Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors. James Freeman Clarke

or spiritual perception. And this, for our present purpose, we call faith. By means of it we know the spiritual world, just as we know the material world through sight, touch, and hearing. The senses are the organs by which we perceive material things; intuition, or faith, the organ by which we perceive spiritual things. He who denies the existence of such a power in man, falls necessarily into dogmatism on the one hand, or rationalism on the other. But as these words also take a very different sense on different lips, we explain ourselves by saying that he puts either a theory or an inference in the place of God. If orthodox, he puts a theory; if sceptical, an inference. Mr. Mansell does the first, Herbert Spencer the other. Neither of them believes that we can know God's existence. So dogmatism and scepticism join hands. All the consequences described in the beginning of this chapter follow as a matter of course when an opinion or theory is put in the place of truth. Then [pg 039] come the inflexible narrowness of bigotry, the hot zeal of the persecutor, the sectarian strife which has torn the Church in twain. The remedy and prevention for these are to recognize that the basis of religion is in faith, in a living sight of God, the soul, duty, immortality, which are always and forever the same.

      The best definitions of faith, by theologians of all schools, include the notion of insight, will, and affection. It is an act of the soul by which it looks at truth. But this act implies a desire to see and know the truth. Now, such an act as this lies at the root of all our knowledge, both of the material and spiritual world. How do I know the outward world? The passive exercise of sensation would never give such knowledge. The sights which enter the passive eye, the sounds which fill the passive ear, the feelings which affect the passive sense, give no real knowledge of outward things. That comes, not from sensation merely, but from sensation changed into experience by a voluntary activity. We must not only see, but look; not only hear, but listen; not only feel, but touch, in order to know. Life, therefore, the constant synthesis of these three elements—life which, in every act, at once thinks, feels, and does—alone gives us knowledge. Divorce thought from affection and will, and let it act by itself, and it does not give knowledge; it only gives belief or opinion. Knowledge comes only from experience—and experience means communion. Communion with Nature by thought, desire, and action gives us the knowledge of Nature; communion with God by thought, desire, and act, gives us the knowledge of God. The organ by which we commune with God is faith; it includes the desire of knowing God, and the act of looking to him in order to know him.

      Knowledge of God, of immortality, and of spiritual things does not come from any process of reasoning on the one hand, nor from any single intuition of reason. Just so we [pg 040] do not know the material world by a process of reasoning on the one hand, or any single sensible perception on the other. All knowledge comes from life; or, as the apostle John expresses it, “Life is the light of man.” We become acquainted with outward nature by living processes—by repeated acts of sight, hearing, touch, taste. So we become acquainted with the spiritual world by repeated spiritual acts; by repeated processes of faith; by continued steps of devotion, submission, obedience, trust, love, prayer. In this way we come to know God just as certainly, and just in the same way, as we know things visible or things audible.

      But knowledge is not belief. Knowledge is the rooted conviction of the reality of certain facts or persons, derived from communing with those facts or persons. Belief is the intellectual assent to a proposition—a proposition formed by analytic and synthetic methods. We analyze our notion concerning any subject, and then arrange the results of this analysis in order, and deduce from them a proposition, a law. This we call our belief, or creed, concerning it. The substance of this belief is given us in life; the form of it comes from thinking or reasoning. But it is evident that such a belief differs in each individual according to his experience, and according to his habits of reasoning, and even according to his facility in expression. Moreover, knowledge and belief differ also in this, that knowledge places us in the presence of the reality, belief only in the presence of a proposition concerning it.

      Thus John and James are friends. John knows James through a long intercourse. He is just as certain in regard to the essential character of James as he is about his own. But if he tries to express this knowledge of James in the form of belief, he may evidently express it badly. He may fail from a defective analysis, or from imperfect powers of language.

      On the other hand John may not know James at all. He [pg 041] may never have seen him. But he has heard about him from a mutual friend, in whose judgment he trusts, or from several persons, and so he has formed a very decided belief in regard to James. He has a creed about him, though he has never known him.

      In the same way those who know God truly and well, by the experience of obedience and prayer, may have a very erroneous belief concerning him. Those who do not know him at all, by any personal experience, may have a very correct belief concerning him. But which saves the soul? Which governs the life? Which affects the heart? Evidently not the belief, but the knowledge.

      We are not saved by any belief whatsoever concerning God or Christ, concerning sin or salvation, concerning duty or destiny. Belief brings us into contact with the images of things, not the things themselves. Belief has no saving power. But knowledge has. “This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”

      It is therefore a great mistake when Orthodoxy or Rationalism reverses the axiom of John, and instead of saying, “Life is the light of man,” tells us that “Light is the life of man.” Knowledge comes from life. Belief comes from knowledge, and not the contrary.

      The Principle of Orthodoxy, as stated at the commencement of this chapter (in § 1), is, that there is one true system of Christian doctrine, and that all others are false. The Idea of Orthodoxy, as stated in § 10 of this chapter, is, that the soul is saved by the sight of truth. The idea of Orthodoxy is true—its principle is false. The sight of truth—that is, of the great spiritual realities—saves us, for only by that sight are we lifted above our feeble and imperfect selves, and enabled to partake of the nature of God. But while truth is ever one and the same, doctrine varies from age to age, varies from man to man. Each man's statement is [pg 042] limited by his position, his mode of thought, his power of speech. Nor can any council, assembly, conference, synod escape from similar limitations.

      Let the distinction be once clearly recognized between truth as seen and truth as stated—between knowledge and belief—and we see the end of dogmatism, bigotry, intolerance, and superstition. We shall then see that religion is one thing and theology quite another, and that the test and evidence of a sound religious experience are not what a man says, but what he is. The sight of truth remains, as always, the source of our moral and spiritual life, but this sight of truth must pass into knowledge, by means of life, in order to renew the soul. Faith, or the act by which the soul, desirous of good, puts itself in the presence of truth, is always the beginning of each spiritual state. Knowledge, born of this faith, through repeated acts of conscience, love, obedience, prayer, is the next step, and that which fixes the truth in the soul. Belief comes afterwards, resulting from the knowledge thus obtained, analyzed, and arranged by the systematizing intellect. And theory, or opinion, goes forward, like the skirmishers before an army, examining the route and opening the way, but incapable of resisting any attack, or holding permanently any position.

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Chapter III. The Orthodox Idea Of Natural And Revealed Religion; Or, Naturalism And Supernaturalism.

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§ 1. Meaning of Natural and Supernatural.

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      Orthodox Christianity claims that Christianity is a supernatural revelation, consisting of truths revealed by God, not according to the method of nature, but outside of it. But not merely the orthodox, the heterodox too, Unitarians, Universalists, Quakers, Swedenborgians, all hold to Christianity as a supernatural faith. What do they mean by this, and why do they insist on it so strongly?