"A SOCIAL GOD."

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1994, 27 February 1914, Page 5

"A SOCIAL GOD."

MR. BALFOUR AS GIFFORD LECTURER. > WILDLY ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION. THE PLAIN MAN & PHILOSOPHY .! The English papers .whidli' arrived this week, contain lengthy reports of ' the Clifford lectures which Air. A. 3. Balfour delivered last month. The brief cablegrams' which appeared in Xiie Dominionat.thc.'time stated that the lectures were attracting" great attention, and ■ the fuller reports now to' hand show that they aroused an extraordinary display of enthusiasm.in tho vast audiences which heard them.' Though the'first lecture occupied a full hour, Mr. Balfour (according to the ''Mancheser Guardian's" correspondent) had no manuscript to guide him; he contented himself with oven,less than.the historic half-sheet of notepapcr. All he had in the shape of notes was a sequence of jottings on the back of an envelope. The list of Glasgow lecturers on Lord Gift'ord's foundation includes some famous names (says the "Times"); Max Muller delivered the first series in 1888, and Edward Caird as Master of Balliol returned to Glasgow in 1900 to speak once more ex cathedra in the. University in whichhe had taught 30 years. No course of lectures, however, has aroused more interest than that which was begun on January 12 by Mr. Balfour, who, like the only other living ox-Prime Minister, is also an ex-Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. iThe Bute Hall was filled half an hour before the arrival of tho lecturer, and tho audience (which, nambered 3000 people). included a'large' number of citizens and many .students as woll-as almost the whole of tho teaching staff. A large'number of people were unable to gain admission.'

Mr. Balfour had a reception so wildly enthusiastic that in acknowledging ft he remarked that it was more gratifying to-himself than consonant with - the groat thomo to which he proposed to draw tho attention of his audience. The precise nature of: his • subject had not been revealed, and he did. not at once announce it; but from the first moment he riveted the sympathetic attention which a Glasgow audience so generously bestows..

Mr. Balfour spoke some time before he 'said'. that his "great theme" was God; "■'•/". •■ . ■• "When I speak of God," he said, "it is' not 'the Absolute of which. I. ' am speaking: It is'tho God Whom a' man may easily lore and' adore; not merely the'end or conclusion' of ,a logical process. ■. . '. A God of Whom it is utterly inadequate but . not untrue to say" that Me : takes sides; that He works for great ends.. . ■'.. . A social God, a Gdd\ Who asks us to work.with Him." "

Man 'and the World. ■The fpllowing. report i'.of.the first lecture is taken from the "Westminster. Gazette".:— . ■ ' .'•--•■

Mr. Balfour said that every ma'i. would at' some moments, of- his life reflect "and try to form ah idea as to the world in which he lived and. his rcliition. to■'-that'..world. Neither labour; nor anxiety, nor pleasure, nor-care, nor all tho distracting influences of practical life, would prevent "some such moment occurring to almost every man. They would find plenty of people,ready .to help to solve, their''' problems in'the namo of science, religion', and philosophy. And one would be inclined at first to 'suppose that of these three.: it would . always be to.' philosophy that a man would'turn in such difficulties, because, after all, it was the business'of the philosopher to look at these cosmic problems in their entirety. They must all admit that few people made a worse hash of it than, those who. tried to'talk to them about religion in the name' of science or about science in the name of religion. . Philosophy, therefore, would naturally appear to occupy a position of great advantage .in such cases, and yet, so far as his observation went, it. was not to philosophy that people turned in these 'difficulties. For every- one man who really wont to philosophic study to help him to deal with those fundamental problems, a thousand went: to theology and thousands of men wont, to science.

..Why was : it that'philosophy'was'so much a matter cf. specialist 'teaching and specialist hearing?' 'Why was it that to the ordinary man—even to the ordinary' educated .• man—philosophers seemed"to' bo seekers' after wiidom. standing apart from the general crowd and seeking wisdom in ways difficult tounderstand, and generally quarrelling with each other in an unknown tongue i (Laughter,) Tho Plain Man's Problems. After remarking that'hardly any men of- science took ' philosophy" seriously, Mr. Balfour said that philosophy did not really answer tho difhcultios which the plain man felt. The questions which philosophy put' were questions hardly understood by ordinary individuals. The plain'man-was perfectly ready to believe, and always did believe," that ho lived in a wcrld of objective, independent and materials things, a trcrld in which ho had intercourse with other human spirits, but ho-wanted to know whether among thoso things and among those spirits no had to count Uod in his own soul. Though these were problems, of course, to'wiiich philosophy had addressed itself, it had never or rr.rcly addressed .itsslf from the point of view of the plain man. They would neveT get tho ordinary man, living an ordinary life and in ordinary circumstances, to start an investigation of that kind by discussions about tho one and the msnf, about substance, about the evolution of tho idea, subject, object, .degrees of reality, -transcendence immanence, the essential nature of an "all-inclusive absolute. These were—and he was quite ready to admit that they might suggest —problems of the highest moment and importance, but at the same time the plain, man felt instinctively that they were net problems for him.

Mr. Balfour conferred that Up to ,i certain point ho sympathised in that respect with the plain man. Tic had never been ablo.to aceent-.himself any.of theso great systems ;-if he had it would bo that-system he would preach. But his task was a- much humbler one. Ho would not spend time in criticising other people's systems. He was mora anxious to "make his own point of view clear. Proceeding, the lecturer wished it to be understood that .when ho spoke in his subsescquent lectures' of. God—and .it Was theism which' was his subject—it was not. tho Absolute* of which he war. speaking, but it'was a God.whom a, man might easily lovb • and adore. It waf not a God who was sometimes, at all events, opt to appear as merely the owl or conclusion 'of an inevitable logical process. . '■■'■'.

Anthropomorphism, Perhaps someone .would object and say: Do • wc really understand you to put aside 'in favour of. what may l>c called a popular view the really great thoughts oi philosophers, theologians, and mystics? "Well," they would say, ''is that not mere anthropomorphism? Is' not the God of whom yon speak anything more than the old tribal deity, improved in character and relieved of local limitations?" Mr. Balfour said ho was 'quite indifferent to tho charge of anthropomorphism, and ho hoped before his lectures were completed to commit worse crimes than that iji the eyes of the particular class of rritlos which he h.-.din view. (Laughter and cheers.) .'What was tho God that he wished to talk of? He was a

Gorl- of whom it would bo mndoqnato bnt not untnic to say that, lift .took sides, that'He worked for great omiif, that Ha as a spirit engaging with other spirits, and that He was in that sense—which was tlve only true sfl'we — what lie did not think it profane to call a social God, a God that asked as.tn work with Him, a God, therefore, in all those respects, who was tn be disiiuRiiished, if only pravisionally, from a sort of Absolute to wJiich everything included within its boundless liwits was equally indifferent, to whom the good and bad',.all that thc,y admired and all that they detested, were equally necessary to form elements in a perfect whole. . ' . i ■

Unit was not, however, the idea which he meant.to deal with, The material he meant to worl. npon were the beliefs which they held, alt of them, which/mankind held, e.Tpeeially maKkifid of to-day, upon all subjects outside of the fircat subject of theology itself. Theology being the concluafon at which hfi was desirous of 'arriving, he did not, of-course, take it among his premises.