There is naturally and rightly a great deal of anxiety in the minds of most thoughtful people as to the state of religion after the war. The old order seems to have come down in chaos about our ears, and we are wondering what shape the new building will take. Even our clergy, or some of them, are honestly confessing that beliefs can never be just the same again; to name only two things, they feel that the literal acceptance of the non-resistance doctrine is no longer unqualifiedly possible, as many were formerly inclined to maintain; for the aggression of Germany has made clear the necessity of resisting evil; second, that the old Protestant doctrine of immediate heaven or hell cannot satisfactorily be applied to many of the millions of young fellows who have gone over; some idea of more gradual progress through an intermediate state seems more reasonable. But will this be sufficient? Shall we jog on again, after this world-shaking cataclysm, with such a very microscopical trimming—such an almost imperceptible sail-reefing—as this? Will not rather the whole theological scheme have to be remodelled? Can nations which have suffered as the belligerents have suffered—even those at home, still more the brave lads who have gone through experiences such as they never dreamed of in their worst nightmares—can these people, even if they wish, accept the old scheme, or anything like it?

I am not going to try to answer such a large question directly. Mr Wells has attempted something of the sort in his book, God the Invisible King, and he prophesies a religious revolution. It may come as he thinks, but it is perhaps more probable that, in spite of the most earth-shaking events, a certain continuity of thought will be maintained. New religions are not manufactured complete while you wait, like Pallas emerging full-armed from the head of Zeus; or, if they are, by such brilliant Olympians as Mr Wells, they do not get themselves accepted. But there probably will be enough of a change to be called a very considerable thought-revolution, even allowing for some inevitable continuity; and inasmuch as each expression of opinion counts as a datum and as a directive agency, I venture to make my prophecy. And I avoid the negative side, also any argument as to whether or why this or that particular doctrine will become obsolete; I think it better to let obsolescent beliefs drop quietly into their limbo, and to concern ourselves with the living ones that will replace them.

First and most important, the idea of God. We have heard, over and over again, the pathetic cry: “Why does God permit such things? Surely He must be either not All-good or not Almighty?” And one hears of men, even among the clergy, whose minds have been clouded by this difficulty. Mr Wells solves the problem in the fashion of J.S. Mill and the late William James, by postulating a finite god, a good being who is doing his best but who is struggling with a refractory material. To many people this seems a helpful notion, for it saves God’s goodness and gives a pleasurable sense of being co-workers with Him in His effort to improve things. But to many of us it is unsatisfactory. Indeed, if one could say such a thing of the author of Bealby and of the most genial of modern philosophers, we might say that the finite-god idea seems impossible to anyone with a sense of humour. Is it not really rather ridiculous of us to decide so solemnly that God is no doubt a good fellow but that He is having a tough time of it in fighting Satan, and that there does not seem to be any certainty of His winning? Perhaps the idea appeals to adventurous spirits like Wells and James because it has an air of being a sporting event, and promises excitement; but, I repeat, is it not a rather ridiculous proposition for us small creatures to make? “Finite” and “Infinite” are words; I am not sure that they have any very clear meaning. As to “infinite” in particular, the idea is only a negative one; we think of something finite, and then say “it is not that”. But even of “finite”, can we say that it has any useful clear meaning? The pen with which I write this may be said to be finite, for I can give its dimensions, and in many ways can define the limits of its powers. But inasmuch as every particle in it attracts every other particle of matter in the universe, the little pen’s finiteness or infinity depends on whether the universe itself is finite or infinite; and that is a bigger question than our small wits can settle. And if it is so with a pen, will it not be more so with greater things?

We measure things against the foot-rule of our own selves. We can imagine something much greater than those selves, both physical and spiritual. But when it comes to conceiving the whole physical universe of which we form an insignificant part, I do not feel that we can know whether it is finite or not. It is too big for our foot-rule. Even when dealing with the distances of the stars, we realise that the billions of miles which we can talk about so glibly do not convey much to our minds. We can think of a distance of a few miles fairly clearly, recalling how long it takes us to walk so far; but greater distances soon become mere figures, not representing anything that we can picture. And when we reach the conception of the whole physical universe, we get quite out of our depth. We do not know whether it is finite or infinite; we know only that it is inconceivably greater than we are.

So with the spirit which energises through it. Beginning with what we know best, we find ourselves acquainted with a world of mental phenomena bound together in and by what we call our self. Whatever we think of Hume’s argument that a mass of experiences do not involve a soul that has them, it is reasonable and useful to have a name for the active thing which perceives and thinks and acts and feels, whether we call it soul or spirit or mind or self or x. It is something which maintains a sort of identity, in spite of growth and change; and it is marked off from other selves. John Smith has John Smith’s experiences, not William Jones’s. This individual spirit energises through each of our bodies. Of our own spirit we have a very close knowledge, of other spirits we have a rather more remote knowledge from inference; we infer their states of mind from the states of body which we observe, or from the material effects which they cause in speaking or writing. Passing from the inferred human spirits (inferred because certain lumps of matter act in a way similar to that of the lumps which we call our own bodies), we come to other and larger and very different pieces of matter such as planets. It may seem at the first glance an absurd idea, but I for one cannot think of matter as dead, or of a whole planet without any soul except what is in the human bodies which make up an infinitesimal portion of its mass. It seems to me that there must be some sort of mind energising through the planet-mass as my own mind energises through my body-mass. And, carrying the idea further, we arrive at a conception of the whole universe as ensouled by a Being who in the material immanent manifestation is the Logos of the Christian doctrine, but who also transcends the material part as indeed the Christian doctrine teaches. This spirit, transcending the physical universe as well as energising through it, is greater in comparison with our spirits than the physical universe is in comparison with our bodies. Therefore, once more, and to a greater degree, we are out of our depth. To throw words like finite and infinite at such a Being is to make ourselves ridiculous. It is like a microbe sticking its own adjective-labels—if it has any—on a man, whom the microbe’s vocabulary as a matter of fact will not apply to. God is too great for our measure. He is high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than Sheol; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea—yea, than the whole universe itself.

This conclusion of Zophar the Naamathite, acquiesced in by Job at the end of the argument, seems to some minds an evaporation of God into an Absolute without any human attributes. We feel the necessity or at least the desirability of regarding Him as good, loving, etc., and we shrink from any de-personalisation. But there is a way out of the difficulty. God is incomprehensible, as the Creed says; parts cannot comprehend wholes. But there is something deep in us, call it what you will, which tells us that our ideals of Good, Truth, and Beauty are divine; are God in so far as we are able to cognise Him. Good, true, beautiful actions and thoughts are God manifested through our personal limitations; they are rainbow colours broken out of the pure white light of God. We do right to worship them. They are the highest we can comprehend, though we may reach lame hands of faith to the apprehension of the Unconditioned. But this is a very great mystery, revealed only to the mystic. And it is a dangerous path, for by reaching “beyond good and evil” we lose touch with humanity and with the virtues we can exercise, risking the insanity to which Nietzsche so logically succumbed. We may dimly apprehend the Incomprehensible, but we must live and work among comprehensibilities. That is what we are here for. God is conceived by us—and rightly so conceived—as Good, Truth, Beauty, though we can see that as He really is He must transcend them. Mr Wells’s distinction between the Finite God and the Veiled Being is not an ultimate. The two are one, seen as two because of our limitations. They are the rainbow and its source. The sun cannot be looked upon directly, but only when dimmed or reflected.

Then as to immortality. The deaths of so many of our best, and the sorrow thus brought into almost every home, force this question into prominence. If blank pessimism is to be avoided, many people feel that they must have some assurance of the continued existence of those who have made the supreme sacrifice—a sacrifice at the call of duty, greater probably than any sacrifice ever made by us of the older generation who have lived in the smooth times of peace. We feel that if these magnificent young lives have come to nought, have been wasted, there is no rational religious belief possible to us. Accordingly we inquire about immortality. And, curiously enough, Science, which in the last generation tended to deny or discredit individual survival of bodily death, now gives a quite opposite verdict. Psychical research brings forward scientific evidence for that welcome belief. It seems too good to be true; but it is true. Public opinion has not yet fully accepted it—nor is it well that opinion should change too rapidly—for it was well drenched in materialism during the heyday of physical science and its astonishing applications in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but the leaders of thought in almost all branches—scientific, legal, literary, and what not—are now admitting that the evidence is at least surprising, and those who have studied it most are one by one announcing that it is convincing. There are many questions yet to solve, such as the nature and occupations of the future life, concerning which there are different views, and the problems may turn out to be insoluble; but the main problem seems on the way to be settled. The survival of human personality is a fact. And the indications, so far as we have got, suggest that the next stage is a life of opportunity, work, progress, even more than the present one. There is much to be thankful for in even this only incipient revelation. It is salvation great and joyous, to those reared amid unacceptable theories of a blank materialism or the much more dreadful hell-doctrines of the theologians.

The religion of the coming time, then, seems likely to be mainly based on these two articles, belief in God in the way indicated, and belief in survival and progress on the other side. Both beliefs are empirical, and are thus in harmony with the temper of our time. They begin with the things which are most real to us, first the fact of conscious experience, then the external world, and reason upward therefrom, instead of beginning with metaphysical entities and attributes, and reasoning down—and failing to establish contact with the material world. Religious experience there still may be, and this may give rise to quite new and unexpected forms of belief or worship; but on the whole the tendency of thought for the last three hundred years has been increasingly empirical, and the success of the method is likely to ensure its continuance. It may be true that the ideal world is the more real—probably it is—that out of thought’s interior sphere these phenomenal wonders of the world rose to upper air, as Emerson says; but for us in the present circumstances the way back to universe-spiritualisation is via experience (and mainly sense-presentations) carefully observed and studied. If these scientific methods, which are open to everybody, can lead to belief in God and a spiritual world to which we pass at death, it seems unnecessary to return to the bad old days when sporadic experiences of this or that ecstatic, or logic-chopping by this or that theologian, led to beliefs and cults of widely differing character according to the idiosyncracy of the writer. A method which is open to all and the rules of which are agreed on will be likely to yield something like unanimity. The churches may yet form one fold, if they will; in which, with variations to satisfy different Æsthetic or symbolistic needs, all souls may find the answer to their queries, healing for their sorrow, and scope for their reverence and love; in a word, salvation.

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