WHEN HALF-GOD GO
By
REV. ELIZABETH PADGHAM
Delivered
May
December, 1929
"Heartily
know
When
half-gods go
The
gods arrive."--Emerson.
LAST Sunday after service I
was surprised that not one of you challenged my repetition of the statement
that the very foundation of the full, strong, rich life is faith in God. I had
fully expected that some of you would question me as to my meaning in the use
of the word "God." Perhaps it is your courteous habit not to question
a guest minister. I suspect, however, that some of the younger minds at least
went away thinking, "She's a conservative back number."
As I look at it, the sermon
has a work of its own it should aim to do. It is not the culminating peak of
our church worship. This, to my mind, is the place of the prayer. The sermon
should aim to uplift our thoughts and minds, it should direct us to the higher
life, but it should also energize us in thought, directing us toward clearer
thinking, at any rate to have a clearer idea as to what we as individuals do
think. While the sermon should not antagonize the listeners, it has
accomplished little if it gains only a passive acceptance of the ideas of the
preacher. The sermon should quicken minds as well as hearts and souls. Men may
differ from every thought that the minister has expressed and yet be mightily
helped, yes, be even saved from the sluggish, enervating slough of existence. A
preacher can give only his own ideas, his own experiences. These may well
differ from the ideas and experiences or those others who listen. Progress is
made when another's ideas sting us to search our ways. What do I believe? What
do I think about it? In speaking of the value of thought, a student in a philosophy
class the other morning objected to so much emphasis being placed on thinking;
he wanted more passion in doing. We surely need that, we need more passion in
our acts, but what we think makes a tremendous difference in our
reactions to the world about us.
In this day, shocking as the
thought is to many, it is nevertheless a fad: that a
minister feels challenged when he uses the word "God." Why should
this be so ? Because so many are
denying God. Men in all walks of life deny that they any longer believe
in God. Men have always denied. The question at present is more acute because
leaders in our churches are frankly voicing their denials and yet staying in
the churches, preaching from the pulpits. The religious world is vibrant with
the discussion, "Do you believe in God?" although it is guised under
the phraseology, "Are you a humanist?"
The business man absorbed in
the problems of his particular work, the woman whose day is not long enough to
attend to the demands made upon her, may well wonder what it is all about. Some
one says, "Men are denying God these days. The atheists are growing in
numbers. The work of the churches is finished for no one wants to go to church
anymore." The busy men and women hear this but they haven't time to look
far into the matter. Yet they go back to their several grooves feeling under a
cloud of despondency which they do not understand. They know that life presses
hard and there seems little hope or buoyant joy in living, that's all.
As I said, the world of
thought is now full of the question of humanism, and it behooves us of the
Are men tending toward
atheism at an alarming rate at this time? What causes the fearful to make this
assertion against our day? Simply this: men are more and more saying that they
do not believe in God. This should not discourage us because, when we ask them
to explain we see immediately that they are finding it impossible to believe in
God as the traditions explain Him. Well, the prophets did not believe God to be
what the Hebrews of Moses' time long before the prophets had believed. Jesus
did not uphold the traditions of Moses. That was the quarrel the Pharisees had
with Jesus. This great leader emphasized belief in a God quite other than the
War Lord of the Old Testament. Jesus was probably considered an atheist in his
day; but since that time he has been acclaimed as one who opened up for men a
vision of God that has illumined life for them. For it was true then as it is
true now that when the half-gods go the gods arrive.
If we will but take time to
look backwards we shall see what always happened. History shows that as men's
knowledge of the world in which they lived progressed so did their idea of God
expand and progress. The two kept step with each other. Men through the ages
constantly changed their ideas as to what God was. Necessarily once this fact
regarding the past is clear to men they must consistently expect that if men
are to continue to progress in knowledge of the universe and of life they will
continue to grow in knowledge of God. When a larger knowledge proves the
inadequacy of the idea we hold we must put it away that the larger idea may
grip us.
God is revealing Himself all
the time in His creations--the universe and the creatures in the universe.
Unless man ceases to think, ceases to grow in knowledge, he must learn more and
more of God. The only way to prevent this is to shut up his mind entirely. Even
then I do not believe he can completely shut God out.
So why be shocked when men's
ideas of God go on changing? A man here and a man there may very well propose
an idea of God that is false, that does not square up with experience. We need
feel no alarm. The false will be denied by experience. Truth cannot be
overturned by men's ideas. It will help us often through a crisis, when we feel
shaken as by an earthquake in our mental life, to keep a firm grip on that
thought, that truth, that reality, can withstand any amount of battering. Truth
cannot fall. There is but one question, Is man ready
to face the truth when he finds it in his seeking? Why be shocked when men
propose a new idea of God? Ideas are bound to change if men go on seeking for
the knowledge of God and His truth.
It isn't the changing ideas
of God that are alarming. It is the tenacity with which men fight to hold their
half-gods.
The
All along the way we are
perforce brought face to face with the result of our thinking. And men will
come to the parting of the ways. Because, if men seek honestly, they will not
all see alike, nor will they think alike. Truth is a many sided shield. Men are
not all facing the one side. Groups are on all sides and call out to others
their different findings.
A hundred years and more ago,
such difference led to the historic split in the Congregational church which
resulted in the two churches, the Trinitarian Congregational and the Unitarian
Congregational. In
A few years ago the
Modernist-Fundamentalist controversy threatened to disrupt the orthodox
churches. We Unitarians sat on the side lines and cheered ourselves in smug
pride because we had settled the question of the virgin birth, the resurrection
of the body, and similar problems a hundred years before. At the time of this
recent controversy I preached a sermon which I had occasion to re-read the
other day. I found that in that sermon I had prophesied that in a few years the
controversy would swing to the question of the nature of God. That very thing
has happened.
It has happened, and the
More and more we shall hear
of it, and we ought to know what it is all about. Some of you have asked me
what this humanism is. It is impossible to do more than to suggest the
principal line of the controversy in this short time.
What, then, is happening?
These men called Humanists
are denying any belief in God. They are omitting prayer from the church
services because they do not acknowledge the existence of any God to whom to
pray. This whole matter is of vital importance because the leaders who do these
things are ministers, the pews consenting, often even applauding. Fortunately
to my mind the men who hold these views are the extreme humanists and are not
in the majority.
Humanism at its best, as I
hear and read their chief exponents, is markedly reverent. In the Christian
Century of October and November 1929, there were printed discussions aroused by
an article on prayer by John Haynes Holmes who there calls himself a humanist.
If you read those discussions you will agree, I am sure, that I am not
altogether shy the mark when I claim that much of the ado is merely a matter of
words. It seems very largely a revolt against the tyranny of words coupled with
a serious ignoring of those things that Unitarians believe and have for a long
time preached and advocated. The humanists will not agree to this. They claim
they are presenting something new. We ask, Where is
it? and are not answered. Early in the fall Dr.
Charles Potter listed ten points of difference between the Unitarians and the
Humanists. One was the omission of the word obey from the marriage service.
This is nothing new, as you know. The word obey has been left out of the
service by many Unitarian ministers as a matter of course. They never thought
of calling the attention of the press to the fact. In my
twenty-six years of active ministry, marrying many people in that time.
I never once used the word obey. On this question of Dr. Potter's ten points I
quote the following from an article in the Christian Register written by a
leader in the Ethical Culture movement: "All ten of the points of contrast
Dr. Potter has set forth between 'the old religion' and 'the new' have long
been commonplaces with the leading representatives of Unitarianism, and have
also served to mark the difference between orthodoxy and Unitarianism. Even
Channing and Theodore Parker had given expression to Mr. Potter's
prophet-dictum: 'The time has come for man to dare to believe in himself, to
shake himself free from the shackles of inherited inhibition and taboos, and to
make a new faith for a new age. In the challenge to make the world better here
and now, we shall find all the incentives and thrills which formerly intrigued
the seekers of celestial bliss in the hereafter.' "
What's it all about then?
What are the humanists doing? They are re-emphasizing that which was the
Unitarians main emphasis when they split the Congregational body. It is an
emphasis which needs to be stressed and re-emphasized, for we all too soon drop
to a level monotone in its regard.
It is the emphasis on man,
the power of man, the possibilities of man. In the
very inception of Unitarianism the root of the difference of their faith from
that of the orthodox church lay in their idea of man.
The contribution which Unitarians made to the religious thought of that early
day was the emphasis they stressed on the goodness of the human being. Over
against the doctrine of the depravity of man the Unitarians preached a faith in
the divinity of man: over against the theory of the descent of man held by the
other churches the Unitarians advanced the theory of the ascent of man. They
stressed works over faith when that faith was a profession of belief only. They
were mightily interested in this world. They held that religion should fit men
to live in this world rather than simply prepare them to live in a heavenly
world to which they could go only through the gates of death. Humanism at its
best today is re-stressing this faith which the Unitarian church has always had
in the divine possibilities of humanity and in the immediate demands of this
world upon men. So far I find nothing to separate those of us who are theists, nor to arouse our fears concerning those humanists who
remain in the Unitarian churches.
In fact, I find that much of
the humanist's ammunition is wasted in shooting at men of straw. I am not
speaking of the humanist writers. They are interested in the philosophical
side. They are concerned with forming definitions often drawn out so fine that
there seems little left that is of value to life. It is true that we must think
straight. We must strive to think clearly that we may have a sound intellectual
background on which to meet and help those who come to us with intellectual
doubts. But just now I am much more concerned with the problem that faces us as
members of the Unitarian churches. I believe that much sorrow and heartbreak
among us need not be at all if we can once grasp the truth that Emerson voiced,
"When half-gods go the gods arrive." I speak, then, not of the
philosophical humanist writers but of these humanist ministers and speakers who
are preaching to us their denials. I feel toward their denials just as I always
have toward the denials that used to resound from the Unitarian pulpits. To clear the way for affirmations is enough. A religion
based on denials doesn't help anyone very far along the road of the better
life. But the humanist is so eloquent in his denials just now that we must
consider them a moment.
What are they denying? May
one say gods of straw? At least half-gods that the liberal Unitarian let go
years ago. The liberal wing of the orthodox churches have,
for the most part, outgrown the half-gods the humanists are ridiculing. We
listen to the humanist when he directs the fire of his eloquence against the
War Lord of the Old Testament, or against the white whiskered old man-god of
early art, and when he stops for breath we say, "Well, why so excited? We
don't believe in such a God either. We put all that behind us long ago. Where
have you been that you think Unitarians are controlled in their thinking and
praying by such an
anthropomorphic God?"
A few weeks ago I heard one
of the exponents of humanism give the following explanation of the difference
between humanists and theists, that is believers in
God. 'Here is a family in need. What happens? The humanist hears of them and
carries food, coal, clothing to them. The theist, on
the other hand, hears of them and goes to church and prays God to help this
family, while he, himself, does nothing.' I ask you, what church, orthodox or
liberal, is not, and has not been, quick to feed the hungry and help in every
material way? Certainly I've known none the many years that I've been
interested in church work as a minister. This idea I cannot pass by as a little
thing, as the theory of one exponent of humanism only. Just two weeks before
the above incident, in
We venture to ask, Why does not the humanist find out what has been done and is
being done? Their position would seem inexplicable did we not know how blind to
facts an idea can make men. As I see it, many of these men are fighting the old
ideas that have clung to them from a conservative orthodoxy. They preach as new
the thoughts, the theology, that those of us born in the Unitarian church have
been taught since our childhood. Why? What is the motive? I think it is a
splendid longing that motivates the best of our humanists. It is not a delight
in destruction, in tearing down the half-gods, smashing them from their
pedestals. These humanists are urged on by an honest desire to help men live
and be better, finer men, here and now. They believe that the old theology, the
old idea of God, really hinders men, holds them in a subjection to a false idea
that cramps their progress, their own becoming. The humanist says we can
believe only that which we can see and prove, only that which lies in human
experience. All we know is man, is our self, and what
comes in contact with that self in experience. He is right. How can you or I
know anything but that which we learn in our own experience? We can't. The
humanist is absolutely right. But here is the very point of departure. What do
we meet in our experience? What does my experience teach me? The humanist would
say in a general way, "Man is all we know. We know only the self. Man
accounts for all because he is all we know." That is side stepping. Man,
the self, may be all that we know but why assume that we know everything? I
said the humanist makes these statements in a general way.
When you pin him down to
details he admits another philosophy. The principal foundation stone of his
belief as I understand him, carries him beyond this
statement. For he believes in the growth of man, he believes that man will
grow. Why, therefore, must we ward which man is tending, which give glow to the
light toward which and to which the humanist directs the thoughts of his
communion, these prove that he believes that man an
will grow. Why therefore, must we not assume that man will grow in knowledge, a
knowledge which may be quite other than that about which he is now so dogmatic?
For your humanist is a dogmatist.
I well remember that years
before the name humanist was even whispered among us, a minister at a
conference preached of the "becoming God." He told us that God is the
spirit of humanity which is developing toward perfection but is not perfect;
that that becoming-spirit in man is all the God there is. That is the humanist
position today, but then it was new to us who were just beginning our ministry.
The next morning I talked with one of the men who is
now minister of one of our largest churches. He was much perturbed over the
sermon of the night before. He said he had not been able to sleep so puzzled
had he been over this "becoming God." At first, he said, he had
thought, "Here is God lying on this bed." It was laughable. Then the
terrifying thought came to him, "If this be true there can be no greater
power than man to turn to for help in time of need." The loneliness of man
overwhelmed him and the world seemed desolate.
Here is our question then.
Need we be overwhelmed because we know nothing but what we learn in our
experience? Nothing but man, nothing but the God spirit in
man progressing as man progresses? Nothing but man, answers the
humanist. Must we believe it too? Look into your own life. What, irrespective
of humanist or theist, does experience teach you? I cannot explain your
experience, but my experience brings me into contact with much for which man is
not and cannot be responsible. I find much in the universe that is a very real
part of my living experience, I find much that is real
in myself, that man did not create, that the being of man cannot explain. The
humanist has to acknowledge this too. At a Religious Education conference a
humanist curriculum was explained to us. The aim was to teach children to
reverence man and the self. To further this aim the courses dealt with
evolution, the ascent of man. The lessons started with the amoeba. Naturally
the question was raised by the children, What came
before the amoeba? What made the amoeba? Such questions sound very familiar to
theists who are used to being questioned. Who made God? We were told that the
humanist teacher answered the above questions by saying that before the amoeba
there is a mystery which no one knows.
Well, I a theist, call that
mystery the Source of All Life, the Creator of Life, although I don't like
"Creator" as well for I think God did not make life as something other
than Himself. Rather He gave of Himself. I call this
mystery God. Why not? One humanist answered me by saying that men would
misunderstand him if he used the word God. That they would think that he meant
all the old content of the word God that the Old Testament writers put in the
word Jehovah, or the Calvinist into the stern God-Judge. I replied that a man
creates a greater misunderstanding by saying that he does not believe in God at
all. For the content of the word has expanded with the searching of earnest,
truth-seeking minds. Men know that all the time the half-gods must go if men
would have the gods arrive; that half-truths must make way for the fuller
knowledge of truth. Our language is still too poor to produce a word that
carries a true idea to others of what we hold in mind when we say God.
God stands
for the sum of the highest ideals in each particular age; the ideal that men
are striving to be like. God, the
word God, stands for the Reality behind all seeming; the Unity which gathers up
into itself all the broken fragments of truth our experiences have brought us
to see and know. If only we could understand that, and then go on with the
interesting intellectual game of defining God, but never substituting for
God the definition of the word. A definition never stirred men's heart. It
is the Reality we have contacts with that helps us to be bigger men. However we
define it, there is a Reality which we experience. And that experience must go
deeper down than just in our minds if we are to grow in knowledge of the
Reality of God. When I say "God" don't you immediately
understand that I am speaking of the highest power that makes for goodness, for
rightness, that I know? You may know more of that power than I because of your
experience with that power, but you know that I am speaking of the
best and highest of which I can conceive. With the humanist I hold that it is
the power of life within me. Why not? As a child I heard Dr. Calthrop again and
again say from this pulpit, "Open up your lungs and breathe in God."
That was illuminating to me as a young girl. No humanist, today, can be more
daring in terms of God than that.
Beyond the humanist,--for I
claim that experience goes beyond the province the humanist claims--beyond the
humanist I hold God is the power without man that holds the stars in the
galaxy, that covers this earth of ours with its garment of loveliness; the
power in all things good and true and beautiful; the power that does things man
cannot do, things that just wouldn't be in our world-experience if man were
all. God, the Creator as man, great though he is, has never been and never can
be. Look around you and see the things in the universe, in our world
round about us, that man has had nothing to do with.
Where did these things come from? Something cannot be made out of nothing.
Science in all its phases teaches us that. My religion must in so far stand by
science. Religious truth and scientific truth must go hand in hand as far as
they go on the same road. When religion goes ahead, as go she must, she still
advances by the same scientific method. These things man cannot create, life,
love, truth, purity, the characteristics of the soul-life, the things of the
spirit,--where did these things come from? Call it "mystery" if you like.
I think God does not care by what name we call Him so we live in Him. I see it
as the Infinite Source of all being. There must be a source from which these
things spring. To me the Infinite Source of Life and Love is God. You cannot
give what you haven’t got; God cannot give what He hasn't got. He has nothing
but Himself out of which to give all these things since He is all in all. So,
according to inevitable logic, since you and I find love and goodness and
purity and justice in human living we must believe that they are part and
parcel of the Infinite Source from which we came. In that belief, to that
extent, I believe in a personal God. Not a God shaped like man, but a spiritual
Being whose spirit and life I share. Without such a
source I cannot account for that which my experience teaches me.
And so I, too, end in a great
Mystery, you say? Shall I deny God, say I do not
believe in God because I don't know Him, because I can't prove Him with
mathematical certainty to you? Shall I say I don't know God because I can know
only that which I experience? I cannot say that for this reason. Because I can meet God in experience just as actually as I come in
contact with anything in my experiences. I don't know you. I can't prove
you, the real you. I know only the revelation of you as you move your body, express yourself in and through your body. When you
leave your body I shall not be able to see nor touch that which has gone. I
shall only know that the real you I loved has left its
body. Yet neither you nor I doubt the existence of you. So I know God as He
reveals Himself in you and in the universe. I experience Him there just as
really as I experience you.
Again,--and here is the
greater experience that makes the glory of the vision of becoming humanity--I
can meet God in my own self. There I commune with Him as I can rarely commune
with you my human brother. In the deeps of my spiritual being there God and my
soul meet and traffic in spiritual things. Why do men say that what I see with
my eyes, hear with my ears, is real experience and
what I learn through the experience of the soul is not real? Who dares deny
reality to that which enters deep into a man's life and there comes to grips
with all that is low and mean and sordid in him and sets the better self free
to make its own all that is fine and noble and brave and true? Millions of
lives can testify to the reality of that experience. They laugh at any other
man's denial that it is real. They have met God in their life experience. They
have responded to the spark of divinity alight in their souls. They are on fire
with the passion to know more and more of truth;.- to
experience more and more of God. They would take us with them to seek God if we
will leave our half-gods, but they will not wait with us. They feel the pull of
God and they are all eager to march onward facing the Light.
I believe the humanist with
his strong emphasis will make a contribution to the religious life of to-day. I
hope that the theists will come out of their troubled silence, and instead of
fighting the humanist, will place an equally insistent emphasis on the belief
in the living God, a God who is not of the long ago, born of the childish
thought of a people in its childhood, but God who is always ahead of the
growing knowledge of man who is seeking to know the truth of this universe in
which he finds not only himself but God.
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