CHURCH AND WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3012, 24 February 1917, Page 14

CHURCH AND WAR

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM UNDER THE

"MR. BRITLING'S THEOLOGY"

CRITICISED BY DR. CARNEGIE . SIMPSON

In a striking article in the "British Weekly,'.' entitled "The Struggling God," Professor I'. Carnegie Simpson criticises tho theologioal position adopted in Air. H. G. Wells's latest novel. Dr. Simpson Btates:

Whatever qualifications Mr. H. G. Wells may or may not possess to be accepted as a guide iu faith and morals, he is often symptomatic of what many people are thinking about these things. This is particularly true of his war novel, entitled "Mr. Britling Sees It Through," and of the theological ideas which find expression there. Mr. Britling's theology is something to which a number of earnest souls are turning in this hour of stress. It is tho theology of tho God is struggling. Its root ideas are two. On the one hand many people say they cannot accept any God who has created and who controls this world, for if God has created and oan control the world, theu this world of sin and suffering and strife and wrong is His condemnation. That is the first root idea. The other is that, on the other hand, there indubitably is in this world the most real and wonderful goodness. There is love and there is heroism and there is saorifice, and we feel it and see it iu the lurid light of the war as we have felt it and seen it never before. Here, then, is what we must call God—not omnipotent, not the Maker of all things, but struggling, "in his great comprehensive way as we struggle in our weak and silly way," to re-mako the world on the lines of righteousness. To quote Mr. Britling again: "It's so plain to me; if there was nothing else in all the world but our kindness for each other, or the love that made you weep in this kind Ootober sunshine, or the love I bear Hugh —if there was nothing else at all, if everything else was cruelty and mockery and filthiness and bitterness, it would still be certain there was a God of love and righteousness." This "God who struggles" is "the essence of all real religion." And "some day ho will triumph": "he must become the Buler of the world."

Two things m3y be said about this idea of God. One is that philosophically is is simply impossible. The other is that religiously it has "hold of a true thought of God, but the true expression of that thought is the Christian Gospel. The philosophical impossibility of a theology such as this can be stated briefly. Mr. Britling's doctrine denies that there is any moral God who has created the world. Morality, therefore, is not at the origin of things. There is no formative first principle of morality constituting the world. Well, if this be so, is thero any kind of reason why the world should ever, become moral P AVhjn, therefore, a being or principle or ideal begins to "struggle" to make theiworld moral, tho obvious retort' to his or its agitation is that the world, never having been made to bo moral, has no intention of becoming so to please him or it. Morality has thus no place in the nature of tilings, but is merely the private fad of this' struggling agitator, who is no better than an interloper into a world made on quite uifferent lines from his. It is amazing that any thinking mind should hold to a theory of God such as this in the otliical interest. The ' theory is urged as a moral protest against belief in i God who is called good and yet is responsible for such a world of evil as this. Whatever difficulties may be attendant on this belief, certainly such a protest against it is. to attempt „to save morality at the; expense of morality itself. For if morality, be not in what.one may call: tho constitutional law of the universe* then certainly it can never authoritatively be imposed on the universe. It has no raison d'etre in the structure of things, and the struggle to introduce it is essentially irrational. Why, then, should such a struggle succeed i Mr. Britling says very confidently of this God who wants to make moral this world that was sever made to be moral that "somo dayihe will triumph," and "ho must becoiie tho Ruler." Why? It is impossible to suggest the smallest reason for this optimism. If morality is not in the original nature of things, why "must" it triumph in the process of things? These are some aspects of the intellectual impossibility of Mr. Britling's theology. This way of thinking about God and the world may attract for the moment as a way of escape when tho pressure upon faith of the facts of evil is—as at this time it is—peculiarly severe; but in such an escapo the mind overleaps itself and abandons the foundation of the| very morality it would establish. .One desires to speak with sympathy of the real mental and spiritual perplexity which Mr. Britling represents; but this theology will not stand. It is intelligible that many just now aro passing through it; but thoyl will not be able to abide in it, if they think on and think out. If, however, an idea takes hold of a number of serious minds, it is because there is truth in it somewhere and because it meets some real human need. There is a true thought in Mr. Britling's theology, but it is far older than his discovery of it. It has' nothing to do with his denial of omnipotence. Here Mr. Britling is just at the crude stage of thought which has not got past demanding .why God, who is omnipotent and' "omnieverything," and so "able to prevent these tilings"—that is, the facts of sin and suffering in the world —still "lets these things happen." This is to be called crude thinking, not in any discourtous way, but because it treats tho universe as consisting of only God and things,- and that certainly is a crude description. Man is neither God nor thing. What if man has been made —by the omnipotence of God—to be a moral creator within the world? As a natter of fact, this describes more truly than does any other term what every man knows his relationship to his life to be. If so, for God to uso His omnipotence on the one hand to make man thus," and on the other to "prevent" him acting as such, is only for omnipotence to circumvent omnipotence and God to contradict Himself. The truth in Mr. Britling's theology is its protest not against the idea of God's omnipotence, but against the idea of God's indifference, and its gospel is not in the idea, that God is limited but in the idea that God is "with us." This is gospel indeed to cveryono that receives it. And it is peculiarly the gospel which this day of strife and sorrow needs.

The only God men and women can believe in to-day—tho only God they even want to believe in to-day—is One who is with us in'the strugglo and agony of the world. Any theology without this is really impossible at this hour. '

Mr. Britling's theology has_ hold of this idea. But it is not his idea. It is the idea—or rather the fact—which is the very root of the religion of the (Incarnation and Redemption. And in Christianity this religious idea is assorted without the philosophical and ethical anarchy which, as has been indicated, the conception of the merely struggling God involves. Redemption is indeed a struggle, hut it is_ the work of the Supreme—of God who is Creator as well as Redeemer. The Christian doctrine of Redemption is that, if tho sin and ovil of the world aro duo to man, who is, within tho world, a moral creator, still God takes upon Himself tho responsibility of the struggle against it and has entered into this

struggle in history, and that He is able to subdue it, and even, iu the end, subsume it, under a final good. There is here no irrational intrusion of goofl into a world never made to be good, nor is that a baseless optimism which boiieves that the purpose of the Supreme shall not fail. The Christian gospel, then, at once corrects what is false and completes what is true iu tho theology of Mr. Britling.

BRITISH FLAC. 'AN ADVENT PASTORAL. The patriotism of Bntis-ii Catholics is unquestioned and unquestionable (writes the Bishop of Northampton in his Advent Pastoral). Over ana abovo the common motives of loyalty, based upon attachment to our ancient institu-; tions and the greatness of our Empire, which we share with our fellow countrymen, ivo Catholics clearly recogniso a strict obligation of conscience, which is perhaps hardly recognised in the same degree by others. Hence, at the outbreak of hostilities, our young mon of every class flocked to the colours without compulsion and without hesitation ; the honours list, on the one hand, and still more emphatioally the casualty lists, on the other, bearing witness to the lighting quality of men whoso native valour is reinforced by spiritual ideals.

We have, however, yet another incentive to patriotism, rather felt than expressed, and seldom drawn out in detail; namely, the religious freedom we enjoy under- the British flag, which enables us to develop along our own lines to the full extent of our resources, material and spiritual, without; let or hindrance on the part of the civil power. It can be asserted safely that, as things go in the modern world, British Catholics would not exchange their political status for that of any of their fellow Catholics under any other Government.

As Catholics wo are free and independent. Our Church, like our homo, is "our castle"?; and, for the greater security of autonomy, we have wisely declined to become bedesmen of the State, or to sell our freedom for an annual Parliamentary _ pittance. Wo prefer to keep our religious organisation self-supportjng and self-sufficing; and tho State, respecting our motives, accepts the situation and abides by it. Its attitude in our Tegard, and in regard to the other free Churches, is that of ■ benevolent neutrality—protecting our legal rights and property; frequently calling us to its counsels, and" giving us representation on Boyal Commissions, when points of faith or morals are involved in proposed legislation ; facilitating our missionary enterprises in heathen lands, but never attempting to meddle with our internal affairs. For example, our intercourse with the Holy See is absolutely unimpeded; no censorship is claimed! over tho admission or publication of Papal documents; under normal ciroumstances not even a passport is required for our visits ad Ijmina. Our Bishops are appointed without any reference to the Government. Our clergy are nominated to missions or removed from them solely by act of their superiors, subject to the prescriptions of Canon Law. _ The recurrent persecutions of religious orders of men and women, which have so often disgraced other countries, professedly Catholic, are unknown among us; on the contrary, England has ever been tho asylum of religious no less than political refugees, affording hospitality and abundant alms to those who have been driven out, beggared and dishonoured, by their own countrymen. At this very moment, above all others, our Government, by an act of generosity worthy of our race, is sheltering from the petty agitation of the more narrow-minded, stranded communities which have elected to remain with us in tho painful position of enemy aliens. Of course, our relations with the State aro not ideal. Compared with tho ages of faith, the somewhat distant' politeness and mutual forbearance that regulate our intercourse with.tho civil power seem but a poor substitute for the ardent sentiments that caused Catholic England to look to the Church for guidance even in its temporal concerns, and suffused mediaeval life with the glow of tho supernatural. But contrasted with the represession and dragooning of our co-religionists under so many modern bureauoratio Governments, frequently hostile, always meddlesome and domineering, wo havo be heartily thankful for our own independence and s vitality under tho British flag. Our patriotic determination to secure the triumph of our arms at'any cost is inspired, not only bv solicitude for oppressed nationalities, but also by the hope that tho triumph of our arms will load to the triumph of our concepts of indivdual freedom, and will end, once for all, tho age-long scandal of oppressed creeds.