Chapter XII (2)

Moreover, the conception of a social Trinity, so far as the writer can see, carries us inevitably to a tritheism of the most unmistakable kind. "Social" involves full personality. Nothing requires more complete personality than love, which the view affirms to exist between the persons of the immanent Trinity, between the distinctions in the very Godhead. The relations of Christ to God were, of course, distinctly and definitely personal; but it must not be forgotten that we are not permitted, on any careful theological view, to transfer these directly to the immanent relations of the Godhead.

The distinction drawn by Dr. W. N. Clarke,[111] between the doctrine of the biblical Trinity and the doctrine of the Triunity, I count of decided value; but after one has made the distinction, one may doubt the value of the contribution made by the doctrine of the Triunity. The really immanent relations of the Godhead are necessarily hidden from us, and are, also, so far as the writer can see, without ethical or religious significance for us, except in the way of possible injury through substituting some supposed altogether mysterious and incomprehensibly sacred, for the well-known and truly sacred shown in the ethical relations of common life.

The doctrine of the Triunity seems to have been originally intended to enable the church to hold the divinity of Christ. If we now get at that and hold that from quite a different point of view, the older way becomes less essential. We must, indeed, keep the ancient treasure, but we need not keep it in the same ancient chest. None of us--not the most orthodox--really find the _reasons_ for holding the divinity of Christ in the doctrine of the Triunity. It is interesting to observe how widely separated from the doctrine of the Triunity are the considerations which really move men to faith in the divinity of Christ. That doctrine is, at the very most, only our philosophical supplement intended to bring that, which on other grounds we have come to believe, into unity with our thought of God.

But, at least, we must so conceive the divinity of Christ, as not to get two or three Gods. And a "Social Trinity" does not seem to me to avoid that, except in terms. However, therefore, we are to solve our problem, we are not to take _that_ way out.

What Dr. Clarke calls the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, on the other hand, seems to me to contain the very heart of Christianity, whatever philosophical theory we put beneath it; and it became, therefore, as expressed in the baptismal and benediction formulas, the great daily confession of the church, since it strongly expresses that of which we have been speaking,--the living love of God, a life of absolutely self-giving love, of eternal ministry.

The biblical Trinity is, in truth, what it has sometimes been called, the trinity of redemption; and, for me, directly emphasizes the great facts of redemption. Here there are three great facts: First, the Fatherhood of God, that God is in his very being Father, Love, self-manifesting as light, self-giving as life, self-communicating, pouring himself out into the life of his children, wishing to share his highest life with them, every one. Second, the concrete, unmistakable revelation of the Father in Christ, revealed in full ethical perfection, as an actual fact to be known and experienced; no longer an unknown, hidden, or only partially and imperfectly revealed God, but a real, living God of character, counting as a real, appreciable, but fully spiritual fact in the real world. And, third, the Father revealing himself by his Spirit in every _individual_ heart that opens itself to him, in a constant, intimate, divine association, which yet is never obtrusive, but reverent of the man's personality, making possible to every man the ideal conditions of the richest life.

What metaphysical theory we put under that confession of our full Christian faith, does not seem to me to be of prime importance. Men may count it of great importance; but it can hardly be of first importance, since, at the very most, only the beginnings of such a theory can be found in the great New Testament confession of Christ.

5. _Preëminent Reverence for Personality, Characterizing all God's Relations with Men._--But the very heart of the conviction, on the part of the social consciousness, of the value and sacredness of the person, is its _reverence for personality_; and this thought has much significance for theology, for, if this judgment of the social consciousness is justified, it must be regarded as preëminently characterizing God in all his relations with men.

(1) _Reflected in Christ._--When, in the first place, we turn to Christ as the supreme revelation of God, we cannot fail to see that this reverence for the personal marks every step he takes. It begins, of course, in the priceless value which Christ gives to each person, as a child of the living, loving Father.

And it seems to determine his _whole method_ with his generation and with his disciples. It is shown in the initial battle in the temptations, as to the form his work was to take, and as to the means to be employed. There was here, as we have seen, from the start an absolute subordination of all unspiritual and unethical methods in the building of the kingdom. There is to be no over-riding of the free personality anywhere. He faced successively the temptations to place his dependence on the mere meeting of men's material needs--the kingdom by bread; the temptation to place his dependence on that which appealed most strongly to the oriental mind--the use of wonder-working power--the kingdom by marvel or ecstasy; the temptation to place his dependence on force--the kingdom by force. But Christ sees clearly that God is no mere supplier of bread; that God is no mere wonder-worker, no mere giver of wonderful experiences; and that God is not a tyrant to conquer by force. Everywhere, therefore, he sets aside whatever may override the free personality. He would replace all the attractive and seemingly rapid methods of the kingdom by bread, the kingdom by marvel, and the kingdom by force, with the slow and tedious and costly but reverent method of the spiritual kingdom by spiritual means, the kingdom of God by God's way--of a trust freely won, a humility spontaneously arising, a love gladly given. He can take no pleasure in any kingdom but one of free persons.

In the same way, in his dealings with the inner circle of his disciples, there seems to have been the most scrupulous regard for their own needed initiative. He apparently makes no clear announcement of himself as Messiah even to the disciples until late in his public ministry, and, then, only after they have been brought, through weeks, if not months, of unusually close personal contact and impression of his spirit, into their own confession of him. He steadily abjures, that is, all dogmatism about himself, and leads them along by a purely spiritual method to a confession of him, that may be truly their own. There is no piling up of proof-texts from the Old Testament, to show that he is the Messiah. He seems never to have attempted any proof with his disciples. Indeed, he seems purposely to have chosen the rather ambiguous title, "the Son of Man," that men might be left free to come by moral choice to him.

The surpassingly significant fact, that Christ's chief work in the establishment of the kingdom of God, as seems to me beyond doubt, was his personal association with a few men; that, probably, a full third, perhaps more, of his very brief so-called public ministry was taken up with a period of definitely sought comparative retirement with the inner circle of the disciples--all this points to the same recognition of the fundamental importance in Christ's eyes of such a reverence for the person. The kingdom of God can be founded only by the full winning of free persons into his discipleship. The kingdom is first and last a kingdom of free persons, in Dr. Mulford's language, always a "Republic of God." Professor Peabody's emphasis on the essential importance of Christ's individualism, that "Jesus approaches life from within, through the inspiration of the individual,"[112] it need not be said, goes upon the same assumption of Christ's reverence for the person.

In his really public ministry the same spirit appears; for Jesus seems to me here constantly to be standing with a kind of moral shudder between the spirit of contempt in the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the outraged personality of the common people, even of the publicans and sinners. He feels the contempt even for these least, as a blow in his own face.

That glimpse which the Revelation gives us of Christ standing and knocking at the heart's closed door, is a true picture forevermore not only of the attitude of Christ's earthly life, but of God's eternal relation to us. Men may over-ride and outrage us, and even think that they show the more love thereby; God, never. This principle, then, we may take as absolutely crucial, in our judgment of God's dealings with us.

(2) _In Creation._--It is fundamental even in creation. The very fact of the creation of persons implies it. Such a creation can have no significance, if, in the language already quoted from Howison, God's "consciousness is void of that recognition and reverence of the personal initiative of other minds which is at once the sign and the test of the true person."

And if love is, for a moment, to be thought of as the motive of creation, it required for any satisfaction of it, persons who could freely respond to that love.

The definite bestowal of the fateful gift of moral freedom, with the practical certainty of sin--the creation of beings who could choose against him--shows how deeply planted in the very being of God is this principle of reverence for the person.

Here, too, the impossibility of arbitrary divine decrees meets us. This would be treating a person as a thing, and God himself may not do that and remain God. If a man cannot see his way to a faith both in the divine foreknowledge and in the moral initiative of men, therefore, he must not hesitate to choose even the divine nescience of the free acts of men, rather than think of God as compelling men. Our whole moral universe tumbles about our ears, if he who is the source of all is not in earnest with persons. And yet there is much theological thinking, of which the common notions of a personal reign of Christ on the earth may be taken as an example, that practically looks to a kingdom by compulsion. A kingdom of free spirits cannot be merely decreed.

(3) _In Providence._--And this same principle of reverence for personality must be felt to be the guiding motive and key, as well, in the providence and government of God. God keeps his hands off. He must so act as to call out, not to suppress, individual initiative.

This is, perhaps, the deepest reason for a sphere of law, that there may be a realm in which a person can have his own free development, uninterfered with by any moral compulsion.

If, now, this sphere of law is to be any true training ground for character, as we saw in the third chapter, results must not be forthwith set aside, the mutual influence of men must hold all along the line.

Even in the case of great evils, God does not step in at once to set things right. Character is an exceedingly costly product. This is no play-world, either as to mutual influence or as to freedom. God guards most jealously the freedom and personality of men. He never forgets that character must be from within. He will not accept, as Christ would not, a faith compelled by "signs." Hence, too, we are left to _ask_, and much is left to depend on our asking. So, also, God does not remove all difficulties and give sight in place of faith. He seems even careless, often, of how things go; for he would not only appeal to the heroic in us, but he wishes to make it impossible for us to confuse prudence and virtue in ourselves or others, and so to give us the opportunity and the joy of a real moral victory, of knowing that we have made a genuinely unselfish surrender to the right.

In the light of this deep-lying principle of God's sacred reverence for the person, one learns to hush his former complaints, and with full heart to thank God that he lives in a world where righteousness and happiness do not always seem to fall together, and where, therefore, he can "serve God for naught." Oh, let us know, that it is not that God does not care, but that he cares so much--too much to sacrifice to present comfort the character of the child he loves--too much to shut him out from his highest opportunity.

(4) _In Our Personal Religious Life._--And the same principle holds in our personal religious life. The unobtrusiveness of God's relation to us, of which we often complain, is rather to be taken as evidence of his sacred respect for our own moral initiative, and proof of his careful adaptation to our moral need. Wherever a strong personality is in relation to a weaker, the stronger must maintain a conscientious self-restraint, lest he dominate the personality of the other, to the other's moral injury and to the hindering of his individuality. It _is_ possible for a boy to be injuriously "tied to his mother's apron-strings." Much more is it necessary that God's relation to us should not be obtrusive. God must guard our freedom and our individuality. He must even take pains to hide his hand, as a strong, influential, but wise friend would do. As we go higher, our life is and must be increasingly one of faith, the Father's relation less and less obtrusive.[113] The times of vision are given to make us patient in our progress toward the goal. And after the vision comes often what Rendel Harris calls "the dark night of faith, when every step has to be taken in absolute dependence upon God and assurance that the vision was truth and was no lie."[114] We need the invisible God for character.

It is for this reason, no doubt, that God makes so rare use of overwhelming experiences in the religious life. He would be chosen with clear and rational self-consciousness, and so he rarely overpowers. And even in experiences which seem most overpowering, if the person is really awake to their true ethical and spiritual import, they will probably be found delicately adapted to call out the individual's own response. But for most of us such experiences prove a real temptation, because we allow the passively emotional to absorb our attention, and so lose the ethical and spiritual fruit. Where these marvelous experiences have been most marked, and have plainly given real help, they seem still, usually, to have been needed because of some false conception of God and the spiritual world that required a powerful corrective. Here they seem really to have been granted, as probably the transfiguration of Christ was to the disciples, as a concession to men's weakness, God consenting reluctantly to use for the time a lower line of appeal, because men are unable to rise to the higher appeal.

We have already seen the danger of the neo-platonic over-estimation of emotional experience, and of sudden and magical crises in religion; and this danger is especially seen in much that is said concerning the work of the Holy Spirit. It seems as if it were simply true, for many earnest and sincere Christians, that the superstitions, which they had conscientiously put aside elsewhere in religion, all came back in their thought of the work of the Spirit. Here their relation to God has ceased to be thought of as a personal or moral or truly spiritual one; and they are looking more or less definitely for bodily thrills, for marked and overwhelming emotional experiences, or for sudden transformations--hardly to be called transformations of character--in the passive half-magical removal of temptations altogether. That is, they are looking for moral and spiritual results from unmoral and unspiritual processes. The exact point is this: Doubtless we are not narrowly to limit what the personal influence of the personal Spirit of God may do in transforming human life--the possibilities probably far transcend what we think--but we are clearly to see that the relation is personal, that the influence is spiritual and under strictly ethical conditions, if we are to escape from simply pagan superstition. Let us see that, if God is a Personal Spirit and not an impersonal substance, then, as Herrmann says, he "communes with us through manifestations of his inner life, and when he consciously and purposely makes us feel what his mind is, then we feel himself."[115]

And, then, let us add, as has been already earlier said, that the deepening life in the Spirit becomes plainly a deepening personal friendship and communion with God, with laws--those of a growing friendship--that we may study and know and obey; and among these laws, none is of more central importance than this of the reverence for the person.

(5) _In the Judgment._--And when we turn to God's relation to us in the judgment, we can be sure, I think, of a further application of this principle, contrary to common teaching and expectation. We have no reason to look forward to a time when the secrets of all, or of any, hearts shall be laid bare to all. In so doing, God would violate, it seems to me, the principle of his entire dealing with men, and give the lie to his own revelation in Christ and in history. For myself, Dr. Clarke's words carry immediate conviction: "No man needs to know the secrets of his neighbor, and be able to trace the justice of God through his neighbor's life, and no man who respects the sacredness of individuality will desire it. Neither revelation of his own secrets nor knowledge of another's seems a good thing to a self-respecting soul."[116]

Even the judgment itself proceeds, no doubt, in clear recognition of the free personality. We are "judged by the law of liberty." And we really choose our own destiny, as Phillips Brooks suggests in one of his most striking paragraphs. "By this law we shall be judged. How simple and sublime it makes the judgment day! We stand before the great white throne and wait our verdict. We watch the closed lips of the Eternal Judge, and our hearts stand still until those lips shall open and pronounce our fate, heaven or hell. The lips do not open. The Judge just lifts his hand and raises from each soul before him every law of constraint whose pressure has been its education. He lifts the laws of constraint, and their results are manifest. The real intrinsic nature of each soul leaps to the surface. Each soul's law of liberty becomes supreme. And each soul, without one word of commendation or approval, by its own inner tendency, seeks its own place.... The freeing of souls is the judging of souls. A liberated nature dictates its own destiny. Could there be a more solemn judgment seat? Is it not a fearful thing to be judged by the law of liberty?"[117]

And we may be most certain, that, in any judgment by God, there can be no thought of "human waste." The man must remain for God, to the end, a child of God, a person of sacredness and value, to be dealt with always as capable of character. And it is along just this line that, independently of exegetical grounds, it seems to me, we are led to a decisive rejection of the doctrine of annihilation. And I know no more convincing putting of the matter than this brief but comprehensive statement of Fairbairn: "If there is any truth in the Fatherhood, would not annihilation be even more a punishment of God than of man? The annihilated creature would indeed be gone forever--good and evil, shame and misery, penalty and pain, would for him all be ended with his being; but it would not be so with God--out of his memory the name of the man could never perish, and it would be, as it were, the eternal symbol of a soul he had made only to find that with it he could do nothing better than destroy it."[118]

(6) _In the Future Life._--Doubtless our difficulties are not at an end even so; but, at least, our conception of God is saved from self-contradiction; and the Father is seen as suffering in the sin of the son, and perpetually desiring and seeking his return, never satisfied so long as any child of his still refuses his place in the Father's love. This deep-going principle of reverence for personality, with which we are dealing, is the finest flower of human ethical development, and seems completely to shut out the possibility of compulsion by God at any time in the future life. A person will never be treated as a thing. The soul that turns to God must be won voluntarily.

And if, then, the abstract possibility of endless resistance to God by men cannot be denied; so neither can the possibility--perhaps one might even say, the practical probability--be denied that God, in his infinite love and patience and wisdom, may finally win them all out of their resistance. And the eternal hope is at least open; but it is open, it should be noted, only upon the fulfilment by men of precisely those moral conditions which hold now in the earthly life, and which ought now to be obeyed. There will never be an easier way to God. It is shallow thinking that supposes that, if there be any possibility of turning to God in the future life, it is of small moment that one should now put himself where he ought to be. The full results of all our evil sowing, we must receive. The utmost that on any rational theory, then, can be held out to men, is the hope that, facing a greater heritage of evil than now they face, they might return to God under the same condition of absolute moral surrender, which now holds, and the fulfilment of which is now far more easily possible to them.

And it ought not to be overlooked that, even if the principle of reverence for personality be much less far-reaching than is here affirmed, the annihilation of a soul by God could seem justified only upon the assumption that God foresaw the entire future, and knew that the soul would never turn to righteousness and God. But if the doctrine of annihilation is to be justified on _that_ ground, it is to be observed, that the same foreknowledge would have enabled God to know before creation all the finally incorrigible, if there were to be any such, and so he need not have called these into being at all. A goal, therefore, as great if not far greater, than that offered by the annihilation theory would be, thus, attainable simply upon the same assumption that must rationally be made by that theory, and, at the same time, the great objection to that theory--its violation of personality--would be avoided.

It seems probable that this very principle of reverence for personality contains the chief reason why more has not been revealed to us concerning the future life. Christianity is very far from satisfying our curiosity here. It gives little more than the absolutely needed assurance of the fact and worth of the life beyond. Details are either quite lacking, or given only in broadest symbols. This reticent silence of revelation seems needed if our individual initiative is not to be hindered, either by excess of motive on the one hand, or by the depression of an unappreciated ideal on the other hand.

On the one hand, that is, so far as we could understand a detailed revelation of the future life, to set it forth with the realism of the present life would be to interfere with that unobtrusive relation of God to us, which we have seen to be so necessary to our highest moral training. We need, in this time of our training, a certain obscurity of spiritual truth; we need to walk by faith, not by sight. To be able so obviously to weigh the eternal realities against the temporal, would hinder rather than help our growth in loyal, unselfish character.

On the other hand, if a complete and indubitable revelation of the future life were given us, no doubt there would be much that could make but small appeal to us, and might even prove positively depressing, because we have not yet the experience which would interpret to us its meaning and open to us its joy. Our earthly life may furnish us an analogy. The joy of a grown man is often preëminently in his work, but he would find it difficult to explain to a child the source of his joy. And if the child were told that there would come a time in a few years when his chief joy would be found in work, the prospect would probably not seem to him inviting. The wisest of us may be as little prepared to enter in detail into the meaning of the future life.

We may be content to know that the future life is, and is of value beyond that which we can now understand; and we may be assured that at least what we have already seen to be the ideal conditions of the richest life,[119] as now we understand life, will be fully met in the future life. We can hardly doubt, therefore, that the two great centers of the life beyond must be association and work; though we may not know the precise forms that these will take, nor how greatly both may deepen beyond our present conception. Steadily deepening personal relations, rooted in the one absolutely satisfying relation to God in Christ, there must be; and work, in which one may lose himself with joy, because it is God's work. This, at least, the future life will contain. We can hardly go farther with assurance.

But perhaps even this may suggest, that men may vary much in the proportionate emphasis laid upon these two great sources of life, and still alike come into a genuine and rewarding relation to God. That God has counted individuality among men to be of prime significance, the facts of creation hardly allow us to doubt. Possibly it is only another application of this same principle of reverence for the person, in the recognition of that individuality which has its great joy in work, which is to be found in what Professor George F. Genung suggestively calls "an apocalypse of Kipling." In Kipling's poem to Wolcott Balestier, Professor Genung sees "the discovery of a religion, or assignable and eternally rewardable relation to God, in those whose inner life is not introspective or self-expressive." Their spiritual life "serves God with the joy which comes of following and satisfying, in the sphere of his plans, the eager bent of a conquering will." "It is the religion of work and of daring." And "it is only in the open vision of an eternal world that their secular ardor, which was unconsciously serving God all along, begins to come to the perception of a transcendent master and to be transformed into an adoration, an obedience and loyalty, a 'will to serve or to be still as fitteth our Father's praise.'"

It is quite possible that through our very failure to enter into God's own deep reverence for the person, in the recognition of man's divinely given individuality, as well as through failure to recognize the essential like-mindedness of men, we have been shutting the door of hope, where God has not shut it, and have limited beyond warrant the divine mercy. Even in the life of heaven men cannot be all alike. "Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand."[120]

[92] _The Limits of Evolution_, p. x.

[93] Cf. above, pp. 22, 66, 106.

[94] See especially Bowne, _Theory of Thought and Knowledge_, pp. 239, 377, 378; James, _The Will to Believe_, pp. 145 ff.

[95] Cf. above, p. 44 ff

[96] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 241 ff.

[97] Hastings, _Dictionary of the Bible_, Vol. II, p. 626.

[98] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chaps. VI and VII.

[99] I aim here to bring out with some fullness the significance of the propositions briefly summarized in the _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 244; and I venture to repeat, also, two quotations from that book, because they fit so closely into the argument here.

[100] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 378.

[101] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 232, 233, 248, 249.

[102] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 209; and below, p. 209.

[103] _The Limits of Evolution_, p. 7.

[104] _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 270.

[105] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 205 ff.

[106] Cf. Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, pp. 690 ff.

[107] See _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chapter VI.

[108] _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 270.

[109] See the fuller statement in the _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 96-108.

[110] Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 483.

[111] _Outline of Christian Theology_, pp. 161, ff.

[112] _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, p. 101.

[113] Cf. Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, pp. 434, 435.

[114] _Union with God_, p. 109.

[115] _The Communion of the Christian with God_, p. 143.

[116] _An Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 464.

[117] _The Candle of the Lord and Other Sermons_, p. 197.

[118] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 467.

[119] See above, pp. 68 ff.

[120] Romans 14:4.

INDEX

Abbott, Lyman, reference to, 131.

_American Journal of Theology, The_, reference to, 86.

Analogy of Organism. See Organism.

Annihilation, doctrine of, why rejected, 239 ff.

Arbitrariness, excluded in God, 220 ff.

Aristotle, quoted, 26;
his position abandoned by mysticism, 56.

Association, personal, in redemption, 149 ff;
in personal relation to God, 159 ff;
in confessions of faith, 167 ff.

Assumption of the book, 3.

Atonement, in the light of social consciousness, 147 ff, 150 ff;
the cost of, 150;
substitution and propitiation in, 150 ff;
analogy of father and child in, 154 ff;
blood covenant applied to, 157.

Baldwin, J. M., reference to, 12.

Biblical Trinity, 224, 225.

Blood covenant, as applied to doctrine of atonement, 157.

Böhme, Jacob, referred to, 71.

Bowne, B. P., on causality and purpose, 43;
on freedom, 182, 183.

Bradley, F. H., on the religious feeling in philosophy, 129.

Brooks, Phillips, reference to, 28, 146;
on the intellectual life of Jesus, 81;
on the emotional life of Jesus, 84;
on the universal interest of Jesus, 124;
on the likeness of men, 126;
on judgment according to the law of liberty, 238.

Bruce's _The Kingdom of God_, reference to, 52.

Bushnell, H., on impenitence of Jesus, 193.

Calvinism, 220.

Causality and purpose, 42, 43.

Christ, See Jesus.

Christian, the historically, emphasized by the social consciousness, 102 ff.

Christianity, as contributing to sense of mutual influences, 13;
sometimes unconscious, 130.

Church, the, importance of the doctrine of, 177 ff.

Clarke, W. N., referred to, 116, 224;
quoted, 132, 133, 152;
on propitiation, 151;
on doctrine of Trinity and Triunity, 223;
on revelation of inner life at judgment, 237.

Common qualities and interests, most valuable, 177 ff.

Confessions of faith, Christian fellowship in, 167 ff;
uniformity in, impossible, 169 ff;
and undesirable, 171 ff.

Corinthians, first, twelfth chapter of, as expression of analogy of organism, 23; against false mysticism, 60-61, 83.

Cornill, reference to, 64.

Creation, eternal, 214 ff;
reverence for person in, 230 ff.

Creed, Christian fellowship in, 167 ff;
uniformity in, impossible, 169 ff;
and undesirable, 171 ff.

Denison, J. H., referred to, 197.

Devotional literature, difficulty in, 84;
referred to, 141.

Dewey, John, referred to, 12.

Drummond, H., reference to, 21;
on sin, 140.

Du Bois, Patterson, on true spirit of fatherhood, 110.

Edwards, Jonathan, referred to, 22.

Election, in Paul, 116;
a choice for service, 116.

Emotion, extreme emphasis on, a danger in mysticism, 71;
cf. 135 ff.

Eternal creation, 214 ff.

"Eternal truths," God's relation to, 212 ff.

Ethical, the, in religion, 86 ff;
proofs that religion must be, 89 ff.

Ethicizing of religion, 89 ff;
involved in relation to Christ, 89;
the divine will in ethical command, 90;
involved in nature of God's gifts, 91;
communion with God through harmony with his will, 92;
the vision of God for the pure in heart, 92;
sharing the life of God, 93;
Christ, as satisfying our claims on life, 94;
attraction to Christ, ethically conditioned, 96;
the moral law, a revelation of the love of God, 98.

Ethics and religion, 87, 89 ff.

Everett, C. C, criticism of Nietzsche, 120.

_Expository Times, The_, reference to, 64.

Fairbairn, A. M., his _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_,
mentioned, 110;
on the Christian consciousness, 112;
referred to, 119, 196, 215, 234;
on sense of sin, 143;
on Christ as transcendent, 189;
on passibility of God, 221;
on annihilation, 239.

Faith, necessity of, in life, 43, 44.

Faith in men, increased by sense of likeness, 128.

Father and child, the analogy of, applied to redemption, 154 ff.

Favorites, none with God, 116 ff.

Fellowship, Christian, help of, in coming into kingdom, 159 ff;
within the kingdom, 162 ff;
in intercessory prayer, 164 ff;
in confessions of faith, 167 ff.

Fiske, John, reference to, 21.

Freedom, in man, 181 ff;
Bowne on, 182, 183;
references on, 182.

Fremantle, W. H., reference to, 141.

Friendship, laws of, as holding in religion, 67.

Future life;
moral reality of, 132 ff;
reverence for person in, 240 ff.

Galatians, Epistle to, referred to, 83.

Genung, G. F., on "an apocalypse of Kipling," 245.

Giddings, F. H., reference to, 9, 10, 19, 20, 62, 117;
on the "social mind," 138.

God, immanence of, as related to social consciousness, 40 ff;
his will, ethical basis of social consciousness, 44 ff;
sharing in our life, 48;
will of, felt in ethical command, 90;
his gifts require ethical attitude to receive them, 91, 92;
our sharing his life, 93;
we cannot do his will in general, 100;
a thoroughly personal conception of, needed, 207 ff;
guarding the conception of, 208 ff, 211;
suprapersonal in, 209;
Nash on doctrine of personality of, 210;
always completely personal, 212 ff;
relation to eternal truths, 212 ff;
as eternally creating, 214 ff;
unity and unchangeableness of, 216 ff;
limiting conception of immanence of, 217 ff;
deepening thought of Fatherhood of, 218 ff;
as the great servant, 219;
no arbitrariness in, 220;
passibility of God, 221;
trinity in, 222 ff.

Grahame, Kenneth, on love, 123;
referred to, 124.

Harnack, A., on Christ, 200.

Harris, J. R., quoted, 234.

Hegel, on greatest in art, 119.

Heredity, not to be over-emphasized, 37;
James, on, 37, 38.

Herrmann, W., referred to, 22, 70, 173;
his definition of mysticism, 56, 57;
on pantheistic tendency in mysticism, 58, 74;
on our satisfaction in Christ, 94;
on the help of the fellowship of the church, 161;
on Christ's rising to his ideals, 194;
on Christ's calling out absolute trust, 199;
on personal relation to God, 237.

Historical, the, under-estimated by mysticism, 72.

Historical justification needed by social consciousness, 59 ff, 102 ff.

Historically, the, Christian, emphasized by the social consciousness, 102 ff.

History, no mere natural process, 218 ff;
God in, vii, 219.

Holy Spirit, doctrine of, often made superstitious, 236.

Honesty of the world, double meaning of, 80.

Hope for men, increased by sense of likeness, 128.

Hosea, as illustration of inter-play of human and divine relations, 68.

Howells, W. D., his _A Boy's Town_, quoted, 118;
referred to, 123.

Howison, G. H., on the person, 180, 208, 230;
referred to, 210.

Humanity, idea of, from Christianity, 13.

Ideal view, requires the facts of the social consciousness, 29 ff, 32 ff.

Imitation, to be avoided, 172 ff.

Immanence of God, as metaphysical ground of facts of social
consciousness, 40 ff;
Lotze on, 40, 41;
limitations in conception of, 217 ff.

"Immortability," discussed, 124 ff.

Immortality, J. S. Mill on, 50;
Sully on, 50;
doctrine of, as affected by sense of likeness of men, 124 ff;
references on, 125.

Indian mysticism, 74.

Israel, significance of its social struggle, 63;
ecstasy among its prophets, 64.

James, William, on heredity, 37;
on metaphysics, 40;
on sense of reality, 72;
on nitrous-oxide-gas intoxication, 74;
on the world as a confusion, 78;
reference to, 79, 122, 124, 126;
on compensations, 117;
on varied ideals, 128;
on catching faith and courage, 147.

Jesus, Brooks on his intellectual life, 81;
on his emotional life, 84;
relation to, necessarily ethical, 89, 94, 96;
satisfies our highest claims on life, 94;
his social emphases, 111 ff;
Brooks on his interest in the uninteresting, 124;
the great Christian confession, 174 ff;
loyalty to, best assurance for doctrine, 175;
the personal in, 184 ff;
a personal revelation of God, 184 ff;
the moral and spiritual in his supremacy, 185 ff;
grounds of his supremacy, 188 ff;
among founders of religion, 189 ff;
his sinlessness, 192 ff;
his impenitence, 193;
rises to highest ideals, 194 ff;
shows character of God, 195 ff;
consciously able to redeem all men, 196;
transcendent God-consciousness and sense of mission, 197 ff;
calls out absolute trust, 198 ff;
in him God certainly finds us, 199 ff;
the ideal realized, 200 ff;
his double uniqueness, 201 ff;
sense of kinship with, and reality of, 205 ff;
divinity of, as related to Trinity, 224;
reverence for person in, 226 ff.

Judgment, according to light, 132 ff;
how God's can be favorable, 153 ff;
reverence for person in, 237 ff;
according to law of liberty, 238 ff.

Kaftan, J., referred to, 86.

Keim, quoted, 52.

King, references to his _Reconstruction in Theology_, 16, 20, 23, 43, 67, 185, 187, 188, 203, 205, 212, 217, 218.

Kipling, R., on the value of the common, 119;
G. F. Genung on, 245.

Lanier, S., quoted, on Christ, 201.

Leibnitz, referred to, 172.

Life, the richest, ideal conditions of, 68 ff.

Like-mindedness of men, 9 ff;
an element of social consciousness, 9 ff, 47;
influence on theology, 115 ff;
summary on, 134;
seen under diverse forms, 121 ff.

Lotze, reference to, 13, 25, 31, 42, 213, 214;
on passion for construing everything, 25, 26;
on immanence of God, 40.

Love, sense of, 20;
element in social consciousness, 20, 51;
as motive in creation, 215.

Man, the personal in, 180 ff;
separateness from God, 180 ff;
freedom in, 181 ff; a child of God, 183 ff.

Matheson, George, on sacrifice, 49.

McConnell, S. D., objection to one part in his argument as to immortality, 124 ff.

McCurdy, on the significance of the social struggle in Israel, 63.

Metaphysical, not to be emphasized, in conception of Christ, 185 ff;
how to be thought, as to Christ, 203, 204;
in doctrine of Trinity, 226.

Mill, J. S., on immortality, 50.

Moral world, prerequisites of, 30 ff;
sphere of law, 30;
ethical freedom, 30;
some power of accomplishment, 31;
members one of another, 32.

Mistiness in mysticism, 73.

Moral initiative in men, 181 ff.

Moral law, a revelation of the love of God, 98.

Mulford, E., referred to, 229.

Münsterberg, H., referred to, 79;
reference to his _Psychology and Life_, 79.

Mutual influence of men, 11 ff;
contributing lines of thought, 11 ff;
threefold form of the conviction, 13 ff;
as element of social consciousness, 11 ff, 50;
influence upon theological doctrine, 136 ff;
for good, 144 ff;
in attainment of character, 145 ff;
in personal relation to God, 160 ff;
in confession of faith, 167 ff.

Mystical, the falsely, opposition of the social consciousness to,
55 ff, 57 ff;
Nash's definition of, 55, 56;
Herrmann's definition of, 56, 57;
unethical, 58;
no real personal God, 58;
belittles personal in man, 59;
Paul's rejection of, 60, 61;
leaves historically Christian, 62 ff.

Mystical, the truly, emphasized by the social consciousness, 66 ff,
70 ff;
requires laws of a deepening friendship, 67;
requires ideal conditions of the richest life, 68;
protest in favor of whole man, 78 ff;
its self-controlled recognition of emotion, 82 ff.

Mysticism, its relation to the social consciousness, 55 ff;
false, 55 ff;
true, 66 ff, 70 ff;
justifiable and unjustifiable elements in, 71 ff;
its dangers:
emotionalism, 71;
subjectivism, 72;
under-estimating historical, 72;
mistiness, 73;
pantheism, 73 ff;
symbolism, 76.
justifiable elements in, summed up, 77.

Nash, H. S., on ethical basis of social consciousness in will of God,
45 ff;
his definition of the mystical, 55, 56;
referred to, 70;
on doctrine of divine personality, 210;
on the supernatural, 217.

Neo-Darwinian school, referred to, 37.

Neo-Platonic mysticism, 55 ff, 74.

_New World, The_, reference to, 12, 120.

Neitzsche, criticism of, by Everett, 120.

Obligation, sense of, 18 ff;
element in social consciousness, 18, 51.

Organism, analogy of, 23 ff;
value of, 23;
classical expression in I Cor. 12;
inadequacy of, for social consciousness, 24 ff:
comes from the sub-personal world, 24;
access to reality only through ourselves, 24;
mistaken passion for construing everything, 25;
tested by definition of social consciousness, 26 ff.

Orr's _The Christian View of God and the World_, reference to, 51.

Pantheism, tendency to, in mysticism, 58, 74.

Paul, his rejection of the falsely mystical, 60, 61, 83.

Paulsen, on key to reality, 25;
reference to, 30, 129;
on necessity of faith, 46, 47.

Peabody, F. G., referred to, 65;
on the social principles of Jesus, 111;
on Christ's individualism, 229.

Person, value of, 16 ff, 50;
influence of sense of value of, on theology, 179 ff;
reverence for, characterizing all God's relation to men, 226 ff.

Personal, the, recognition of, 179 ff;
recognition of, in man, 180 ff;
recognition of, in Christ, 184 ff;
recognition of, in God, 207 ff.

"Personal idealism," 180, 181, 210.

Personal relation, in religion, emphasized by social consciousness, 66 ff; leads to the truly mystical, 70 ff.

Philo, as representative of mysticism, 55.

_Philosophical Review, The_, reference to, 40.

Philosophy, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, 12.

Plato, his position abandoned by mysticism, 56.

Plotinus, as representative of mysticism, 55.

Prophets, the, their standpoint abandoned by Philo, 55;
their sense of the significance of the social struggle in Israel, 63;
ecstasy in, 64.

Propitiation, ethical meaning of, 150 ff, 156, 158 ff.

Providence, reverence for person in, 232 ff.

Psychology, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, 12.

Purpose and causality, 42, 43.

Race-connection, not prime cause of unity of men, 35 ff.

Race, real unity of, 136 ff;
its solidarity, how conceived, 16, 35, 30, 137.

Ranke, on Christ, 192.

Rational, two senses of, 80.

_Reconstruction in Theology_, references to, 16, 20, 23, 43, 67, 185, 187, 188, 203, 205, 212, 217, 218.

Redemption, as viewed from point of view of mutual influence for good,
147 ff;
the cost of, 150;
substitution and propitiation in, 150 ff.

Religion, and theology, 6, 113;
influence of the social consciousness upon, 53 ff, 70 ff;
the personal relation in, emphasized by the social consciousness,
66 ff;
its thorough ethicizing demanded by social consciousness, 86 ff;
and ethics, 87;
a supreme factor in life, 189.

Reverence for the person characterizing all God's relations to men,
226 ff;
reflected in Christ, 226 ff;
in creation, 230 ff;
in providence, 232 ff;
in the personal religious life, 233 ff;
in the judgment, 237 ff;
in the future life, 240 ff.

Ritschl, A., referred to, 137.

Royce, Josiah, reference to, 12.

Sabatier, A., reference to, 171.

Sanday, W., reference to, 187.

Schiller, F. C, S., reference to, 40.

Science, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, 11.

Scotist position as to God, 213.

Separateness from God, meaning of, 180 ff.

Sin, sense of, deepened by social consciousness, 139 ff;
Drummond on, 140;
lack of sense of, among Greeks, 140;
when most feared, 143.

Smith, G. A., reference to, 64.

Social consciousness, definition, 9 ff;
elements in, 9 ff;
meaning of, for theology, 5 ff;
analogy of organism, inadequate for, 24 ff;
analogy, tested, 26 ff;
necessity of its facts for ideal interests, 29 ff;
the question, 29;
else, no moral world, 30 ff, 32 ff;
ultimate explanation and ground of, 35 ff;
metaphysical ground, 35 ff:
not due to physical race-connection, 35 ff;
nor primarily to heredity, 37 ff;
nor to mystical solidarity, 37 ff;
but to immanence of God, 40 ff;
ethical basis, 44 ff;
supporting will of God, 44;
Nash on, 45;
Paulsen on, 46;
God's sharing in our life, 48 ff;
consequent transfiguration of, 49 ff.
its influence upon religion, 53 ff;
opposed to the falsely mystical, 57 ff;
emphasizes personal relation in religion, and so the truly mystical,
66 ff;
demands the ethicizing of religion, 86 ff;
needs historical justification, 102 ff;
its influence upon theological doctrine, 105 ff:
general results, 105 ff;
influence of like-mindedness of men, 115 ff;
of mutual influence of men, 136 ff;
of sense of value of person, 179 ff.

"Social mind," real meaning of, 138;
Giddings on, 138.

"Social Trinity," 222 ff.

Solidarity, a mystical, not to be pressed, 39.

Solidarity of race, often falsely conceived, 16, 35, 39, 137 ff.

Stevenson, R. L., on the poetical and ideal in men, 122;
referred to, 123, 124.

Subjectivism, tendency to, in mysticism, 72.

Substitution, ethical meaning of, 150 ff, 158 ff.

Sully, J., on immortality, 50.

Supra-personal, the, in God, 209.

Symbolism, strong tendency to, in mysticism, 76.

Sympathy with men, increased by sense of likeness, 127.

Tennyson, his self-hypnotism, 74.

Theme of the book, 1 ff.

Theologian, the, an interpreter, 5;
a believer in the supremacy of spiritual interests, 6;
assumes the fact of religion, 6;
assumes a personal God, 7;
takes point of view of Christ, 7.

Theologian's, the, point of view, 5 ff.

Theology, and religion, 6, 113;
in personal terms, 106 ff;
Fatherhood of God, determining principle in, 109;
as influenced by social consciousness, 105 ff;
general results in, 105 ff;
influence of likeness of men on, 115 ff;
influence of mutual influence of men on, 136 ff;
influence of value of person on, 179 ff.

Thomist position as to God, 223.

Trinity, doctrine of, 222 ff;
biblical, 224, 225.

"Trinity, Social," 222 ff.

Tritheism, involved in a real social trinity, 222 ff.

Triunity of God, doctrine of, 223 ff.

"Truths, eternal," God's relation to, 212 ff.

Unchangeableness of God, 216 ff.

Unconscious Christianity, 130.

Uniqueness, a double, in Christ, 201 ff;
metaphysical, 203, 204;
ethical, 204, 205.

Value and sacredness of person, 16 ff;
sense of, element in social consciousness, 16, 50.

Weismann, referred to, 37.

Transcriber's Notes: Page 182, "GOd" changed to "God". Inconsistent hyphenation retained. Apparent printer's punctuation errors corrected. Italics indicated by _underscores_ and transliterated Greek by +plus signs+.

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