If religion is to be a reality to the social consciousness, then, there must be a real revelation of a real God in the real world, in actual human history, not an imaginary God, nor a dream God, nor a God of mystic contemplation. This discernment of God in the real world, in actual history, is the glory even of the Old Testament; and it came, as we have seen, along the line of the social consciousness. And it is such a real revelation of the real God that Christianity finds preëminently in Christ. It can say to the social consciousness: Make no effort to believe, but simply put yourself in the presence of a concrete, definite, actual, historical fact, with its perennial ethical appeal; put yourself in the presence of Christ--the greatest and realest of the facts of history,--and let that fact make its own legitimate impression, work its own natural work; that fact alone, of all the facts of history, gives you full and ample warrant for your own being. If this be true, it can hardly be doubted that, so far as the social consciousness understands itself and influences religion at all, it will tend to emphasize, not to underestimate, the concretely, historically Christian. The natural influence of the social consciousness upon religion, then, may be said to be fourfold: it tends to draw away from the falsely mystical; it tends to emphasize the personal in religion, and so to keep the truly mystical; it tends to emphasize the ethical in religion; and it needs the concretely, historically Christian. [53] Cf above, pp. 59 ff. THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE CHAPTER IX _GENERAL RESULTS_ The question of this third division of our inquiry is this: To what changed points of view, and to what restatements of doctrine, and so to what better appreciation of Christian truth, does the social consciousness of our time lead? The question is raised here, as in the case of the conception of religion, not as one of exact historical connection, but rather as a question of sympathetic points of contact. It means simply: With what changes in theological statements would the social consciousness naturally find itself most sympathetic? Certain general results are clear from the start, and might be anticipated from any one of several points of view. I. THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY IN PERSONAL TERMS