Second Aspect of the Antithesis. The Consciousness of Grace

INTRODUCTION

§ 86. The more distinctly conscious we become that the misery involved in our natural state cannot be removed either by the recognition that sin is inevitable, or by the assumption that it is decreasing of itself, the higher becomes the value we place upon Redemption.

1. Unmistakable evidences of the consciousness of this insufficiency are to be found in almost all other religions, from the lowest to the highest. They all prescribe either sacrifices and purifications, or mortifications and penances, or both. Manifestly these are all devices for getting rid temporarily of the misery caused by sin, in the different forms which it assumes in different religions. By the degree in which this is actually effected, the more believing man is distinguished from the less believing. For, with the exception of those sacrifices which have no relation at all to evil, all sacrifices and purifications—unless we are to suppose that they come simply from an utterly confused superstition—are based upon the conviction that both the admissions referred to in the proposition need to be accompanied by an acknowledgment in the form of an act, it may be only a symbolical act, in order to get rid of the misery. But in a teleological religion this is not permissible. Such a religion sets down as a fact the ineffectiveness of the God-consciousness itself, and so finds here only a contradiction from which no effect can proceed; all that can be done is to admit the state of sin.¹ Mortifications and arbitrary exercises are less symbolical, and have in a greater degree a real content; their purpose everywhere doubtless is to exhibit power over the flesh by means of actions the demand for which does not arise of itself in the ordinary course of life; to supplement, that is, in some way the imperfect manifestation of this power in the demands which life makes of itself. This would be superfluous if the inevitableness of sin itself sufficiently gave peace of mind. Moreover, the wildest superstition reveals itself wherever these exercises are not so treated as to correspond to the given situation. But since in the life of any society demands are evolved every moment which it is our duty to fulfil, these arbitrary supplementary activities, by taking up time, inevitably prevent the full performance of duty. Thus through the very activities which are supposed to get rid of the misery, new misery is created.

But, even quite apart from the question whether performances of both kinds are not usually designed rather to avert punishment than to remove guilt, their futility as means to peace of mind is obvious. Hence every unsatisfied longing which still remains in spite of them is the expression of an inclination towards Christianity; it indicates the likelihood that a Redeemer, in whom is offered not the shadow but the reality, will be accepted.

2. Let us now consider the religious consciousness of the Christian. It is composed of the consciousness of sin which we have expounded above, and the consciousness of grace which we have still to expound but which we assume to be familiar. In it, too, we find both elements. First, the recognition that sin is inevitable for us, in so far at least as that it is not in our power at any particular moment to be sinless. But no less, the assumption that it is growing less, since this is essentially involved in the consciousness that the strength of our God-consciousness is growing greater. But in spite of this connexion these two elements belong not to the consciousness of grace, or that by which the misery is taken away, but on the contrary to the consciousness of sin, or to the misery itself. For to be conscious that the disappearance of sin is a thing of the future is the same thing as to have it still actually present; and, more completely still, the consciousness of its inevitableness is also that of its power over us. Both therefore indicate our need of redemption, and so cannot carry in themselves the removal of the misery—that would require that it should be established and provable in some special way that the consciousness of sin can be taken away by means of itself.

Let us suppose, on the other hand, that the misery has been removed from some other side; and add, further, that even the consciousness that sin must inevitably remain while it is gradually disappearing does not hinder the removal of the misery: just on that account the worth of the removal is the greater. But this can be rightly recognized only if we consider both elements in the natural condition of man as he shares in the corporate life of sin. In this condition the opinion that sin, because inevitable, does not involve guilt or deserve punishment cannot be derived from the God-consciousness; rather would this have first to be destroyed, that is, the consciousness that God is holy and righteous would have to be rooted out—which would be a new guilt. Just as little can we deduce the absence of guilt and of liability to punishment by asserting that the future already exists in the present, the disappearance of sin in its continuance. For if we are to go beyond the present content of our self-consciousness, we are just as much entitled, indeed we are equally constrained, to say that our present consciousness will be continued in our future consciousness, and with it the misery. So we are bound to maintain that all such statements as that God forgives sin because it is inevitable, if only it is decreasing, can never establish that removal of the misery of which they would persuade us. They always come back to a forgiveness of sin, arbitrarily, by ourselves; and, at best, they are a recourse to the divine compassion,² but without first positing redemption, and so also without reconciling compassion with righteousness. For even if we admit that in the natural state there does occur an increase in the strength of the God-consciousness, even if it is only in so far as it co-operates in the effort after civil righteousness: ³ it must result from this that the more sin decreases the sharper becomes the feeling for right and wrong. Consequently no increasing satisfaction arises—which is the only thing which could legitimately offer any guarantee for the removal of the misery. And here it is to be observed that those who think to remove the misery in this way, without redemption, are least in agreement on the question whether human life on the whole is developing towards a greater perfection (so that brutality, where it has once been overcome, does not return), or whether the race is destined, partially, by whatever revolutions it may be, to be continually thrown back, to begin its career all over again.

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