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Page 20
When we approach the problem of the nature of the Absolute in itself,
the main difficulty that arises is whether God is a personal being. God,
says Eucken, is "an Absolute Spiritual Life in all its grandeur, above
all the limitations of man and the world of experience--a Spiritual Life
that has attained to a complete subsistence in itself, and at the same
time to an encompassing of all reality." The divine is for Eucken the
ultimate spirituality that inspires the work of all spiritual
personalities. When in our life of fight and action we need inspiration,
we find "in the very depths of our own nature a reawakening, which is
not a mere product of our activity, but a salvation straight from God."
God, then, is the ultimate spirituality which inspires the struggling
personality, and gives to it a sense of unity and confidence. Eucken
does not admit that God is a personality in the sense that we are, and
deprecates all anthropomorphic conceptions of God as a personal being.
Indeed, to avoid the tendency to such conceptions he would prefer the
term "Godhead" to "God." Further considerations of the nature of God can
only lead to intellectual speculations. For an activistic philosophy,
such as Eucken's philosophy is, it would seem sufficient for life and
action to know that all attempts at the ideal in life, originate in, and
are inspired by, the Absolute Spiritual Life, that is by God.
We cannot discuss fully the relation of human and divine without, too,
dealing with the ever urgent problem of religion. This is a problem in
which Eucken is deeply interested, and concerning which he has written
one of his greatest works--_The Truth of Religion_--a work that has been
described as one of the greatest apologies for religion ever written.
What is religion? Most people perhaps would apply the term to a system
of belief concerning the Eternal, usually resting upon a historical or
traditional basis. Others would include in the term the reverence felt
for the Absolute by the contemplative mind, even though that mind did
not believe in any of the traditional systems. Some would emphasise the
fact that religion should concern itself with the establishment of a
relationship between the human and the Divine.
But Eucken does not find religion to consist in belief, nor in a mere
attitude towards the mysteries of an overworld. In keeping with the
activistic tone of his whole philosophy he finds religion to be rooted
in life, and would define religion as an action by which the human being
appropriates the spiritual life.
The first great concern of religion must be the conservation--not of
man, as mere man, but of the spiritual life in the human being, and it
means "a mighty concentration of the spiritual life in man." The
essential basis that makes religion possible is the presence of a Divine
life in man--"it unfolds itself through the seizure of this life as
one's own nature." Religion must be a form of activity, which brings
about the concentration of the spiritual life in the human soul, and
sets forth this spiritual life as a shield against unworthy elements
that attempt to enter and to govern man.
The essential characteristic of religion must be the demand for a new
world. "Religion is not a communication of overworld secrets, but the
inauguration of an overworld life." Religion must depend upon the
contradiction and opposition that exists in human life, and upon the
clear recognition of the distinction between the "high" and the "low" in
life. It must point to a means of attaining freedom and redemption from
the old world of sin and sense, and to the possibility of being elevated
into a new and higher world. It must, too, fight against the extremes of
optimism and pessimism, for while it will acknowledge the presence of
wrong, it will call attention to the possibility of deliverance. It must
bring about a change of life, without denying the dark side of life; it
must show "the Divine in the things nearest at hand, without idealising
falsely the ordinary situation of life."
The great practical effect of religion, then, must be to create a demand
for a new and higher world in opposition to the world of nature. For
this new life religion must provide an ultimate standard. "Religion must
at all times assert its right to prove and to winnow, for it is
religion--the power which draws upon the deepest source of life--which
takes to itself the whole of man, and offers a fixed standard for all
his undertakings." Religion must provide a standard for the whole of
life, for it places all human life "under the eternity." It is not the
function of religion to set up a special province over against the other
aspects of his life--it must transform life in its entirety, and affect
all the subsidiary aspects.
But religion is not gained, any more than human freedom, once for all
time--it must be gained continually afresh, and sought ever anew. Thus
the fact of religion becomes a perpetual task, and leads to the highest
activity.
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