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Page 23
The conclusion he has come to with regard to the eternal truth as
contrasted with the temporary colourings of Christianity, with the
essential as contrasted with the inessential, can best be outlined by
taking in turn some of the main tenets and characteristics of the
Christian faith.
Eucken's conception of the negative movement is very much akin to the
Christian idea of _conversion_. The first stage is merely a movement
away from the world, but after a time, in the continuous process of
negation, the negative movement attains a positive significance; when
this stage is arrived at Eucken would apply the term conversion. He
would not limit the negative movement to one act or to one point in
time; the movement towards a higher world must be maintained--the
sustaining of the negative movement being a test of the reality of
conversion. The process of conversion is not a process to be passively
undergone, or to originate from without, but is a movement starting in
the depths of one's own being.
As already pointed out, Eucken believes in _redemption_. The past is
capable of reinterpretation and transformation, because we can view our
past actions in a new light and so change the whole, since the past is
not a closed thing, definite in itself, but a part of an incomplete
whole. He considers, however, that the Christian doctrine of redemption
makes it too much a matter of God's mercy, instead of placing stress
upon the part that man himself must play. The possibility of redemption
in his view follows from the presence and movement of the spiritual life
in man, not merely from an act of the founder of Christianity, and he
avers that while traditional Christianity emphasises the need for
redemption from evil, it does not emphasise sufficiently the necessary
elevation to the good life that must result.
Closely bound up with the Christian doctrine of redemption is that of
_mediation_. Eucken believes that the Christian conception of mediation
resulted from the feeling of worthlessness and impotence of man, and the
aspirations which yet burned within him after union with the Divine. The
idea of mediation bridges the gulf, "a mid-link is forged between the
Divine and the human, and half of it belongs to each side; both sides
are brought into a definite connection which could be found in no other
way." Eucken acknowledges that such a mediation seems to make access to
the Divine easier, gives intimacy to the idea of redemption, and offers
support for human frailty. But he points out that there is an
intolerable anthropomorphism involved in the idea, that it removes the
Divine farther away from man, and that the union of Divine and human is
held to obtain in one special case only--that of Christ. He urges that
in a religion of mediation, one or other, God or Christ, must be chosen
as the centre. "Concerning the decision there cannot be the least doubt;
the fact is clear in the soul-struggles of the great religious
personalities, that in a decisive act of the soul the doctrinal idea of
mediation recedes into the background, and a direct relationship with
God becomes a fact of immediacy and intimacy."
So Eucken will have nothing to do with the idea of mediation in its
doctrinal significance--pointing out that "the idea of mediation glides
easily into a further mediation." "Has not the figure of Christ receded
in Catholicism, and does not the figure of Mary constitute the centre of
the religious emotional life?"
He does, however, lay great store by the help that a man may be to other
men in their upward path: "The human, personality who first and foremost
brought eternal truth to the plane of time, and through this
inaugurated a new epoch, remains permanently present in the picture of
the spiritual world, and is able permanently to exercise a mighty power
upon the soul ... but all this is far removed from any idea of
mediation."
Eucken believes in _revelation_, but through action, and not through
contemplation. To the personality struggling upward, with its aims set
towards the highest in life, the spiritual life reveals itself. He does
not confine revelation to certain periods in time, and believes that
such revelation comes to all spiritual personalities.
He holds, too, that the spiritual personalities are themselves
revelations of the Universal Spiritual Life, and that the Spiritual Life
does reveal itself most clearly in personalities.
How the revelation comes he does not discuss in any detail, but he is
very certain that it comes through action and fight for the highest.
It is perhaps largely due to his activistic standpoint that Eucken does
not deal with _prayer_. In the _Truth of Religion_, which deals very
fully with most aspects of religion, and purports to be a complete
discussion of religion, no treatment of prayer is given. He speaks of
the developing personality as drawing upon the resources of the
Universal Spiritual Life, but this appears to be in action, and not in
prayer or communion.
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