How The Religious And The Naturalistic Outlooks Conflict
Religion comes into contact with naturalism and demands to be reconciled
with it, not merely at its periphery, but at its very core, namely, with
its characteristic ideal of a mathematical-mechanical interpretation of
the whole world. This ideal seems to be most nearly, if not indeed
completely, attained in reference to the inter-relations of the great
masses, in the realm of astronomy, with the calculable, inviolable, and
correlations of the heavenly bodies. To bring the same clearness and
intelligibility, the same inevitableness and calculability into the world
in general, and into the whole realm of nature down to the mysterious law
determining the development of the daintiest insect's wing, and the
stirrings of the grey matter in the cortex of the brain which reveal
themselves to us as sensation, desire, and thought, this has always been
the aim and secret faith of the naturalistic mode of thought. It is thus
aiming at a Cosmos of all Being and Becoming, which can be explained from
itself, and comprehended in itself alone, supported by its own complete
and all-sufficing causality and uniformity, resting in itself, shut up
within itself, complete in itself--a God sufficient unto himself and
resting in himself.
We do not need to probe very deeply to find out how strongly religion
resists this attempt, and we easily discover what is the disturbing
element which awakens hostile feeling. It is of three kinds, and depends
on three characteristic aims and requirements of religion, which are
closely associated with one another, yet distinct from one another, though
it is not always easy to represent them in their true proportions and
relative values. The first of these interests seems to be "teleology," the
search after guiding ideas and purposes, after plan and directive control
in the whole machinery, that sets itself in sharp opposition to a mere
inquiry into proximate causes. Little or nothing is gained by knowing how
everything came about or must have come about; all interest lies in the
fact that everything has come about in such a way that it reveals
intention, wisdom, providence, and eternal meaning, realising itself in
details and in the whole. This has always been rightly regarded as the
true concern and interest of every religious conception of the world. But
it has been sometimes forgotten that this is by no means the only, or even
the primary interest that religion has in world-lore. We call it its
highest and ultimate interest, but we find, on careful study, that two
others are associated with and precede it.
For before all belief in Providence and in the divine meaning of the
world, indeed before faith at all, religion is primarily feeling--a deep,
humble consciousness of the entire dependence and conditionality of our
existence, and of all things. The belief we have spoken of is, in relation
to this feeling, merely a form--as yet not in itself religious. It is not
only the question "Have the world and existence a meaning, and are
phenomena governed by ideas and purposes?" that brings religion and its
antagonists into contact; there is a prior and deeper question. Is there
scope for this true inwardness of all religion, the power to comprehend
itself and all the world in humility in the light of that which is not of
the world, but is above world and existence? But this is seriously
affected by that doctrine which attempts to regard the Cosmos as
self-governing and self-sufficing, needing nothing, and failing in
nothing. It is this and not Darwinism or the descent from a Simian stock
that primarily troubles the religious spirit. It is more specially
sensitive to the strange and antagonistic tendency of naturalism shown
even in that marvellous and terrifying mathematical-mechanical system of
the great heavenly bodies, in this clock of the universe which, in
obedience to clear and inviolable laws, carries on its soundless play from
everlasting to everlasting, needing no pendulum and no pedestal, without
any stoppage and without room for dependence on anything outside of
itself, apparently entirely godless, but absolutely reason and God enough
for itself. It shrinks in terror from the thought that the same autonomy
and self-regulation may be brought down from the stage of immensity into
the play of everyday life and events.
But we must penetrate still deeper. Schleiermacher has directed our
attention anew to the fact that the most profound element in religion is
that deep-lying consciousness of all creatures, "I that am dust and
ashes," that humble feeling of the absolute dependence of every being in
the world on One that is above all the world. But religion does not fully
express itself even in this; there is yet another note that sounds still
deeper and is the keynote of the triad. "Let a man examine himself." Is it
not the case that we ourselves, in as far as the delight in knowledge and
the enthusiasm for solving riddles have taken hold of us, rejoice in every
new piece of elucidation and interpretation that science succeeds in
making, that we are in the fullest sympathy with the impulse to understand
everything and bring reason and clearness into it, and that we give hearty
adherence to the leading ideas which guide the investigations of natural
science? Yet on the other hand, in as far as we are religious, do we not
sometimes feel a sudden inward recoil from this almost profane eagerness
to penetrate into the mystery of things, this desire to have everything
intelligible, clear, rational and transparent? This feeling which stirs in
us has always existed in all religious minds and will only die with them.
And we need not hesitate to say so plainly. For this is the most real
characteristic of religion; it seeks depth in things, reaches out towards
what is concealed, uncomprehended, and mysterious. It is more than
humility; it is piety. And piety is experience of mystery.
It is at this point that religion comes most violently into antagonism
with the meaning and mood of naturalism. Here they first conflict in
earnest. And it is here above all that scientific investigation and its
materialistic complement seem to take away freedom and truth, air and
light from religion. For science is seeking especially this: Deeper
penetration into and illumination of the world. It presses with macroscope
and microscope into its most outlying regions and most hidden corners,
into its abysses and fastnesses. It explains away the old idea of two
worlds, one on this side and one on that, and rejects heavenly things with
the notice "No Room" of which D. Fr. Strauss speaks. It aims at
discovering the mathematical world-formulae, if not indeed one great
general formula which embraces, defines unequivocally, and rationalises
all the processes of and in infinity, from the movements of Sirius to
those of the cilia of the infusorian in the drop of water, and which not
only crowds "heaven" out of the world, but strips away from things the
fringe of the mysterious and incommensurable which seemed to surround
them.
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