The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-04-28

to religion it will clear, broaden, deepen,
strengthen, unite all religious life Let us
consider more definitely action of the
reasoning faculty on the religious life of
men. Reason and theology. AS there is
no more important department of re-
hgious life than the theological, or mans
relation TO God, there is need of the reason
Ing faculty here in a superlative degree.
reasoning does nc consist in the assimila-
tive process mercy There is something
more than the compiling or what men nave
believed. TO know your own age you
must know the past is not strictly true.
So to know the theology of the
past, the process by which proceeding gem
erations have justified their belief in and
relation to, God while helpful is not all
there is; and when 1t comes to be that one
simply adopts the past for his own he
might just well have been born then
tar as the new light and the new truth of
his own day affects him. We pass from our
intuitive God to the God who comes into our
life through the powers of our mind. We
may even with profit speculate concerning
him and his dealings with us. We are en-
titled to a prognoSiS as well as a diagnosis.
The speculative element i'm theology is
founded on the soundest basis. 1t is the
finite reaching out by God given reason 10
enlarge the borders of his own finiteness
by penetrating the depths of his infinitude.
The materialism of this age, so far as it is
harmful is rebuked and best annulled by the
power of a speculative theology. For the
is the hope, grounded on the eternal we're
ties. that uplifts For the dull negations
there is the faith which dignifies and glory
fies everything that it touches. Reason gives
to theology it's positveness. Theology there
fore says: L believe never Il doubt What
it cannot comprehend it wrestles with:
what it knows it knows, and sometimes
with fanatical force The inVectives hurled
at theology and theologians, which would
seem TO make the one a farce and the other
an imbecile. are bestowed not upon true
theology, but upon the theology of tradi-
ton. Not upon that which man gains by
mic
but the reason of another which he at
tCmpts for his own and which deceit the
world resents and speaks accordingly.
Again consider reason and life. Not the
Gisordered play of the waters in some pool
or eddy, but the steady Onpushing of the
current with a mission and a destiny. Rea-
son endows life with purpose. development.
fruition. 1t may attempt, not altogether
with satisfaction to account for life but ii
never fails to order the life that is. The
animalism disappears before the appraised
head and the vision of the blue sky above
And if at times the head is bowed with
grief or the sky bedimmed with clouds rea-
sons asserts the cOnquering Of the one and
the dissipation of the other. Ii fills life with
the imagination as opposed to the literal.
With faith as opposed to mere fact; with
the anticipated joys of tomorrow as well
as the partaken sweets of to-day: and thus
makes life something other than the mere
eating and drinking just TO sustain life
Reason, as applied to life, lifts the clod
from off cur souls and endows them with
that imagination which Wordsworth con-
Ceived when despite the changes of life he
asked Survives imagination TO the change
superior? Help to virtue does she give? If
not, O mOrtalS, better cease 10 live Mat
thew Arnold in book written some years
ago, God and the Bible, and now almost
forgotten, / think, but which created no
little stir when ii first appeared. had this
very interesting proposition in his preface
and (as most of us do not read prefaces) 1
call your attention to ii in connection with
reason and life. He says We cannot get
along without Christianity. but we cannot
get along with Christianity as il is The
proposition Is paradOXical. but il is true
We cannot get along without the principles
and the spirit of Christ. Not only for the
encouragement that He gives to those who
are solving the way of life, but for the hone
and forgiveness which He imparts to those
who need redemption.
PURE BENEVOLENCE
christianity in essense is pure benevo-
lence. The Father in His dearest and truest
relation of love TO his children desiring for
them only good. Yet we cannot get along
with Christianity it Is for that involves
complexity of notions which the reason
does not and ought not to accept 1t has
to do with things not essential TO thought
or life. To the frills and furbeows of re-
Hgion, If you will. which are well enough
for some yet not necessary for any To the
vargaries which may harmlessy amuse and
even comfort few. but which have no
universal message to the world If you
write God as father. Jesus as the elder
brother. and mankind heirs by right OF
sonship by right of s0nship with that
splendid elder brother. YOU have the reason
able secret % the salvation which mans
prodigality necessitates. Ii is God pro-
Jected into manhood and making il manly.
1t is life raised To it's highest power. the
apprehension of its eternal significance.
We come now 10 the issue of the whole
matter, reason and brotherhood. Reason
applied to theology renders IL sDecula tive
always developing but never finished. Rea-
| son applied 10 life renders II imaginative.
ever ideal and never commonplace Reason