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(p. 20)
IN HIS OWN IMAGE, MALE AND
FEMALE
WE WILL take
first the most palpable and universal physical facts of humanity, as befits the
intelligence in its earliest essays towards the conception of a Supreme Being.
For this, as for all subsequent stages of our progress, it is necessary that we
clear our minds from the prepossessions wherewith we are wont to regard the
infinite, and suppose space to be absolutely vacant save only of ourselves and
the world visible around us. We are here, and yonder is the void. How came we
here, and of what nature must that be which produced us?
Such are the questions to which, following the universal course of human
thought, we have to provide an answer. Starting, then, from our own
consciousness, let us see what answer comes most naturally to us, and what are
the lineaments of the image of God.
To man who makes that which he requires, with ingenuity according to forethought
and design, his
(p. 21)
Maker can only be
one who proceeds in the selfsame fashion, thinking out the details and
fashioning the work with his hands. There must be power, or his Creator could
not have made him at all. There must be will, and there must be intelligence.
All these are human qualities, inasmuch as man finds them in himself; and
qualities which constitute one of man’s most essential attributes, personality
or individuality.
The Creator, then, appears as a Person possessed, of characteristics physical
and intellectual. But as man grows and observes he finds that something more
than these are necessary to account for the impulse to create. Great as was the
advance made when, searching into the marvels of nature, Aristotle found
everywhere proofs of the presence of intellect, and ascribed creation to
Intelligence rather than to Will or Power, a motive for creation was still
wanting.
It is only as we approach adolescence that we learn to ascribe aught resembling
emotion to our parents. As children we do not wonder at the fact that the being
to whom we belong consists of two persons, a mother as
well as a father. Only slowly dawns upon us the mystery of Sex, and its
correlative Sentiment. It is long after man has learnt to recognise in his
progenitor power and intelligence, that he learns to
credit him with emotion or love.
(p. 22)
Thus, even while confining himself to the physical side of things, man is led
more and more to see in his Maker the original and counterpart of himself: and,
recognising one point of family likeness after another, to ascribe to him every
organ, faculty, and quality he finds in himself; only, divested of limitations.
And the less special and restricted to any particular tribe; or race such
attributes are, that is, the more they belong universally to all mankind, the
more
Catholic appear the results
attained. Sectarianism in its earliest form consisted in depicting the Deity
after the likeness of some particular people; making him black and thick-lipped,
as did the Ethiops, or white, lithe, and
straight-featured, as did the Greeks. Later ones consisted in investing him with
local moral characteristics; as did the Jews when they invested their Jehovah
with the jealous exclusiveness characteristic of themselves, a quality to which
their isolated condition as a people is mainly owing.
A
favourite practice in all non-monotheistic religions was to cut up humanity, as
it were, and distribute its various qualities, moral and other, among several
deities, making one the impersonation of power, another of wisdom, another of
love; and in having also separate gods to represent not merely separate
nationalities, but separate human pursuits, as war, peace, music, agriculture.
All these mythologic
(p. 23)
systems, pagan
though they were, and sectarian in respect of their failing to ascribe
perfection in all respects whatsoever to one and the same supreme Being, were
yet essentially Catholic in so far as they proceeded on the principle of making
God in man’s image, the image of man’s best, divested of limitations.
For a being to experience the sentiment of love and to be productive, it is
evident that the element of duality must not be wanting. For a solitary
existence there is neither object of love nor mode of production. Unable to
conceive it of himself, man cannot conceive it of his Maker; and whatever
man cannot conceive of himself, he cannot, consistently with the rule of nature
and Catholicism, conceive of God. Where, moreover, man may well ask, can the
universal law of duality, the law in accordance with which nature appears as one
vast sexual apparatus, have its origin and seat but in the nature of the Creator
himself, the type and model in the infinite of the finite manifestation of
himself called the World?
The primitive doctrine that God created man in his own image, male and female,
and consequently that the divine nature comprised the two sexes within itself,
fulfils all the conditions requisite to constitute a Catholic theological dogma,
inasmuch as it may truly be affirmed of it that it has been held
semper, ubique, et ab omnibus, being universal
(p. 24)
as the
phenomenon to which it owes its existence.
How essential to the consistency of the Catholic system is this doctrine of
duality you may judge by the shortcomings of the theologies which reject it.
Unitarianism blunders alike in regard to the Trinity and the Duality. Affecting
to see in God a Father, it denies him the possibility of having either spouse or
offspring. More rational than such a creed as this was the primitive worship of
sex as represented by the male and female principles in nature. In no gross
sense was the symbolism of such a system conceived, gross as its practice may
have become, and as it would appear to the notions of modern conventionalism.
For no religion is founded upon intentional depravity. Searching back for the
origin of life, men stopped at the earliest point to which they could trace it,
and exalted the reproductive organs into symbols of the Creator. The practice
was at least calculated to procure respect for a side of nature liable under an
exclusively spiritual regime to be relegated to undue contempt.
(p. 25)
IN HIS OWN IMAGE,
INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, EMOTIONAL
I
DO not
wonder at your surprise. Yet were I to give but a moderately full account of the
worship referred to in my last, I should have to write a volume. For us as
Christians the universality of the doctrine of the divine Duality derives its
main importance from the fact that it indicates the recognition by the human
consciousness of the necessity of a multiplicity of persons in the divine
essence. In these days, when men accounted of the highest culture are found to
ridicule the doctrine of the Trinity as intrinsically absurd, and to regard the
Athanasian creed as incoherent and unmeaning, it is
well to recollect that the belief finds justification in the very constitution
of physical human nature, and as we shall presently see, in the laws of human
thought. Just a few instances, then, in illustration of its
antiquity and universality.
It appears certain that the names of the Hebrew deity bear the sense I .have
indicated; El, the
root
(p. 26)
of Elohim, the
name under which God was known to the Israelites prior to their entry into
It is to
(p. 27)
regarded as the
source of all subsequent life, became identified with the feminine principle in
nature – whence the origin of the mystic rite of baptism – and the atmosphere
was the divine breath or spirit. The description in Genesis of the Spirit of God
moving upon the face of the waters indicates the influence upon the Jews of the
Hindu theogony, to which they had access through
The twofold name of Jehovah also finds a correspondence in the
Arddha-Nari, or
incarnation of Brahma, who is represented in sculptures as combining in himself the male and female organisms. And the worship of the
implements of fecundity continues popular in
(p. 28)
forms the point of
departure for beliefs which have lasted thousands of years, and which have
either spread from one source over, or been independently originated in, every
part of the habitable globe.
The point essential for us to observe at present in this system of religious
symbolism is the persistency with which the idea of Duality is maintained. The
two principles together were regarded as constituting but one complete being.
It was impossible, however, for mankind to remain satisfied with a Duality that
did not complete itself naturally, as in man’s own case, by the addition of a
third element. And so it came that the idea expanded until it appeared in the
form of a Triad or Trinity either of principles or of persons, in one essence, –
principles for the spiritual and philosophic thinker, and persons for the
uninstructed materialising masses.
Proceeding on our way towards the creation of God in the image of man, it
becomes necessary, in order to avoid having two or more deities or sets of
deities, to combine in one Being the facts and ideas common to man.
Endeavour now to accompany me on a short excursion into a region lying
altogether apart from things concrete and appreciable by sense, a region shunned
by mankind at large, and rarely entered save by thinkers, for it is called
Metaphysics, and it
(p. 29)
is
occupied by the Abstract. Arrived there we close all the faculties of sense as
useless, for there is neither light to impinge on the eye nor sound on the ear,
nor aught of any kind to appeal to the touch, but the imagination is all in all,
both as regards the things to be dealt with and the instruments wherewith they
are to be treated.
Try now to imagine Being, simple and apart from all conditions of being. Try to
imagine it as absolute and sole in space. You will not succeed; for the moment
we seek to imagine Being existing by itself, there
rises before us an idea of something else equally with it demanding recognition.
For the idea of Being involves the idea of its
opposite, or Not-Being. So that we cannot have in our minds a
Positive without at the same time having also a Negative, either actually or
potentially.
Apply this fact to the theology we are seeking to construct. We want to imagine
deity as absolute and infinite. But no sooner do we attempt to do so than the
idea of an absolute negation of deity forces itself upon us. Having one absolute Being, then, we must have two; and so the idea of dualism
appears as a necessary idea.
But the laws of thought forbid us to stop there. We cannot imagine two Beings to
coexist without imagining also the effect of their action upon each other. But
such effect constitutes a third form of
(p. 30)
existence; so that,
given the human consciousness of being at all, we are absolutely unable to
exclude from our thought the notion of a trinity of Beings; a trinity, moreover,
in which none is afore or after other, none is greater or less than another; but
the whole three are coeternal together and coequal, and constitute among them
but one being.
If,
proceeding a step further, we seek to identify this
necessary product of thought with the animating force of the universe, we are
equally compelled to regard it as personal, inasmuch as by the very fact of
creation it manifests Will, Intelligence, and the creative impulse we call Love.
Thus without aid from aught external to ourselves, without aid even from the
visible phenomena of the world, but building solely upon the basis of our own
consciousness, we have occupied the throne of space with a Being who is at once
personal and infinite, single and threefold, incomprehensible and unimaginable
by us, and yet in whom we recognise our own lineaments, the substance of which
we are the manifestation. And this, inasmuch as He is
Consciousness, while we are conscious. He is Intelligence, while we have
understanding. He is Power, while we can do somewhat. He is Energy, while we
live and move. He is Love, while we exist.
But no other than such a Being as this is the God men
have ever felt bound to adore. The human
(p. 31)
consciousness being
one, whether as Aryan or Semite, Jew or Christian, the idea of Deity has in all
assumed a triune aspect, and men have all adored it on one and the same
principle. Whatever faculties for good we find in ourselves, or whatever is
productive of that which we deem good, we necessarily offer to him as our
reasonable service; and with these, divested of limitations, we build up the
fabric of ideal perfection which we call God. To ascribe to him aught that falls
short of the best we can imagine would be to stultify ourselves. Even the rudest
savage, whose worship appears to us to be rendered to a demon, invariably
ascribes to his deity in excess the qualities most prized by himself; never
those which he deems evil, be he Cannibal or Calvinist.
Creating God morally as well as physically in our own image, it is inevitable
that his growth in our minds should keep pace with our own. Advancing in
knowledge of our own character and capacity, we find ourselves compelled to make
such modifications in the divine nature as are necessary to preserve its harmony
and proportion. Thus, to prevent Will from degenerating into caprice, Power into
cruelty, Capacity for enjoyment into sensuality, we add to his attributes others
which we find indispensable to our own perfection, as sympathy, patience,
purity, justice, and to temper this last, tenderness; first expanding each of
them to infinity. Only where we
(p. 32)
fail to
possess these qualities in ourselves do we fail to ascribe them to our God. To
make him defective in respect of any of them, is to
make him after the pattern of a pagan or sectarian deity. To attain Catholic
results we must regard him as resuming in himself all
the good that characterises universal man. To be able to construct such a God as
this, it is necessary to know man in the utmost reaches of our nature. One must
have loved and hated, toiled, suffered, and enjoyed, and all with intensity;
must have lost and found oneself in all directions, on the side of evil as well
as on that of good. To such knowledge the spirit and the flesh must alike bring
their contributions. One must have lived the inner life that finds no expression
in the prosperous complacency of external worldly success and in one’s own soul
have grappled with the problems of sin, condemnation, repentance, atonement, and
salvation. In a word, one must have felt, inasmuch as God is at once the source, the
sum and the product of all feeling.
As metal unrefined and unwrought is valueless, so is there no perfection of
character without trial. Any idealisation of humanity in its youth, beauty, and
prosperity must be inferior in moral value to one of humanity perfected by
suffering. Suffering is the parent of sympathy. A suffering and sympathetic
deity is above all those of
(p. 33)
not
transcend the level assigned in the creeds of Catholicism to him who ‘suffered
for our salvation.’
Thus, if in the construction of our ideal of perfection we attain a height unreached by the ‘heathen,’ it is because, though on the
right track, they failed to carry their analysis of man’s capacity to its
furthest point. The prominence of selfishness among mankind led them to put
self-seeking in the forefront of the nature of their deities. We, on the other
hand, recognising the sympathetic element as at least better, if not wholly
dominant in us, lift up as divine the character of one suffering with and for
others, rather than of one who by dint of superior force or strategy is
triumphant over others. How far the former surpasses the latter in its power to
draw men unto it, becomes apparent when, looking from the depths of our own
deepest feelings, we contrast the emotions excited respectively by the
contemplation of the Belvidere Apollo and the
Crucifix. The pagan ideal vanishes, quenched in the higher ideal presented in
the creeds. For what are all the miracles worked by force to those of which love
is capable?
Thus, not only in his own image, male and female, and all other physical
respects, does man create the God to whom he ascribes his own existence, but in
his own image, moral, intellectual, and emotional. By and by we shall have to
add spiritual.
(p. 34)
THE FALL AND THE INCARNATION
‘BUT
supposing himself to be made in God’s image, man must have supposed himself to
be perfect. He could not have credited a perfect Being
with defective work.’
Your remarks are just, up to a certain point. Man had both the convictions you
describe. It was on finding himself defective that he came to suppose that,
though assuredly made perfect originally, he had fallen from that state. True,
the logic that was content with such a solution was itself defective, inasmuch
as one of the essential elements of an original perfection must be the ability
to remain perfect. According to the popular notion, it was through the abuse of
the gift of freedom that man fell. But, as a state of perfection must, to be
perfection, include such an amount of knowledge and wisdom as will keep from
falling, the popular notion is defective in this respect also.
Nevertheless, man knew perfection and fell; and his fall was the most momentous
event in his existence,
(p. 35)
inasmuch as by
means of it he became man. For the fall was the birth of the
soul, – the initial stage of the supreme incarnation.
To comprehend the fall, you must first comprehend the incarnation. Here, as
elsewhere, we shall be guided solely by the light of human reason, borrowing
nothing from ‘revelation.’ Like the idea of a Trinity, the idea of an
incarnation belongs to no one religion. Product on one side of abstract reason,
and on the other of the phenomena of physical nature, it was postulated by the
earliest metaphysicians, ages before either Christianity or Judaism, as the sole
possible solution of the problem of creation.
For incarnation is but a term to express the manifestation of the infinite in
the finite, of the absolute in the conditioned, of the ideal in the real; that
is, of God in nature. Unable to conceive how such a process can take place, yet
perceiving that it has taken place if God and the world exist at all, reason is
compelled to postulate a miracle.
The incarnation, though a single eternal process, inasmuch as God in his
function of creator is always becoming the world, is yet various in
kind
and degree. The infinite being the source of all things, wherever we find a
finite we find an incarnation. Of course the word, as its derivation shows,
signifies primarily a manifestation in the form of flesh, but
(p. 36)
it may
fitly be used to signify manifestation in any form. In this way it becomes
applicable to the creation in its earliest stage. Prior to
that all was God, in his original condition of pure spirit. In that, God
took form in the world. The proof of this is that we cannot think of God as
existing prior to creation in any other fashion.
The earliest manifestation of the infinite in the finite comes before us as a
world without form and void. Though without life, sensation, consciousness, or
even motion, it was not the less divine, inasmuch as it was the divine
handiwork, formed of the divine substance – for there was nought else of which
it could be formed – a part of God himself, made in the image of God thus far,
though to us, viewing it from the advanced standpoint of our own after-growth,
it may appear but a poor and meagre embodiment of the divine nature, or
illustration of the divine perfections.
Product, however, of the omnipotent intelligence, will, and energy, this dark
and shapeless mass is instinct with the possibilities of our universe. Every
particle of it, minute beyond conception, contains in itself the two poles,
positive and negative, which constitute the first elements of life. Restless,
and moving among themselves, they develop in a continually ascending series life
chemical, as in the process of crystallisation, life vegetable, life animal.
(p. 37)
But this, vast as
is the advance on previous existence, does not satisfy us as presenting a fair
portrait of the characteristics of the Creator. We find in it the commencement
of our own lower nature, but not that on which we pride ourselves, the higher
characteristics of humanity. Made thus far in the image of God, creation as yet
affords no image of him who transcends our best actual, possible, or imaginable.
A higher stage of the incarnation is yet to come.
At length a being in our own form appears upon the scene. Surpassing all his
predecessors in capacity mental and physical, and finding all things subject to
him, he knows not his own nature or the limits of his powers. Everything is so
fitted to his wants, existence is so delicious, it
does not occur to him that aught can be better. Without experience of contrasts
it does not occur to him even that aught is good; nor,
therefore, that aught is evil. Having no standard or criterion whereby to form a
judgment, if questioned on the subject he could not do otherwise than assume
that he is perfect.
Still does the capacity resident in the original atoms develop
itself.
With all his might, beauty, intelligence, man is still but an animal, for he
lives in sense, and has no notion of a right and wrong, of a good and evil.
Unable to imagine anything better than he has or is, he has no ideal wherewith
to surpass
(p. 38)
his real.
And having no ideal, he is unconscious both of himself and of God. Bounded by
sense, he is still in the real, and with no side of him
open to the ideal and absolute. Knowing nothing of conditions or limitations, he
cannot conceive the unconditioned or unlimited. Knowing nothing of perfection,
he has no sense of imperfection. Knowing nothing of law, he has no consciousness
of transgression. And having no law whereby to judge himself, no moral nature to
render him amenable to a moral law, no conscience – or sense of perfection – to
condemn him, he is ‘sinless,’ ‘innocent,’ ‘perfect.’
But this is precisely the sense in which my horse and your dog are morally
perfect. The recognition of a law by you and me does not justify us in
condemning them as ‘sinners,’ for they are without that law. But though not sinners, are they, then, our superiors, and would it be a
fall or a rise for them, were they to become partakers of our ‘sinful nature?’
Surely a rise, inasmuch as it would be an advance from the unconsciousness of
the animal to the consciousness of the human.
It was the fact of man’s attaining the consciousness of an ideal, or perfection
unattainable by the finite in respect of things moral, that constituted the
introduction of ‘the law.’ By the ‘giving of the law,’ that is, by our becoming
conscious of a better than we could do, ‘sin came to life and we (virtually),
died.’
(p. 39)
That is, we
recognised ourselves as falling short of a perfection we were able to imagine,
and therefore as incapable of living under the regime of the ideal or perfect
law which has its existence in the conscience.
Thus all have sinned, and come short of the ideal perfection personified in God.
The fall, then, consists in man’s becoming aware that his real does not equal
the ideal he is able to imagine; or, conversely, in his attaining a sense of
perfection beyond that which he is able to realise. It is thus the birth of the
soul, or faculty whereby we are enabled to rise from the finite to the infinite,
from the real to the ideal, from the earth to God, and to know that from which
we have sprung, and to which it is our highest function to aspire. No mere
external fact in history, then, is the fall, but an experience true of every
individual of our race who is gifted with a ‘soul.’ For us all alike, the first
perception of a standard of excellence transcending our actual, is the moment of
the giving of the law, even that law by which is the knowledge of sin.
Let us return to the incarnation. Unconscious of any defect in his real, prior
to his discovery of the distance between it and his ideal, man supposed himself
to have been made in the image of God, an exact counterpart and resemblance of
his Maker. The discovery of his shortcoming was accounted by
(p. 40)
him a fall.
Having quitted his original state of unconsciousness of imperfection, he could
no longer regard himself as worthy to be considered a divine incarnation. Before
humanity can claim to be made in the divine image and to be a true incarnation
of God, it must produce a new Adam, whose real shall coincide with the ideal.
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