LECTURE II.
CALVINISM AND RELIGION
Table of Contents The conclusion arrived at in my previous Lecture, was first, that, scientifically speaking, Calvinism means the completed evolution of Protestantism, resulting in a both higher and richer stage of human development. Further, that the world-view of Modernism, with its starting-point in the French Revolution, can claim no higher privilege than that of presenting an atheistic imitation of the brilliant ideal proclaimed by Calvinism, therefore being unqualified for the honor of leading us higher on. And, lastly, that whosoever rejects atheism as his fundamental thought, is bound to go back to Calvinism, not to restore its worn-out form, but once more to catch hold of the Calvinistic principles, in order to embody them in such a form as, suiting the requirements of our own century, may restore the needed unity of Protestant thought and the lacking energy to Protestant practical life.
In my present Lecture, therefore, treating of Calvinism and Religion, first of all I will try to illustrate the dominant position occupied by Calvinism in the central domain of our worship of the Most High. The fact that, in the religious domain, Calvinism has occupied from the first a peculiar and impressive position, nobody will deny. As if by one magical stroke, it created its own Confession, its own Theology, its own Church Organization, its own Church Discipline, its own Cultus, and its own Moral Praxis. And continued historical investigation proves with increasing certainty that all these new Calvinistic forms for our religious life were the logical product of its own fundamental thought and the embodiment of one and the same principle. Measure the energy which Calvinism here displayed by the utter incapability Modernism evinced in the same domain by the absolute fruitlessness of its endeavors. Ever since it entered its "mystical" period, Modernism also, both in Europe and in America, has acknowledged the necessity of carving out a new form for the religious life of our time. Hardly a century after the once glittering tinsel of Rationalism, now that Materialism is sounding its retreat in the ranks of science, a kind of hollow piety is again exercising its enticing charms and every day it is becoming more fashionable to take a plunge into the warm stream of mysticism. With an almost sensual delight this modern mysticism quaffs its intoxicating draught from the nectar cup of some intangible infinite. It was even purposed that, on the ruins of the once so stately Puritanic building, a new religion, with a new ritual, should be inaugurated as a higher evolution of religious life. Already, for more than a quarter of a century, the dedication and solemn opening of this new sanctuary has been promised us. And yet it has all led to nothing. No tangible effect has been produced. No formative principle has emerged from the imbroglio of hypotheses. Not even the beginning of am associative movement is as yet perceptible, and the long looked for plant has not even lifted its head above the barren soil. - Now, in contraposition to this. Look at the giant spirit of religious in the sixteenth century, with one master-stroke, placed before the gaze of the astonished world an entire religious edifice, erected in the wrest Scriptural style. So rapidly was the whole building completed that most of the spectators forgot to pay attention to the wonderful structure of the foundations. In all that the religious modern thought has. I will not say created, as with a master hand. but heaped together. like an unsuccessful amateur. - not one nation, not one family, hardly one solitary soul has (to use Augustine's words) ever found the requiescat for his "broken heart," while the Reformer of Geneva, by his mighty spiritual energy, unto five nations at once, both then, and after the lapse of three centuries, has afforded guidance in life, the uplifting of the heart unto the Father of Spirits, and holy peace, forever. This naturally leads to the question - what was the secret of this wonderful energy? Allow me to present the answer to this question, - first in Religion as such, next in religion as manifested in the Life of the Church, and lastly in the fruit of Religion for Practical Life.
* * * * *
First, then, we must consider Religion as such. Here four mutually dependent fundamental questions arise; - 1. Does Religion exist for the sake of God, or for Man? 2. Must it operate directly or mediately? 3. Can it remain partial in its operations or has it to embrace the whole of our personal being and existence? and, 4. Can it bear a normal, or must it reveal an abnormal ,i.e., a soteriological character? To these four questions Calvinism answers: 1. Man's religion ought to be not egotistical, and for man, but ideal, for the sake of God. 2. It has to operate not mediately, by human interposition, but directly from the heart, 3. It may not remain partial, as running alongside of life, but must lay hold upon our whole existence. And, 4. Its character should be soteriological, i.e., it should spring, not from our fallen nature, but from the new man, restored by palingenesis to his original standard.
Allow me, then, successively to elucidate each of these four points.
* * * * *
Modern religious philosophy ascribes the origin of religion to a potency, from which it could not originate, but which acted merely as its supporter and preserver. It has mistaken the dead prop of the living shoot for the living shoot itself. Attention is called, and very properly, to the contrast between man, and the overwhelming power of the cosmos which surrounds him; and now religion is introduced as a mystical energy, trying to strengthen him against this immense power of the cosmos which inspires him with such deadly fear. Being conscious of the dominion which his unseen soul exercises over his own tangible body, he infers, quite naturally, that Nature, also, must be moved by the impulse of some hidden spiritual power. Animistically, therefore, he first explains the movements of nature as the result of an indwelling army of spirits, and tries to catch them, to conjure them, to bend them to his advantage. Then, rising from this atomistic idea to a more comprehensive conception, he begins to believe in the existence of personal gods, expecting from these divine beings, who stand above nature, effectual assistance against the fiendish power of Nature. And finally, grasping the contrast between the spiritual and the material, he pays homage to the Supreme Spirit, as standing over against all that is visible, till, in the end, having abandoned his faith in such an extramundane Spirit, as a personal being. and charmed by the loftiness of his own human spirit, he prostrates himself before some impersonal ideal, of which in self adoration he deems himself to be the worshipful incarnation. But whatever may be the various stages in the progress of this egoistic religion, it never overcomes its subjective character, remaining always a religion for the sake of man. Men are religious in order to conjure the spirits hovering behind the veil of Nature, to free themselves from the oppressive sway of the cosmos. It matters not whether the Lama priest confines the evil spirits in his jugs, whether the nature-gods of the Orient are invoked to afford shelter against the forces of nature, whether the loftier gods of Greece are worshipped in their ascendency above nature, or whether, finally, idealistic philosophy presents the spirit of man himself as the real object of adoration; - in all these different forms it is and remains a religion fostered for man's sake, aiming at his safety, his liberty, his elevation, and partly also at his triumph over death. And even when a religion of this kind has developed itself into monotheism, the god whom it worships remains invariably a god who exists in order to help man, in order to secure good order and tranquility for the State, to furnish assistance and deliverance in time of need, or to strengthen the nobler and higher impulse of the human heart in its ceaseless struggle with the degrading influences of sin. The consequence of this is that all such religion thrives in time of famine and pestilence, it flourishes among the poor and oppressed, and it expands among the humble and the feeble; but it pines away in the days of prosperity, it fails to attract the well-to-do, it is abandoned by those who are more highly cultured. As soon as the more civilized classes enjoy tranquility and comfort, and by the progress of science feel more and more delivered from the pressure of the cosmos, they throw away the crutches of religion, and with a sneer at everything holy go stumbling forward on their own poor legs. This is the fatal end of egoistic religion; - it becomes superfluous and disappears as soon as the egoistic interests are satisfied. This was the course of religion among all non-Christian nations, in earlier times, and the same phenomenon is repeating itself in our own century, among nominal Christians of the higher, more prosperous and more cultured classes of society.
Now the position of Calvinism is diametrically opposed to all this. It does not deny that religion has also its human and subjective side; it does not dispute the fact that religion is promoted, encouraged and strengthened by our disposition to seek help in time of need and spiritual elevation in the face of sensual passions; but it maintains that it reverses the proper order of things to seek, in these accidental motives, the essence and the very purpose of religion. The Calvinist values all of these...
