Theology and the Social Consciousness: A Study of the Relations of the Social Consciousness to Theology (2nd ed.)King, Henry Churchill
Religion
Theology and the Social Consciousness: A Study of the Relations of the Social Consciousness to Theology (2nd ed.)
King, Henry Churchill
Christian sociology; Theology, Doctrinal -- History -- 20th century
But perhaps even this may suggest, that men may vary much in the
proportionate emphasis laid upon these two great sources of life, and
still alike come into a genuine and rewarding relation to God. That
God has counted individuality among men to be of prime significance,
the facts of creation hardly allow us to doubt. Possibly it is only
another application of this same principle of reverence for the
person, in the recognition of that individuality which has its great
joy in work, which is to be found in what Professor George F. Genung
suggestively calls "an apocalypse of Kipling." In Kipling's poem to
Wolcott Balestier, Professor Genung sees "the discovery of a religion,
or assignable and eternally rewardable relation to God, in those whose
inner life is not introspective or self-expressive." Their spiritual
life "serves God with the joy which comes of following and satisfying,
in the sphere of his plans, the eager bent of a conquering will." "It
is the religion of work and of daring." And "it is only in the open
vision of an eternal world that their secular ardor, which was
unconsciously serving God all along, begins to come to the perception
of a transcendent master and to be transformed into an adoration, an
obedience and loyalty, a 'will to serve or to be still as fitteth our
Father's praise.'"
It is quite possible that through our very failure to enter into God's
own deep reverence for the person, in the recognition of man's
divinely given individuality, as well as through failure to recognize
the essential like-mindedness of men, we have been shutting the door
of hope, where God has not shut it, and have limited beyond warrant
the divine mercy. Even in the life of heaven men cannot be all alike.
"Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he
standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath
power to make him stand."[120]
[92] _The Limits of Evolution_, p. x.
[93] Cf. above, pp. 22, 66, 106.
[94] See especially Bowne, _Theory of Thought and Knowledge_, pp.
239, 377, 378; James, _The Will to Believe_, pp. 145 ff.
[95] Cf. above, p. 44 ff
[96] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 241 ff.
[97] Hastings, _Dictionary of the Bible_, Vol. II, p. 626.
[98] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chaps. VI and VII.
[99] I aim here to bring out with some fullness the significance of the
propositions briefly summarized in the _Reconstruction in Theology_,
p. 244; and I venture to repeat, also, two quotations from that book,
because they fit so closely into the argument here.
[100] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 378.
[101] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 232, 233, 248, 249.
[102] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 209; and below, p. 209.
[103] _The Limits of Evolution_, p. 7.
[104] _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 270.
[105] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 205 ff.
[106] Cf. Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, pp. 690 ff.
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