders whether he is not the one who is holding to a blind faith, unyielding in the face of evidence to the contrary. For as a mechanist he is asking us to believe that every event in the universe is connected with other events— indeed, so connected that if anyone could know all about what was happening this minute, he could foretell in detail all that would take place in the future and all that had taken place in the past. But in the same breath he is asking us to believe that 1 Frederick R. Tennant, Philosophical Theology Cambridge Press, 1930, II, 102.

Cambridge University

354 * The 'Wider Teleological ^Argument—II this inexorable order just happens to be the kind of order that it is, Let us be clear about our grounds for hesitating to accept the mechanistic view. We are not objecting to having to take some order, some state of being, as ultimate. Every philosopher must accept the structure of things for what it is; his task as a philosopher is to try to understand it and describe it adequately. But note what it is concretely that the mechanist is offering as the ultimate. On his view, no single basic event or being in the whole universe has any insight either into its own nature or into the nature of the events or beings which are to be produced, once the status of ultimate events is changed in any way. The connectedness of events, as the mechanist describes them, is not connected with any one being (or set of beings) which in any way knowingly controls what is happening. Now, it may seem understandable to talk about successive events a, b, and c as being connected with each other because they are so connected anyway, but the moment we ask what it is in the events or in the beings which connects them, we are told simply that they are so connected. Perhaps we should accept this with philosophic piety; yet we should like to know what it is that constitutes the successive events, that particular succession and no other. And our interest as thinkers does not slacken when one set of successions seems to produce other sets of successions which are of different levels and yet in harmony with the earlier set. To be more specific, let us recall that in the world as we now know it, there are at least three kinds or levels of connections. There is (a) the series of connections exemplified in the structure of the atom; there is (b) the series of connections exemplified in the selective behavior of living beings who cannot foresee, will, or understand what or why they select; and there is (c) the series of connections exemplified in a mind or person who incorporates not only the purposive selection of living beings but who also uniquely understands his world, is able to think about past and present, can plan his actions, and also feels morally

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obligated to will what he thinks is best. These three kinds of connections are what they are, as the mechanist says, because they are. Now, the evolution of the universe to date indicates that these kinds of beings are interconnected with each other in a given order. The question, then, is: Assuming that thinking beings must try to achieve the most coherent conception possible of our world, which order of connectedness, if it were considered dominant and fundamental, would help us to understand the interconnection between these realms of being? If one should decide, with the mechanistic materialist, that the kind of order which prevails in the physical atom is the kind of order that, if dominant, would explain the interconnection between the three orders, we must press our question again: Do you mean that some being whose own activities were restricted to the unknowing, unplanning, movement of neutrons and electrons can explain the appearance, survival, and development of living beings, and the appearance and continuance of self-conscious, free, moral, persons? The mechanistic materialist, we fear, simply refuses to explain the orders and the interconnections that do occur. He is begging leave to go on in the blind faith that man will someday show us that his own mind (and his own purpose to explain!) are the result of the blind concourse of energies. Is the hypothesis of a creative living Agent adequate? But shall we accept a second alternative? Shall we, at this point in our argument, say that the interconnection among matter, life, and mind is really the result of the purposive striving of a living but purposeless being? Such a being would unconsciously select some pathways for his development but not others; it would struggle incessantly but would no more be aware of what it is struggling for (or what the outcome will be) than is, shall we say, the finest horse. Once more, to conceive in concrete fashion exactly what we are positing is to become aware of theoretical difficulties in the hypothesis. True, in comparison with the mechanistic view, there is greater

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breadth in conceiving the dominant source of cosmic and human evolution as a tremendous creative being, alive and goal-directed. For living things are able to use and to control for their own ends the lower order of chemical things. The universe certainly appears more like a living being than a machine. But the moment we do realize that a being is postulated which is not self-conscious, which cannot conceive, and which cannot purposefully execute its plans, that moment we see that it lacks the very powers it has unwittingly and unknowingly allowed to develop in man. To ask us to believe that such a relatively blind being is able to account for the orderly development and interconnection of man, life, and atoms is to strain our credulity. It might seem more plausible to hold that this great Living Agency is itself in the process of development, that one day it may indeed find itself able to understand what it has been doing and is doing, and to plan future occurrences. But is this a faith which has ground in any reasonable interpretation of the facts? Behold a creative Life without mathematical insight, conceptual understanding, or moral volition—the source of a universe which is a home for beings which it can not itself understand! Such a Being, struggling through evolutionary aeons to increase the order and variety of existence, could not, of course, be accused of allowing the suffering and evil which these ages have seen. But, alas, neither can it be held responsible for that order and value in the world, the very order and value which make us so sensitive to the disorder and disvalue! In order to explain the order and evolution of the physical cosmos, its preparation for the existence and continuance of living beings, the interconnection of matter, life, rational beings and their moral development, the conception of an unknowing, purposive Life must give way to that of a creative, intelligent, Purposer. Obviously, a Mind powerful enough to create and sustain these interconnected levels of being has qualities and abilities not found to a similar extent in any human being. Still, to hold that this order of connectedness is the fundamental order

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of the universe is to emphasize that the cosmic Mind, not unlike ours, does remember, does know, does anticipate consciously, does act with ends in mind and for goals which it deems best. The demand for order in such a Mind is evidenced in the order of connectedness which the mechanist considers fundamental, but that order of connectedness may now be seen as the means used by an Intelligent Person to provide the orderly sequences needed by the higher living and moral orders for their development. In such a hypothesis neither the data of the physical, biological and social sciences, nor of the moral life, as we shall now see, is left out of account. Indeed, the conviction that man is in a universe which has a dominant structure of Mind-order pervading all orders should be a source of encouragement—as well as of responsibility—to every earnest seeker after truth and goodness. But before we can adequately establish the goodness of the highest and controlling Person in the universe, we must look at our evidence again and ask what the aim of this cosmic Intelligence seems to be. LINK FIVE

This World as Good for Man What constitutes a world good? Man, we have argued, is a moral agent whose search for truth and goodness finds considerable support in the ultimate collocation of things. Man and the world participate in the creation of values and disvalues. But were one to ask the question: Is this the best of all possible universes for man? we should, indeed, be doubtful. The limitations of man's innate constitution, the tragedies in which the upheavals of nature have destroyed the works of man, the struggle for value against tremendous odds, and man's inhumanity to man; would indeed give us pause in framing a careful answer to. this question. But we cannot move very far until we stop to

3 5 8 • The Wider Teleological ^Argument—II consider what a best possible universe for man would be. Let the reader note the addition of the italicized words, for they are important. Any question about the "best possible" forces us to ask "for whom or what?" And it should be clear that the only question worth considering here is whether the world which man inhabits is the best possible for him. What, then, would be a best possible universe for man? A whole chapter will later be devoted to a more adequate answer. Here we shall have to content ourselves with no more than an outline of the considerations upon which our particular argument for God depends. If man's happiness depended upon a surplus of pleasures as such over pains, and if a universe which insured such a surplus were considered the best possible, then one might well claim that the cosmic Mind had little if any interest in man's happiness. How many lives in the history of mankind could claim a balance of pleasure over pain? But do we really care about a balance of any pleasures over any pains ? Would we not prefer certain kinds of tensions, uncertainty, and pain to a life of pleasure without them? At this point each one of us needs to put the question to himself: Agreeing that as a human being I can undergo such excruciating pain and mortal anguish as even animals are incapable of, would I be willing to exchange the pleasures of love and friendship, the joy of music, the satisfaction of intellectual pursuits, and, further, the very struggle to achieve these, for the sake of a life in which all of these were forfeited but in which pain was impossible? Any person who finds it possible to reply in the affirmative will find the rest of this book inadequate. For we assume that the quality of friendship, aesthetic delight, intellectual satisfaction, and moral achievement are of primary importance to human beings. We assume that the quality of pleasures and pains and not the quantity is the determining factor in evaluating the status of human beings in the world. Indeed, as we reflect upon the facts of existence, we realize

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that the emphasis actually seems to have been placed on the \ind of struggle and on the kind of achievement as more significant than achievement as such! The process of achievement seems to be as important as the achievements in themselves. Man, we have seen, is free, in a limited sense, to help in the creation of values. Indeed, is it not true that his deepest joys and his profoundest satisfactions reside in the very process of creating the values he enjoys? Let our thesis be firmly stated. The deepest values in human experience are never those which, as it were, another implants in us. They are those we have a share in developing. Whatever other interests the cosmic Mind may have in the creation of value, at the human level the values he has in mind must include the co-creating of values by human beings. Again, that human beings should be co-creating values in his universe is the value attending all other values. For there is no human value which is not enhanced by the creative effort to appreciate or realize it. (God, on this view, is superior to man in enjoyment and accomplishment because he creates and cocreates so much more.) This point is so important to our whole thesis that we rephrase it. The value-possibilities (and the disvalue-possibilities) are there in the world and in the potentialities of man. Man's task is to transform potentiality of value into actuality. The creative adventure of finding truth, developing imaginative disinterest, honesty, courage; the activity of creating a society where human beings may better realize their potentialities in mutual sympathy, forgiveness, and loyalty; the very process of enjoying beauty and creating works which express man's yearning for beauty— these experiences, we know, are the growing-centers of human existence. In the attitudes a human being develops, in the setting of his will to the realization of some plan, in his determination' to co-create values—here we find not only the growing-point of human experience but also the value of values: the factor without which all the values of human life would be less valuable. Since what a man is willing to do with opportunities expresses his

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character, we may well say that the value of values is character. Character is not the only value. Indeed, its worth to a human being depends also on the other values it enables him and others to realize. But it represents the joy and struggle the person has undergone to co-create values which his reason approved. The distinctive fact about the human level of existence—the fact which differentiates human existence from all other types—is this very fact that the quality of persons is in the making and not readymade. The cosmic Mind, we might suppose, could have created puppets which would execute his purposes as readily as do atoms or ants. Our thesis would be that had he done so, or had he approved a universe without co-creators in value, he would have done less than the best. In any case, here is man and here are his deepest and most valuable experiences. They cannot be left out in a reasonable account of the universe as we know it. The cosmic Mind did not rest short of man, and we may therefore well postulate with Keats that this universe is a "vale of soulmaking." Persons, we find, help to create values, and values determine the quality of persons. Let us ask again: Is this the best of all possible universes for man? Since we deem it the highest value that man should be able to create his own character, and should thereby participate in the creation of other values, our own answer must be affirmative. The cosmic Person would not have been good to us had he created us puppets rather than co-creators with him in the development of the quality of our own lives. What a "vale of soul-making" involves. But from the fact that man is related to God as co-creator there follow serious consequences both for the cosmic Person and for us. Had he made us puppets he could be sure that his will would be unfailingly done. As it is much that he would use for goodness only, we may use for evil ends. Thus the power in explosives might be used to dynamite the way through mountains. God cannot stop us—if we are to be co-creators—when we use explosives to

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with horrible consequences when the souls become vengeful, powerful, and parasitic; with the deepest of joys when mutual love and sacrifice dominate man's enterprises. If one can honestly approve this kind of purpose, the cosmic Person, so far an object of admiration, becomes one worthy of worship and self-dedication; the cosmic Mind indeed becomes his God. Not that all questions are answered. One question (How can God be good in view of man's inhumanity to man?) we have answered. For we have seen that man's willed inhumanity is man's responsibility and an expression of God's respect for his co-creators. But another question is forced upon us. You have indicated, the- reader may say, that the underlying order and interconnection which prevails in the world is the expression of an intelligent Purposer. You have held that so far as human existence is concerned, the creation of character is a dominant aim. Such a Mind you suggest is good. But what of the evils in the world for which you certainly cannot blame man? This question, we repeat, is so important to any argument for God that it will be reserved for separate and more extended treatment in two succeeding chapters. There is a related question, however, which must be discussed here. The continuation of values as the ground for believing God to be good. Assuming that the fact of moral choice is a real blessing, and that the will to goodness, to rephrase Kant's memorable expression, shines like a jewel among all the values possible in life, are we justified in considering the cosmic Mind good just because it has made character possible? After all, we might say even in the midst of excruciating suffering and useless hardship, it would be possible to do one's best to fight evil and to realize good. But would that by itself be an adequate justification for existence? If nature be so niggardly as to make life all but unendurable, and if moral achievements are not encouraged and preserved, we might well decide that the cosmic Mind is not interested in more than an endless struggle for character. As we reflect upon this problem we observe what might be

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—JJ • 363 called a "continuation of values." Human beings do live in a world where a wide range and variety of values is possible; man can realize bodily, economic, recreational, social, aesthetic, intellectual, religious, and character values of many kinds. Indeed, to live for any amount of time is to enjoy some of these values. Furthermore, the values we enjoy we seek not merely to conserve but to increase both in our own lives and in the lives of others. Values are not dead, inert things which we can treasure under lock and key; they are the blossoming of life and mind in nature. Once human beings start realizing and enjoying values, man can preserve them and increase them in his manners and customs, in his laws, and in his institutions. He can, for example, make education and understanding more available to his children and to his neighbors, and in so doing he encourages mutuality in the extension of these values and the creation of new values, such as mutual trust and forgiveness. True, the nature of things may seem hard at times; disease germs and our native limitations, cyclone and earthquake, may impair or may destroy our networks of value; but one fact we must never forget: in the main, the mind which made these values possible to begin with has continued to make them and others possible. There have been dark days followed, however, by renaissance and reformation. One civilization falls, another arises. There is war, but coexistent are enough areas of peace to make waging war possible. Total evil is self-destructive. Fatigue and weariness come, but so do sleep and the next morning. Illness is often succeeded by recovery. Mental maladjustment there may be, but enough mental strength is left to allow healing and readjustment. There is hate, but there is also the love which hate offends and then succumbs to. There is death, but, as we shall ask in Chapter 21, is it the "last call" ? The cosmic Mind is not only the creator of value possibilities, but he is also their Continuer. The problem of evil must not be minimized, but the problem would not be so striking unless a fair inventory of the human situation served to show that values

364 * The Wider Teleological ^Argument—II do in the main continue when man so wills. Even when any individual or nation fails, the opportunity for the realization of values goes on by another route; values crushed to earth rise again.2 The moral conditions of human fulfillment. Indeed, we must not discount the significance of a fact about our universe revealed by our abuses of the possible good. Human beings cannot escape conditions to which their ventures in value are subject. They are free to choose among the laws by which they will live (but laws that they cannot make or consequences they cannot escape). If they choose the ways of justice, certain consequences follow within their very natures and in their interactions with others, just as surely as health and vitality follow upon the use of proper food, rest, and exercise. They may choose justice, but they cannot change the consequences flowing from injustice any more than they can avoid fatigue and illness after they have abused their physical energies. The fact is that men cannot play fast and loose with their own lives and their universe. Men live in a universe in which there is a moral structure as well as a physical structure. If they defy the moral structure, their defiance illustrates it. But while most human beings come to realize that there are physical and biological laws by which they must abide if they would exist and be healthy, they sometimes never quite recognize the moral conditions, or moral laws, which need to be observed if men are to realize the best which is possible in their lives. They come to see that if they disobey a physical law (such as exceeding a certain speed on the highway, or working harder than the body allows), they "can't get away with it." But they suspect that they can be selfish, merciless, cowardly, prejudiced, lazy, and irresponsible; and they think that they do "get away with it" because they go on living physically and biologically. 2

This fact represents the meaning o£ providence and the general grace o£ God in religious terms.

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—II • 365 That is because there are no immediately visible symptoms of mental or bodily ill-health which take their toll. As a result men are tempted to think that life goes on "just as well" if they do not share one another's burdens—indeed, they may have more money and power for themselves. "Why consciously do one's level best every day?" they ask. "Don't we get along? A little conniving and use of psychology, and we can live off others! Is it not he who tries to be faithful to his duties, generous with his time and resources, and forgiving of those who offend—is it not he who is a fool ? After all, there's nothing about an act that makes it bad, provided one can escape the punishment society artificially imposes!" Some readers will have read the classic exposition of this theory of morality in the first and second books of Plato's Republic. There are many in our day who would agree with the comment that Plato's Glaucon made in his day about what a man would do if he were given a magic ring that could make him invisible. No one, it is commonly believed, would have such iron strength of mind as to stand fast in doing right or keep his hands off other men's goods, when he could go into the market-place and fearlessly help himself to anything he wanted, enter houses and sleep with any woman he chose, set prisoners free and kill men at his pleasure, and in a word go about men with the powers of a god. . . . Every man believes that wrong-doing pays him personally much better, and, according to this theory, that is the truth. Granted full license to do as he liked, people would think him a miserable fool if they found him refusing to wrong his neighbors or to touch their belongings, though in public they would keep up a pretence of praising his conduct, for fear of being wronged themselves.3 Much of the story of mankind is told in these words, is it not ? The man who would rather suffer than cause unnecessary suf3 Plato. Republic, Francis M. Cornford, tr. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1945. (Book II, 360 )

366 • The Wider Teleological (-Argument—II fering to others, the man who is humble, kind, industrious, frugal, gracious, courageous, meek, honest, tolerant, cooperative, generous, and forgiving—such a man, it is said, always ends up crucified and buried, with no hope of resurrection. But we have no sooner uttered these words than we begin to see that these traits of human beings, if realized in more lives, would immediately dispel the major part of human suffering and evil. To be sure, these traits need to be accompanied by a deeper and broader understanding of human nature and the world in which we live; kindness and courage without intelligent understanding of the individual or the cause for which they are expended can, like Don Quixote, create so much havoc in the world. Yet, let human beings who exemplify such traits be the fathers and mothers, the laborers, employers, teachers, doctors, artists, lawyers, pastors, scientists, merchants—let these persons make and support social laws and institutions, and our society becomes transformed not, to be sure, into a hedonist's paradise, but into a culture in which human beings may grow and confidently cooperate in the realization of the best which human nature and Nature makes possible. The universe in which we live does, then, lay down conditions which encourage or discourage human growth and the increase of values. Human beings are not forced to take one path in value-realization rather than another, but if they take the low road, they are forced to live a makeshift existence, unblessed by self-confidence or the trust of others. If they build walls to keep the needs of others out of their own lives, the same walls imprison their own existence and they never know the gladness that comes from doing a good deed, even when the consequences are not those which goodness deserves. Plato knew the answer, as we do when we carefully analyze the nature of our lives. The evildoer with the magic ring may escape the wrath of society, but, as long as he lives in this morally ordered universe, he cannot prevent his heart's becoming a prison cell, or arrest the slow weakening and decay of his sensitivities. He may frighten

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men into a due regard for the outer man, but he cannot keep their love and their trust; nor can the inner man escape slavery to fear and insecurity. We cannot here begin to give an adequate account of the moral conditions man must fulfill if he is to realize the best in himself and the world. But the main point, and the important consideration for this step in the argument for God, is that man does live in a universe which makes moral requirements even as it exemplifies physical, biological, and even psychological order. Man may live by bread alone, but the ration, in the end, does not completely satisfy. There is an order, a moral order, which is real, just as real as the physical and biological order; it is here for man's understanding and use. As men actualize it in their personalities, in their customs, in their laws, and in their institutions, the cosmic Will co-creates with them. Although it does not force man to choose one set of values over against another, it exerts its influence through the interconnection of man's actions with consequences, psychological and physical, which are not in the control of man's own will. Man may set his own course, but that course falls into a groove leading to a fixed outcome. He lives in a moral order. The universe is not indifferent to his actions; he cannot afford to be indifferent to the laws of the system. The nature of moral law. The reader has no doubt been ready for some time to ask: Do you mean that there is one basic moral direction to the universe, that there is some basic standard by which men should live? The answer is yes. We have said that the universe has a moral order which man cannot break with impunity. We are now saying that there is a fundamental moral law for all men, a law which is consistent with their nature as creative, rational beings. The nature of this law must be understood. A moral law is a statement of what ought to be, not of what is or must be. It does not describe specific actions for all men to enact on pain of death. It is a principle or norm which, if intelligently applied to human

368 • The Wider Teleological ^Argument—11 situations, will allow persons to make the most of their potentialities. A moral law is not a formula analogous to a scientific formula. For example, the discovery of the scientific formula "force equals mass times acceleration" made it possible for men to design automobiles, steam engines, and every other power engine. Is there a similar formula for ethical living which governs the discovery of human values? Hardly. The physical formula expresses what things actually do. An ethical principle is not a description of some specific actions which men perform or ought to perform, but it expresses a principle or norm to guide the specific choices of all men. This guiding principle has been already mentioned, but we may take another approach. If men like Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, to restrict ourselves to physical scientists, had not been honest with their data, self-disciplined and persistent in inquiry, courageous in the face of possible failure and social intimidation—indeed, if scientists the world over had not been men of industry, cooperative and unselfish in sharing their discoveries—would the world have enjoyed the results of scientific method? Men for ages have been seeking physical comfort and well-being, social security and order, individual and social freedom, and the general improvement of the race and individual. Would these goals have been approached without the ever renewed moral discipline of scientists? True, scientists have had their shortcomings as well as their virtues, but the fact stands that their achievement has depended on certain basic attitudes. Too frequently like other specialists, they have shown less concern in their social vision, but even here there are signs of change. For example, in 1941 there came out of the British Association for the Advancement of Science an announcement of "its decision to join with American Scientists in preparing a Democratic Charter of Science to be observed by scientists throughout the world. The first principle to be laid down will be that the fellowship of the commonwealth of science has service

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—JJ • 369 to all man-kind as its highest aim, and the whole world as its outlook. The Charter will not recognize any barriers of race, creed, or clan." Are not the scientists here appealing to the guiding principle for all ethical action, a principle which they learned from some source other than science ? Is it not true that insofar as men have not willed to be just and merciful, they have been forced to forego many of the goods which this world makes possible? Grant that there is much in the world which hampers even man's best efforts: can an objective view of human history contradict the basic truth in the following generalization ? If human beings had been willing to respect personality, in themselves and others (as Kant, formalizing the wisdom of the ages, said), if men had refused to use other human beings as mere means to their ends, would not the human spirit have built a society in which the weak and the strong worked together for mutual growth? But rather than sustaining a rich balance of the values of life, men have wasted their substance, and the result has been so much needless pain, despair, and misery. When men prostitute their own abilities and energies, when they abuse and selfishly take advantage of the good available in the lives of others, they accelerate and accumulate evils. But once men develop the willingness to share each other's failures and successes, once they determine to let nothing stand in the way of the development of human relations inspired by tolerance, cooperation, and the search for broader visions of truth and deeper experiences of beauty, they can march together, in cooperation with the cosmic Mind, in the growth of creative and responsible human souls. Is there any reasonable doubt about the central direction in which our value-ventures must go if we are to live in this universe with mutual dignity and security? Someone will say that to talk thus is to hide behind broad generalizations, when our great need is to break down generalizations into specific commands or imperatives. The reply is that any moral standard which prescribes some one particular form

37<> " The Wider Teleological ^Argument—II of behavior (such as: Never lie! Never steal!) for every situation is not in fact the kind of guide which will help us in concrete human situations. There is no substitute for intelligent judgment in the application of a moral principle. To be sure: Love one another! is itself likely to become a "sounding brass" or "tinkling cymbal" unless it is translated, for example, into the concrete measures needed in relations between father and mother, parents and children, family and family, teacher and pupil, and pupil and pupil. The concrete expression of love between father and mother, between parent and child, depends upon the nature and specific attitudes of each in concrete situations. Every bit of wisdom at our disposal is needed to work out the concrete meaning of love toward our friends and our enemies. For example, our concern for the growth of the innocent will lead to concrete actions different from those resulting from our similar concern for the guilty. But there is guidance-value in the generalization that each should so use his abilities that others can more fully realize the values available in their lives. Again, the exact meaning of love must be worked out in educational procedures, in economic and civic organization, in the interaction of nations with each other, in the treatment of the handicapped and the sick, and in the proper care for violators of the social order. But that meaning will always be related to a specific situation; it will be a particular application of the general principle or norm for all behavior. The meaning of God's goodness. Fortunately we do not need the specific solution to these problems to answer the broader question we are facing: What is the moral law which, if realized in human relations, would indeed produce a human situation l that justifies belief in a God of goodness ? If our argument is at all sound, we may now say (assuming that the problem of evil can be handled) that the cosmic Agent is not merely an intelligent, creative, Mind. He is a God who not only provides the conditions for the realization of human values, but also decrees that man, in order to achieve the best there is in this world,

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must do justice, love, mercy, and walk humbly. Ours is indeed a universe which creates and perpetuates life; in it mathematical and physical order are dominant. But it does more than that. It also prepares men and women for fellowship in the creation of a realm in which men may help each other to realize the best possible in their lives. It is as if God had said: "Rather than make outright a man and a society in which my will shall automatically be done, as happens among physical things, I shall make men with physical and intellectual ability, with a wide variety of wants, emotions, and feelings, and with a will which can turn them to realization of the values and ideals their intelligence discerns as they live with each other and in my world. I know that they can hurt each other, that they can act, for they have been given freedom to will and think as if the world and their own minds and bodies belonged only to them for them to use as they please. I know that they can harm the innocent, that they can destroy many possibilities of value and thus forego blessings and undergo hardships far from the moral norms which guide my own thinking and action and which must ultimately guide theirs. But my moral purpose shall be eternal. They shall have the joy of cocreation; they shall participate in the development of their own characters and personalities; they shall know the meaning of self-command in the interest of a worth-while objective; and they shall complete, as it were, the creation. This is the norm for all values everywhere, and this is my task. Mine will it be to establish and preserve the best conditions I can for the realization of the range of values accessible to all kinds of humanity. I shall not swerve from this course because some fatten themselves at the expense of their neighbors; nor shall I be deterred even by war and torture. This is to be a creative world, a drama of life with its rules and its limits, broad but determinative. Some things men can forever depend upon me to do; some effects shall follow dependably from some causes, for I am the source of these regularities. But men will never know the real

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1. Under what conditions, in man and nature, can moral freedom be creative ? 2. What is the moral case against miracles ? 3. a. What is meant by saying that human values are a joint-product? b. Why hold that values bring a new dimension of quality into being ? c. Why hold that the nature of things supports values ? 4. What does the materialistic view of the "connections" to be found between the world of nature and value seem to overlook ? 5. What seems to be the most coherent interpretation that you can make of these orders of connectedness ? Criticize. 6. Why will the hypothesis of a creative Living Being (without mind) not hold ? 7. What is the "value of values" ? Why ? 4

See D. Elton Trueblood, The Logic of Belief, New York: Harper & Bros., 1942. Trueblood presents similar conclusions but different interpretations o£ moral, aesthetic, and religious experience. Trueblood is influenced by the scholarly, and sensitive treatment of religious and philosophical issues in William Temple, Nature, Man and God. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1934.

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—II • 373 8. How would you answer the question: "Is this the best of all possible worlds" ? 9. Does human freedom limit God's power ? 10. Is it reasonable to suggest that God is amused by human folly? Explain. 11. Relate the nature of God as good to the continuation of values. 12. a. What is meant by the moral law or moral order of the universe ? b. Distinguish between descriptive and normative laws. 13. a. Compare the effects of disobeying the moral law of the universe with disobeying the physical laws of the universe, b. Why is human will important for the moral order ? 14. a. What does the nature of God as conserver of values mean to us in our lives ? b. How does this conception help us to interpret life as we actually find and live it ? 15. Summarize the argument of the first five links. For suggestions for Further Reading see suggestions at the end of Chapters 13 and 15.

THE WIDER TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR A PERSONAL GOD •

OBJECTIVE ROOTS OF

AESTHETIC AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

LINK SIX

The Significance of Aesthetic Experience CHARLES DARWIN writes in his Life and Letters: . . . My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding out general laws. . . . If I had to live my life again I would make it a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the moral part of our nature.1 These are the words of a shrewd man, and in them we might well find our clue to another attribute of the world-with-man in-it, and therefore of the Agency at work within it. The world without its beauty and without its potentialities for aesthetic experience—would it be more than a mere grinding of lawful events, supporting the moral aspiration of man? Indeed, we 1 Charles Darwin, Life and Letters. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1891, I, pp 81, 82. For this quotation I am indebted to Conkhn, Man, Real and Ideal New York. Charles Scnbner's Sons, 1943, p. 209.

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should not neglect Darwin's hint that the development of intellect and morality suffers when the beautiful shares no part in their activities. Aesthetic Experience not a mere addition to human experience. We need constantly to remind ourselves that the mind of man is a varied unity, that the functions our study distinguishes are not separated from each other by partitions. The experience of beauty is the experience of a thinking, feeling, willing, and oughting mind. Even if these capacities are not weakened by a neglect of the beautiful, there is no question that the quality of human existence would be impoverished without the aesthetic experiences made possible through nature and the arts. Let human beings be deaf to sounds or insensitive to their expressive possibilities, let them be blind to colors, let them be unresponsive to the sublime or to the tragic—and we begin to realize how the aesthetic experience in all its varied manifestations can contribute to the enrichment of human life. We must also remember that in his aesthetic experience, whether as artist or appreciator, man is creative. Thus Beethoven's aesthetic experience in feeling and composing all the meaning in the Fifth Symphony is a re-creation of his life, an extension of its potentialities, and a possible enrichment of quality of life in those who listen. In the arts we have a vast range of conscious human experience which once more distinguishes man from animal. Here the human mind is creating again, this time using the properties of wood, stone, and metals (properties which it did not create initially), for the expression of the meanings man finds aesthetically significant. If man is to receive satisfaction in his urge to achieve aesthetic value, it must be in a kind of universe which, within limits, conspires with his efforts. Most of us take for granted the aesthetic quality of our experiences, the fragrance, the delicate colors and structures of flowers, the freshness of laughter, the patterns of music, the proportions of natural and manufactured objects. We seldom ask ourselves

376 * The Wider Teleological ^Argument—III whether the experience of beauty and art can ever be supplanted by any other experience without loss to the quality of human existence. Perhaps not all of us would want to say with W. Macneile Dixon, For art is not merely irreplaceable by any other agency. We can with confidence declare that to the arts, which may well be called divine, belongs a glorious privilege. They have made of beauty a guiding star. They have led mankind on the greatest of all its undertakings and supported it through all the wintry seasons of history. To them we owe the great unwritten principle, the immortal laws that have shaped and guided the conscience of the race. Had Blake been asked, "Should we be any worse off if these arts were to take wing and forsake this planet altogether?" He would have answered, "Deny humanity their guidance; and you stab it to the heart. You deprive it of all the spiritual interests, you drive it back into the aboriginal abyss, a naked animal, bereft of all its hard-won ethical conceptions, as of justice, and equity, of honour and humanity, of law and magnanimity and duty. . . ." There is no sure shield against the tyranny of this ruinous passion for possession save a transference of our affections, if this be possible, from possession to admiration, from immoderate craving for wealth and power to an intense longing for beauty and excellence. . . . As the Greeks knew, "The beautiful is hard, hard to judge, hard to win, hard to keep." Yet the love of beauty exists, an ineradicable passion in every human heart, together with a marvellous capacity for its appreciation. Whatever else be given us, without beauty we can never be at peace or at rest.2 Nor may we be able to accept the Platonic conception of beauty which sees it as eternal, changeless reality independent of man's mind and the changing world, and yet ultimately responsible for the beauties the senses behold. We may prefer to 2

W. Macneile Dixon, Apology for the Arts. London. Oxford University Press, 1947, pp. 24, 25.

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—111 • 377 think of beauty as a manifestation of the creative Mind of minds responding in a selective fashion to the possibilities of beauty intrinsic to his nature. The issues involved in these and other conceptions of the nature of beauty are both fascinating and significant in themselves and for the philosophy of religion. But here we cannot enter upon them. We can, however, underscore as a minimal consideration in our cumulative argument for God the interrelation between man and nature reflected in man's aesthetic experience. Can we not agree, to begin with, that whatever the ultimate nature of aesthetic experience is, whatever its cognitive value, there is no denying the difference aesthetic experience has made to human existence? Happily, there is no difficulty in finding agreement among different aestheticians on one point: life without aesthetic experience is impoverished in quality and weakened in its ability to grow. Thus an author 3 recently held that "the immediate aim of fine art is to feed intrinsic perception." This means that, in the presence of an aesthetic object, the human being's imagination and feeling are enthralled and expanded, and his associations and desires are so guided that "the backgrounds of memory, knowledge, personality, and character are opened up and allowed . . . freedom." 4 The self is no longer engrossed in the practical concerns of life, nor in gaining knowledge either for practical purposes or for its own sake. "In aesthetic experience, feeling and imagination are freed from the narrowness of a specific practical connection and are more ample and more fertile, as, indeed, all the perceptive powers are." 5 But, what is more important for our purposes, this author goes on: If we define the spiritual life as a life lived for the spirit of the living, for the intrinsic substance and value of the 3 D . W. Gotshalk, Art and the Social Ordes. Chicago. University of Chicago Pre«, 947> P- 454 Ibid , p. 23. 6 Ibid., p. 19.

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living itself and the heightening of the self which goes with this, the aesthetic experience, with its concern for intrinsic fulness of objective experience is plainly a part of the spiritual life6 Because the aesthetic experience does develop and sharpen the feelings and imagination, and thereby a person's interests and values, because it sensitizes his vision of what is good in human conduct and in the world about him, it necessarily leaves its stamp upon the moral aspirations and social outlook of a human being. Were not the aesthetic experience such a tonic, were not its effects upon the emotions, feelings, and outlook of human beings so profound, masterminds like Plato would have been less concerned about the problems of censoring the artist. We are not dealing here with a luxury, though the majority of human beings act as if the beautiful is an unnecessary addition. However we ultimately define it and its status, there is no doubt that the depth, the variety, and the very zest of human life is affected by aesthetic experience. Even the pessimistic Schopenhauer, who saw all events ultimately in the grip of a blind insatiable Will, could find in the experience of beauty, and in music particularly, joy and goodness. Therefore, so long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with their constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we can never have lasting happiness nor peace. . . . But when some external cause or inward disposition lifts us suddenly [as does the aesthetic object] out of the endless stream of willing . . . the attention is no longer directed to the motives of willing, but comprehends things free from their relations to the will. . . . Then all at once the peace which we were always seeking, but which always fled from us on the former path of the desires, comes to us of its own accord, and it is well with us.T 6

Ibid., p. 26. E. F. Carritt, Philosophies of Beauty, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931, p. 141. (Quotation from A. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea (1818), ui, 38.) 7

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George Santayana is another witness to the value of aesthetic experience in life. No one is more eloquent than Santayana in disavowing the reality of God or in radically disagreeing with any Platonic view of beauty as presiding over nature. Beauty for him represents no Power working in the universe making for goodness and peace and joy. It is a man-made affair. But, for all that, it is not to be spurned if man is to realize his natural potentialities and his yearning for perfection. In every other area of life, as Santayana sees it, even in the high pursuits of love and of knowledge, we never quite experience the harmony in living that we so much crave. For one reason or another "The reason and the heart remain deeply unsatisfied. But the eye finds in nature, and in some supreme achievements of art, constant and fuller satisfaction." 8 Beauty for Santayana, therefore, becomes the "clearest manifestation of perfection." It is not, to be sure, the manifestation of a perfect being, but an awareness of the "possible conformity of the soul and nature"—in other words of the completest life man can live in a nature.9 Were it not for this sense of beauty, our lives as a whole would be impoverished. Thus: This incapacity of the imagination to reconstruct the conditions of life and build the frame of things nearer to the heart's desire is dangerous to a steady loyalty to what is noble and fine . . . we need to clarify our ideals, and enliven our vision of perfection.... That man is unhappy indeed, who in all his life has had no glimpse of perfection, who in the ecstasy of love, or in the delight of contemplation, has never been able to say: It is attained. Such moments of inspiration are the source of the arts, which have no higher function than to renew them.10 Again, owing to the experience of beauty: The tone of the mind is permanently raised; and we live with 8 George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1896, p. 202. 9 Ibid , p. 203. 10 Ibid., p. 197.

380 • The Wider Teleological ^Argument—717 that general sense of steadfastness and resource which is perhaps the kernel of happiness "" Aesthetic experience as another creative relation between man and the world. We must—if only out of a sense of inadequacy— resist the temptation to become involved in the discussion of whether beauty is real independent of man's experience, or whether it is simply one of the ways a man can feel when he experiences certain perceptual objects; or we may have to accept another position. Philosophers, it is true, have frequently used the beauties of nature as direct argument for God. Much there is in nature, in its microscopic patterns as well as in the beauty which the naked eye can see, which suggests the reality of a Being who is interested in quality and form as well as content. There is much to suggest the Artist as well as the Mathematician, the Artist whose powers, expressed in myriad forms, seem to give birth in beauty as well as mere order. There are those who would argue that all order is ultimately the order of Beauty. Suggestive as this line of reasoning may be, we should prefer to say that the world we live in is not so much beautiful as it is the sponsor of the many potentialities for beauty awaiting sensitive appreciation and disciplined skill. Nature's children seem not only to find her own forms worth imitating, or at least suggestive, but they then go on to build (using their own inherited abilities) cathedrals and symphonies, epic poems, sonnets, and lyrics, sculptures and paintings. And these abilities, we must remember, bear witness to a life within them nurtured and inspired by the very processes which constitute their being. The beauty men experience is their beauty created with the help and suggestion of nature. Whatever the structure of the world to which man sensitively responds, this much must be said. Nature, including here all the experiences man can have in the world, does mean more to man and can mean more to him in his capacity as artist than ^lbid., p. 198.

The 'Wider Teleological ^Argument—77/ • 381 she could mean otherwise. But the artistry in man is evoked, nurtured, and developed in interaction with the universe that brought him into being. If nature is with man in his scientific enterprises, she is with him in his aesthetic experience and creation. Is nature, then, as might appear in a purely scientific perspective, a skeleton of orderly patterns without beauty ? This view is possible only after we have already decided to think of beauty as a garment spun by human imagination in order to clothe the dry bones of what is assumed to be "the real world." Leave out any reference to the enjoyment of the patterns in nature as humanly experienced, see the world through the nonevaluative eye of science or the purely practical concern for prediction, and the beauty as such may indeed seem a meaningless addition to nature. But the fact seems to be that nature does her work in forms and patterns which find a sensitive response and make the difference between light and darkness in man's life, whether he encounters them in flower and field, in physical and animal structure, or in crystal and rainbow. It may be that the beauty of nature and the art of man do not represent a purpose of a cosmic Mind who takes delight in them, but this answer certainly leaves a vast amount of data unexplained. On the other hand, as Tennant says: If we do apply this category of design to the whole timeprocess, the beauty of Nature may not only be assigned a cause but also a meaning, or a revelational function.... If Nature's beauty embody a purpose of God, it would seem to be a purpose for man, and to bespeak that God is "mindful of him." Theistically regarded, Nature's beauty is of a piece with the world's intelligibility and with its being a theatre for moral life; and thus far the case for theism is strengthened by aesthetic considerations.12 12

Philosophical Theology, II, p. 93.

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Religious Experience as Confirmatory The human significance of religious experience. In Chapter 4 we concluded that the experience of God in itself did not provide adequate independent justification for the belief in any specific view of God. Sincere religious persons, we saw, speak in many tongues when it comes to describing in any detail the God they experience. Moreover, when they do interpret their experience, they are forced to speak in words that are coined to express other ranges of experience and tradition and which actually convey no significant meaning to those who do not have the experience or live in the tradition. However we did not deny the existence of an experience which was a vital, creative, and transforming factor in the life of the experient. Religious experience is not to be dealt with highhandedly and reduced to emotional tonics peculiar to homo sapiens. Yet we felt the need of evidence in other areas to help us choose among the interpretations of God, and even more, to furnish grounds other than that provided by the testimony of the experients themselves. The common core of all religious experience, among laymen or among mystics, is that there is a Being, independent of the human mind, an objective Presence, or "More," as James called it, that is not only as real as any other existence but more significant than any other existent being. Added to this core is the conviction that man never finds his greatest good, his "home," apart from the God thus immediately enjoyed. For in religious experience one stands in the very grip of the Greatest Good, the Ultimately Real, and he knows that (in basic terms) his Redeemer liveth. The moment we leave this common core to assert that God is a Person, a Redeemer (in a narrower Christian sense), a Father, or an Impersonal One, the Absolute, the Life of Nature, or any

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—17/ • 383 other specific view of God, we feel the need of other cons:derations to guide our belief. Yet we cannot deny that the religious experience points beyond itself to a Being which inspires it. Even though it yields no clear outline of God and his relation to the universe and man, its creative power and suggestiveness would stand as a tremendous fraud in a universe which has no real place for God. Religious experience as confirmation for our hypothesis. There are no experiences which men have that are as influential as religious experience at its best in every religious tradition. The reader is referred back to our discussion in Chapter 4 and forward to the discussion in Chapter 19 for more adequate elaboration of the status of religious experience. This link in the argument is written with that discussion in mind. Here we wish to emphasize the consonance of the basic religious conviction that there is a God with the evidence garnered from other realms of experience as discussed throughout this book. Indeed, as part of a wider teleological argument, the evidential value of religious experience increases, and the experience of God serves to confirm the basic contention in the argument as a whole. If there is ground for believing in a Person whose purpose is the creative growth and development of all values and of human values in particular, then there is every reason to suppose that this God would make himself felt in the lives of men, indirectly through natural processes, but directly (given certain conditions) in religious experience. The fact of religious experience, then, is consistent with what we would have expected from our hypothesis. The more exact meaning of the experience, on the other hand, may be further developed in the light of the hypothesis developed on other grounds without excluding religious experience. Although there are important differences, to be sure, an interesting similarity may be pointed out between the confirmation offered of our philosophical hypothesis by religious experience and that offered of a scientific hypothesis by sense-perception. An hypothesis about the existence of the planet Pluto is confirmed,

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and illuminated, when a telescope is finally turned to the designated area of the heavens. An hypothesis about evolution is strengthened and illuminated by the inspection of the evolution which can be directly observed in the embryonic development of a chick. While no such conclusive confirmation can be discovered in the complex realm of religious experience, our hypothesis of a Personal Source of Value is indeed strengthened and illuminated by the very suggestiveness and inspiration possible through religious experience. The religious experience, then, in its essential contribution, is added confirmation of a reasonable hypothesis. Our reasoned interpretation of the world, on the other hand, provides an intellectual and moral framework for the further exploration of the meaning of religious experience. There can now be a constant interplay of reasonable interpretation and scientific, logical, moral, aesthetic, and religious experience. § I. SUMMARY OF THE WIDER TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

In this chapter we have presented a chain of considerations in the wider teleological argument for God. The emphasis has been not on specific harmonies found in the world, but on the interrelations of basic dimensions and types of being, on the "ultimate collocation" of things. Thus we began by suggesting (Link One) that the interrelation between the order of physical things and the living order is best explained if a cosmic, creative Intelligence is postulated. The attempt to reduce life to matter, or to explain developments in evolution by the accumulation of accidental variations, or by emergent mutations, leaves us with explanations which simply do not account for the underlying cooperation permitting us to call our world a universe. The faith in such interpretations is less reasonable than the faith in a cosmic creative Intelligence, even if there were no other evidence to be considered. But we moved on (Link Two) to show that although human

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—77/ • 385 thought may not correspond point for point to reality, the very survival of man depends on the fact that his knowledge is a jointproduct of his human faculties in commerce with the world. If the order of mind and the order of living and physical things did collide with each other, not only would the achievements of men be impossible to explain, but the enjoyment of the experience of reflection would become an incongruous fact about the universe. The universe is to be seen with man the thinker in it—with the kind of being who enjoys mathematics, logic, science, and philosophy, poetry, music. We did not pass on, however, without noticing the limitations in man's cognitive experience owing both to his own immorality and to conditions not in his control. In our next step (Link Three) we realized that if moral freedom were unlimited, and if the moral agent could not count on the regularity of consequences, there would be no way of profiting from experience and guiding human choice. Thus the physical, biological, and psychological orders of the world support the human struggle for values by the very intelligibility of their order. In willing the best he knows, man uses the value-potentials in his environment and brings into being the values which depend upon his effort for their actuality. And here we noted three facts (Link Four and Five). First, the consistent effort to realize the good to the best of one's ability creates a person's character, an achievement open to every man within the limits of his fundamental nature. Without the selfdiscipline which character involves, there can be no stable realization of any of the other values of life, be they the values of knowledge, of art, or of religion. But, second, the crucial fact is not simply that man can develop a character, but that man has the kind of nature, and lives in a world that, in the main, supports his efforts to realize values giving fulfillment and quality to his life. Man made neither his own value-potentialities nor those in the world, and yet he is able, when he disciplines the abilities he has, to actualize the economic, biological, social, aesthetic, moral, and spiritual values that make his life worth living. Man does not

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live in a desert, so far as values are concerned; he can create valuetowers if he will, with the support of nature. (We agreed to postpone until later chapters the problem of evil.) But, third, realizing that a whole system of ethics is involved at this point, we suggested that in the course of his search for values, man, living with other men in this environment, has discovered that there are moral laws. These laws cannot be broken without jeopardizing the values which make possible continued human growth and the increase of value-realization. When men are undisciplined, unreasonable, self-centered, and willing to use other human beings merely as tools for their own ends, they not only disintegrate internally but they also destroy the possibilities of common growth and common values. The moral laws of the universe may seem escapable, but they are not. On such grounds we came to the conclusion that the moral struggle of man—impossible without the cooperation of the physical, biological, and psychological orders—gave us our most comprehensive clue to the purpose of the universe and the universeMaker. God is not only a creative Intelligence. At work in the intelligible order of nature, life, and mind, he is a creative Intelligence that is good. He has made possible the kind of human being and the kind of values which come to their fulfillment when man becomes a disciplined co-creator in the realization of values. The kingdom of heaven is the communion of co-creators, finite and Infinite, who live in trust and loving mutality. Such an aim is good, and the world we live in is good (assuming that we can deal adequately with the problem of evil). Among the values which testify both to the creativity of the universe and of man stand the experiences of beauty (Link Six). Here is a kind of value which cannot be explained by any advantage it gives in the struggle for survival as such—though beauty is important in some degree for that purpose. To the extent that beauty permeates every aspect of life, existence becomes more significant and more complete. In the creation of works of art which express meaningfully the qualities of reality-in-and-for-man, the

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—177 • 387 whole of reality takes on added quality. Human beings who are gracefully and graciously good are so much finer as persons than those who are simply good—and there is point in the contention that there can be no real goodness where there is no beauty in feeling and expression. Indeed, that tradition which identified Truth, Beauty, and Goodness did well to underscore the intimate relation in human life and in reality between these aspects of existence. The world which our intellects understand and enjoy, the world which supports our moral strivings for completeness, and which participates in our creative appreciations of beauty— that world is a universe, and to herald this fact we use the word God. "There are many acts of productivity in human life, but the only real act of creating man performs in contact with something greater than himself, for man alone never creates." " In the seventh and final Link of the argument we found that religious experience, in its essential affirmation of a More than the natural world, could be seen as a confirmation of the good, creative Person to which the earlier pathways led us. Once there is the reasonable presumption that there is a Mind behind and within the universe, the religious experience, at once creative, inspiring, and transforming becomes part of the evidence for God, though its "revelation" must stand in reasonable relation to all that we know about the physical world and the moral and aesthetic life, and their intimations of the structure of reality. QUESTIONS

1. If beauty were simply a figment of the human imagination, would it be a legitimate part of an argument for God ? 2. Why consider the aesthetic experience an addition to the universe ? 3. Why is it generally accepted by aestheticians that a life without beauty is an impoverished life ? 4. What view of the relation between nature and the aesthetic experience does your author suggest ? 13 Robert Ulich, Man and Reality. The Hazcn Pamphlets. Number 21, 7948, p. 26. (New Haven: The Edward W. Hazen Foundation.)

388 •

The Wider Teleological ^Argument—III

5. Why, then, include the aesthetic life in the argument for God? 6. a. What is the common core of religious experience ? b. Why must we go beyond it to understand the relation of God to man? 7. a. Why is religious experience regarded as the copestone of the wider teleological argument for God ? b. Why is it considered confirmatory ? 8. Does the fact that religious experience is the last link in the argument for a personal God mean that it is psychologically the least important? Explain. 9. Does the wider teleological argument leave any significant area of human experience out of account? 10. Have any problems been overlooked by this argument? 11. Summarize the main steps in the total wider teleological argument for God. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Calhoun, Robert L. God and the Common Life. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935, Chapter IV. Dewey, John. A Common Faith. New Haven: Yale University Press, IQ 34Dixon, W. Macneile. The Human Situation. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1937. Ferre, Nels F. S. Faith and Reason. New York: Harper & Bros., 1946, Chapter III. Lyman, Eugene W. The Meaning and Truth of Religion. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933, Part III. Matthews, W. R. The Purpose of God. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936, Chapters II-III. More, Paul E. The Sceptical Approach to Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1934. Patrick, George T. W. Introduction to Philosophy, (rev.). New York: Houghtcn Mifflin Co., 1935, Chapters XII, XXVI, XXVII. Santayana, George. Reason in Religion. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, (1905) 1930. Trueblood, D. Elton. The Logic of Belief. New York: Harper & Bros., 1942.

i6 IS THIS THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS?

IT is now time for us to face the problem of evil. Evil is a part of the universe we have been trying to understand, and no interpretation of the universe is adequate if it does not provide the most coherent hypothesis about the nature and purpose of evil. This is not the place to hedge; nor is it the place to be overcome by emotional resentment against evil. Our stand, if we are to be objective and reasonable, must be determined by the hypothesis most consistent with the known facts. § I. WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

At the very outset we encounter what in some respects is the most difficult question: What is to be considered evil? And immediately we find ourselves reaching for an answer to the question: What is the good? Now the good must not be confused with moral goodness. To be morally good, as we have seen (Chapters 9, 10), is to will consistently what one believes to be the best. But a person might consistently will the best he knows and be a Judas. A conception of the good life is needed to guide us in our willing. What is the ideal goal of life? Any word we use for it will have some drawback. The word happiness, which we shall use as a synonym for the good, suggests to many a kind of pleasure-seeking which we would immediately repudiate. In what direction shall we look for the definition of the good or happiness ?

39© •

The Best of <±All Possible Worlds?

Fortunately, we can begin by referring back to the underlying theme in the conception of a perfect being (God) already outlined (Chapter n ) . A perfect being, in contrast to ourselves, lives in constant fruition or realization of all his capacities. In him there are no conflicting purposes and emotions, no inconsistency between aims and actions. All other beings depend upon him, and there is nothing in his nature or beyond it which can keep him from realizing his purposes. There emerges, then, a definite suggestion as to the nature of happiness, namely, the fulfillment of capacity in harmonious activity with all related beings. But, the reader will say, you are talking about God and not man. Surely such happiness is impossible in the human situation with all of its limitations. And this must, of course, be granted. But need we give up the essential insight here, namely,, that the good or happy life is the life which harmoniously realizes its own potentialities to the utmost? Let us see what this would mean concretely in the human situation. An individual's happiness (his whole-some satisfaction rather than pleasure) would be found in his ability to develop his native endowment to his own limit. This undertaking calls for maximum physical health so that he may be free to meet physical hardship and enjoy the spring and vigor possible in a human body at work or play. It means mental development which will allow him not only to solve the problems of physical survival but also to satisfy and expand his intellectual interests in the many environments which encompass his life—in conversation and reading, in mathematical computation, in vivid and appreciative sense-perceptions, in the enjoyment of memory and imagination, in the reflective consciousness which takes him beyond things immediate and lays open before him the many possibilities of existence. The good life involves the development of emotional sensitivity, the cultivation of the feelings so that one's emotional activity may take one from the bogs of fear, anger, self-pity, greed, and lust, to the higher land of sympathy, reverence, tenderness, wonder, joy in mastery, and forgiving love. The good life is vivified, refreshed, and expanded

The Best of *All Possible Worlds? • 391 in the experience of beauty, and it is recreated in the experience of God (Chapter 19). A man, to repeat, must find happiness in realizing as many values as possible in accordance with his endowment in the varied situations his living confronts. Growth along the line of one's talents—let us risk this simple formula to indicate the direction of a complicated thing like happiness! This, of course, calls first for conscientiousness (moral goodness), the willingness to live by the best one knows, if only to discover what one can do and be. But it also calls for the wise selection from day to day of those experiences which will not only be satisfying in themselves but also will protect, as far as possible, the values in other phases of life. This means pruning the vines of one's life, encouraging growth here, limiting it there, but always with a view to the greatest possible yield. The happy life for each of us at every stage of life is always the achievement of a "concert"; each basic theme —the physical, mental, emotional, aesthetic, and religious—is woven into the pattern of the others, and each enriches the whole. Discords are there as a menace, but they bring strength and variety when surmounted. It is creative conflict, creative control, this matter of happiness; and success means a symphony of values, a song of gratitude to man's powers and a memorial to his success in gracefully interweaving his endowment with opportunities in the world. Happiness, we are urging, means organization and control of living in harmony with reality. But this control could have been imposed upon human life from without, as it is upon the stars and the atoms, or as it is upon the formation of a lily or the development of an eye. Had it been so imposed, there might be more order in the affairs of men than there is. Many men have marvelled at the wonderful social organization in a bee-hive or anthill, and there are moments when one wishes that it might have been thus with human society. But the moment such organization was imposed upon the individual human life (and consequently upon man's social organization), he would lose that quality of

392 • The Best of *All Possible Worlds} creativity which gives to human happiness its very meaning. Happiness, the good life, means completeness of individual activity; but every individual must choose which way his soul shall go! Happiness without personal effort, without the consciousness of one's own part in its creation, is happiness minus the inner zest which makes it worth while or human! Make no mistake about it. The satisfaction of having made one's own free effort, even though the obstacles have been too great, is a source of inner peace amid disappointment or defeat. This is what is meant when one says that the deepest human happiness comes only through the development of character (moral goodness). Character is the willingness to persist in doing what one things is right to the best of one's ability. However different human beings may be in their satisfactions owing to variation in their endowments, every human being capable of willing has a chance at the satisfaction which comes with the effort to achieve character. The blind man cannot enjoy the satisfactions of color-experience and of vision generally, but he can have the satisfaction which character brings, however else he may compensate for his lack of sight. Whatever his abilities, whatever his circumstances, a man cannot be denied his ever-present opportunity to know that he has done his best in the pursuit of his ideals. When he is well-endowed, when the circumstances of his existence have been fortunate, and when he has done his best to make the most of his surroundings with his endowment, he does indeed enjoy more quality and the higher ranges of satisfaction in his life. But no person, regardless of endowment or circumstances, knows the height of human satisfaction if he does not know the meaning of character in his own life. There may be some happiness without character—a kind of hand-to-mouth affair, some chance adjustment of his desires of the moment to the environment of the moment. A truer happiness follows from the consistent mastery of one's resources: it is a controlled happiness. So different is the connotation of this kind of happiness from the conception of happiness as a comfortable existence replete with

The Best of *All Possible Worlds? • 393 pleasures that the author prefers to risk another tide of connotation and use the word blessedness or beatitude for such a state. The blessed man is he who has learned to ma\e the most of what he has, and the life of beatitude is that life in which there is the satisfaction which comes with self-mastery in self-completion. The truly happy man, then, lives in creative control of capacity and opportunity.1 We have been emphasizing the fact that the good or happy life is a by-product of controlled harmony in self-fulfillment. But controlled harmony does not mean "realizing one's self" to the exclusion of others or of social goals. It is an undeniable fact about human experience, and not a mere theory, that a person is challenged to greater effort, is treated to a wider variety of values, and is forced to develop more facets of his nature if he accepts responsible relationships to other persons. To work and play with others, to trust and be trusted by others, to become a creative member of a group, to love and be loved, to enter into the neverending joys and concerns of family life, to participate in the work of the world and feel that one "belongs" to the human venture in community living2—here is human living full of conflict in values, but here is opportunity to grow as one can never grow if he walls himself out of the lives of others! Every human joy is increased if one can feel that others too participate in that enjoyment; every human joy is decreased by the thought that others are needlessly shut out of one's own joys. To sum up: the good human being must be perfect in his kind, with his limitations. This means that, so far as possible, he will keep even his limitations from afflicting others so as not to detract from their effectiveness. His own goodness must find its proper relation to the creative control others also can achieve. Where 1

In another book {The Human Venture in Sex, Love, and Marriage, Chapter IV. New York: Haddam House, 1949), the author has attempted to define the virtues needed for controlled living, including creative marriage. 2 See Robert L. Calhoun, God and the Common Life. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935. This book presents a very interesting treatment of vocation, as well as a more advanced exposition of a philosophy of religion.

394 ' The Best of *All Possible Worlds? there is "symphonic" growth, there is happiness; it is against this background that evil must be described and, in the end, evaluated. § 2. THE NATURE OF EVIL

Hardship is not necessarily evil. It seems too simple to say that any thought, action, or event is evil if it prevents or impedes growth in self-fulfillment. This definition is in fact acceptable, provided we remember that many difficulties which we find bothersome on the surface are not evil, though they at first seem to be. The school boy struggling with long division, the mother and father confronted with the mischievousness of normal children, the farmer forced to plan on the uncertainties of weather—each is faced with specific limitations in human nature and in the environment, and all may lament hardships as evil. A person who is ill is certainly experiencing hardship, especially if there is constant pain. Yet, is there one of us who in a calm moment would, if he could, eradicate illness from the world? Would we not be justifiably afraid that in so doing we would be taking from life a source of wisdom, an incentive to courage, inner resourcefulness, and mutual sympathy ? Let it be clear, then, that in terms of the conception of human happiness here advocated, hardship is in itself no evil. Human beings are not lifted to their highest resourcefulness, without the many inner and outer conflicts which beset them. Normal conflict is not evil, and frustration is in itself no tragedy. As a person responds to "good" or to "evil," he can develop attitudes, habits, and traits which make him a monument to human dignity and power—or he can develop attitudes, habits, and traits which smother his ability to meet other conflicts and rob him of selfconfidence and independence. Human happiness, as we enjoy it from day to day and as we know it in the great souls of the race, is impossible without great risks, even without the willingness to live with uncertainty. When we talk about hardship, we are likely to think of it as

The Best of *All Possible Worlds? • 395 being caused by an absence of something normally needed for physical or mental security. But the actual fact is that many people feel insecurity or face hardship even though they are blessed with enough and more of this world's goods. Would that it were only the poor and dispossessed who miss happiness! That handsome fellow and that glamorous young lady who have been using charm and not good brains to get what they wanted may someday find themselves in situations requiring not "charm" but the capacity to perform disliked work. Their very wealth of personal attractiveness may become a menace to them. Every human being needs to use his assets effectively and responsibly. Weaknesses in personality structure do not stem necessarily from forced limitations in one's life; they may issue from abuse of rich endowment. Hardship and evil as disciplinary. Ultimately then, good and evil in human life, however conditioned by forces inside and outside of us, are largely a matter of the spirit. "Good" conditions do not necessarily create happiness, and "bad" conditions do not necessarily help or hinder happiness. A human being must find his happiness through his conditions but not in his conditions; bitterness of spirit, defeatism, insecurity, and suspicion can be developed in both good and bad "external" conditions. Until a man has overcome evil in his own spirit, until he has kept it from maiming his zest for cooperative living, he is not cured. Evil is never overcome and goodness is never achieved unless the inner victory is won and the value in every event is appreciated. We come back to our first suggestion. Evil is not simply hardship, but it is any condition which keeps the individual, and the commonwealth of individuals, from the self-fulfillment of which each is capable. We have been saying that even if we lived in circumstances which everywhere encouraged goodness, this in itself would not necessarily make human beings happier. The decision to use the world for better or for worse would still remain with them. We have also said that no matter how bad a situation might be, there is always an attitude that can be taken to it which will help

396 • The Best of *All Possible Worlds} quarantine the evil and force it to contribute to some good. There is, therefore, real point in Ferre's remarks: "Those who suffer, incurably ill, often embody the fullest answer. What matters most in life is not how we explain but how we accept suffering. Having accepted it, we find a new light breaking through To accept suffering as a gift from God to be used for others is hard, but suffering so accepted opens the door to a new world and to the real God." 3 Indeed, it may well be said that there is no situation in life from which some good and evil cannot conceivably be realized. No matter what else we say about good and evil in what follows, let it be clear that we would not deny that moral good and moral evil must be a part of any universe in which creativity is to be a fundamental factor in human happiness. But now we must emphasize the other part of the picture: the limitations and suffering for which man is not responsible. Men do sin; they do transgress their own ideals. The suffering which they initiate by so doing is a necessary part of any "vale of soulmaking." But men do not suffer simply because they have disobeyed the moral law. Indeed, if all the suffering were punishment for the abuse of free-will, the question might still be raised whether the suffering actually inflicted fitted the crime. The undeniable fact is that there is much more suffering in the world than neatly fits any moral purpose. Granted that much suffering can be used as a means to goodness, the stubborn fact remains that there is a great deal of human and animal suffering which falls beyond any disciplinary purpose. If suffering is the shadow which helps human beings to appreciate the light, there is altogether too much shadow in multitudes of lives; there is much more, certainly, than is necessary to throw goodness into relief. Nondisciplinary evil. We must, then, not allow our interest in looking on the sunny side of suffering to leave us insensitive to the reality of pain, mental and physical, which not only makes moral effort difficult but actually destroys goods otherwise avail3 Nels F. S. Ferre, Evil and the Christian Faith New York. Harper & Bros., 1947. p. 107.

The Best of tAll Possible Worlds? • 397 able. However suffering may be used for goodness, suffering in itself can never be good, for its very nature is to destroy some good. Were this not so, why resist it ? Why plead that it be turned to goodness ? "The real problem of suffering comes not because it denies us what we actually and sometimes cheaply want, but because it cuts across our critically judged wants and blocks the reasonable good." i In other words, it is all too easy to talk about the necessity of suffering in a moral universe. It is all too easy to forget that in a given life, suffering, especially to the degree often experienced, is neither merited nor necessary to deepen appreciation. Which of us does not know the parent who has been able to turn the incessant illness in his family into strength of character ? But would the contour of his life have become more rounded had better health prevailed ? A particular man can be challenged to grow in character by some evil, but let it be poured into his life in a continuous stream, and that particular life simply may not stand the strain. If the spirit and body do not break, the mind often does, and a life which could otherwise have enjoyed beauty, human service, fellowship, work, and play is now reduced to dependence and to a mere shadow of existence. War has in some cases helped to create the "happy warrior" with all those manly virtues the militarist extols. But for how many men, forced to unloose upon each other the forces of nature, physical and psychological, has it reduced the quality of life, the very belief in life as more than an urge to survive ? Man does need a certain amount of physical, mental, and emotional stability if he is to fulfill his own potentialities even reasonably well. It is only the hero of melodrama who can successfully withstand all odds. The upheavals of nature, the floods, cyclones, earthquakes, the cancers, the excruciating pain and mental torture—these and their effects man does not create; he simply has to accept and make the most of them. Even if he overcomes the ordeals, he does not come through unscathed. There is 4

J. Seelye Bixler, "Notes on the Problem of Suffering," The Crozer Quarterly, 1944,

p. 291-

398 • The Best of «All Possible Worlds? such a thing as too much strain, and in that excess of strain the very power to grow becomes gnarled and stunted. It becomes necessary, then, to distinguish the evil which is the result of man's abuse of free-will (moral evil) from the evil which comes to him against his will (nonmoral evil). As we have seen, both moral evil and nonmoral evil can, to some degree at least, be transmuted into goodness. The fact, nevertheless, remains that both moral and nonmoral evil are frequently greater than human effort and intelligence can cope with. There is more evil than can serve any disciplinary purpose. We must, therefore, discriminate nondisciplinary evil—that is, all evil, whether it be man's fault or not, whose destructive effect, so far as we know, is greater than any good which may come from it. One may take the best attitude one can toward his limitations, his blindness—"They also serve who only stand and wait." But it is probably even better for Milton, and for his society, if he is less impeded in action and word. If a Miltonic spirit needs to be curbed, isn't blindness a rather drastic discipline? In such instances, there is simply too wide a residue of disvalue, granted the partial good which may be realized through it. Such effects of evil raise again the question which came up in connection with nondisciplinary evil as we outlined the argument for God. In the light of the disciplinary and nondisciplinary evils which lie about us on every hand, does it make sense to believe in God? In particular, how can we claim that God is a Person, omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving, as defined in Chapter 12 ? Certainly, if God is all-powerful and all-knowing, he could have framed a universe in which the unnecessary afflictions of evil were absent. If God is omnipotent, and therefore the creator of so much evil, how can he be good? Or if he is good, and did not intend evil, can he be omnipotent in the sense defined ? Must there not be something beyond the control of his good will which is the source of evil in the world ? The attempt to answer these questions will engage us in a number of chapters. The traditional answer to the question,

The Best of *All Possible Worlds? • 399 affirming that God is omnipotent and all-good, has much in it to merit our consideration. But there are weaknesses, too, and these will have to be indicated. In the next chapter we shall consider several ways of reconstructing the traditional hypothesis of God with a view to incorporating the strength in the traditional explanation of evil while avoiding its weakness. § 3. THE TRADITIONAL EXPLANATION OF EVIL

Evil is not simply error of finite intelligence. We have already seen that the pantheistic hypothesis which identified the world and man with God was rejected by traditional theists precisely because evil in man and nature would then have to be identified with God. To be sure, pantheists have tried to explain how God could be one with man and the world without being responsible for evil. But in the main, the explanations of evil offered by pantheists have seemed unsatisfactory to theists and atheists alike. First, some pantheists have held that evil and good are simply human ways of evaluating the world. Because things seem to us, with our many urgent desires, good or evil, we jump too hastily to the conclusion that the structure of things must be good or evil. As a matter of fact, if we knew all there is to know, we would realize that neither good nor evil as man sees them is part of the framework of things. Attributes such as goodness simply do not apply to the Being who is immanent in all things; they apply only to the limited and finite perspective which sees reality confusedly. Second, other pantheists would not hold that God is beyond good and evil as we know them; rather they would hold that God is good and can brook no evil in his world. What human beings regard as evil is simply a lesser good which, if it could be seen under the aspect of eternity or the whole, would be seen as part of the total good. If only human beings could see their own experience in the proper spirit and with complete knowledge, what they distortedly regard as evil would be seen to be error of finite intelligence.

400 • The Best of *All Possible Worlds? One basic reply would seem to suffice against this second explanation of evil. Evil is not here explained; it is explained away! Even assuming that all evil is distortion, the question still remains: Why the experience of distortion? Indeed, why the evil of distortion? For distortion, since it keeps man from seeing reality as it is, is obviously an evil. If distortion is a necessary product of mortal mind, then it is a necessary part of the universe. Evil still remains, therefore, in the form of all these human distortions of the true and the real. As for the first "explanation," it solves the problem of evil by the more drastic measure of denying validity to the normal human experience of good as well as evil. If human experience is so poor an index to the structure of reality, why make any human attempt to exonerate the universe ? At all events, we are still left experiencing good and experiencing evil! Whether or not the universe is responsible for the good and evil we experience, we still enjoy good and we still censure evil. Nothing is explained or changed except for the worse in this account of good and evil. For now we are told that our best experience of the good tells us no more about reality than our worst experience of evil. True, if reality is beyond good and evil, we now have no right to be bitter or to censure the universe. Indeed, we do not have to face the disappointment which comes when horrible evils occur in a universe believed to be essentially good. But, if this be solace, we certainly have paid a high price for it. For we have added to the mystery of evil the mystery of goodness! Furthermore, pantheistic views, much as they have struggled not to absorb the individual person, have hardly satisfied their critics at this point. Pantheists have found the idea of creation unintelligible, but they have made it impossible to account for the free will that human beings experience. For if men are aspects of the universal Whole, if they are simply currents of the universal Mind, they have no choice. To sum up, pantheism not only renders illusory that consciousness of free will which every human being enjoys to some degree,

The Best of «All Possible Worlds? • 401 but it also leaves all the goods and imperfections of life, be they distortion or illusions of finite mind or not, in the lap of God. Moral evil is the product of finite free will which is itself a good. Unwilling then to deny with the pantheist the reality of evil or of good, traditional theism, emphasizing the transcendence as well as the immanence of God, has proceeded to its own explanation of evil. Theistic thought has, in the main, preferred to honor the experience of freedom—indeed, to find in it the explanation of all the moral evil in the world. Moral evil, we recall, refers to all evil which results from man's use of his free will. Man is not responsible for the laws of nature, but he is responsible for what he chooses to do with them. To many this explanation of moral evil will still seem inadequate. If God created persons with free will, persons who use their freedom to hurt each other, is he not, they will ask, responsible also for evil that comes into the world? The answer is clear-cut, especially in the light of our discussion of the nature of good and evil. For, although it cannot be said that all theistic moralists would agree in detail with the view of the good life suggested above, there is one point upon which all would agree. Where there is no moral freedom, there is no goodness and no happiness worthy of the name. God, it would be further agreed, in his gracious love created men free so that they might themselves choose the ends to which their lives should be dedicated. In terms of the conception of self-fulfillment given above, it might then be said that God willed that men should voluntarily real-ize themselves in cooperative harmony with others and with him; but he left it to them to determine, within limits, how far they would fulfill themselves. God, therefore, is responsible for the entirely praiseworthy creation of men who, though meant to be co-creators, would have the freedom to reject God's purpose. The moral evil in the world, accordingly, is not as such to be attributed to God's will, for he does not force men to obey his will. He allows moral evil to occur because his purpose is that men shall not be puppets. Evil came

402 • The Best of iAll Possible Worlds? into the world not when God created men free, but only as men used their freedom for unworthy, selfish purposes. God is not responsible for moral evil, and he is not responsible for moral good. He supports moral endeavor, be that endeavor to goodness or to evil, by maintaining a universal order which is the same for the unjust as for the just. As we have already seen (Chapter 14), without an orderly world there could be no meaningful or dependable realization of value. But the same order which helps men realize good also aids them in realizing evil. The consequences of evil are soon reaped in the weaknesses of character and personality, in physical disorder and pain, and in a society in which persons do not work for one another, but, as far as prudently possible, at the expense of one another. God grants freedom, but he does not grant happiness or self-fulfillment when freedom is abused. The whole purpose of existence is in the struggle of each life to gain symphonic self-mastery in a community of persons. Suffering is ultimately part of the plan for goodness. We have seen that the traditionalist emphasizes the reality of evil, that he insists that talk of human freedom is nonsense unless good and evil result from freely chosen actions. We are free to differ, free to try our own ways, free to run off into the far country and there to waste our inheritance on selfish pleasures. But we are not free to escape the hunger and the loneliness and the sense of guilt that follow. We are not free to avoid fear and trouble. We are not free to be satisfied in our own chosen situation. We are free to make ourselves good, but we are then not free to feel free from our cosmic responsibility and dread.5 But evil is not simply the consequence of disorderly will. Human beings, limited in ability and power, encounter it willynilly in the course of their interaction with each other and with 6

Ferre, Evil and the Christian Faith, p. 36.

The Best of *All Possible Worlds? - 403 the environment. How is this to be explained, if God is good and at the same time all-wise and omnipotent ? We have already noted that there must be dependable consequences to our actions if we are to know what actions mean and if we are to choose intelligently in the future. If there is to be order in our lives, there must be order in the consequences of any action, and different consequences must ensue from different actions. To know what we are and what the world is, we must know what we can do in the world, what powers we exert, and what powers are exerted upon us. A free will could never be rationally guided otherwise. Accordingly, in order for God to make a world in which moral personalities could grow, he had to make a world in which free human beings could discover the orderly sequences, mental, physiological, and physical, which followed from certain actions. Therefore, the suffering which occurs as human beings learn from experience and the suffering which ensues from abuse of freedom must be seen together as part of a total system appropriate to the quality of man's development. When God decided that the highest quality in man's life would come through growth and choice in an orderly environment, he could have no alternative but to make possible the suffering and disaster which ensue when men behave in certain ways. Some suffering and heartache simply had to be part of a world in which finite creatures were to develop. And there is suffering and there is heartache for both man and his Creator alike! But, as the Judeo-Christian tradition would insist, what greater love could a God have for his creatures than to be willing to suffer himself along with them, so long as they could be co-creators of goodness in the world? If man is to suffer as a consequence of his very finitude and freedom, he can know that there is no better way of assuring the creative qualities of his life. If man is to suffer, he can know that in the midst of his suffering there is a cosmic Co-Sufferer who is himself constantly at work alleviating pain,

404 * The Best of *All Possible Worlds? and who is providing for those who freely avail themselves of it the power to bear and transmute suffering. It has often been remarked that Christianity does not solve the problem of evil intellectually, but it gives persons the capacity to bear it. This remark is the conclusion drawn from the vast store of human experience among believers who, suffering much, yet find the strength to live noble lives without self-pity or rancor. In the midst of their suffering they somehow discover a Source of strength not available in medical treatment. The traditionalist is not merely theorizing when he finds in the suffering caused by finitude and freedom in an orderly world not only a source of deeper kinship and community among men, not only a stimulus to living beyond "the fell clutch of circumstance," not only a basis for keener appreciation of the good in the world and man, but also the occasion for a unique fellowship between man and God. The suffering incurred by man and God is not to be minimized; but neither is the fact that it is part of the very best purpose conceivable—a special order of creative fellowship between man and man, and man and God. Evil is never an end in itself for God. Convinced that the suffering and destruction of value connected with human finitude and with human sin can be seen as necessary parts of a basic plan, the traditionalist now optimistically faces nonmoral evil—the waste of life and of quality in life owing to forces of nature beyond the control of human agency. In no way can human beings be blamed for the particular kinds of insanity and mental affliction which crowd our mental hospitals. Men do things which create a burden too great for the human mind to bear, but they are not responsible for the particular quality of pathological states incurred in many mental diseases —schizophrenia, torturous systematized delusions, sadistic, masochistic, and manic-depressive patterns of behavior—which denude the human personality of all qualities that make life meaningful. All of these abnormalities, let alone those of the imbecile and the idiot, may inspire and stimulate the most heroic of qualities in the families of the mentally-defective and in those who learn

The Best of *All Possible Worlds? • 405 to care for them. Yet this loss of possible quality in the lives of the patients is still a fact, and one that cannot be blamed on human will. True, we may be reminded that the very powers which make for wholesome and powerful human living should be expected to produce hideous results when they miss their true goal and go astray. Yet the question does not down: Must it be so bad ? Must the intricate development and high quality of the human physiological system, which does open for human consciousness areas of experience animals never can touch—must these same sensitivities, once disordered, create the kind of pain which only human beings can know ? Must this relation exist between high quality of experience and horrible suffering when something goes wrong ? If the suffering is held to be a deterrent as a punishment, does it have to be so acute, last so long, fall with such weight upon a particular person? Isn't the scourge enough, or must we have the rack and the wheel also ? Who does not question either the wisdom, or the power, or the love of God who has seen babies or the aged suffer excruciating physical pain ? Pain which can contribute to life, we can accept; pain which is bearable pain, yes. But pain which is not only unbearable but leaves its mark on the persons who—like the babe and the senile—have no other mental reserve with which to meet it—must this be ? Does such pain teach the sufferer or the witness more than it destroys of value and hope ? Now, we repeat, the tradition at its best has not tried to hide these facts. It has recognized the pitiless scourges of nature, scourges which have taken no account of the innocent or the impotent, afflictions which have visited saint and villain alike. But while granting that such pain and destruction seemed hard to justify in human eyes, it has insisted that since a conceivable purpose might be served by most suffering, then there is warrant for the faith that all suffering, in the long-run plan of God, has a purpose. "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." In these words Job summed up his ultimate faith that though all his suffering could not be interpreted as penalty for personal sin, there was a purpose beyond his ken which was being served. These same

406 • The Best of zAll Possible Worlds? words eloquently suggest the spirit of the tradition in the face of the unearned increment of suffering which is the human lot. There are two last considerations which the traditionalists would use to buttress their faith that seemingly superfluous and nondisciplinary evils serve a larger purpose. Any omnipotent Creator, they would remind us, could choose between a determinate world order rich in variety of beings, and a more exclusive, relatively impoverished world. Infinite possibilities were open to him "before" creation. The situation facing God may be better understood if we imagine a somewhat idealized human analogy. When we face a large number of possibilities of value which can be incorporated into our lives, we soon realize that we cannot enjoy them all. If we did there would be all sorts of confusion and fruitless conflict. We would have to leave some possibilities out and select only those which could live with each other—that is, the compossibles. Yet we would be obligated, would we not, to choose the richest compossible values, a life in which there would be as many values as possible consistent with a unified enjoyment of our world? Our guiding principle might be: Let us include all values which we can possibly enjoy or which can be a source of enjj/ment to others. If we could live such a life, it would be perfect in the sense that it could claim to be the most inclusive of all values open to us. We may now extend our analogy to the situation confronting an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect Creator. As he planned his creation of the best or most inclusive of the worlds he could possibly create, he too would have to be selective. He would have to choose between an inclusive harmony or a more exclusive unity. The best of all possible worlds mould be the most inclusive compossible world. Such a best possible world would still conceivably include much suffering. Many destructive possibilities might have to be allowed since to exclude them utterly would mean to exclude equivalent and greater goods. For example, at many points there would be animal and human suffering destructive of real good and serving no good end in the life of the

the Best of *All Possible Worlds? • 407 particular animal or human being. But if the choice lay between a less inclusive and worth-while and more inclusive and more worth-while whole (in which whole species of being and ranges of quality were admitted even though they brought with them possibilities of destructive evil), what would be the right choice for a good God ? This argument may sound very abstract, but, as a matter of fact, all of us face similar choices constantly (though with much less power, goodness, and wisdom than God has). To have some blessings is to forego others, and as we become more mature we realize how important it is to give our lives the kind of direction which will allow us to take advantage of the richest variety of value. But that same maturity enables us to see that the strength of youth cannot share the wisdom of longer years, and the wisdom of experience does not have the dynamic initiative of youth. Which of us would want to have one without the other, granted the limitations of both ? But this situation is crudely analogous to the kind of decision confronting the cosmos-Maker. A Voltaire may have his day poking fun at this "best of all possible worlds," but one may question whether such problems may be either probed or dismissed by satire. Granted, there are many varieties of pain and suffering visited upon the members of this most inclusive organization of the world. But, a Leibniz would insist, if we could only see the picture as a whole, as God sees it, we too would be willing to include the possibilities of suffering which exist in animal, human, and divine life, in order to include also the possibilities of value actually achievable. In asking us to bear in mind that this may well be the best of compossible worlds, the traditionalist has asked us to extend our present panorama so that we can develop a better sense of proportion. In his final contention he asks us to extend our view in time and not to overlook the possibilities of value in the life to come. Death, far from being the final fact about life, may be the continuation of life in a better environment. Let one suffer the nondisciplinary and undeserved evils incurred in this life in the right

408 • The Best of *All Possible Worlds? spirit, let him build a strong character and make the wisest choice1* he can, and he may indeed find himself prepared for a new quality of existence in an environment where the human spirit can reach much more complete fulfillment than is possible here. Evil can be justified here below, but we also have the right to see it in the light of another world where it is superseded. Such is the case made by those who believe that God is a personal Creator, omnipotent and all-good, omniscient and eternal. Surely, as one thinks this argument over as a whole, especially if he widens his panorama, remembers human ignorance, and considers future possibilities, he can understand why so many acute thinkers have held that this is the best of all possible worlds. In the universe as conceived by the traditionalist, there exists one Being who satisfies the strong human yearning for perfection, a being unlimited by anything but his own goodness as he works out his never-ending concern for his creatures. The point of view has breadth and majesty; it commands respect; it even makes one want to be persuaded. But there are certain objections not easily overborne by the grand style in argument, or even by one's consciousness of human ignorance. § 4. WEAKNESSES IN THE TRADITIONAL EXPLANATION OF EVIL

Weaknesses of procedure in argument. It has been a cento] thesis of this book that any conception of God or of the universe should be justified by its ability to explain the facts of human experience as a whole more completely than can any other hypothesis. Now, the traditional explanation of evil does not seem to be adequately grounded in human experience. The traditionalist claims that all evil performs a moral function. But in ordei to defend this claim he argues not from what he knows about the world, but from a conception of what might be. Nondiscipli nary evil, he thinks, can be seen in a light which transforms it into a necessary part of the best (compossible) world. If we knew enough about the world, he insists, we would realize that it is one

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symphonic system of goodness. So much of what we know is good that we are justified in assuming that a broader vision would prove that the whole is a perfect system for moral development. The reply is: Much of what we experience is not morally beneficial; in the world as we know it there is no doubting the fact that more evil exists than is needed to provide a sparring partner who will extend us for our own good in the moral fight. To raise the warning: "If we knew enough..." works both ways. If we knew enough . . . we might know how wrong the traditionalist hypothesis is. If empirical coherence is to be our test of truth, such ifs don't count. Our hypothesis must be built on what we do know, on what we have experienced, and not what we might experience—for what we might experience may well invalidate both hypotheses. Let us underscore this matter of procedure in argument. We have every right to build imaginative conceptions of the world and God, such as the traditionalist's, and to consider whether the facts do fit in with that conception. But we have no right to allow any conception of the world and God to bias our interpretation of present and past facts of experience, especially if it outruns those facts. The conception might help us to look for facts we do not have, or it may help us to see what the facts may be like; but it should not find acceptance unless it does explain the known facts better than any other conception does. The absolutistic conception of God, as we shall now call the traditional view, gives a possible explanation of evil, but in dealing with nondisciplinary evil it seems to force the facts instead of being consistent with them. What we need to remember is that conception of an absolute, omnipotent, all-good God is not based on any more facts than those we actually have, and in the last analysis it must stand or fall by them. It has no theoretical precedence, as such, over any other conception. A second fallacious assumption presses on the first. The absolutist presupposes that a universe in which God is all-good and

41 o • The Best of *All Possible Worlds} omnipotent is closer to the mind's desire than any other conception of God. But this view of perfection is itself debatable. There are those who hold that only the traditional conception of perfection is consistent with religious experience. But religious experience is certainly subject to more than one interpretation. In sum, absolutists frequently assume that their conception of God is necessarily superior to any other, when, as a matter of fact, this needs to be argued. If it were true that an omnipotent, all-good God is preferable to an all-good God who is growing in power in some respects, it would still be necessary to show that such a superior conception of God did fit the facts of good and evil more coherently. As we shall see, there seem to be good reasons not only for denying that it does, but also for affirming that another conception of God is more coherent and at least equally inspiring. This world is not an ideal training ground for persons. Granted that moral freedom does involve the possibility of evil as well as the possibility of good, we must realize that even the advantages of moral freedom, precious as they are, seem to exact superfluous loss of value. As Brightman says: Nevertheless, human freedom leaves many aspects of evil, even of moral evil, unexplained. Why are there in the nature of things, independent of human choice, so many temptations and allurements to evil choices? And why are the consequences of some evil choices so utterly debasing and disastrous? It is very hard to reconcile some religious utterances on temptation with the facts. Saint Paul says: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." (I Cor. 10:13.) Yet the pressure, physiological, psychological, and social, to which some men, women, and children are subjected seems to most observers to be unendurable. Is it just to ascribe all of the sins and vices of poverty-stricken refugees or unemployed families to their own freedom, or even to all human freedom put together ? 6 6 Edgar S. Brightman, A Philosophy of Religion. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1940, pp. 260-261.

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This comment and others take on greater force if we try to frame for ourselves a conception of an ideal training ground for the development of moral personality, an ideal "vale of soulmaking." Granted freedom to choose between alternatives, we have insisted that man's freedom would have to be limited, and that man would have to live in a world so constituted that he could dependably predict the consequences of his actions. But another requirement is called for if we are to be challenged without being discouraged—if, indeed, we are to be so challenged that we can, on our own initiative, continue to make progress despite set-backs. This requirement is that we should not face odds, either as consequences of our own free action or as environmental conditions, which are too heavy for our abilities to bear, anc( thus cause unfruitful frustration and despair as well as the loss of other values. To suggest an analogy: every teacher who is concerned about the growth of his students is faced with the problem of assigning the amount and quality of work which will call for effort on the part of each student and yet be within his range of abilities and educational preparation. A perfect classroom situation would be one in which there could be the assignment of work which would keep each student on his toes and yet not allow his mistakes, moral or nonmoral, to cost him so dearly that whole ranges of value are lost to him and others. Similarly, a perfect "vale of soulmaking" involves not only a dependable world in which freedom and effort are basic, but one also in which the consequences of moral and nonmoral evil do not exceed human ability to transform them into good. In the light of these considerations, it does not improve matters to interpret the consequences of moral and nonmoral evil as punishment especially inflicted by God for human sin. Here an ethical principle is involved, and we had best be explicit about it. It is wrong to punish a person for any misdemeanor in order to "pay him back" for the evil he has done. True, he must not be allowed to continue to hurt himself or others, and it may become necessary to

412 • The Best of . e r e xj no justification for adding to the loss of values already incurred by adding more evil in the form of vindictive punishment. Our best moral insight indicates that "punishment" m u s t b e a " n e d a t helping the person to reorganize his life, to readj u ^ t o ° " ' i n short, to come to a better appreciation of hirHsel a n d ot ners. A God who inflicted punishment in retribution f ° r ™ a n s l I j ' above what is necessary for the re-education of t h e individual, would be just as immoral, from this viewpoint, aS a P a r e n t ™ho punishes his child beyond the need for bringing &m t o a r e a l l z a ' tion of the meaning of his action to himself and others To suppose that God inflicts human beings with diseases and natural catastrophes beyond their capacity to utilize for g° o d 1S t o n | a k e it impossible for a morally sensitive person to condone, let alone admire or worship, such a being. In this connection, a related idea calls for comment. Some thinkers hold that it was God's conscious purpose that men should be born with a native, constitutional incapacity to w l 1 1 t h e g°°d— a conception common to different doctrines of orig ma j s*n- Now, to say that God weighted all men's nature t o w ^ . e v i l \ b e ]z m punishment for the sin of any human being or not>1S t 0 im phcate God in a monstrous deed. Any doctrine of salvati°n which might be urged to soften the implications of such an act on God's part does not really help. For if man's nature werej 0 e n d o w e d that _ _ , . . , , 1 . ^ 1 i , weighted man's nature ' rerre, tor example, has recently suggested that God purposely , ,, .. &s , ' , : ' . .. ij iu r be could not live outtoward selfishness so that man by way or guilt could realize tna 1 „ e„c t„ , . . • , ,, . , , . , ,, , . . , _ . ,.„, . . . . . . . , . „ en Christian iellowside or creative tellowship with God. Ihis is the kind or world to . • TT i ii i i r i J trurposejully a freedom ship. He not only allowed us a neutral treedom, but pave us Y . , . , , T .J j j • Jf-|UQgment, toward an weighted toward self, toward estrangement, toward maturing sc*1 \ ust a s e a s . . . , ,, . ? j i • T - cX ) y naturally independence that would make our rreedom authentic.... It is nu . , _ . , ., , i i - i ii n must begin. This too to be God-centered as selt-centered, and that is the way all row' . . • r, j , , , I • » /!• •; J i n • • v«tih, P- 49. italics mine.) c is God s planned way or salvation. (Evil and the Christian it"'' . , . , ,, , . . , ,i . , . TI ., „ u^criii so weighted toward It this is true, then the least we can ask is: Why must all men DW . l s ,r , .. _ , . , . , , . „ he supposed to be? an estranging selfishness, it God is the omnipotent, good being , , , . , , , , , , • , , • , , . .1 mental, and environlt is bad enough to know that multitudes are born with physic^1' , , ,. , , , , i • T. I Goo purpose selfishness mental handicaps—these are hard enough to explain. But to have . . . . , , , . „ ,. ," , . , , ..,„ it it does not actually in order that there ensue tellowship, this does strain one s credulW offend his moral sense.

The Best of sAll Possible Worlds? • 413 he had to sin (if he had to, it was not sin!), or if evil had a dominating fascination for him, then most human evil must be laid at God's door. The evidence indicates that God is not omnipotent. We come, then, directly to the modification in the hypothesis of God's attributes already suggested by the incidence of superfluous evil in the world. Would a good God who was omnipotent (or able to do all that is worth doing) not be able to create a better coordination of moral freedom, human ability, and environment than the actual situation seems to indicate ? Do the facts about the human predicament in this world allow us to maintain the hypothesis that God is at the same time completely good in will and unlimited in power ? Can we maintain that there is a Person who, in his wisdom and goodness, has seen fit to order the universe as it is'? The reader will recall that in presenting the case for the absolute God we insisted that, of all the worlds possible for God to create, this is the best of all compossible worlds. We granted that the question, "Is it better to create this particular world with this amount of nondisciplinary evil?" was not an easy one to answer from any limited human perspective. The absolutist may always claim, and here he would find us with him, that in view of the range and quality of values actually present, only a moral coward would refrain from the adventure in cosmos-making. Nevertheless, the absolutist holds an extremely difficult position when he maintains that this heroic venture is that of an omnipotent being, unlimited save by his own will. God could still be morally perfect and yet not be able to execute all of his ideals because of some impediment not of his own making. We shall soon consider different hypotheses about the nature of the obstacle which God's good will meets. Here we would argue that the creation of this kind of world fits in with the hypothesis of a nonomnipotent (or finite) God more harmoniously than with the notion of a God infinite in power. The hypothesis of a finite God—that is, of a God who is the

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dominating power in the universe but who is not omnipotent— is consistent with all of the best arguments for the absolute God and at the same time keeps that argument from forcing the facts, as when it insists that nondisciplinary evils are compatible with omnipotence. A God, fighting some impediment not of his own making, might well decide (in view of a superior total good to be achieved) that a given order of cosmic and biological evolution was worth even nondisciplinary suffering for himself and his creatures. The order of the physical, biological, and mental world would vindicate his majestic creative power and good purpose-— but not his omnipotence! But the absolutist has his right to a final and crucial remonstrance. As Tennant puts it: Can you prove "that there could be a determinate, evolutionary world of unalloyed comfort, yet adapted by its law-abidingness to the development of rationality and morality" ? Certainly, "insofar as experience in this world enables us to judge, such proof seems impossible." 8 This is another way of saying that unless we can specify a better world than the one we are in—that is, one which aims for the development of well-rounded, moral personality—we must agree that the present order is the best. We simply cannot have water which will quench thirst and yet not drown people, fire which will warm homes and not scorch flesh, minds which are sensitive but not capable of becoming insane. If, the traditionalist insists, we are to have a fixed system with dependable properties subject to general laws, we and an omnipotent God must simply expect catastrophes of mind and body, in innocent and guilty, and carried beyond a point reason can understand or approve. This question is critical. It is not clear, however, why the burden of proof falls on the person who challenges the notion of God's omnipotence. The traditionalist here argues as if the evidence overwhelmingly favored the idea of an absolute God. The issue must actually narrow down to the interpretation of the facts of 8

Philosophical Theology, II, 201.

The Best of Ull Possible Worlds? • 415 good-and-evil as we know them. Neither the finitist nor the absolutist can experiment with the ultimate collocations of things to prove whether or not God is limited. But if we look at the facts with no preconceived idea of God in mind, do they suggest omnipotence ? Furthermore, can we argue from the facts that the universe is thus and so, that it could not possibly be any better? If God is omnipotent and limited by nothing but his own moral purpose, why does he will a system in which the so-called selfconsistency and compossibility of- things defeats some of the very ends for which it is constructed ? § 5. SUMMARY OF GROUNDS FOR FINITENESS IN GOD

It may be well before bringing this part of our discussion to a close to itemize the problems difficult to explain if God is considered omnipotent, but which seem more understandable if a creative God has worked under the stress of an obstacle. The actual limitation of human ability. "We have pointed out (Chapter 13) the limitations in range of memory and intelligence which lie behind human inability to make adequate adjustments to nature and to cure mental and bodily ills. One may, without ingratitude for blessings received, point out that it has taken the best efforts of man ages to develop even his present limited understanding of the world, of the human body, and of the human mind. What a difference to our world if, for instance, the number of great constructive geniuses had been tripled! The genius seems to represent the exceptional victory of the Creator. The superfluous consequences of maladjustment. In addition, it is hard to see the necessity for the disproportion between fault and consequence when men do blunder, either owing to immorality or to inadequate ability. The toll taken by mental and physical disease, the horrible pain and torture which can be man's lot, and the suffering beyond the point where it can seem to anyone's good —are these necessarily the best an omnipotent God can do ?

4i6 • The Best of *All Possible Worlds? The natural evil which produces more harm than good. For tidal waves and earthquakes, man cannot be held accountable. Are evils of this sort really necessary to man's moral education? Are they not rather the main evidence for a limitation in God's power ? If such natural catastrophes are the will of an omnipotent God, one must indeed wonder if his power is controlled by his love. Nor does the coupling of omnipotence and love easily satisfy the mind which holds before it the facts of evolution, such as the wiping out of whole species and the mutations making for maladjustment (cf. Chapter 6). The great amount of animal pain in the world must be taken into account. True, it is all too tempting to exaggerate the quality of animal pain. If we remember, as Temple 9 among others has pointed out, the limited span of consciousness and memory in animals, we shall see the facts in fairer perspective. Given the deficiencies of animal consciousness, pain and terror can never mean as much to them as it does to human beings. And while animal life lasts, there must indeed be a balance of well-being over pain. But if human beings may build character in and through much pain, the same can hardly be said of animals. And for animals there is little respite from suffering save death. This kind of consideration adds to the presumption that the Creator of Values cannot be doing all lie really wants to do. With these nondisciplinary evils in mind, let us now summarize the theoretical issues. If God, as the traditional absolutist holds, knows all that is, can be, and will be, and if he can do all that is worth doing—if, in other words, God is absolute reason and knowledge, perfect goodness, and complete power, we should expect a world in which there is the widest and highest range of values. A God of absolute power who dedicates that power consistently to goodness should be able to produce a world in which the best is possible for the development of humanity. But this is 9

See Nature, Man and God, pp. 359, 360.

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not the case, and we cannot hold it to be the case without appealing to what we do not know about the past, present, or future. If we do appeal to what may happen in the future to make the facts of present evil more palatable, let us remember that the future may also show that what now seems good is in fact evil! We simply cannot have it one way and not the other. Furthermore, once we start appealing to unknown facts about the future to save a view of God, we have broken with our criterion of empirical coherence by accepting a hypothesis, or a part of one, which is inconsistent with present evidence. We cannot support the omnipotence of God by appeal to hypothetical evidence, but only by actual evidence. There simply is no way of knowing whether any particular evil which is at this point superfluous in the world is a means to some greater good. In the presence of the most excruciating evil, man may add to his moral stature or character; and there is no reason to suppose that God also may not be able to do the same. This writer, for one, does not know whether man or God can, or always does derive some value from the worst evils. Surely both God and man can quarantine and do the best to resist evil rather than be overcome by it. The worst evils we know are those which are opaque to understanding and destructive not only of efforts toward improvement but of morale itself. For human beings, at any rate, there seem to be many occasions when evil contributes nothing to the will-to-resist. The supreme Being indeed is not likely, we may infer, to succumb in morale or be unable to grow in understanding; but the possibility that even he can sometimes do no more than to quarantine a particular form of evil must be left open. Out of respect for what seem the facts of human experience, it seems necessary to modify our conception of God. If we deny God's goodness, we are in fact denying that the cosmic Mind is God, for goodness is supreme in qualifying a being as God. If we limit God's reason and knowledge, we cannot account for the order of nature and man as we know it. The most reasonable

4i8 • The Best of *All Possible Worlds? suggestion is to limit God's power. We are now ready to consider what it is that can limit a loving, omniscient Continuer of Value. QUESTIONS

1. Why is the problem of evil basic to any philosophy of life? 2. Why is an ideal of the good life prerequisite to understanding evil? 3. a. How do we define the good or happy life ? b. Can we avoid conflict and tension in life even at its best? c. Why is happiness compared to a symphony ? 4. a. What is character ? b. What is its significance for happiness ? 5. Why can character development be considered as the primary goal for the achievement of happiness as well as goodness ? 6. Why is the term "blessed" appropriate for the man who has achieved creative control of his capacities and opportunities in life ? 7. Does the ideal of self-fulfillment render one's relations to others unimportant? Discuss. 8. Interpret the statement: "Perfection means perfection in kind." 9. Why must evil not be identified with difficulty, or goodness with ease? 10. a. Is it true that all obstacles willed by God which man finds in his way toward happiness are there as obstacles to be overcome, as hardships to be endured? b. Why is it difficult to believe that all evil is a means to greater 11. Can pain and evil be considered illusory ? 12. a. Can we believe in a God who permits evil to exist ? b. Does God permit evil, or does it exist in spite of his will ? 13. Why hold that pantheists really "explain away" evil? 14. a. Why cannot the existence of evil be explained by man's possession of free will ? b. Yet why did God allow the possibility of moral evil to occur in the first place? 15. If we say that God causes man to be good, do we not also have to say that he causes man to be evil ? 16. Is suffering to be regarded as punishment for sins or inducement to growth ? Explain what you consider the correct answer.

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Bender, Richard N. A Philosophy of Life. New York: The Philosophical Library, 1949, Chapters VI, VII. Ferre, Nels F. S. Evil and the Christian Faith. New York: Harper & Bros., 1947. Knudson, Albert C. Basic Issues in Christian Thought. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1950, Chapters II, III. Lyman, Eugene W. The Meaning and Truth of Religion. New York: Charles Scnbner's Sons, 1933, Chapter XVI. Temple, William. Nature, Man and God. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., (1934) 1945, Chapters XIV, XV. TsanofF, Radoslav A. The Nature of Evil. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1931.

<*£ THE EXPLANATION OF EXCESS EVIL

§ I. IS SUPERFLUOUS EVIL DUE TO GOD'S ILL-WILL OR NEGLECT?

OUR reasoning thus far has led us to the conclusion that God, in working out his moral purpose, is confronted with some obstacle or obstacles which resist his good will. There results a world in which evil frustrates the creative realization of values. We have accordingly suggested that God is all-good but not all-powerful. Immediately, however, a crucial question comes up. Why not hold to the omnipotence of God and deny that he is all-good ? May it not be that God takes a moral holiday and allows things to happen which he could have prevented but would not ? This question should be pressed, and the answer to it must be convincing. However true it may be, it is not enough to say that a God who is not good is not God. If we cannot justify the goodness of the cosmic Mind, we must simply admit that there is a cosmic Person but not God. Many people, acute minds among them, believe that once we drive any opening wedge into the traditional conception of the complete perfection in God, the whole idea falls apart, including the reason for holding to any perfection.1 But we need not be stampeded by such all-or-none thinking. There is too much evidence favoring reasonable belief in a cosmic Intelligence to allow such a conclusion. Granted, the reader may say, but does intelligence always do its best to create goodness ? 1

Nels F. S. Ferre, Faith and Reason New York. Harper & Bros., 1946, pp. 181 &.

420

The Explanation of Excess Evil • 421 We reply by a counter-question. But doesn't it? Is it not true that the more intelligence and knowledge a person has, the more likely he will be to imitate actions which cooperate with each other in pursuit of some all-comprehensive good ? Not necessarily, the reader may contend, and he may add, with point: It is a fact that human beings may know the good, but not will it. Why can't a cosmic Intelligence also be perverse ? The answer is, he might be, but he will not. A person can destroy what his intelligence knows to be good, but he will be all the less likely to do this if he knows the consequences of evil. Would a cosmos-Maker delight, as man sometimes does, in destroying values or possibilities of value which human beings (or any sentient beings) need? If the reader is tempted to say yes, let him first consider whether such a conclusion is consonant with what we know about the cosmic Intelligence otherwise. Here is an Intelligence which has taken infinite pains to make possible, in most of the known universe, the relating of parts to each other so as to make for harmony rather than destructive disorder. Whether we observe the inner structure of the atom, the steady movement of the heavens, or the interrelation of man's mind and values with the realm of nature, we cannot overlook the signs of underlying intelligent care. True, there is absence of complete mutual harmony, as indicated by nondisciplinary evil. But is this lack reasonably explained by the supposed moral impatience of a magnificent Intelligence ? Is the unnecessary suffering and wiping out of human beings and animals to be seen as the irresponsible sport of a Mind which otherwise inspires us by the majesty of its activities? There IS no absolute proof that this could not be the case. But Plato, faced by the same problem, gives the author the most reasonable answer: Let us never suppose that God is inferior to moral craftsmen who, the better they are, the more accurately and perfectly do they execute their proper tasks, small and great, by one single act—or that God who is most wise, and both willing and able to care, cares not at all for the small things which are the

422 • The Explanation of Excess Evil easier to care for—like one who shirks the labour because he is idle and cowardly, but only for the great.2 But there is an even deeper reason for objecting to the idea that a cosmic Intelligence could somehow even momentarily profit by destroying values intrinsic to, and possible for, all sentient beings. If our observation of human experience is correct, it is the very nature of evil to disrupt and destroy. As Plato said: "What destroys us is iniquity and insolence combined with folly, what saves us is justice—temperance combined with wisdom...." s No being we know can do evil and not, in the very act of doing it, decrease the quality and enjoyment of existence. Many human beings may fool themselves into believing that if they neglect or reject a greater possible good for a lesser present good or evil, they will in fact be better off. For, as they say to themselves, there is always the bare possibility that this lesser good or evil may not really be so bad. Who knows, it may be better than we now foresee! In any case, that future good may never materialize, so let us enjoy the present. What human being has not had such thoughts and acted by them? But what human being, contemplating his behavior later, has not been forced to acknowledge that his action had actually cut him off from the possibility of a finer satisfaction? His present genuine regret and sorrow prove that. But, the reader still presses, if man can so err, why may a cosmic Mind not do so? Because such an Intelligence knows far better than any human being does what the consequences of evil are for both doer and sufferer alike. Man's "sheer cussedness" in doing evil may be his attempt to prove that he is more powerful than he is; he may defiantly affirm himself, supposedly, against God. But against whom is God to affirm himself in a way to bring harm to those who depend upon him ? If God chose to do evil, he would choose to destroy quality in his own life and in the universe. And he would do so in the full knowledge of that fact, given his 2 Plato, Laws, (trans. R. G Bury), 902 E. Cambridge. Harvard University Press, 1926. Reprinted by permission of the publishers from the Loeb Classical Library. 3 Ibid., 906A.

The Explanation of Excess Evil • 425 lAtelligence as cosmos-Maker and Sustainer. Would such a being purposely inflict pain and encourage disvalue ? Surely the hypothesis that God is forever doing the best he knows (and is therefore morally perfect) is intellectually safer here. Let us be forthright about our meaning here. We are saying that God too is free to do good or evil. His moral goodness, like ours, cannot be automatic. It is frequently stated that God cannot but be good. If what is meant is that God, given his nature and relation to all else is the most valuable being in the universe, we should immediately agree. But we would not agree that he is necessarily good. This may be so, but the author has never understood why freedom of will should be denied God within the limits of his nature. God, we are saying, could not do better than he has. But he might have willed a universe without human beings, even when it was possible for them to be. He willed them and the values possible in and through them because it was better for him and for the realization of the best possible good in the universe to do so. Put in different words, we are saying that the fundamental fact about God and our universe is that evil, the dissipation or the destruction of value, does not pay, no matter who does it. Even God cannot destroy value and be the better for it. The religious conviction that God is good—the conviction that love, binding all persons and things together in creative union, is central to the universe—is thus reasonably justified. To suppose that the highest Intelligence we know would find some sort of delight or selffulfillment in allowing unnecessary human suffering, or animal pain, if he could do something about it, is to reject everything we know about the nature of wisdom. § 2. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE IMPEDIMENT?

If we are correct in our conclusion that not God's moral goodness but God's power must be limited, we are faced by a very important theoretical problem. If God cannot do all he knows to

424 ' The Explanation of Excess Evil be good, if his good will cannot actualize all that he cares for, what is it that decreases his power of actualization ? We cannot hope for adequate presentation of attempts made to answer this question. In this book it has seemed wise not to engage in the analysis of the question which any complete philosophy must confront: What is the ultimate nature of the physical world ? This question is part of the larger basic question: What is the nature of the ultimate reality (of which physical things, organic things, minds, and even God are perhaps an expression) ? Ours has been the more restricted question: Is there a purpose permeating the world we know, and does that purpose have a place in it for human beings and their values? Unlike the metaphysician bent on a complete account of things, we have not asked whether what we call the physical world is really nonmental, or whether on further analysis it would turn out to be some sort of mental activity, or some other kind of being neutral to both mind and matter. Though it does not represent our own final view, we have been willing to accept the dualistic view that there is both mind and matter in the world—at least God's mind, human minds, and the physical world. We have assumed that most of the questions facing a philosophy of religion can be resolved without a final solution of the broader and deeper question. We have insisted (Chapter 8) that a human mind is not its body and that mind and living body cannot be reduced to nonmental matter; and to this conclusion we hold firm. For if mind and its values are ultimately some form of the mindless electrical energy which physical scientists talk about, then it would be necessary to hold that there is no purpose to the world as a whole. But this is the place to say that we believe that the most reasonable hypothesis about the physical world is that it too is the activity of mental beings: specifically, either the activity of the cosmic Mind or of a vast society of subhuman psychic beings. We have not, however, argued for either of these views. We note the fact here simply to point out that the way in which the impediment

The Explanation of Excess Evil • 425 to God's will is conceived will depend on the way in which reality as a whole is conceived. That there is an impediment to God's will seems clear. But a given thinker's theory of the nature of the physical world and its relation to God will shape his account of the impediment. We here outline, at any rate, for their suggestive value some views of the relation of the universe to God. 7^ there an eternal environment uncreated by God but recalcitrant to his will? We might postulate a kind of stuff which was not created by God but was, rather, co-eternal with him. There is a suggestion of this in the second verse of Genesis: "And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Plato realized that he was defying human imagination when he postulated a "Receptacle of this generated world," which is "invisible, unshaped, all-receptive." 4 The important point is that this nondivine "matter," or matrix of change, had its own somewhat chaotic nature external to God. Furthermore, God, far from being a Creator of "matter," was, like an Artist, "persuading" his "stuff" to take on the form of the model before him. Thus, Plato writes, Reason was controlling that recalcitrant environment "by persuading her to conduct to the best end the most of the things coming into existence." And it was "through Necessity yielding to intelligent persuasion, that this universe of ours was being in this wise constructed at the beginning." 5 God, as this passage suggests, could not do all he wanted to do, being restricted by the particular kind of receptivity involved in the structure of what Plato called the Receptacle. Nevertheless, God "desired that, so far as possible, all things should be good and nothing evil; wherefore, when he took over all that was wsible, seeing that it was not in a state of rest but in a state of discordant and disorderly motion, he brought it into order out of disorder, deeming that the former state is in all ways better than the latter. For him who is most good it neither was nor is per4 Plato, Timaeus, (trans. R. G. Bury), 51A. Cambridge. Harvard University Press, 1929. Reprinted by permission of the publishers from the Loeb Classical Library. 5 Ibid., 48A.

426 • The Explanation of Excess Evil missible to perform any action save what is most fair." 6 In Plato's view, then, the order and goodness in the world is due to the love of perfection which motivates God. God, however, is not the Creator, and he is not responsible for the ultimate source of evil. Now this view may solve the problem of evil, but it creates a greater problem. If there are two different realities co-eternal with each other—that is, neither in any way responsible for the existence of the other—the question arises: How comes it that once God turns his attention to this matrix supposedly indifferent to himself, he finds it so amenable to his persuasion that the present orderly universe exists? Surely this is an impenetrable mystery. No wonder the candid Plato had to admit that the way in which such inchoate, formless being could partake of (or respond to) the intelligible was "most perplexing and most baffling." 7 Any universe that has two ultimate components which presumably have nothing in common is hardly a universe. The moment one can have interaction with the other (and especially interaction which issues in goodness and beauty) the suspicion grows that they are not really two equally independent and selfsufficient beings, but that one is at least under the control of the other. It is often said that philosophers prefer monism, one ultimate principle or being, to two (or dualism). The preference takes root in more than the whim of parsimony. If there are two ultimately distinct beings, any interaction between them which brings both into a growing harmony is impossible to understand! We cannot, therefore, explain the evil in the world by supposing a situation in which the actualizing of good is itself inexplicable. The same obstacle stands in the way of other basic dualisms, be they between some ultimate principle of Light and another principle of Darkness or between an ultimate God and an ultimate Devil. 6 7

Ibid., 30A. Ibid., 51B.

The Explanation of Excess Evil • 427 Is excess evil caused by a necessary, uncreated environment? The explanation of excess evil suggested by W. P. Montague seeks to avoid the difficulties of dualism by assigning it to what the great mystic, Boehme, called "that in God which is not God." 8 God, for Montague, is a highly unified conscious Person who is to be conceived as "a nisus," a thrust toward concentration, organization, and life. But Montague would insist that God could not be a Person unless he had an environment with which he interacts. Now, whereas many theists9 have placed God's environment "outside" of him, Montague holds that the world itself is that in God which is not God. In his own words: Now, how can the mind of the universe, outside of which there can be nothing, possess an environment? The answer seems to me plain. If we are not frightened by the etymology of the term, we can speak of an "internal environment." "That in God which is not God" is God's environment, and that is "the world." The world consists of all finite existences, energies, particles, or what not. Each has its inner, or mental, potentialities, and its outer, or material actuality, and each has its •measure of self-affirming spontaneity or primary causality, and also its inertia or passivity which figures as a term in the network of predominantly mechanistic interrelations.10 Montague's God must be understood as an ascending force that labors slowly and under difficulties confronted in the relatively free and uncooperative beings that compose his inner environment. Thus, he says: 8

William P. Montague, The Ways of Things. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1940,

p. 122. 9 We are omitting the explanation of evil offered by significant theists like F. R. Tennant, J. Ward, E. W. Lyman, A. N. Whitehead, W. James, and C. Hartshorne since the exposition of their views presupposes more background in philosophy than is here assumed. These thinkers would explain excess evil by delegating freedom to subhuman and suborganic entities. For criticism which is applicable to these views the advanced reader may consult Peter A. Bertocci's The Empirical Argument for God in Late British Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938, pp. 114 ft. and 265 ft. 10 W. P. Montague, Belief Unbound. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930, p. 83.

428 • The Explanation of Excess Evil The real things of the real world are things in their own right, active and obstreperous entities, constituting a modified mechanism which, with respect to values, is a good deal of a chaos. This chaos, however, as we have seen, appears to be undergoing an amelioration genuine though painfully slow, and the leaven that works in it, and by which its evolution is wrought, we called the finite God.11 The finiteness of God does not consist in the finiteness of his unitary "infinite consciousness," 12 but in the finiteness of God's will. This will is to be conceived as a finite power working within the confines of an infinitely extended and all-inclusive mind. God, as thus conceived, is a self struggling to inform and assimilate the recalcitrant members of his own organism or the recalcitrant thoughts of his own intellect. For each organic member or each constituent thought has a being and a life of its own, like that of the whole of which it is a part. The purpose and value sought by the Great Life is the same as that of the lesser lives within; no fixed telos or end, but a maximum increase of life itself. Not merely or primarily an increase in the number of all lives, but rather a greater enrichment, enhancement, and expansion of each life.13 Finally, on Montague's view, for God as well as for man, "goods are relative, variable, and growing. New values are generated by old, and new summits of beauty already ascended." 14 But, it is important to note, the ideals of goodness do not vary. Also it is true that for God, as for us, the ideals of good remain constant through the flux of content. And what are those ideals ? Montague answers: Life absolute and life relative create their own unchanging way to their own unlimited growth—the twofold way of i., p. 84. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 85, 86. 14 Ibid., p. &e 12

13

The Explanation of Excess Evil ' 429 virtue, an ever more intensive enthusiasm and an ever more extensive love. Life's own and only goal is infinite and unending increase.15 Here, then, we find God as a striving, creative Being. Without him the order of nature as we know it, could not be. God faces hardship, for he is "pressed in by death, destruction, wasteful conflict, and confusion" 16 both in the physical world, and in the realm of living things, including human beings. Yet he is "allperfect in Himself and in His will to good," " for he persistently leavens and perfects all these beings who constitute his body. Montague, in this view, is trying to avoid the difficulty which Plato encountered when he placed the matrix of things (Receptacle) outside of God. As he says: "As long as matter lurks outside of God, how can He ever be safe from who knows what incalculable vicissitudes?" 1S But, we may ask, has the victory over "incalculable vicissitudes" been won by giving God an eternal Body which is a plurality of beings "not only good but evil and indifferent." 19 Since this Promethean God does not create these beings, how can he gain control over their basic natures or their effects ? He cannot be said, then, to escape "incalculable vicissitudes." True, God's mind and active goodness is said to leaven his uncreated bodily environment, but we wonder why we should be confident that he could do so since there is such disparity between his mind and their natures. Must there not be something in them which is God, in order to explain the basis for interaction between God and them ? We must freely acknowledge the difficulties in the idea of a God who creates his environment. But a noncreationist theory like Montague's seems to add to obscurity even as it endeavors to dissipate it. For, if we say that God is not the creator and sustainer 15

ihd. Montague, The Ways of Things, p. 122. Ihd., p. 123. 18 Ibid., p. 117. 16

17

13

Ibid., p. 122.

43° * The Explanation of Excess Evil of the things which are not divine, we face obscurity at every point of interaction between God and "the world." If there is to be any cooperative relation between God and any other being, and especially if that relation is to be one of mutual perfecting, does it not relieve difficulty to suppose that all finite beings are dependent on God for their nature and ongoing ? If God created them, there would be a basis for interaction with God. Is excess evil due to a recalcitrant aspect of God's own nature? Professor Edgar S. Brightman shares Montague's insight that the explanation of excess evil must be found within the being of God himself. But his view of God's relation to the world of nature enables Brightman to avoid the difficulty with which Montague is faced. For reasons which will appear as we proceed, Brightman's hypothesis seems more adequate than these others we have considered. Although Brightman's view of nature is not absolutely essential to his conviction that the cause of nondisciplinary evil is within God's nature, we shall understand his reasoning all the more if we glance briefly at his conception of the world. Brightman is a personal idealist. This means that for him what we call the physical universe is not some nonmental stuff or electrical energy which God created, as many dualistic theists have held. For Brightman what we call the physical or spatial world is a part of God's nature, and as such it is mental in structure. A chair, crowbar, or mountain is the energizing of God's will. This is not to identify God with the physical world. The spatial world is an expression of God's nature, but God is more than the physical universe, as the pantheistic or monistic idealist would hold. Indeed, God creates free persons, and these persons are no part of God, though they are ever sustained by him. Personal idealism, then, refers to the view that everything in the "physical" world is the energizing of the cosmic Person; and all other distinct mental beings are the creation of God and not part of him. Brightfnan, then, escapes the difficulty we noted in all views which hold that there is something not God which is co-eternal with him.

The Explanation of Excess Evil • 431 For the world is in reality one with God, a part of his eternal nature. How, then, does Brightman explain nondisciplinary evil? He cannot resort to some being outside of God which God must "persuade" to conform to his will. But he does postulate that there is an aspect of God's mind, which he calls The Given, that God must take account of in all his creative activity. God is finite because he cannot completely control The Given. In order to understand Brightman's view of the relation of The Given to God's mind, we must become aware of the basic structure of the human mind which is analogous to God's mind up to a point. Every finite mind is a unity of three factors—not separate parts, but distinguishable phases. The first is agency, or activity, or what we commonly refer to as will. But activity would be meaningless unless it took some form. We cannot think, for example, without manifesting logical principles, or trying to satisfy the idea of coherence. Moreover, when we choose between actions, we do so in the light of some moral principle. Formless human activity is a nonexistent fact, though, of course, we do not always completely con-jorm to the ideals of reason or goodness which we have in mind. But what keeps us from such conforming ? Specifically, what in our lives do we have to think about and act upon ? Not our desires alone, but sensations—of color, touch, smell, sound, and so forth. We construct the world we perceive by selectively thinking about these "brute" sensations which are continuous with our consciousness. As we shift our gazes from this book, we find ourselves flooded by more sensations than we can count. All we can do about them is to select among them and to organize them in certain ways. For example, we organize the sensations composing "window" and distinguish them from those continuous with them composing "wall." Our desires and interests, it is true, influence where we look and help us to select what we pay attention to; but there is no escaping the stream of sensations forced upon us.

43 2. • The Explanation of Excess Evil Our perceptual experience, however, is only part of the story about the content of our conscious experience. We find ourselves experiencing pleasantness and unpleasantness in many forms; we cannot do much about the fact that they are there, although we can control our attitude toward them. A toothache is both sensory pain and unpleasant, but it is unpleasant in a different way from a pin-prick. We can will to interpret these feelings and sensations in one way rather than another, even if we cannot do anything about their being what they are. These sensory experiences, these pleasant and unpleasant feelings are the content which our thinking must organize and our will-agency do something about; but our thinking and willing can never do without these "brute parts" or others; our wills can neither create nor destroy these feelings and sensations, although we may direct and control them. We must add one more factor on the content side of experience. We all have desires, wants, and emotions which, once more, we do not create, but which we simply find. It is our task to control them in accordance with some ideal of reason and goodness. These brute facts, of sense, of feeling, of desire, are stimuli and challenges to activity. "In fact, all experience is a constant activity, which seeks to impose the forms of reason on the content of brute fact." 20 We can phrase this description of human experience in another way. We can say that to the human will both an unreasoned, "raw" content and rational norms are given. After all, our wills cannot alter the content of sensations, and our wills cannot change the validity or invalidity of a syllogism; these are given to our wills. Obviously, the word given has a special meaning here. It means that no human being ever creates either the laws of reason or the sensations, feelings, and desires which he finds in his experience. To summarize, there is a given in any human experience: rational form and ideals, on the one hand, and unreasoned desires, 20

E. S. Bnghtman, Philosophy of Religion. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1940,

p. 320.

The Explanation of Excess Evil • 433 feelings, and sensations which may be brought into conformity with the rational principles on the other. To the extent that we, in willing, consistently strive to organize our sensory and emotional experiences, and to the extent that we realize and enjoy the utmost value possible in our lives, we are controlling our unreasoned (nonrational) given in accordance with the rational given—namely, the norms of reason and the values which we approve. To the extent that the will is overcome by the nonrational given, we can be said to be controlled by it. Our problem in life is to will to control the nonrational given in the light of the rational ideals we recognize. Evil comes into our life in two forms: (a) as moral evil, when we do not will the best that we know; and (b) as nonmoral pain, frustration, and destruction of value owing to factors beyond the control of our will. In basic structure, God's experience does not differ from ours. There is form and content in God's mind, and there is challenge, enjoyment, and struggle in his life. Thus, arguing from analogy, Brightman holds: "Our experience of activity would be evidence for the cosmic will of God; our experience of "form" would be evidence for his uncreated eternal reason; and our experience of brute fact would be evidence for his uncreated non-rational content." 21 What this means specifically is that God's will creates neither his rational norms nor the brute fact in his experience. One may ask why Brightman holds that rational norms (and ethical, for that matter) are uncreated? Why does he hold that the structure of logic is co-eternal with God, the being who is unbegun and unending? The answer is that if reason were not co-eternal with God's will, we would have to say that his will could create the laws of logic. In other words, before that creation, God's will and nature would be completely nonlogical! This hypothesis is not only psychologically inconceivable; it is inconsistent with what we know about the world and human experi21

Ibid., p. 321.

434 '

The Explanation of Excess Evil

ence. A nonlogical God would have no reason for anything. How could nonlogical, unreasoning being create a logical structure never exemplified anywhere ? Or, if it existed outside of his mind, how could he appreciate it, being logically ignorant? No, if we are to explain whatever logical structure the world exemplifies and minds enjoy, it must be because the unbegun and unending Mind of God finds rational norms in its very nature. It is the very nature of logic to be eternally valid. We are now ready for Brightman's own statement of the nature of his finite-infinite God. God is personal consciousness of eternal duration; his consciousness is an eternally active will, which eternally finds and controls The Given within every moment of his eternal experience. The Given consists of the eternal, uncreated laws of reason and also of equally eternal and uncreated processes of nonrational consciousness which exhibit all the ultimate qualities of sense objects (qualia), disorderly impulses and desires, such experiences as pain and suffering, the forms of space and time, and whatever in God is the source of surd evil. The common characteristics of all that is 'given' (in the technical sense) is, first, that it is eternal within the experience of God and hence had no other origin than God's eternal being; and, secondly, that it is not a product of will or created activity. For The Given to be in consciousness at all means that it must be process; but unwilled, nonvoluntary consciousness is distinguishable from voluntary consciousness, both in God and in man. God's finiteness thus does not mean that he began or will end; nor does it mean he is limited by anything external to himself.22 In Brightman's view, then, the evil in the world which has no conceivable good purpose is due not to the fact that God wills evil, but to the fact that he finds in his nature a nonrational content which he can no more rid himself of than he can of the laws of his thinking. Both the rational and the nonrational are aspects 22

Ibid., pp. 336-337-

The Explanation of Excess Evil • 43 5 of his unified nature. His will does not create them, but it has to take both into account in every action. God is morally perfect in that he consistently wills the best he knows. But God's will cannot overcome all the recalcitrant elements in the nonrational Given, that is, those processes in God which might be compared to the sensory, affective, and emotional life of human beings. Yet God is unwavering in his struggle to make the best of every situation. Although he cannot achieve all that he plans, he has managed to control the nonrational content of his nature rather than be controlled by it. Again in Brightman's own words: God's will is eternally seeking new forms of embodiment of the good. God may be compared to a creative artist eternally painting new pictures, composing new dramas and new symphonies. In this process, God, finding The Given as an inevitable ingredient, seeks to impose ever new combinations of given rational form on the given nonrational content. Thus The Given is, on the one hand, God's instrument for the expression of his aesthetic and moral purposes, and, on the other, an obstacle to their complete and perfect expression. God's control of The Given means that he never allows The Given to run wild, that he always subjects it to law and uses it, as far as possible, as an instrument for realizing the ideal good. Yet the divine control does not mean complete determination ; for in some situations The Given, with its purposeless processes, constitutes so great an obstacle to divine willing that the utmost endeavors of God lead to a blind alley and temporary defeat. At this point, God's control means that no defeat or frustration is final; that the will of God, partially thwarted by obstacles in the chaotic Given, finds new avenues of advance, and forever moves on in the cosmic creation of new values.23 We now see that Montague and Brightman would agree that God's will is perfect. Both would also insist that there is that in God which does not have the approval of his will but which he, 23

Ibid., p. 338.

43 6 • The Explanation of Excess Evil as the long ages of evolution have showed, is controlling. But Brightman's view of the nonrational Given as part of the unified dynamic process which is God's nature makes it easier to understand why God can and does control the nonrational content of his nature. If the nonrational Given is a phase of God's total unity, and not made of different stuff, there is reason for supposing that God's will could influence it, even as we, for example, influence our emotions. We must here be careful not to think of God's nature as made up of three separate compartments, any more than we think of any moment of our own experience as having three parts. In discussion, Brightman inveighs against "the lump theory of The Given." The basic fact is that the human and divine mind are complex unities within which different functions are distinguishable. We are emphasizing this point because one of the criticisms of this view which seems to score heavily is the contention that some sort of dualism is set up within God's nature.24 Thus one critic says: "Since the nonrational Given is, by hypothesis, neither in the 'eternal reason,' nor an expression of it, nor 'satisfied' by it, it is hard to see how it can be within the framework of causal law or any other intelligible connection." 2o That fear is understandable but unfounded. It overlooks the empirical complexity of any possible personality, as well as the experience of control. If the nonrational Given were not as interwoven into the very being of God as are his will and reason, then there would be point to the fear that it might stand "outside" the will and reason of God and thus be unresponsive to the volition and thought of God. But Brightman's view is that in the unified Person, the phase which we distinguish as "content" rather than form or activity is responsive to control by rational will and as 24 Cf. A. C. Knudson, The Doctrine of God, pp. Redemption, pp. 204-212; L. Harold DeWolf, The pp. 170-172, 184-185; and Andrew Banning, "Professor God. A Criticism," The Harvard Theological Review, 27 25 L. Harold DeWolf, The Religious Revolt Against Bros., 1949, p. 184.

272-275, and the Doctrine of Religious Revolt Against Reason, Brightman's Theory of a Limited (1934), pp. 145-168. Reason. New York: Harper &

The Explanation of Excess Evil • 437 such must be within the framework of the laws of God's nature. Were this not so, there could not be any control of The Given, a control evidenced by the order of nature and by the realization of value by man. Human beings do not and cannot always control their emotions, but we do not take this to mean that emotions are not within the causal framework of human mind. They are within the framework of our being but not always within the power of the will as it attempts to realize a rational purpose. § 3. ARE OBJECTIONS TO A FINITE-INFINITE GOD VALID?

The first reaction to such an idea of a finite-infinite26 God, especially if one has believed in a God who controls everything at will, is one of panic. If God's will is not omnipotent, maybe the order of the world will become disorder at any moment, or maybe there will be a reversal of the process of control and God, in turn, will become the victim rather than the controller of The Given. Can we give assurance that it is absolutely impossible in theory for such a reversal to take place? The answer is no. However, if our conclusions are to be based on the facts at hand, we may confidently estimate such a reversal as highly improbable. The fact that there is a world-order, indeed, a world-order in which values are achievable, in which human beings may enjoy interaction with nature and cooperation with each other; the fact that cosmic evolution, for all its failures, has nevertheless, at least in our corner of the universe, involved growth and increase of value—here are the basic grounds for believing that he who has controlled the nonrational Given may be expected to continue and improve his control. No other hypothesis is more reasonable. To be sure, one who has believed all to be absolutely within the control of God's goodness may feel that his universe has lost some of its virtue because he must now face a possibility of disaster and the reality of retardation and struggle. Such a one must be re26

In all other attributes except power and knowledge God is, o£ course, infinite. The next chapter will summarize our conception of God's nature.

438 * The Explanation of Excess Evil minded that the value-norms of existence are, and will continue to be, the eternal purposes of the Being upon whom the order of existence and of value depend. He will have to give up the comfort of feeling that all is perfectly well in the universe—a dubious comfort often disturbed by the apparition of excess evil. But will he not gain religiously through the realization that in his universe the struggle for increase in value is an eternal process, and through the realization that every human act which makes for decrease of value will be adding to the evil which God is trying to reduce and quarantine ? We are here confronting the final massive objection to the theory of a finite-infinite God. The idea of a finite God, it is claimed, is not acceptable to the religious consciousness. For the religious consciousness demands that a perfect Being, a being consummate in every respect, be real. Now, there is no denying that a profound strain of thought and of mystical feeling the world over has insisted that absolutely perfect Being alone can satisfy the mind and the heart. For such philosophers and mystics the theory we defend is only a modern instance of an ancient error: to imagine God as finite, and to have seemed to find God only through some finite idol or person—Christ or the saints— whereas the disciplined mind and heart will stop only at unimaginable perfection as ultimate reality. Much might be said in actual historical refutation of this claim, which, after all, demands the condemnation of other forms of religious experience in the name of one type. But let us raise a more fundamental question. Is the demand for completeness—for nothing-more-to-add, and no-further-goal-to-accomplish—the only ideal which recommends itself to the human mind and heart? 2T Let us grant that in our theoretical, artistic, moral, and religious living there are many moments when a goal is demanded which ends all striving for further goals. We yearn for an end to partiality, to incompleteness, to struggle, to imperfection, and even an 27 See R. A. Tsanoff, Religious Crossroads. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1942, Chapter XII.

The Explanation of Excess Evil • 439 end to growth. Surely, we feel, life and existence must be more than a struggle for goals and objectives supplanted, the moment we achieve them, by other goals. In this mood, we assert: Somewhere in the universe there must be escape from the taint of incompleteness and the heartache when, whatever other joy may be present, we come alive to the fact that the realized ideal is inadequate. Can it be that everything in the universe is permeated by a not-yet which disturbs the calm and serenity of life ? Three things should be said in reply. First, if the change in the world were simply change and not growth, there would be more point to this plea. Here, once more, let us seek an analogy. As men realize goal after goal, the past and its good is not lost but rather preserved on a higher level. The same can more surely be said of a being of God's stature. God's present, like ours, is fuller because of the total process of the past. In a universe in which The Given is controlled, there will be no moment when the values of the past are lost to the present and the in-coming future. Second, as long as there are finite beings about whom Goo! cares, there must be a goal not yet realized for God as well as for these finite creatures. If we suffer, God cannot be conceived as not suffering. If we are incomplete, he still has work to do. When we ask for a God complete in every repsect, do we know what we ask ? Even if he were all activity and no development, it would be impossible to understand how his completeness would be realized, if the working out of his plans depended in any way on finite cooperation. Third, while we as persons know the joy of fruition in some respects, and then think we can understand what complete fruition in every respect can be, we enjoy that fruition in part because we have the joy of arriving at a goal we did not earlier enjoy. Can God have such joy without the consciousness of a task well done as his past ? We must not forget that the greatest values we know are not, so to speak, a passive contemplation of static goods. The seeking of truth, the willing of courage and goodness, the creating of beautiful things—in such active striving to build, to fulfill, and

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to sustain we find our deepest reality as persons. Is perfection our goal ? Or is perfection in fact nothing less than perfectibility ? Do our minds and hearts crave a point of rest in beauty, truth, and goodness ? Or do they yearn that the truth, beauty, and goodness we have be further developed ? Does the value of the idea of perfection consist, after all, in its power to energize toward growth ? QUESTIONS

1. Why, in view of excess evil, does the author not hold to the omnipotence of God and grant that God is not always good ? 2. a. Why is the idea of God's goodness more basic than his omnipotence ? b. Why are goodness and intelligence inseparably joined in God? 3. Is it reasonable to hold that God confronts an external, uncreated environment which is recalcitrant to his will? Explain. 4. Expound what Montague means by "God's internal environment." 5. a. If we accept a limiting factor, what are the difficulties of placing it outside the personality of God ? b. Of placing it within God ? 6. What view of nature does Brightman hold ? 7. a. On Brightman's view what are the distinguishable components of any personal experience? b. Does God's nature differ from human experience in any of these respects ? 8. a. What does Brightman mean by the nonrational Given ? b. Is it imposed on God from without? 9. Are the laws of reason created by God ? Why or why not ? 10. a. How does Brightman explain superfluous evil? b. How does his explanation differ from the traditional explanation of evil? 11. a. Does Brightman's view allow for the control of The Given ? b. What justifies Brightman's conclusion here? 12. What can be said to the criticism that Brightman's God is divided into a good and an evil part ? 13. a. On Brightman's view does God improve in moral goodness'' b. Can his total nature improve ?

The Explanation of Excess Evil • 441 14. a. Is this idea of God acceptable to the demands of religious experience ? b. Does it make cosmic destiny more precarious than does theistic absolutism ? 15. a. Discuss the difference between perfection and perfectibility. b. Why is the distinction important as regards the conflict between theistic finitism and absolutism ? 16. List the practical differences which you think reasonably follow from this view of God. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Brightman, Edgar S. The Problem of God. New York: Abingdon Press, 1930, Chapters V, VII. . The Finding of God. New York: Abingdon Press, 1931, Chapters VIII, XL . A Philosophy of Religion. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1940, Chapters VIII-X. . "A Temporalist View of God," Jour. Rel., 12 (1932), 545-555. -. "The Given and Its Critics," Religion in Life, (1932), I, 134-145. -. "An Empirical Approach to God," Phil. Rev., 46 (1937), 147-169. McTaggart, J. M. E. Some Dogmas of Religion. London: Edward Arnold, 1906, Chapters VI, VII. Montague, William Pepperell. The Ways of Things. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1940, Chapters VI, XVI. Wright, William K. A Student's Philosophy of Religion, (rev.). New York: The Macmillan Co., 1943, Chapters XX, XXI. See also suggestions for Further Readings at end of Chapter 16.

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HOW, THEN, SHALL WE THINK OF GOD?

IN the last five chapters we have been examining the argument for God and suggesting a conception of God compatible with the facts and considerations outlined in Chapters 4-11. We have found it necessary to modify traditional theism. In this chapter we shall attempt a systematic presentation of the view of God which seems reasonably to issue from our argument thus far—warning our reader that in these matters, "rather we should be content if we can furnish accounts that are inferior to none in likelihood, remembering that both I who speak and you who judge are but human creatures, so that it becomes to accept the likely account of these matters and forbear to search beyond it." 1 § I. GOD AS A PERSON

A person is a unity of consciousness capable of reason, of moral obligation and ideals, and of free will. The only being we know who can recognize his own identity while he changes is a person. The only being who can self-consciously organize his activities in the light of a reasonably conceived purpose and then will to realize that purpose is a person. Probably any psychic being can exist through different moments of time and yet be time-binding. But a person is a temporal being who can integrate day after day and year after year into his experience; and he can endure, using his 1

Plato, Timaeus, 29D.

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How Shall We Think of Qod? • 443 memories of the past and his awareness of the present as the basis for the changing experiences which lie ahead. We cannot emphasize this fact and the proper conception of it enough. Our tendency is to see ourselves moving from noon to six o'clock, let us say, as though that span were spatial. Such a picture of our experience is both false to our experience and fatal to our understanding of what is meant by a "person." At each moment our experience is an active, changing unity which is temporal. Every moment of what we now envisage to be the nonexistent future (tomorrow noon) will simply be another aspect of our own experience, except that when we get there we shall have experienced-into-it—that is, it will be ourselves permeated with the experiences that we shall have had between now and then. Tomorrow noon does not now exist any more than yesterday noon does. Our yesterday noon is ours, fused into our very being as we experienced it; tomorrow noon is ours if we get there, and, if we do, it will be a testimony to the fact expressed in an old word that must be packed full of meaning: As persons we endure. That is, we find ourselves acting and changing and yet knowing that we are changing and acting and, at the same time, knowing that the moment we just lived through is our past and that what we envisaged a moment ago is now our present. When we say that God is a person we mean this kind of being. We insist on the word person not to flatter ourselves but to designate a fact about our universe which seems otherwise incapable of being understood. The aeons of time which the astronomer and geologist now take for granted have been filled with events and changes which, so far as we understand them, are a continuous stream, related to each other, and yet not understandable at any one point (for instance, the moment when the earth was ready for life) except in terms of a future event (the actual evolution of life). Those events seemed to be interrelated, changing events in one universe, expanding in many directions beyond human knowledge and imagination. It is our thesis that a Person, himself

444 * How Shall We Think of Qod? a unity of thinking, feeling, oughting, and willing is the ultimate unity contemporaneous with all past events and with all those to come—thinking them, oughting them, willing them, and feeling them.2 The uni-verst calls for a unity of consciousness in which all basic conscious functions are expanded to a point which may well seem to burst beyond the confines of our finite experience of thinking, feeling, willing, and oughting. It is easy at this point to throw all caution to the winds, and, in the name of sound reason and proper piety, cry that man cannot understand the majesty of God's being, and that it is nonsense to circumscribe the divine nature into the patterns of activity found in the human person. But granting that the difference between the divine Person and the human person is more than a thousand times (whatever that means!) the difference between the mentality of a gnat and a Michelangelo, we should insist that all our concepts for the divine mind lose their meaning if we allow them to break contact with the best we know in the world (that is, the best in human experience). If we allow ourselves to think of God as some Force or Being that does not have correlates for these human functions of knowing, wanting, oughting, and willing, do we really know what we are talking about? How can we? We can only pass to the unknown by moving from the best that we do know, and that is a thinking, wanting, oughting, willing being who can govern his wants by a morally approved purpose. The fundamental question is: Does God know in some sense what is going on in the universe, what has gone on, and what is likely to happen ? Call your God as impersonal as you care, extol his virtues by incantation, dance, and ritual rather than by words —his relation to the universe is not as rich as the human one if he does not know what has been or what is to be! 2 This does not mean that he approves all in detail, but that he approves them enough in their connection with other approved ends that they become aspects of his moral objectives even as he aspires to improve them.

How Shall We Think of Qod? • 445 § 2. GOD AS ETERNAL

We have already noted that God, in the tradition, was at once eternal, or nontemporal, and yet related to the course of cosmic history. There was a well-meant motive for so conceiving God. if God is a changing being, then the state of God's own nature, let alone that of the cosmos, could not be trusted. Indeed if everything changes, there is altogether too much change to render the world as we know it understandable. Change as change cannot be understood. It is only when the change takes a direction (not a constantly changing direction) that we discover what it is. Furthermore, change as change is meaningless; a God who is change alone is meaningless—even as we named him he would not be what we named. He would not stand for anything and could not be God. No, something permanent there must be, something not subject to change. Even the atheists who believe that the changes of atoms are ultimate hold to atoms as changing; they do not envision a time when atoms will be non-atoms. The doctrine of the eternity of God is a defense not only of a universe, but of the possibility of knowledge itself. But the orthodox theist goes too far in insisting that God as such is eternal, that nothing in his nature changes. He might at this point enshrine the difficulty in glory by insisting that a perfect being like God has nothing imperfect in him and, therefore, no reason or occasion for changing. And, as we saw (Chapter 12, Section 2) he can try to escape the objection, that an unchanging God would be a lifeless Being, by a subtle distinction between change (increase or decrease) and activity (the fruition of all one's capacities). An eternally active God might indeed be, by virtue of his very activity, the Sustainer of the universe in its many forms, and at the same time he might be experiencing the bliss of never having to seek what he did not have. Nevertheless, this eternal, unchanging God, for whose unchanging Unity the long years of world history would be as nothing, is responsible in some way for that world history. Can it be that

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the evolution of the physical universe, the appearance of life and mind on this globe recorded no change at all in the being or activity of God ? To say that nothing new was added is simply to deny that God knew that these events occurred or was at all involved in their occurrence. We are forced to talk without meaning when we hold that there is no before and after in God's experience. Take out all the element of surprise—if you can—still God must have known more about the world when these things took place than he knew before they occurred. If he did, his unity involves duration and not timeless eternity. Otherwise there would be no difference at all between God's conceiving a thing as possibly existing and its existence. Where are we, then ? If we say that God is all change, we are lost; and if we say that God is only eternal or nontemporal, we are lost. Is there a way out? Yes, if we remember that we have defined God as a thinking, wanting, oughting, willing being. Whatever changes take place, his essential structure, engaged in these processes, does not change. To say that we believe in God, then, is to say that the permanent reality in the universe is a unified complex of thinking, wanting, oughting, and willing, and these at an "infinitely" 3 high level. Thinking will never be anything but thinking; similarly for the other functions, and similarly for their unified nature. So far as we can judge from the portion of the world we know, there never has been a time when God was not wanting, thinking, oughting, and willing some world and possibly some change in it. God, then, can be eternal and infinite in some respects and changing in other respects. The unbegun and unending duration of God is the concrete meaning of eternity. But some acute reader will here remark: If God is to be God, does it not make a good deal of difference what in him changes ? If he is unchanging in his psychological structure, but changes in his will to goodness, or changes in the quality of his thinking, 3 "Infinitely" is used in quotation marks because in this sense it simply means perfection in kind—that is, the very best possible level. In this sense the word does not mean without bounds. God is not a boundless being.

How Shall We Think of Qod? • 447 he may be eternal, but he is not God. In response to such objection we must now show that the quality (as opposed to extension) of God's function would not change. § 3. GOD AS KNOWER

We must never lose sight of the fact that God, like any psychic unity, is more than the sum of his attributes. He is not activity or power isolated from will, intellect, conation, or moral obligation. These and other characteristics are distinguishable attributes of his total being. Now, if God is the ultimate Ground of all that is, his attributes must be seen in the light of his manifestation in his world. He is, therefore, a Being of a quality adequate to create and sustain this kind of world. He is not simply a permanent unity of knowing, wanting, oughting, and willing; but his knowing, wanting, oughting, and willing have certain characteristics which can be found nowhere else in the universe. God as \nower of all possibilities. God's activity as thinker and knower must differ significantly from our thinking and knowing. We learn from experience with each other and the world what objectives and plans to pursue. But the Ground of all other being must find in himself (and not learn from experience) all the possible plans and ideals which could ever be realized either by himself or anybody. Plato seemed to believe that when God was persuading the chaotic being of the Receptacle to take on form, "he fixed his gaze on the Eternal," * that is, on ideal forms or patterns which existed co-eternally with God but not as part of his nature. Later 5 Plato himself realized that Ideals which had no life and activity were indeed hard to understand, and we agree. How could God know eternal patterns which had no part in his own nature ? But Plato was correct in realizing that the ultimate possibilities of perfection, and everything logically related to them, far from * Plato, Timaeus, 29A. 5 See Plato, Sophist, 247.

448 • How Shall We Think of Qod? being improvised in the course of world history, are eternal. It is the very nature of God to think eternal possibilities and ideals. When God created the world, he had to choose which possibilities were compossible with his objectives in creating. The present world exemplifies some of the possibilities. Other worlds could be con' ceived by God, but there are no further ultimate possibilities than such as are already "in stock." To speak of an addition to the store of possibilities is to court the question: Where would these come from if they were not already in the activity of God's intellect? God as logical thinker. There is at least one other aspect of God's intellectual nature which may be distinguished. The laws of logical consistency are not made up either by human beings or by God. In order to create them one would already have to be logical! If we may put it thus, God discovers what we discover, that there can be no meaningful thinking which is inconsistent thinking. Thinking illuminates the very principles which guide it in discovering the principles. A square circle is as contradictory to God as it is to us. God's thinking finds itself informed and permeated by the ideal of consistency. Indeed, it is our thesis that the world exemplifies logical structure, and that our created minds are guided by this silently operative ideal because God's thinking is guided by logical ideals which he can neither create nor destroy. Many profound thinkers would go so far as to insist that God cannot commit a logical error. However, this conclusion does nor follow necessarily from the nature of any mind, and this writei at any rate finds it safer not to assert that God cannot be illogical, but rather to assert that God never wills to be illogical, since he knows the consequences both for himself and for all that depends upon him. What he cannot do is to make the illogical logical. God as limited in foreknowledge. It is easy to see why God has been regarded omniscient, especially if he is regarded as the omnipotent creator of all worlds. For he who creates must know what he creates and what can eventuate from the interaction of all the parts of the world. If God does not know all that can ever be

How Shall We Think of Qod? • 449 known by anybody, certainly there must be some reason for this which has hidden itself from us so far. However, it is when the omniscience of God is held to include even the future of free beings that a real problem arises. We are willing to grant that God can know all the past and everything in the present and all that can follow from this knowledge about the future. If, as Spinoza said, everything follows from the nature of God as the properties of the angles of a triangle follow from the nature of the triangle, then indeed God does know all. But this would imply that all existence is a vast geometry and all existent beings nothing but quantities and relations fitting where they must! The moment one asserts that there are free beings, capable, within limits, of determining which of the alternatives before them they shall try to realize, at that moment God cannot foreknow the future exactly. He can know all the possibilities on the cosmic checkerboard and he can know what will follow if John chooses A rather than B. But if John is free to choose one or the other, God cannot know whether John will choose A or B until John chooses. If God does know beforehand, then he has not granted the freedom he supposedly allowed. God's foreknowledge of the individual life. In what sense, then, should we speak about "God's foreknowledge of our future"? God surely knows better than anyone else what the future holds for each of us, for groups, and for nations. But he probably knows better what will happen to groups than to particular individuals, especially those who maintain their freedom and have not lost it to habit. Do we not have here a situation resembling the statistical computations of insurance companies, sociological predictions, and even the statistical laws of the physicist ? God will know better than they know what is likely to happen to nations who resort to adventures in new armaments more vigorously than they foster adventures in cooperation. And when it comes to the individual, he can know what any individual can ever become, given his constitution. But when God limited his power by creating free individuals, he limited his specific foreknowledge of what possibil-

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ities the individual will realize. God, in his goodness and wisdom, has indeed an ideal for each of us to fulfill in the light of our given natures and our environments. But he will not realize the ideal for us. And, insofar as our natures and environments depend on our own free action or the free activities of others, He cannot predict our destinies. One last question is fundamental for the religious life. Does God know human suffering ? We shall come back to this question after preparing for it by a discussion of the relation of each individual and the world to God. § 4. GOD AS CREATOR

What is meant by creation? God, we have said, is not to be identified with his creatures: what we call matter, life, and finite mind is not to be considered a part of God or the continuous overflow or emanation of his Being. Were we to consider God, ourselves, and the world ultimately as one unified being, we should have to forsake the reality of creative individual experience, and we should have to attribute the good and evil in the world directly to God. On the other hand, if we say that God is not the one ultimate Being in the universe but has always had to work with some kind of Being that was no part of him and did not depend upon him, we place a chasm between God and this other Being. If God and an independent Being are able to affect each other, especially to the extent displayed in the evolution and order of the world we know, they must have much in common. If we ponder these difficulties in ultimate monism and dualism, we understand the frame of mmd behind the hypothesis that God is the Creator of whatever is other than himself. All that is not God depends for its existence upon God—this is the fundamental thought in the doctrine of creation. But if God did not create the world "out of" himself, and if he did not create it "out of something not himself," how did he create it ? Many theologians and philosophers reply: Out of nothing!

How Shall We Think of Qod? • "But that is preposterous!" they have been told. "That makes no sense at all! How can God create the physical world, the organic world, and man out of nothing?" To which the basic reply has been: "We do not mean what we seem to say if you take us literally, without remembering the context of our discussion. We are not saying that God took nothingness and made something out of it. Neither God nor man, we agree, can find 'nothing,' in the first place or make something out of it, in the second. No, you must understand what we say in the light of our common predicament on this question. By saying that God created 'out of nothing,' we are simply denying (a) that he made it out of something, and (b) that the creation is to be identified with him. Frankly, we do not know what is actually involved in God's creation. But we are trying to express by this word creation the fact that God does bring into being what was not real either as a part of him or as a part of something independent of him. We must simply confess that we do not know how he does it. Nor does any other view, if closely analyzed, make the how any clearer. Perhaps we may console ourselves, at least, with the realization that if there were anything a created mind could not be expected to understand, it would be its own creation!" "However," some believers in creation would continue, "we come closer to the meaning of creation when we consider the experience of artists who are able to bring into being new forms of thought and expression. To be sure, even this analogy will not quite do. Artists in expressing their ideal employ something other than themselves, whereas God, on our view, does not use material other than himself. Nevertheless, the fact that the artist brings into being something which has not existed illustrates what we have in mind when we speak of creation. Without the creative will of God there would be no development in nature, no finite minds. Indeed, whatever delegated creativity minds may have is ultimately dependent on the volition and character of God." It seems to the author that of the hypotheses which try to explain the relation of God to his world, the hypothesis of creation

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—granted the difficulty it has for imagination—does nevertheless best express what the facts of cosmic evolution and human experience suggest. There is no doubt that the mind is baffled by the task of making intelligible the idea of creation. And yet the author is increasingly convinced that in this matter many modern minds have strained at the gnat only to swallow the camel. Can emergence be substituted for creation? The naturalist, moved to satiric laughter perhaps by the unintelligibility of the idea of a God who is not his world but nevertheless creates it from nothing, can hardly refuse to face certain facts—the facts of the advent in the course of evolution of new species and mutations, let alone of life and mind themselves. How shall we account for these introductions of novelty into the history of the world ? The favorite term among naturalists is emergence. But if we ask what emergence means, we are told that it refers to the fact that entities or activities do enter the cosmic stage which could not be predicted by anything known about all previous events. The theory of emergence, then, stresses the fact that something is present which was not here earlier. But emergence, clearly, does not explain any fact; it labels the fact, and still leaves it to be explained. Insofar as the naturalist, however, accepts emergence as a description of what is taking place, what else is he accepting than the fact of creation—that is, the advent of something new in the universe (except that Intelligent Will which makes it more understandable is denied!)? Indeed, some thinkers who declaim against a creative God acclaim the reality of creative evolution. For many modern minds, the great Pan, explainer of all things and himself hardly questioned, has become the idea of creativity. But emergence, creative evolution, creativity —none escape the problem confronting the notion of divine creation. Why is it more understandable to say that "Nature" at a given time brings forth an emergent than to say that God does ? If "creativity" is palatable at all, it is palatable for all. Why not, then, candidly admit that although attempts to explain the "how"

How Shall We Think of Qod? • 453 of creativity or emergence is useless, the fact of creativity in the universe is undeniable ? God's wor\ in creation. The last two paragraphs may have sufficed to remove an understandable prejudice against the idea of creation. We must face the fact: if new beings enter the cosmic life which are more than mixtures of old entities, or if creative personalities eventuate, we are confronting a particular kind of change which we designate by the word creation. And we use the word to represent what the philosopher and the theologian were driving at when they said that the world, animals, and men, though related and dependent on God's activity, were not deducible from or reducible to a mere form of his life. If there is reasonable ground for holding that an intelligent, enduring consciousness exists in relation to the world, the novel events which take place in that world become not less but more understandable when we say that God is the Creator. Indeed, both the nature of God and his relation to the world become clearer if we say that God is a cosmic Mind who is not only contemporaneous with the world, constantly at work in maintaining the stability there is, but who is also improving the value-making qualities of the world and of his creatures. Every moment of world history is an expression of the creativity of God, operating on three basic levels in ways consistent with the purpose of their given natures. In the world of physical nature God is at work with a steadiness, consistency, and integration which we are able to formulate in the laws of physics and chemistry. His creativity expressed in our part of the physical universe made possible the creation and survival of those species of order which we call living organisms. These organisms did not appear because of some queer twist in a mindless realm of physical energy, but they came into being because the Creator-God, working in accordance with the ideal order of his mind, was able to bring into being a creature new to the realm of atoms, a species of being purposive in its striving and selective in its adjustments. The valuepossibilities in the natural world known to physics and chemistry

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were now "enjoyed" by the multitudinous forms of plants and animals—and the survival of these plants and animals increased the value of the world and of God. On the view here contemplated, the creation and continuance of the plant and animal orders was not the work of a cosmic Potentate who is above enjoying the creatures of a fanciful mood. In creating plants and animals, God was rather laboring to realize possibilities of value in his own nature and in the physical world already present; and he was enjoying the achievement which made the universe a place teeming with life. His efforts at enduring creation were not always successful, as the disappearance of whole species in the course of evolution suggest. Nor can we say that his creation always fitted neatly into one formal plan. Evolution reminds one rather of a cosmic Mind willing to introduce new value into the universe wherever there seemed to be an opening for the kind of value living things represent. The goals of creation. Indeed, creation was not always joy without sorrow for the Continuer of Value; for the nonrational Given lay across the path to smooth progress. In God's struggle with this Given we find the basic reason for the unnecessary limitations, suffering, and pain of animal existence. But if animals were to enjoy any plasticity or variability in their adjustments, suffering and loss of life were to be expected. God, we suggest, never worked blindly; he never created capriciously if suffering was entailed for his creation. He did, however, venture into new levels of creation, granting variability even though it might lead to suffering and death. Had he refused to create beings more variable than electrons, he would have denied himself and them the new qualities of life—the "enjoyment" that is possible in animals but not in atoms. But creativity adventured beyond animal evolution. A new quality of being came into existence, a being endowed with greater powers of enjoyment, of planning, and of acting. The advent of man represented another step on the part of a cosmic Mind working for the increase in value.

How Shall We Think of Qod? • 455 Man, we have seen, is a being endowed with desires and capacities which have no parallel on any other level of creation. He seeks in the world and in his fellowmen the satisfaction of his need to protect, to sympathize, to understand, to master, and, in general, to love and respect, and to be loved and respected. Permeating his every want and need is the moral imperative to do the best that he knows; at every point of reflective choice he feels the obligation to pursue the best possible. Nor is man's nature as a whole satisfied by his achievement of a good character, important as that is. No man who has felt beauty deeply is ever thereafter satisfied with a moral life at the expense of beauty. Character is not enough, fundamental though it is to lasting achievement in every human pursuit. We do not really appreciate the uniqueness of man unless we see what is involved in his pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness. We must realize that in and through them man is actualizing both his own possibilities and those of the world in which he lives. Every man, we have sought to emphasize, realizes himself by interacting with his world. But as he real-izes himself he also brings the world to a new form of development in his particular nature. He is not only created, he creates—even though he does not know how creation is possible. But his character is his own creation; no one else could determine it for him as he interacts with the world. This brings home the fact that the Creator is not interested in groups, communities, and nations as such or alone. He is interested in individuals as growing-centers of value in the world. The group, the community, the nation—these must feel the influence of each person for good or for ill. In giving man free will, the Creator made a serious decision. For within the limits of his endowed capacities and the world about him, man too became a creator— and not necessarily a cooperative creator. The Creator of a human being could never be sure what would happen to any human being! For in man's own choices lay the final decision to build one kind of personality and one kind of world rather than another. Thus God willed the possibility, indeed the probability of conflict

45 6 • How Shall We Think of Qod? between his purpose for men and men's purposes for themselves. Thus he had to accept the consequences of this fact for the evil that men could visit not only upon themselves but upon each other. Perhaps nothing makes God more worthy of worship than his willingness to become Co-Sufferer with his co-creators. The creativity of God, then, reached a new level when other creators were created. The universe, we might say, cares for cooperation—but not at the cost of freedom and individuality. And yet, what value is not increased when individuals voluntarily share it? What enjoyment is not the keener because another is also finding himself through it? Individuality is not lost by cooperation and love; it is lost when it seeks to maintain itself by isolating itself, as if it could live by sucking on its own vital organs. Yet man's story is not told without reference to his religious yearning for cosmic companionship. Nor do we bring in religion at this point as an afterthought, as a flourish of the spirit of man striving for truth, for altruism, and for beauty. Whatever may be said against the validity of any idea of God, human experience and history would take on a far different color if they were not permeated with religious aspiration. We have sensed this all-pervading influence in the human demand that something in the universe be perfect, in the conviction that man is not alone in his struggle for value-realization, in the need human beings constantly feel for help in the adventure of heroic living. In essence the religious yearning is one for cosmic companionship. To share one's life with other human beings is an experience of a quality hardly to be minimized. To love another is, for once, truly to measure our own worth, for there is no escaping the sense of how little, when all is said and done, we seem able to enter into creative companionship with another. And yet, to feel that another cares for what we care for, to sense that part of his concern for his life is concern for us—this is an experience we find it difficult to overrate. The sense of a kinship with God, in which he respects our existence even as he draws it toward fullness, renews our conception of what we mean not only to each other but also to God.

How Shall We Think of Cfod? • 457 Accordingly, if we neglect the religious sentiment, we neglect the basic value-making processes in man's life. For in man's experience of the nearness of God and of his kinship to God, there comes into man's life a new quality of value which is more than truth, more than beauty, more than altruism, and yet a stimulus for their exploration and enjoyment. In and through the experience of the presence of God, man not only feels the assurance that his deepest values are God's concern, but he also experiences that value which we call the holy; this value comes into man's life only as he finds an object worthy of adoration and complete self-surrender. (See Chapter 19.) § 5.

GOD AS LOVE

Can God be impassive? We have already had occasion to note that in the tradition the idea of God's perfection was synonymous with the idea of his unchanging completeness. Indeed, God did not change because, lacking nothing, to what could he grow? Yet, consider the implications of such an ideal of perfection for the moral nature of God and in particular for him as infinite love. If there is any attribute of God which the Judeo-Christian tradition holds indispensable, it is the love of God: it is the love of God which means self-sacrifice, self-limitation, and suffering for the sake of others. But, if God is a suffering Lover, he must be a being in want; he too must be less than satisfied. Plato long ago realized that it was the very essence of love to be in want. Speaking allegorically, he held that love was the offspring of Penury and Wealth. Love is beautiful, but not because it already possesses beauty; it is wise, but not because it has all wisdom. Love is beautiful and wise because it seeks the beauty and wisdom it already enjoys but incompletely; it is good because it is lured by a good which it incompletely possesses. "Then love... may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good." 6 6

Plato, Symposium (TowetG* 206A.

458 • How Shall We Think of Qod? How profoundly the Christian tradition understood this is to 'be seen in its central symbol, the Cross. Whatever the differences in theological interpretation of the significance of Christ's death on the Cross, the central meaning can be agreed upon: that God cared enough for man to do everything in his power, short of force, to save man from sin. No suffering was too great for him to undergo in order to reach men in their prodigality. If this is true, what can it mean to say that God is impassive, that his own inner happiness is not disturbed by the sin of his children? Yet thousands of words have been written in defense of the paradox that God could "care," that his love is the very quintessence of concern for human kind, and yet that man's fate can in no way disturb his bliss. Is God in fact to be seen as entering into human existence and therefore being affected by it? Or is God to be conceived as so "great" and "glorious" that although he is responsible for men's existence, he cannot be thought to be really involved in their destiny? Religious people must make up their minds on this point. Is it majestic self-sufficiency they want in God, or is it a love hard to reconcile with such a trait ? Indeed, many descriptions of God remind one of Aristotle's description of a great-souled man. For the great-souled man honor is the main concern. According to Aristotle, the great-souled man is good; and he has courage and many other virtues. But above all he has a sense of his own importance and quality; he is careful not to become dependent, or to fritter his power away on things which do not become him. Thus Aristotle says: The great-souled man does not run into danger, for trifling reasons, and is not a lover of danger, because there are jew things he values; but he will face danger in a great cause, and when so doing he will be ready to sacrifice his life, since he holds that life is not worth having at every price. He is fond of conferring benefits, but ashamed to receive them, because the former is a mark of superiority and the latter of inferiority. He returns a service done to him with

How Shall We Think of Qod? • 459 interest, since this will put the original benefactor into his debt in turn, and make him the party benefited.7 Now there is no doubt that a person who fits this description makes an imposing figure—one which overawes human beings who prize the kind of inner strength and integrity which is above triviality and which maintains its composure in the presence of all circumstances. At first glance, there is a certain neatness and finality about such a person, a sense of pride in real achievement, a freedom from circumstance in noble contrast with the petty anxieties, the tit-for-tat morality, the obsequiousness of our routine existence. Yet there is something left out in such a character, and there is a hint of weakness beneath the imposing facade. For a true inner resourcefulness does not have to protect itself from the common; it does not have to go on proving its superiority by its nonchalance and independence, or its freedom from indebtedness to others. In a sense it is more blessed to know how to receive than to know how to give. Thus, more in keeping, one fears, with a God patterned after the magnanimous man of Aristotle than the loving Father of Jesus Christ, some descriptions of the Christian God characterized him as a being who expects worship as his due but is never really affected by adoration—after all, there is nothing which could be added to his sublime happiness even by the love of his creatures. Such a God, it would seem, knows every strength except the strength that is "made perfect in weakness." Once more, as we emphasize the moral and religious deficit in such a view of God, we would not be carried to a sentimental neglect of the ideal of God's power. A person whose steadfastness of purpose is affected by the plight of others whom he loves is not the person who can always help them most. Who would call on the doctor and surgeon who allows his concern for his patient's pain to affect the precision of his diagnosis and operation? A 7 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, (trans. H. Rackham), Book IV, in, 23, 24, 223. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1911. Italics mine. Reprinted by permission of the publishers from the Loeb Classical Library.

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teacher, parent, or politician whose service is a mere catering to any and every desire in order to win approval is not worthy of those he claims to serve. Could we respect God as Creator and Father if his concern for our approval ever led him to do many things which we desire but which he knows are not for our good ? God, like any other moral agent, must do what he knows to be best for all concerned. And he must do this whether he is "loved" or not—granted that there are things which he cannot do for those he loves unless their own love for him and their self-discipline prepare them for some fellowship in creativity. God must be above the blandishments and tearful appeals of parasites. Nevertheless, a God who is interested in the development of his children must feel the effect—though not in his basic purpose and moral steadfastness—both of their destructive and constructive activities. To be sure, without him, they would be nothing. But it certainly is a travesty upon God's love to say that God set his purpose and then saw to it that nothing ever interfered with its working out or that nothing ever disturbed his peace of mind. The omnipotent God of predestination (which carries the idea of impassivity to its logical conclusion) may be above all interference of men, but he certainly cannot be called a friend. God's power as God's love. Any being who grants independence to the beloved and is willing to suffer with that person and through that person for the sake of his development testifies to a majesty of spirit beside which the omnipotence of impassivity is pale and bloodless. It is the contention of the author that the real power of God, that which does indeed bring men to their \nees in adoration, that which inspires heart and mind even as it cleanses from selfishness, consists in his ability to suffer with his creatures even when they deliberately abuse his love. The conception of God as insensitive to the sin and suffering of his creation may be born of the all-too-human desire to escape from suffering and to picture perfection as free from it. We may be building our God out of our weakness and not out of the strength of the great men of suffering. But power and perfection are proved not by mechanical control

How Shall We Think of Qod? • 461 over other beings, but by the ability to discipline one's self to love other persons who in their own way—sometimes willfully, sometimes blindly—err in their attempts to realize the good. God the Suffering Father is as powerful as God the Creator, and certainly he is more worthy of absolute devotion than God the impassive Person whose eternal bliss is not to be marred by the plight of his creatures. The moral power of God consists of his absolute goodness. When we thinly of God as the cosmic Lover, sensitive to the responsiveness of his creatures, affected by their love and hate, willing within limits to alter his activities as this is demanded by his relationship to all sensitive creatures, we are thinking of an ideal Person. To put it almost too crisply: God is God because he can suffer for goodness more than any other person. But let us be clear that this does not mean that God's very existence, moral goodness, and wisdom are affected by the doings of only relatively independent creatures; nor does it mean that anything that man or The Given can do will ever keep God from realizing the best possible for all in every situation. It does mean that all sin, all suffering, all enjoyment of value, and self-surrender, that all voluntary commitment to his goals, all gratitude to him and worship of him—all these qualify the emotional quality of God's life and being. The idea that God can go on, or will go on, as if he were an automaton of goodness, operating mechanically, and unaffected by the actions of men, is simply inconsistent with the nature of a Creator-God who cares about his creation.8 Indeed, we repeat, the most admirable quality in God, the quality before which human beings may well bow in worship, is the fact that he can suffer innocently more than any other being and yet go on loving and doing all in his power, under adverse conditions, and despite the blind and gratuitous pride of men, to help them find themselves and the values still possible to them. There simply is no love greater than that which finds its happiness in the communion that elevates all to the most heroic efforts. 8 See Charles Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God. Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1941, P- 135-

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Can God suffer as man suffers? We may now return to our discussion of the nature of God's knowledge. We argued earlier that God cannot foreknow the specific choices which free agents make, even though he can know all the alternatives open and all the consequences which can follow from those choices. We have just been arguing that a creative God of love is sensitive and responsive to the activities which take place at every moment in all sentient creatures. But the question immediately arises: How can God know the suffering and sin of man as man knows it? How can he know the limited satisfactions which human beings enjoy, since he himself does not have the psychological constitution they have, and since he himself has never had quite the experiences which they have ? In purely human terms how can a person who has enjoyed constantly a radiant health know what the experience of sickness means to the sickly? Can God, for example, know the meaning of the prospect of death as human beings experience it ? For the last thing that God could be expected to know is death. Can God know what moral guilt is if he has never transgressed his approved ideal ? These questions can be better answered if we are clear about our method of determining God's attributes. We have everywhere been arguing by critical analogy with human experience, refusing to think of God in ways incompatible with our own experience at its best, but realizing that allowance? must always be made whenever there is no parallel in the divine experience for what is present in our human experience. Thus we have insisted that God cannot know in detail the future of a free agent; yet we have not limited the mind of God to our knowledge of the past or the future. We have insisted that God's experience is temporal, as is ours; yet we have no reason to suppose that his span of attention is like ours, and we have every reason to suppose that every moment for God includes much more than any moment for us can. Continuing this line of thought, we would insist that although God must be a knowing being in some sense, he does not have to

How Shall We Think of Qod? • 463 use the same instrumentalities to which the human mind is confined. A God who has no eyes or other sense-organs certainly does not depend on sense-data for the raw material of his knowledge of the physical world. If electrons and protons are the final constituents of the physical world, God certainly does not know them by inference from the world of sense, as we do. And yet it is inconceivable that he does not know the nature of these entities. There is no reason to believe in a cosmic Mind at all if we can suppose that there can be a universal order and teleology without a Purposer who knows what is happening and who exerts influence upon all processes. God must know all that can be known about the ultimate structure of things—be it mind or matter—but the detail of knowledge, God's state of mind in knowing, is certainly not ours. In thinking about God's knowledge, then, we must realize that the human analogy will be misleading, not because it is human, but because it does not take adequate account of the difference between God's situation and ours in knowing. Let us now, before turning to the question of God's awareness of our suffering, turn to the question of God's knowledge of what is going on in our minds when we know. Can God, for example, know the color blue as we each experience it ? We are tempted to say no if we stay close to the human situation. Thus we know that any person who does not have cones in the retina of his eye will not see the color blue. Can God, then, know our experience of blue? It seems obvious that since God has no eyes he cannot know what we experience as blue. Indeed, since God has no nervous system, every experience which we have that is mediated by way of our nervous system can hardly be experienced by God in the same way that we experience it. Can we, then, escape the conclusion that God cannot know or experience the blue we experience ? An adequate answer is impossible here, and we must be careful to avoid an easy recourse to: "Since God is God, this must be so." For we are trying to understand what God is like; we do not already know what he must be. Yet we must also be consistent with

464 * How Shall We Think of Qod? our basic thesis. We have upheld the position that this universe is not reasonably conceived unless we postulate a creative Mind whose directive influence is everywhere present both through initial creation and by constantly maintaining and working for one kind of order and not another. We suggest, therefore, that the God who created the human mind, the body, and the world is aware not simply of "blueness" but of every conceivable shade of blue, including the particular shade of blue which the world around me and my eyes and consciousness are now making known to me. Because God knows my mind and my body and the external environment, he knows not only the blue I shall know when I turn my eyes to the (blue) book before me, but he knows the blue I experience the moment I do experience it. He knows all the blues possible to human experience, and he knows my experience of blue. For God to create my mind is for God to give it the capacity for this kind of experience, and he must have known what it could be. There is no reason to suppose that a Creator, Sustainer, and Continuer would not know what is possible every moment; indeed, he must if he is to sustain the world of the present consistently with that of yesterday and that of tomorrow. This is not to say that God is my experience. He experiences and knows my experience without being my experience. He knows the boo\-blue I experience, and he knows my experience of the book-blue, but he is neither. Is there in fact any good reason for denying that God can know what is going on in my mind directly without being my mind? In our human knowledge we are confronted with an object which is other than ourselves; we do not have to be the object in order for us to know it. So God does not have to be our individual minds to know wliat is going on in them.9 9 Assuming that everything we know reflects our own finiteness as knowers, as beings who know the world and other persons by mediate inference from the effect they make upon us, do we have to conclude that God, therefore, also knows by mediate inference? Not i£ we recall that God, unlike man, is the Creator. Human knowledge is of things created, divine knowledge is before and during the process of creation. Nothing comes between the knowing mind of God and the knowing mind of his creature. As Aquinas

How Shall We Think of Qod? • 465 The suffering of God as Creative Lover. "But," someone will insist, "this may be well and good so far as ordinary knowledge like that of colored objects is concerned. God can indeed know his own perfection and all that participates in it. But suffering, moral guilt, uncertainty before death, indeed, all the human emotions which reflect man's dependence and darkness—can a God who is independent Creator really understand these? Here more than possession or nonpossession of a nervous system is involved. Can one know what fear and uncertainty are if he has not suffered them? Can a brave man really know what is going on in the mind of a coward ? Is one who cannot know death able to understand the experience which comes when loved ones go, especially when they go as a release from insufferable pain ?" In our human experience there is no doubt that we are better able to sympathize with and help each other if we have known the mental state being endured. And it would seem that any mind must remain in ignorance of guilt if it had never experienced it. Indeed, on our own human level we never have exactly the same experience of suffering. Because the total mental complex of one person is different from another, we frequently err in understanding the experience of our very best friends. But granting these facts, are we justified in supposing that because God's actual experience could be even less parallel to ours, since he suffers no distortion and commits no evil ? God's situation is indeed not parallel to ours with respect to knowing. To be sure, his mind and feelings are his mind and not ours at any point. But, once more, he knows as Creator, Sustainer, says: "Now God could not be said to know himself perfectly unless he knew all the ways. in which his own perfection can be shared by others." {Summa Theologica, Question 47, Article 1, ed., Anton Pegis, by permission of Random House, Inc.) Indeed, some theologians have held that God's act of creating the world is his act of knowing it. Our thesis has been that unless we postulate God's knowledge of every event and its relation to every other event, past, present, and possible future, it would be impossible to understand how this world could be an orderly and connected sequence of activities. And there is no reason either to suppose that a Creator-God knows what is going on in finite minds by mediation or inference, or that he has to be the finite mind in order for him to know what it experiences.

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and Continuer of his creation, and he therefore creates what he knows and knows what he creates. Thus God knows what guilt means; he knows what it feels like, even though he himself does not have the experience. He alone can be in this situation because he is the Creator-Sustainer. Human beings have to imagine what another person's love is like by trying to add or subtract from what they experience themselves as love. Even assuming that telepathy is never possible for human beings—and this seems to the author much too broad a generalization—there is no need of supposing that God is similarly limited; and there is every reason to suppose that a Creator-God need not have every experience which all human beings have in order to understand what they are. It is one thing, however, to say that God knows our experience of guilt and grief without grieving as we grieve, and another thing to say that God is himself unaffected by the fact of our grief. We are insisting that a mind which knows grief and does nothing to alleviate it, when to do so is consistent with other values, is not only a cruel mind but one to which a real experience of value is lost. Our underlying contention must not be misunderstood. We are not arguing that it is better for the individual mind to have other minds mourn with it. There is no real value in multiplying grief and suffering, and only a puny person can find his grief mitigated "because others are suffering too." We cannot emphasize enough, therefore, that the motive in the argument is not that human beings should have a cosmic Companion in their grief. Nevertheless, the contention must still stand that any sensitive moral person will be affected in his knowledge, feelings, and actions by the awareness of another's suffering. He will himself be sorry that another is in trouble, and he will do everything he can to take the action morally appropriate. It has been the burden of this book to show that it is reasonable to believe that human beings live in a universe in which their own struggle for and their enjoyment of value is undergirded by the parallel concern of a Person who is with them in their struggle and enjoyment and who continues

How Shall We Think of Qod? • 467 in his own way to realize the greatest value possible at every moment, with or without reciprocal human concern. But there is the other side to this picture. We have found reason to believe that God knows the meaning of suffering and disappointment (apart from his relation to us) in his struggle with The Given. God bears his own cross, and he knows on his own terms the demands of good will in the presence of frustrating obstacles. It is his creative control of The Given which made possible the development of the present cosmic order, its value-possibilities for man, and man's capacity to realize value. For him there must be disappointment consistent with the realization that incomplete control forces unmerited suffering by man. And there must be the added suffering which comes when those for whom he has willed so much abuse their opportunities as co-creators. But God would rather have it so, for only thus could the values in the world be creative to the maximum. In this kind of world, in which man has a partner in his every effort for goodness, in which man has a partner whose own conscious state is affected by all that happens in the human community, the responsibilities which devolve upon men are serious. As we catch some hint, in the next chapters, of what these responsibilities are, we shall appreciate the extent to which the divine suffering itself maximizes man's commitment. QUESTIONS

1. How shall we think of the present, past, and future of personal consciousness ? 2. Why does a universe call for a personal God? 3. Expound the truth and limitations in the traditional conception of God's eternity. 4. Why can God not be unchanging ? All-changing ? 5. Does God foreknow the future of the individual ? 6. a. What do we mean by calling God a creator ? b. How can God's creation be compared and contrasted with artistic creation by man ?

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7. Does the concept of emergence improve on the concept of creation ? 8. How do we conceive the ends of creation ? 9. a. How has the Christian tradition treated the idea of God as love ? b. Criticize Aristotle's view. Why is it inadequate? 10. What, in the author's view, constitutes God's real power and makes him worthy of adoration ? 11. a. Does God suffer? b. Does he experience our suffering? c. Why is it not necessary for God to sin in order to know what sin is ? 12. What does the concept of God as a moral being suggest as to his basic relation to human opposition or indifference to his will? 13. Discuss: "God bears his own cross." Suggestions for Further Reading in this area may be found at the end of Chapters 12, 16, and 17.

IS IT REASONABLE TO PRAY?

§ I. THE TRANSITION FROM REASONABLE CONCLUSIONS TO REASONABLE LIVING

THIS book began with the thesis that religion consists in the belief that man's deepest values are supported by the structure of the universe. The course of our argument has made it possible to specify more adequately what that "structure" is and to develop a better conception of what religion ought to be. We can have reasonable faith in a personal God who forever works for the realization of the utmost value possible. God is the Source and Continuer of value-possibilities in man and nature. God, however, cannot achieve all that he wills, not only because human beings fail to cooperate with him, but also because he is battling with a relatively incoherent Given in his own nature. From the human perspective, the all-important fact about the divine person is that he labors everywhere and always to increase values. This means that God cares not for values in the abstract, but he cares for what they support in all areas of existence—subhuman, human, and divine. This is the concrete meaning of "God is love." Because God loves man he will not encourage undisciplined living; because God loves man he will not forsake him when he sins but will go on working, in every way open to him as a rational Person, to help man explore the ways of love. It is one thing, however, to follow an argument, and another to allow it to change our actions. We may be clearer about the 469

470 * Is It Reasonable to Tray? meaning of religion but still far from becoming religious. There may be other readers who find themselves in the predicament of a student who read Chapters 13-15 and then wrote: "These chapters I believe are well-conceived . . . more than once I was moved And yet, if I ask myself after reading them, 'Will this make my life vitally different?' I cannot answer yes. In an argument I can certainly state the reasons for belief in God much more cogently and victoriously than before. But have they made me religious ?— this is the important question. I must frankly say no. Perhaps you don't expect this, or more probably, I am not yet mature enough or sincere enough to face the issue and make a decision. It probably must come from within rather than from without. I don't know. However, even if your manuscript doesn't make me believe in God, at least I've learned more about the world in which I have lived and I am humbled before making any untroubled assumptions as to the nature of reality." This state of mind is as challenging as it is understandable. Which of us has not found himself feeling "cold" toward a conclusion that we rationally approved ? It is all the more important, therefore, that we forewarn ourselves of the danger involved in this predicament as regards all areas of life and not religion alone. What point is there to reasoning if we fail to commit ourselves to our best reasoning and consequently pamper the emotional commitments which frequently resist it? The fact of the matter is that usually we feel a certain "warmth" of conviction only about conclusions which have already been shaping our lives. We dislike the "risk" involved in changing our habitual mode of living for the sake of a reasonable but inconclusive hypothesis. Yet we need to remember that the actual psychological grounds for a belief may not be reasonable. Thus the high-school student may feel "cold" about electing algebra even though he sees good reason for including it in his preparation for college. Actually his coldness may spring from his disagreeable experience with the teacher who taught him arithmetic in the third grade. If he does not now

Is It Reasonable to Tray? • 471 follow his reason into action, he may be taking a worse risk, even though he does not feel cold about it. We return to the predicament our student found himself in with regard to the transition from reasonable conclusions in religion to religious living. Let us assume that our argument for God is reasonable but not conclusive. When the student says that this reasoning will not make his life different, and when he says the argument has not made him religious, he is referring not to the validity of the argument but to his psychological state of mind. He is simply asserting what has (or has not) happened to his mind and action. Were his past experience with religion of a different sort, were his pattern of personality different, he might have felt differently about the argument. In either case his belief or unbelief would not reveal the validity of the argument but just the fact that it did not (or did) change his prior attitude. With this psychological state a teacher or an author cannot concern himself except as a matter of friendly, objective counselling. But, leaving the individual psychological state aside, there remains for any thinker the serious question of reasonable living. Ought not any individual to do everything in his power to change his mode of thinking and living, once he has decided that a certain argument is more conclusive than any other ? The answer is clearly yes. (The student seemed to realize this when he added that perhaps he was not "mature enough or sincere enough to face the issue and make a decision.") How else can one be mature if he is not sincere about the best he knows ? This does not mean that a mature person closes his mind to the further development of his conception of truth, but it does mean that he will not allow himself meanwhile to lean on attitudes and habits which stand condemned before the best he knows so far. What is the use of thinking if one is not to try to live by his best and most systematic reflection ? It is almost too obvious to add that arguments are not winds which blow some ideas out of one's mind and others in, thereby automatically changing the direction of thought and action. Ra-

472 • Is It Reasonable to "Pray? tional belief costs conscious effort, and sacrifice of immediate comfort. A person must thin\ as he lives and live as he things. There is no other way to increase one's wisdom and maturity in living or one's sensitivity to the possibilities of life. These are hidden from those who separate experience from thought! If we would know ourselves, other people, nature, or God, we can find no "short-cut" which leaves out courage. Truth-seeking involves decisions, decisions which must be made without certainty. But none who seek the whole truth should ever forget that it cannot be found by those who fail to conform their action? to the best they know. Specifically, then, our student should do what other truth-seekers have done: (a) reflect carefully on all he knows (and know as much as possible!); (b) realize that all his convictions leave something to be desired in the way of thorough investigation and conclusiveness; (c) having come to the most reasonable conclusion, live by it until he has good reason to change the course of thought and action. To call anything else real thinking or real living is to empty life and thought of human significance. The choice is never between thinking and living, but between guided living and living without full awareness of what it means to live. Nobody, it is clear, will ever become religious or irreligious simply by "thinking" about religion or irreligion. He will have to take his life in his hands and believe, or disbelieve. And he will have to work out the implications of his belief (or unbelief) by building new attitudes and habits, regardless how long that takes and what personal inconvenience may be involved. § 2. WHAT OUght RELIGION TO BE?

In the remainder of this book we shall concern ourselves with some of the basic consequences which seem to be entailed by the conception of God we have developed. In this chapter we shall indicate why it is reasonable to pray once we understand what the essence of true religion is. If God is the Person who finds it worth while to suffer in order

Is It Reasonable to Tray? • 473 that increasing goodness may come into the world, then, as we have said, religion as it ought to be must reflect that fact. But the suffering of God, however worth emphasizing, is after all one phase of an inconceivably comprehensive enjoyment of value experience. True religion is never an escape from suffering and hardship, but it is a fellowship in joy and suffering, for this is the basic purpose of religious living. The peace that belief in God brings is not the peace of smug contentment or the passive consolation that everything will eventually come out well. As here conceived, the peace that religion brings is the heroic consciousness that what is worth living for is also worth dying for, if need be. To believe that one's effort is consistent with the effort of God, to believe that one's suffering is for ends approved by God—this is to experience, in the midst of suffering, a peace which only the religious man knows. Religion, then, cannot be the conviction that in and through God we shall be eased into a rainbow's end. Rather does religious living become the personal commitment to share one's best with God in the common task of improving the world. It is the willingness to enjoy to the utmost every possibility of value in our own lives, in the lives of others, and in God's life. To put it more formally: Religion is the faith that God is the ultimate Personal Creator and Sustainer of all values, and that human beings realize the utmost in value when they join him, conscientiously and joyously, in the creation of value. If this formal definition is taken seriously, other consequences follow as we further consider the individual's fellowship with God. § 3. GOD'S PROVIDENCE: IMPERSONAL AND PERSONAL

If God is a Person whose very essence consists in his concern for increase in value, we may expect him to take advantage of every opportunity to cooperate with finite creators of values, or persons. To think of God as transcendent, as wrapped up in his own state of mind, impervious to what happens to particular human beings,

474 ' Is H ^Reasonable to Tray} is inconsistent with the very reasoning which has led us to believe in a cosmic Mind. Any person, finite or infinite, who is insensitive to the needs and values of others is denying himself the most rewarding experiences of life. To suppose that a Universe-Maker and Sustainer, to suppose that a Creator-Father would be indifferent to concerns of his creatures is simply unreasonable, especially in a world-view which makes creative fellowship in the growth of personality the highest conceivable value and the essence of what is ultimately real. From this follows our fundamental thesis with regard to prayer. The divine Mind reaches out for companionship-in-value-care with all other minds and is constantly doing all he can to encourage such companionship-in-care. If our argument holds, God's presence is to be found in every occurrence—even those he does not completely approve—for all that happens is dependent on God's nature. It may seem at first glance that the unwavering laws of physical, biological, and mental nature are inconsistent with an intelligent and loving God who cares for individuals. Because these laws do not make exceptions for individual persons, God may seem impersonal and indifferent. But when laws serve to protect the conditions of community among things and among people, their so-called impersonal character is desirable. For they are really aimed at insuring the long-run good of the individual, although in special circumstances they may thwart his desires and interests. The laws of nature, life, and mind, therefore, express God's interest in the stability of communal existence. God cares for man in and through these "impersonal" laws. But is this all? Does this exhaust God's concern for the individual? If so, God is not as provident as a good and intelligent community of persons. Any adequately governed human community makes provisions for the individual person who falls outside the range of the law which has been made to protect the interests of all. Every humane law, we realize, seeks the maximum of good for many varied persons, but the very complexity of human interests tends to eventuate in laws which protect the

Is It "treasonable to Tray? • 475 minimum of good for the many. For example, the rules a faculty passes to insure a certain scholastic standard may be hard on individuals who find some subjects especially difficult, or may discourage the intellectual ambition of some students who, anxious to probe more deeply into certain areas, tend to resent being forced to use precious time for other subjects. Most faculties are aware of this problem and take different steps to insure the common good of the student body without hurting worthy individuals. Usually there is opportunity for the student to find closer fellowship with members of the faculty, provided the student (and faculty members) care enough to meet the special need. So also in any intelligent community, the individual and the community must add to the minimum "good of all" if the highest personal values are to be enjoyed. Similarly, God governs our human lives through the minimum laws of physical, biological, and mental nature. There are some things which we must do, indeed, which he sees to it are done for us, whether we know about them or enjoy them or not. Were the laws of physics, the reflexes of the body, or the associative and logical capacities of the mind to vary with individual preference, there could be no established, dependable order in the world. The impersonality of these laws reflects, therefore, not lack of divine concern for man but the most intelligent kind of purpose if there is to be any corporate life and existence. The underlying and persistent expression of God's intelligent good will, then, is to be found in the permanencies without which human beings could not exist. There is a kind of "fellowship" with God and God's purposes which human beings can enjoy in and through their understanding, appreciation, and use of the realm of nature—• especially through the experience of order and beauty. It is unfortunate that so many human beings neglect this source of fellowship with God. Beyond this common minimum, however, there is every reason to suppose that God would make every effort to enter into fellowship with his creatures and to encourage the fruition of the very

476 • Is It Treasonable to Tray? best in their individual lives. God's general providence, accordingly, is the foundation of his special providence for individual persons. § 4. CONDITIONS OF FELLOWSHIP BETWEEN MAN AND GOD

What, specifically, are the conditions of fellowship between man and God ? Throughout we have urged that the very essence of God's love consists in his willing that human beings should be real agents in the growth and increase of values, both in their own lives and in the lives of others. Assuming this purpose, God in his relation to men would abide by two principles. First, God's concern for the growth of any one individual would be consistent with the growth of other persons. A good God could not favor one person at the expense of others. Second, by whatever means God relates himself to the growth of any individual, the means cannot violate what the individual wills for himself. A good God cannot alter the individual's conscious choice without the concurrence of that individual. To do so would violate the fundamental purpose of creating him, namely, free participation in the creation of character and the values issuing therefrom. We must not play fast and loose with this fact as we sometimes do. Our wills are ours, to make them God's—or Mammon's! But it does not follow, therefore, that God sits apart, as it were, and waits for individuals to make up their minds. We do not know exactly how God actually does influence our lives; but we do know something about the conditions we must meet. We can assume that he will use every means available to him, consistent with man's final freedom of choice and consistent with the consequences of man's past choices, to help man to realize the valuepossibilities available to him in his own nature and the world. God cannot respect the freedom delegated to man and at the same time bend man's will to do his own will, or, which is the same thing, transform the personality and character with no regard to man's past choices. If we keep this principle in mind, it will help us to

Is It Reasonable to Tray? • 477 remember that fellowship between man and God is a responsible and reciprocal interaction. Having thus recognized the moral conditions which control fellowship between God and man, we must emphasize that we do not know exactly the how of God's interaction with men. We must refuse to be victimized by the kind of picture-thinking which imagines God as mechanically flowing into our lives or vice versa. That prayer makes a difference to the quality of human existence we know, and this fact must not be blurred by our inability to know exactly how the difference takes place. In a fundamental sense all growth is a mystery. In any case, the relation of Creator to the human creature he sustains is not open to us. Although our knowledge of what we are and can be is far from perfect, his knowledge of us and what we can be in any situation is unfailing. We can expect him to use what he knows to improve his creatures, once we have met the conditions for growth and fellowship. In this area we must keep our imaginations sensitive to the possibility of God's activity in myriad ways we cannot conceive. God will not fail us within the scope of his moral purposes. But, as we now shall see, through the activity of prayer we can help God to do what he will not do without our help. § 5. PRAYER AS FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD

If God is a Person, creative in his concern for the thoughts, feelings, volitions, and actions of finite persons (among other concerns for value-creation), prayer may be defined as the conscious attempt of the individual to commune with God for the purpose of fellowship. The common denominator in every experience worthy of the name prayer—whether it be verbal or not, whether it be petition for strength and help, or whether it be the confident assurance of God's presence—is fellowship. In all real prayer there are two persons interacting with each other: God and the finite mind. The individual is meeting the conditions for finding God, and God is finding the opportunity to enter into a kind

478 * Is It Reasonable to Tray? of relationship with the individual otherwise not possible. For in prayer at its best both God and man meet, both to foster the creation of new values in and through each other and to enjoy mutual fellowship for its own sake. We have defined prayer. It may help further if we recall the way it functions in human life. In Chapter 2 we saw that prayer is a basic root of belief in God. Persons do not, to begin with, "set about" to pray. They find themselves praying. Prayer in its psychological purity is well described as "the immediate expression of an original and profound experience of the soul." 1 To believe in God and to pray mean the same thing initially. When the prayers are later analyzed, persons discover that they have been pleading with a certain kind of God to remember their needs, or that they have been singing praises and giving thanks to a source of power and goodness. Religion is an empty word without the activities which lead to prayer and eventuate from prayer. "All the manifold rites and sacraments, consecrations and purifications, offerings and sacred feasts, sacred dances and processions, all the working of asceticism and morality, are only the indirect expression of the inner experience of religion, the experience of awe, trust, surrender, yearning, and enthusiasm." 2 We are already answering the question: "Why do men pray?" They pray for strength to be the best kind of human beings they can be; they pray for what they deem to be worth while but beyond their present reach. What men have considered worth while may shock any mature conscience, but at the moment of prayer there is no denying the felt need to improve existence through petitions. Thus we may accept Heiler's conviction that the essence of prayer is "the expression of a primitive impulsion to a higher, richer, intenser life... a great longing for life, for a more potent, a purer, more blessed life." 3 1 Fnednch Heiler, Prayer. A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion (trans. Samuel McComb). London: Oxford University Press, 1932, p. 354. 2 Ibid., p. xv. s Ibid., p. 355.

Is It Reasonable to Tray? • 479 We need simply to reflect on the concrete course of human life to see why such prayer is as natural as it is vital. There is no human being who does not cherish for himself some ambition, some ideal of life. It may not be the best ideal for him; it may be narrower than it should be, for, as Evelyn Underhill put it: "We mostly spend [our] lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do. Craving, clutching, and fussing, on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual—even on the religious— plane, we are kept in perpetual unrest..." i Yet as long as a person believes a certain goal is worth while, he will do all in his power to realize it. But not quite! There are so many other things, so many other more immediate pleasures and satisfactions, so many other demands made by flesh, by friend, and by foe that in the actual course of life his ideal not only becomes dim but it is also side-tracked. Man, in other words, is not born with the facile capacity to keep his life steady and his strivings harmonious. Royce puts this perfectly: "We are naturally creatures of wavering and conflicting motives, passions, desires. The supreme aim of life is to triumph over this natural chaos, to set some one plan of life above all others, to give unity to our desires, to organize our activities, to win, not, indeed, the passionless peace of Nirvana, but the strength of spirit which is above the narrowness of each one of our separate passions. We need to conceive of such a triumphant and unified life, and successfully to live it. That is our goal: Self-possession, unity, peace, and spiritual power through and yet beyond all the turmoil of life—the victory that overcometh in the world." 5 To be sure, the so-called plain man would not put it thus. But is this not because his life is so absorbed in detail that he loses his vision of the ideal? Granted that men will differ in specific 4 Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life New York' Harper & Bros., 1937, p 24. See the more scholarly treatment of mysticism in the same author s Mysticism, 4th edition. New York E. P. Dutton & Co, 1912 5 Josiah Royce, Sources of Religious Insight. New York: Charles Scnbner s Sons, 1912, PP- 44> 45-

480 * Is It Treasonable to Tray? horizon, there is little doubt that moments come in every life— moments of victory, of defeat, of soul-searching trial and high aspiration—when individuals in their own way see their need for growth and completeness. As Royce says: "Whenever he feels the longing for the clean, straight, unswerving will, for the hearty whole life; whenever he sees and regrets his fickleness, just because it means self-defeat; whenever he seeks to be true to himself. At such moments his highest aim is the aim that there should be a highest aim in life, and that this aim should win what it seeks." s And as Royce continues: "Beneath and above all the varieties of religious experience lies the effort to win in reality what the vision of the harmonious and triumphant life suggests to us in our moments of clearness." 7 Yet this vision of triumphant living is the very goal before which persons feel their weakness so keenly. So easily beset by errant impulses and so hemmed in by habits of self-indulgence, men know the yearning for control, for self-possession, for a new life. Little wonder that they cry out for sympathy, for help, for companionship! Nor does this cry come from the vulgar alone; it is all the more poignant when it breaks from the lips of the most sensitive and disciplined spirits whose very achievement increases their sense of what needs to be done. Well and good! We understand the human need and the human yearning! But what justification is there for supposing that such pleas are effective? How can God help a person to be better? Isn't any improvement that does occur simply the psychological result of the belief that it will occur, that there is a God who will help? Isn't prayer a matter of autosuggestion, an example of what man can do with man, rather than what man and God can do together? How can we conceive such interaction anyway? 6 7

Ibid., pp. 50, 51. Ibid., p. 53.

75 It Reasonable to Tray? • 481 § 6. IS PRAYER JUST A MATTER OF PSYCHOLOGY?

These questions raise difficult issues, and no reply can resolve all doubts. But one reminder must be unequivocal. Persons who believe in God and consistently pray to him earnestly and honestly for strength to realize this vision, such people rise from their knees with renewed courage to face the task ahead. They insist that without this experience they would not have "found" the power to go on. They are convinced that in and through this experience God was present, inspiring them to their noblest effort. Note the testimony of Sholem Asch: With every breath I draw I renew my relationship with God—because of the knowledge that it is done with his will. Only the personal God whose eye is bent upon me daily and who consistently guides my path can lift me above my wormlike existence, and become a fount of inspiration in me for the noblest and purest deeds. Only this faith in an individual providence carries with it all the blessings which faith has to give. Everything else, which limits the divinity to a static condition, is an affront to God and a reversion to the death-dealing idol of fate.8 It is unreasonable to discard such testimony, especially if we have reason, on other grounds, to suppose that a personal God does exist and is willing to help each individual to make the most of existence. Nevertheless, to say that persons feel the concurrence of God in their own effort does not mean that God in fact approves and actively supports their particular desire.9 To claim that God is present in prayer is not to assert that he is on the side of every interpretation human beings give of their experience, nor is it to 8 Sholem Asch, What 1 Believe (trans. Maurice Samuel). New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1941, p. 49. 9 See William Temple, Nature, Man and God. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1949. Pages 306, 314.

482 • Is It Treasonable to Tray} assert that he supports or encourages the specific plea or action. He does welcome the willingness to bring the conflict before him, and we may assume that God does not withdraw himself from the presence of any sincere petitioner. But even God has no guarantee against the most grotesque misinterpretations of the meaning of his presence. Any person who has been a counsellor to others knows how frequently his own silence—even his own gentle demurrer—at a point where the individual must make his own choice, may be taken as positive encouragement by the person seeking counsel. God listens when persons call; but he does not always concur in the plea. And yet, he must concur with the honest effort to include Him in the process of coming to a decision. In any counselling situation, the very act of listening, quietly and concernedly, makes a real difference to the person who needs to feel that somebody cares about what he is doing. To repeat, even when God cannot approve a particular petition or attitude, he does not turn a deaf ear to the sincere prayer. He can make his concern for the plight and struggle of the suppliant felt, and this very response is a source of encouragement and power to the person who believes that God cares for him. Let anyone who finds this suggestion unreasonable simply consider the sources of strength and encouragement in ordinary social life. To know that another cares, even when he cannot help, makes a real difference (if not all the difference) we desire. It is not opposition to our request as much as indifference to it which throws the human mind into the deepest despair. If he will but pray with emotional sincerity for the best he knows, no religious person need ever feel that cosmic indifference. Bennett has real insight into the human mind when he says: "But the horror of the so-called scientific nightmare is that the universe is not hostile: it is indifferent. Hostility a man can do with. Give him an adversary and he can stand up. For the adversary can at least hear his defiance. But if all one has to confront is the silence of these infinite spaces, then even one's heroism is empty histrionics and has only

75 It Reasonable to Tray} • 483 the force of a pathetic gesture." 10 We are not encouraging irresponsible praying when we urge that perhaps the most important thing in prayer is what it symbolizes: the awareness of an individual that he is in God's world and that his decisions must take God's will into account. There is something more "right" about prayer than the right petition. We have purposely taken the extreme case, that of a suppliant who comes to God asking that his own will be done rather than God's. Even from such a man, self-engrossed, almost comically earnest in his effort to find a way out of his plight on his own terms, God will not turn away. In the name of God much evil, inflicting suffering on God and man, has been done. But the God who does not withdraw his "impersonal" support of human ventures by altering the laws of nature when they are used for evil, that God will not withdraw his sympathetic presence from any soul sincerely aiming to improve his state, however falsely that presence may be misinterpreted. The least sensitive child assumes that his parent's interest is approval, and there is nothing his parents can do to change his willful interpretation except to suffer with him as he learns that the evil path he has taken leads to further evil. But if no parent worthy of the name can refuse to listen to his child's sincere if unenlightened plea, God surely cannot refrain. Our central point here is that there is power and renewal through the prayer which springs from the conviction that God cares. To which a reader may reply: "That's just a matter of psychology. The individual simply thinks that God will help, and that belief is helpful. There is no proof that God is present in such experiences." To this, two responses must be made. The first presupposes our whole theory of religious experience. We have already granted that religious experience and the life of prayer alone are not adequate proof of the existence of God. But if the 10 Charles A. Bennett, The Dilemma of Religious Knowledge New Haven University Press, 1931, p. 116.

Yale

484 ' Is It Reasonable to Tray? wider teleological argument indicates that belief in a loving Father is reasonable, then what is here called "psychology" is just what we would expect to happen when human beings try to find God. The burden of proof now rests with the skeptic, even as it would have rested with the believer if no pathways other than religious experience and prayer had led to God. When honest and critical believers assert that they feel an objective presence in their prayer, those who have not sincerely entered into the search for God through prayer cannot expect their doubt to be applauded as "objectivity." Again, this does not mean that whatever believers claim to be present in religious experience is to be accepted uncritically; but it does mean that their fundamental assertion must be credited unless and until there is real evidence to the contrary. Our second reply is a plea for an adequate interpretation of "psychology." To say that the inspiration experienced through prayer is a matter of psychology is not to invalidate prayer, unless we gratuitously assume that any psychological analysis must deny that interaction between man and God is impossible. Of course, persons can get themselves to believe or disbelieve almost anything. But why does this reasoning invalidate the practice of prayer any more than if invalidates abstinence from prayer ? The psychologist, after all, does not prescribe for man and nature; he describes what takes place under certain conditions. In this area he must affirm that those persons who do pray actually feel (most of the time, at least) more able to carry on. There is no denying this fact. To say that they could have done just as well without prayer, without this belief, is always possible. But it is actually not very enlightening until we are told what to put in place of this conviction in the lives of human beings. If it is a fact that when people do believe in a loving Father, when they do sincerely and consistently seek his fellowship, they enjoy a quality of life which brings courage, serenity, and power,11 then to call this fact "psy31

See Chapter 2.

Is It Reasonable to Tray? • 485 chology" is simply to label a process favored by our universe and revealing the nature of that universe. To repeat, it is always possible to allege that certain inspiring effects which believers experience through prayer can be experienced by the taking of appropriate drugs. We need not deny that uplift is possible by means other than prayer. But we can deny that the particular kind of uplift to which the believer testifies is possible by way of drugs. To an external observer, a person may have the euphoric state of "happiness" when he is "feeling good" with the help of intoxicants, but that person himself will know the difference between that felt happiness and the felt happiness he experiences when he is aware of his own will strong in the fellowship of God. When mystics and religious people find that taking drugs will indeed have the same effects on their lives, it will be time to review this objection to prayer. But if we are the kind of people who are consistently stronger and better because we seek fellowship with God, if we experience what St. Theresa called "jewels": "joy, tenderness, humility, peace within, health and comfort for body and soul, divine instruction to understand many matters" 12—then we may insist that this fact be better explained (and not explained away) by an adequate theory of the universe. So far we have been trying to dispel doubts about the validity of prayer. And it has sufficed for us to consider only the first level of fellowship in prayer—the person who comes for approval rather than counsel. But now we must pay attention to the requirements of maturer fellowship in prayer. We have already suggested that no real prayer exists when there is no earnest effort for greater value. There will be no mature fellowship for those who pray to "play safe." God cannot respond effectively to those who will not seek his will, who will not prepare themselves to share the blessing open to them. There is no fellowship between a husband and wife who do not try to 12

See Georgia Harkness, The Resources of Religion New York Henry Holt & Co., 1936, pp. 159, 160.

486

•

Is It Reasonable to Tray"?

understand each other's values or think out the many problems which beset them. Prayer is not a short-cut to solutions of problems which require mastery of all the relevant facts. The more the individual brings to his fellowship with God, the more he achieves in prayer. Experience with prayer supports the axiom: "Man's will and God's grace rise and fall together." The person who approaches God simply for the purpose of using God to solve his own problems is breaking a fundamental principle of all social and moral relations. As Jesus and Immanuel Kant in their different ways insist, we are never to treat other persons simply as means to our ends. It is always wrong to use persons—including God!—with no regard to their welfare and interests. Fellowship between God and man would hardly be worth while on any other basis. § 7. THE GOAL OF PRAYER

To put our central thesis crisply: In the fellowship of prayer, man must focus attention upon God and not upon himself. Of course he is aware of his own problems and of his own needs; but no fellowship, human or divine, can ever be a responsible relation if one forgets the nature of the other, his desires and his needs. The person who prays to his Father-God without concern with what God would have him be, without interest in God's affairs in the world—this man has cut the very nerve of prayer. Let the person who approaches God in prayer remember that God made him a center, a growing point of value; let him remember that God is interested in a society knit together by mutual respect and love; let him remember that God did not make the world or persons for purely utilitarian ends, and he will find a real purpose through prayer. To some modern minds the suggestion that mortification must be a real part of prayer may sound funereal. But let Evelyn Under hill define it: Mortification means killing the very root of self-love; pride and possessiveness, anger and violence, ambition and greed

Is It Reasonable to Tray? • 487 in all their disguises, however respectable those disguises may be, whatever uniforms they wear. In fact, it really means the entire transformation of our personal, professional, and political life into something more consistent with our real situation as small dependent fugitive creatures.13 In the presence of God each person cries with Isaiah: "Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips!" For now he realizes the narrowness of his vision, the smug self-absorption or self-pity which has allowed him to consider other persons, including God, as his servants. And with Isaiah, and many other human beings who have had this experience, he will become so aware of God's concern for the growth of his children everywhere, that he will reply: "Here am I! Send me!" It has been the universal testimony of those who have come into God's presence, sincerely seeking to find him as well as to unburden themselves, that they acquire a deeper sense of what life can mean, such a profounder purpose for living, indeed, that they feel "re-generated." Here again is a word which has lost its real meaning, for many moderns, but it labels the basic fact that the individual is finding new goals, is freeing himself from selfabsorption, is indeed setting out anew, not without conflict and difficulty, but with a new willingness to pursue new and transformed desires. Thus Masefield cries: I did not think, I did not strive, The deep peace burnt my me alive: The bolted door had broken in, I knew that I had done with sin. I knew that Christ had given me birth To brother all the souls on earth, And every bird and every beast Should share the crumbs broke at the feast. 13

Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life. New York: Harper & Bros., i<)379 pp. 59, 60.