The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and MoralitySchmid, Rudolf
Religion
The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality
Schmid, Rudolf
Evolution; Religion and science
Moreover, since ethical naturalism proves itself insufficient for the
principles of any and all morality, it is but a natural conclusion that it
is still less able to produce those principles which are characteristic of
the highest representation of human morality known to mankind, namely:
_Christian morality_. Ethical monism has no room for three ethical
fundamental views, whose full possession morality owes to Christianity, and
which gives to Christian morality its highest motive power. One of these is
a deeper conception of evil as a sin, as a positive rebellion against the
good; another is faith in a future {385} absolute realization of the
highest good in an end sometime to be reached by mankind and the individual
and by means of a moral order of the world; and the third is the
acknowledgment of the full worth of personality. Evil--to which of course
no objective valid moral law, but only one conventionally established,
stands opposed--is to ethical naturalism nothing but the action of an
instinct which in this given case is not beneficial to man in his struggle
for existence; the category of good and evil is entirely replaced by the
category of the useful and detrimental. With the disappearance of the idea
of sin as a transgression of the divine law, the correlated idea of
holiness also disappears from the system of ethical naturalism. Besides,
blessedness, complete harmony of the outer and inner man with the ideal in
the state of mankind as well as of every individual, complete realization
of the highest good for the whole as well as for the single through the
means of moral work and perfection on the part of man and of holy and
loving guidance and endowment on the part of God, is an aim which
naturalism is not able to acknowledge, since, according to it, mankind and
individuals continue in the ever-flowing stream of earthly incompletion
until both reach their destiny in annihilation. A moral order of the world
is an impossibility to it, since no holy and loving Ruler and Governor of
the world, but only a blind mechanism, causes the course of things.
Finally, the personality of man can be only perceived in its worth and in
its full importance, when, in the first place, it is in the possession of
freedom, of full moral responsibility; and when, in the second place, it
lives beyond the span of its short earthly existence and may hope for a
full realization of {386} all its ideals of virtue and the highest good for
itself as well as for mankind. Both these points must be contested by
monism and naturalism. The place of freedom is taken by absolute
determinism; even man is only a natural product, the highest which
naturalism knows, but still no more than a product of nature; his
personality and his life, bound to the material body, cease with the death
of this body, and therefore never reach the ideal of either morality or
blessedness. All ideals are and must forever remain objective illusions
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