Page images
PDF
EPUB

RELIGION WITHOUT METAPHYSIC;

OR, THE MODERN RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE

AUTHORITIES.

1. Literature and Dogma: an Essay towards a better Apprehension of the Bible. By Matthew Arnold, D.C.L. 1873. Smith, Elder, & Co.

2. Godsdienst zonder Metafysica. A. G. van Hamel. Theologisch Tijdschrift. 1874.

3. Literature and Dogma, &c. Popular Edition. 1883.

RELIGION WITHOUT METAPHYSIC;

OR, THE MODERN RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE.

THE THE modern religion of experience has repeatedly come before us in these papers. Religion is not denied, nor morality, but only the spiritual or metaphysical ground on which they have rested during the past course of religious thought. We have looked at the moral question in the light of the new theory. Let us look at the religious question in the same light. And we cannot do this better than in connection with the writings of Mr Matthew Arnold, especially with what he considers his "most important" book, a popular edition of which has lately been issued. Mr Arnold is so significant a figure in our modern literature, and has treated religion on the basis of experience at such length, and with such emphasis, that he may well claim a paper to himself. It must be conceded to him that he has always professed to write in the interest of religion. He has recognised how great a subject religion is, how largely it touches life, and how poor human civilisation would be apart from

it. However deeply one may differ from him, it is due to him to own that it has not been his aim to destroy religion from his own point of view, but rather to purify or elevate it, and place it, as he supposes, on a more secure footing.

[ocr errors]

The same thing may be said of the contemporary school of Divines in Holland, who strangely have formulated, it might seem at times almost in the same words, the same theory as Mr Arnold. The leaders of this school are Dr Hooykaas, one of the compilers of the 'Bible for Young People' (which has been translated into English), and an able young theologian of the name of Van Hamel. They are spoken of in their own country as "De Modernen." They represent the extreme left of the Leyden School, of which Dr Kuenen is so distinguished an ornament; and it is their special boast, as it is Mr Arnold's, to rescue religion from metaphysics, and to plant it on the tangible and felt basis of moral experience. "The moral power acts,' Dr Hooykaas says. "We know that to be good is better than to be bad. To him who is seeking earnestly to be good, the consciousness of the reality of the moral law becomes so strong that he will rather doubt the existence of the sensible than the moral world. Belief in the reality of moral ideas is the very essence of religion." "The moral power is not a conclusion drawn from certain facts; it is the fact itself. . . The conception of God matters very little; what is important is to have God Himself. There is no religion without God; but there is religion without any conception of God. We point to ourselves as examples of that fact." Dr Hooykaas argues at length that he has a right to retain the name of God and the word

1

religion for their position, although these terms have hitherto borne a very different significance.

Van Hamel, if possible, makes his position still more clear in an essay, expressly entitled 'Religion without Metaphysic.' He points out that he and those who agree with him have been turning more and more away from the metaphysical element of religion, and seeking to deduce its claims and nature from moral phenomena. "Some," he says, "have followed that road to the very end, and are now minded to detach religion from metaphysic altogether-to consider it to be, not a view of the world, but a view of life described as moral idealism." Religion, according to this writer, is only secondarily a philosophy or theory of the world. Primarily and essentially it is "a view of life and its phenomena." "Supernaturalism is not religion. The main element in religion is not the supernatural theory of the world—that is, merely the formal side of it; the main thing is the peculiar conception of life-the peculiar direction of wishes and expectations these are what confer on religion a distinctive character. Thus, when life is little more than material and sensuous, the gods will be mere natural phenomena. As society is developed, and the social instincts gain in power, the gods of the family, of the tribe, of the race appear. Jehovah is, first of all, the reflection of the national sentiment of Israel. As moral life is developed, moral gods appear; or those already in existence receive a more distinctly moral character. ... Monotheism is the reflection of an impulse towards harmony-oneness in life. . . . . . If this be a true account of the nature of religion, then Christianity may properly be called Moral Idealism. It is a reli

« PreviousContinue »