Morning journal and courier., 1892-04-01
THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION.

tuent lecture in the Lyman Beeeher
course yesterday afternoon in Marquand
chapel. He speaks on the most absturse sub
ects without scrap Of a note. His style
8 rich and forcible. His numerous Illus
trations are drawn from deep learning
and true poetic feeling. The great theis-
tic question is not to prove that God is,
but what he is and what is his relation to |
the world. There are three answers to this |
from three different points of view, that Of |
deism, pantheism and theism. A deistic |
conception of God imposes on him physi-
cal limitations and moral Indifference. 1t
excludes him from the world he has ore
ated and the men he has peopled 1t with.
What kind of God is that, who, after
creating man. ia excluded by his own
laws from any contract with him9 Sure
ly, a very empty God. Pantheism as
sumes good variety of forms. It may
start from nature and work up to God,
or from God, and work down to nature
that only God may remain. The ancient
pantheism started with God; the modern,
dating from SpinoZa, starts with nature.
Theism turns alike to the eminent and
transcendental. Theism postulates the
separate being of God and man. The
world is so conceived that while God was
before it and consequently above it, yet
by his omnipresence he is SO incorporated
with it that there is not an atom in the
whole universe in which he is not present.
Every element in the process of theistic
proof must be found in the theistic result.
If, then, God is perceived as the result
| of thought, God must be thought or spirit;
| if through conscience, God must have
moral qualities.
The transition is now from theism to re-
| ligion. Religion and the theistic idea is
| the embodiment, the expression of the
ideas of God. As is the God, 30 is the re-
| ligion. You can never find mean idea of
| God coupled with a high religion.
| Everything that emerges in the course
of religious history energies from a
thought Of God. just as science has mod
i6ed religion. When men study
ancient history in all the Gus
toms of the ancient peoples religion
will be met wherever you find man,
in some crude, amorphic state or in a
highly civilized nation, you will find him
striving after God, to reach him and wor-
ship him. The thing that is simple to you
has to the rude barbarian deep and mys-
terious meaning. Whoever laughs at the
lowest fetish of an African has no concep-
ton of the mystery of life. The existence
of lower religion is the possibility of a
higher.
We saw in the philosophy of Locke and
all the empirical school that nature,
through sense, wrought on the thought OF
man. So there was the great difficulty OF
getting religion into the minds of men.
! Ii YOU look at it from the other side you
| will find how difficult it is to get it on,
again.
In the philosophy Of religion three
questions recur. What is religion? Whence
is religion! Why is religion? If it Was
the product of visions, when the visions
are found unreal the religion vanishes
Being void of religion how can man get it
destitute of faith how can he create it
How does Lucretius explain religion
Very much as Herbert Spencer does. l
came from dreams in which horrid mon
sters appeared. These were imagined ii
the whist winds and they thought thes
phantoms were gods, and they created th
storms. Hobbies thought religion took it
rise from taking the apparent as real.
witchcraft is licensed by the state it
, | religion. If it is believed by individual
only it is superstition. Hume said tina
the early man WAS always afraid of bein
hurt, of being hungry, of being killed, etc
I
: grateful to. At first he had many gods
but by natural selection he arrived a
monotheisrn.
) This satisfied Mr.. Hume and the eight
: | eenth century as reasonable history @
| religion Spencer starts with primitiv
man, which he knows all about because b
. | has never seen him. the primitive ma
is the creation of the man who is specr
lating about him. He dreams of happ
hunting ground. He thinks he has
double self which has left his body whe
he was asleep. This other self, he think
has left his body when he dies. So, til
bodies of the dead are buried with arm
for the hunt. Food is placed on the grav'
From the tomb came the altar, from tt
altar sacrifice. and so he builds up hug
system of religion. Mr.. Spencer in hi
system is unmindful of history. He prove
that things are ancient among the Greek
by quoting the book of Tobid. He is nc
only without historic sense and compar
: son, but he does not know that what 20
find as a generative power in religion mut
be found generated in the religion. If
g dreams of happy hunting ground the'
: ligion. With the exception of one gres
i. religion of antiquity, the idea of futu1
n state is scarcely developed in the religion
J. of antiquity.
Il 1t has been said that religion began in
primitive revelation. Primitive revel
ton ia an attempt to get religion in ma
j | without having it in him. If man
4 nature is atheistic, he cannot be theisti
| God did not create an atheistic world an
: ! give his creatures an impetus to atheism
Since man is man, he cannot think will
. o1t thinking God. just as the crude
craft implies the stateliest ship, 80 tt
lowest fetishism implies the highest r
| ligion. Man cannot be man withoat fee
ing that there is being beyond the eval
. escence of things.
AS the foundation principles of man
philosophy is, 30 is his religion. If wit
Kant We know God as a condition of Il
r imperative categories, then God becom
% | the great law-giver and religion is mora
d ity. If with Schleiermacher we belie7
that religion is dependence, then God
the supreme object of feeling. Heg
found God as reason or thought and b
religion is essentially rational, essential
intellectual. In all religion, as there q
relations, so God is as necessary as ma
If man seeks God, cannot believe God
different to the search of man.
In sgnosticism man is too important
conceive God. But if I do not know CO.
it is not only because cannot reach Ct
but also that God cannot reach me. Whe
/ ever man seeks 0Ou, oOu II bcohAuS
man. Just as we approach him he a
proaches US.
1t follows by inevitable consequence tn
religion and revelation are correlated idea
Religion is man'seffort to find God. Re
elation is Gods effort to find man.
Revelation is capable of variety
forms. 1t is not bound up in the liter
ture of any one nation. If God did n
teach men in all times and {
countries he never by special re
W elstion could make himself intelligih
to them. If in religion
Il system, the believers think that God
pleased with the sacrifice of little chill
e. This is their expression of their low CO
T. ception of God. You can measure Il
d quality of religion by the character of
8, middle terms. just there is compar
IS . tive anatomy in science SO there is col
parative anatomy in religion. You CT
8, grade the religions of the world by cor
s. parison.
If you believe that God bears the rel
I ton to you of the czar to the Russians Il
p papacy is the place for you. If you CO
N ceive of God as loving father who tax
you in his arms as loving father, thu
e, away with the priest; let there be no ba
rier between you and God.
70 FRANK e. CRAIG VERY ILL