| UNITARIANISM
ITS THOUGHT, WHAT IT STANDS FOR, AND ITS TENDENCIES
Address delivered by D. C. Limbaugh at Temple Emanuel, the Jewish Synagogue, Commerce Street, Dallas, Texas, Friday night, May 12, 1899.
I am glad to appear before you tonight for the purpose of addressing you upon the subject just announced. As far as I know the occasion tonight is one that is unique in the history of Dallas. In the East and West, where Unitarianism is better known, it is no uncommon thing for Jewish and Unitarian ministers to exchange pulpits, and indeed the two congregations frequently unite in one common service. There is no reason why, upon occasions, they should not. We have one God, we believe in one God, and surely this is a platform broad enough for the whole human race to stand upon and unite in the praises of Him in whom “we live, and move, and have our being.”
But the time has come, it seems to us, in the history of Dallas, when a broad and liberal Christianity should be declared here. Many souls are hungering and thirsting for religious knowledge, truth and righteousness, to whom the old dogmas, doctrines and creeds appear outgrown. These persons are at sea without chart or compass, and many are making ship-wreck of their religious natures. The old creeds seem to them unworthy of the character of God, the nature of man, and of the highest conception of human duty and destiny. They realize that creeds are but human inventions and contrivances, made by man to meet the demands and needs of the ages in which they originated, but being of human origin they have been out-grown, and hence we need a liberal platform which does no violence to religion but which, while it is perfectly rational, is, at the same time, expressive of the highest conception of a life of spirituality.
I am indebted to my Jewish friends of this congregation, distinguished for intelligence, good citizenship, nobility of character, and unswerving patriotism, and to your justly popular Rabbi Dr. Kohut, distinguished for scholarship, learning and eloquence and piety, for the opportunity to speak to you. I am proud that I may call this already distinguished young gentleman my friend, for it is an honor to any man to be received upon terms of warm friendship by a man of such learning, such breadth of thought, and such character. For you and for him I entertain the highest esteem, the warmest friendship and the most sincere thanks.
You and I may not agree all the way through, but as I have already indicated, and as I shall more particularly and minutely indicate as I progress in the discussion of the topic of the evening, there is a platform broad enough upon which all humanity may unite, for after all our differences there is but one God, and one common humanity and one common aspiration of the human soul. We are all feeling after God if haply we may find Him.
What I shall have to say tonight necessarily takes an expository [approach] rather than that of an argumentative and demonstrative character. I feel sure, however, if time and opportunity were allowed, I should be able to sustain by facts, arguments and illustrations what I shall endeavor to present to you by means of exposition. It is a broad, rich, fertile field in which many rare and ripe seeds grow, but in the short time we have at our disposal, I shall have time to winnow but imperfectly for you a few of these seeds. In presenting to you Unitarianism, its thought, its tendencies, what it stands for, and the hope which it holds out to humanity, I am attempting to cover in one short discourse what ought to be attempted in not less than ten discourses each in length equal to the present one. It is but natural then that many who are not acquainted with Unitarian thought and who hear me upon the present occasion should get a wrong idea of its conception, its aspiration, and its work. If then, you misunderstand me tonight do not so much blame Unitarianism as me. You will perceive before I have finished the discussion of my first proposition that the Unitarian church is not responsible for the thought of one of its individual members, and that no individual member of the denomination is responsible for the general thought of the organization. I speak for myself tonight, the truth which I do see and which I do feel, fearing no ecclesiastical body is going to cite me to account for the thought set forth in your hearing. And yet I am sure my thought is that most generally entertained by Unitarians everywhere.
The first proposition of the discussion, to which the thoughts above indicated naturally lead, will make my meaning clear. But before I begin the discussion of the two basal principals upon which Unitarianism is founded and out of which grow its tendencies, and to which the coloring of all its work is to be ascribed, I wish to make a general statement which, if you will remember to keep in mind, will enable you to see in the proper light all that I shall have to say upon the present occasion.
Ours is not a system so much as it is a tendency. It is embraced by the spirit rather than by any formal statement of language. The seeking of truth, actuated by a love for it and its application to the religious nature of man is the spirit that animates us in all our investigations, statements and work. This principle, we owe to the scientists whose friends and allies we are in the seeking of truth. We may not, and we do not, neither as a denomination nor as individuals, accord with all scientific theories, but the spirit that animates the scientists to search for truth in whatever field and in whatever way it is to be found, and to accept it wherever found, is the principle that animates us in our religious life.
The basal principles of Unitarianism then are two: 1. “The unqualified right of freedom of inquiry.” 2. “The ultimate authority of reason.”
Protestantism in contadistinction to Roman Catholicism, claims to be founded upon the former of these two principles. Physically, at this time and in this country, this is correct, but virtually and morally it is not. True, men and women are not longer publicly and formally ostracized from society because of non-conformity to creeds, doctrines and dogmas, but the moment that you, as a member of an orthodox protestant denomination assert your God-given right to privately interpret and to publicly teach that which you conceive to be the truth, unless it be in accord with the interpretation of the creed to which you have subscribed and under which you hold your church membership, you are requested to withdraw, to appear before its ecclesiastical body to answer for your heresy or the church may withdraw from you. No man can have a conviction of the truth unless he has experienced it for himself, nor can he experience it as a responsible, intellectual and moral being unless left free to do so. Salvation by character does not consist in, nor wait for, the acceptance or rejection of so much speculative, metaphysical or theological thought concerning the being of God, the authority of the Bible, the nature, character and purpose of Jesus, the nature of man, Heaven, Hell, origin of evil, the doctrines of immortality and reward and punishments. These are all interesting questions about which we entertain pretty generally concurrent opinions, but they are, with many others similar in nature, the very questions concerning which we leave men and women free to think and investigate for themselves.
Man is only half a man until he freely and fully declares himself. Herein largely consists the differences in men. One man possesses indifferent convictions, is never much in earnest and never declares himself. Another man thinks profoundly, feels deeply and freely, fairly, fully, strongly and sublimely declares himself. The world falls at his feet and worships his greatness. But why so few great? By our system of intolerance men are forbidden to obey the voice within, the over-soul, the God-seeking expression.
The second basal principle, namely, that the ultimate authority of reason must be the principle to which all religious truth is to be referred finally, is a necessarily accompanying principle to the one just discussed if it is not a corollary. Practically and virtually it is a principle both of Catholicism and orthodox Protestantism, though formally it is denied by both general organizations. The good Catholic will tell you that the individual member is not capable of interpreting for himself, and so it must be left to the church to tell him what he must believe and do to be saved. So you see the very principle by which he settles for himself what he must do is a principle of human reason; however fallacious it may be, yet it is one that satisfies his human reason. The orthodox Protestant says: “Neither is the church nor am I competent to judge the way of life, and so I must have a book, a literal authority of truth.” But, you see, he settles for himself by the same method, though he arrives at a different conclusion, the ultimate authority by which he is to be governed. In each case the human reason settles the principle by which the individual member is to be governed. Who took away or who has the right to take away the God-given faculty of human reason and to place the authority in any church, in any body of men, or in any book? Is not the very fact that the Bible has been given to man for instruction and guidance even if it be literally inspired, a tacit admission of the ultimate authority of human reason? What will it instruct and guide if it be not human intellect and conscience? Does it not in its every lesson appeal to human reason and human conscience? But after all is the theory that Protestants are governed by the Bible as ultimate authority true? What proportion of orthodox people have really a deep and intelligent conception of the creeds of their churches? Have they in fact studied the questions and do they truly believe the creeds that they profess and for which they stand? Is not the fact that they accept the creeds proof, prima facie, that the church’s interpretation of the Bible is their authority rather than the Bible itself?
Friends, things ought not so to be; and there are many in Dallas today, both inside and outside the churches, who are hungering and thirsting for religion and whose lives will be wrecked religiously if they cannot find one which is rational. In the language of the sainted and prophetic soul of Channing I would say: “Our ultimate reliance is and must always be on our own reason. I am surer that my rational nature is from God than that any book is an expression of His will.” Freedom of inquiry, whose findings are referred to the reason as the final court of appeal, is surer of resulting in harmony of thought and religious sentiments among the inquirers and worshippers than when investigation and belief is bounded by a creed. Greed reflects the beliefs of the men in the age in which it was framed, and it may or may not find approbation in the reason and conscience of the men who have all the rich treasures of the past and present throwing light upon those questions embraced in the creeds made fifty, a hundred, three hundred, five hundred, a thousand years ago. In religion we should be free to pursue the same method that is employed by the scientists. Where a theory in science is found to be contrary to facts and principles it is abandoned without any violence to true science. Science is science still. No violence has been offered or inflicted. The scientist is as devout in his pursuit of knowledge as ever, but error has been discovered and abandoned. The fact that there is a tacit agreement among scientists that such course should be pursued makes agreement and harmony among all the scientists. True science remains the same, the principles of inquiry, experiment, and investigation, upon which all the scientific world is agreed are immutable, but theories long in existence have been discovered to be at variance with scientific facts and principles, and hence, other theories which will accord with the great underlying principles must be sought for and promulgated.
Now, as you would not call into question the scientific ability, earnestness and honesty of the scientist who abandons the theory discovered to be wrong, so ought not you to question the moral honesty, the mental integrity, and the spirituality of the man who questions and repudiates the authority of the creeds, the churches, and the Bible. Piety, spiritual animation, the religious nature, the innate, intuitive religious faculty, remain intact and as immutable as God himself, whatever be our notions, our theories, our creeds, our authority. It is time the world were learning a lesson in regard to its persecution of reformers. From time to time men have declared the truth as they saw it. The world has hounded and persecuted them, but finally truth has prevailed and error has been banished. “Truth, though crushed to the earth, Will rise again.”
But after all, are our facilities to be trusted? A great preacher once said in a sermon upon Theism that the facts relative to this question were not at all subject to the understanding. “None of them come under the decision of the critical reason. If they are to be held, it is only by faith that we can hold them; for, in fact, the understanding is more against them than for them and experience seems rather to contradict them than to support them.”
Dr. Richard A. Armstrong, of Liverpool, England, in his excellent work on “God and the Soul,” in commenting upon the above quotation says among other irrefutable things: “If it be indeed the case that the understanding is more against the leading affirmations of Theism than for them still more if experience rather contradicts than supports them, then all arguments in support of the belief in God and His love and goodness are a terrible mistake, misleading so far as they affect thought at all, and like all misleading utterances, pernicious and perverse.” Further on he contends that, “The experience of the mind and soul is the true foundation of religious belief; that from a man’s inward experience the understanding has to take its facts, and thence to reason out the justification of belief in a God whom we may love and trust.”
“I say that if understanding and experience were against belief in God, it would be a positive immorality to nurse and foster in us that belief. Understanding and experience are the instruments of our nature for the erection and consolidation of our belief, and we have no right to set our minds to think and believe in contradiction to them. That is to make against all human progress and emancipation. And the great word “faith” is used in a wrong or degenerate sense when we are told by faith to hold beliefs which critical reason and experience make against. Superstition, that mother of multiform evil, is nothing else than the clinging to some belief in the misused name of faith in despite of experience and reason. Let us rescue the great word from that degradation. The real faith which is a power for truth and good is not the opponent, but the helper of understanding and experience. Both the critical reason and the experience of the inward man have their times of dullness, inactivity, torpidity, non-illumination. Faith is the unswerving trust, at such seasons, in the enduring verity of those things, which in their moments of power and illumination the critical reason and the experience of the soul have taught us. Faith is trust in our own highest and purest self.”
But there are other great and momentous questions, about which Unitarianism has its thought, in whose consideration you would be interested. Candor requires that we must acknowledge our indebtedness to Judaism for the doctrine of the unity of God. Judaism stands today as a bulwark against materialism.
In the learned and thoughtful address delivered before his congregation in Philadelphia, Pa., the Rev. Dr. Henry Berkowitz, in commenting on this subject, says: “Judaism came of old as a protest against nature worship, and Judaism stands today as a protest against modern materialism, which is nature worship in another form.”
In another place this learned man says: “It is a mistake to suppose for one moment that, because we have driven the mystery of creation back further into the universe that therefore we have driven God out of the world.”
“We believe God to be one, not three or more; an intelligent first cause, not an ultimate blind force; beyond our utmost thought, powerful, wise, holy, just, good, not malignant or indifferent, or in any way imperfect; the embodiment of all, and more than all, that we could possibly mean by that name which Jesus taught us to call Him “Our Father” and one who can never cease to love and care for all his children in this world or any other”
I cannot in this connection hope to give you anything like adequate arguments to prove the hope that is in me, but if you will bear with me, I should like to hint at a brief outline of the reasons why it seems at least more reasonable to believe the above than to doubt it. 1. We are here. 2. We are here because of a power outside of and beyond us. To quote from Dr. Minot J. Savage, the pastor of the Unitarian church in New York called “The Church of the Messiah:” This power has given us life and is therefore, whatever more it may be, our father. Out of it have come, not only our bodies, but our minds, our affectional natures, our consciousness whatever we mean when we think of ourselves as souls.” This power has produced the fields, the beasts, the lowest and the highest types of humanity, brains like that of Shakespeare, and spiritual natures like that of Jesus. Even Herbert Spencer has told us “that the existence of an invisible and eternal power back of all phenomena, and of which phenomena are only the changing and passing manifestations, is the most certain of all our items of knowledge.” Now, we must think of this power as omnipotent, eternal, one, intelligent, and personal. We are not to think of it as personal in the sense in which we use the word personal and yet we must realize the essence of personality to be able to experience consciousness – to be able to say “I.” Personality is the product of this power, and since nothing can be evolved that was not first involved, we must conclude as the stream cannot rise higher than its source, that of which personality is a product must itself have personality.
In the next place we remark that “God is a spirit,” that “no man hath seen God at any time.” We are accustomed to say that we know only things that we see through the senses. I say I know coal, I know stone, I know earth, I know my friend. We do not talk thus concerning matters of religion. Then we say, I hope, I believe, that God exists. If you will read the Religion of Evolution , by Savage, you will find in his chapter on “The God of Evolution” a very satisfactory demonstration of how we may know God as we know the grass and the flowers. Among other things he says: “There is nothing in the universe that is completely known. The universe is all of one piece: every thread runs through it all; so that to trace one thread completely is to unravel the whole mystery.”
“Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand
Little flower; but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all
I should know what God and man is.”
I do not want to appear too metaphysical upon this occasion, but I cannot resist the temptation to ask this question: What is it that we know about anything? Is it the thing or the person in itself, or manifestations of the thing or person? But I must desist here by saying as Shakespeare makes one of his characters say:
“ There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
We have fairly correct conceptions of things through manifestations, but the point maintained is that our knowledge is at best imperfect; that we know things only through attributes and manifestations; that we do not know the essence, the spirit, the life of things, and that we know God in the same way as we know other things. Our knowledge of Him may be limited, but it is limited in reference to other things. We do not refuse to believe in the reality of things because of our limitations in knowledge, therefore neither should we discard belief in Him because of limitations of knowledge in reference to God.
We have said that we believe God is love, that he is our father, that he loves his children eternally. We believe this in a most realistic sense. We do not believe that God will perforce compel the universal salvation of His children; but by the eternal and illimitable love of God all men everywhere, somehow, somewhere, sometime, it will be drawn by this great love to honor themselves and to glorify God by lives of purity and uprightness. God’s plans cannot fail. God loves character and must therefore arrange for its existence and growth. Now, since His plans cannot fail then we must conclude, according to critical reason and experience, that our tender, loving father not only cares for us here, but that He will love us and care for us and provide for us throughout eternity.
We would not be understood as depreciating the real importance of the Bible, for it has its place in the church and society, and in the religious culture and development of man. But, having made the experience and the critical reason the final test of the validity of all religious knowledge and life, we lay down the broad and comprehensive test in regard to the teachings of the Bible itself. In other words, we take “truth for authority and not authority for truth.” We believe that inspiration is not something which can be locked up in writing, or confined to any age or people; but that now, today, and here with us, just as truly as 2000 or 3000 years ago, and in Palestine, the Infinite Spirit of Wisdom, Truth Beauty and Love waits to come with its inspiration into every receptive mind.”
We believe that revelation is gradual, progressive, not stationary; that it comes in all countries to all people at all times and through all channels. It comes to us through nature, history, science, through daily life and experience, through our own minds and consciousness, through our own innate, intuitive moral reason. Revelation is not confined to one book, but all moral and spiritual truth belongs to it. It does not come in any mysterious or miraculous way, but all these channels through which it comes are perfectly natural. “As a race we are now standing only in the morning dawn of revelation, not in its evening twilight.” Still we believe the Bible to be the noblest depository of this revelation that has come down to us from the past, and as such it is to be cherished. It is not, however, the only sacred book in the world, nor by any means an infallible book.
We believe Jesus was just what he claimed he was, “The Son of God.” But we are all the sons of God and Jesus is our brother. If Jesus emphasized anything it was the “Universal Fatherhood of God” and the “Universal Brotherhood of Man.” He everywhere disclaimed that he was God, that he was equal to the father, and that he was good. He always taught that he was subordinate to the Father; that he derived his power and authority from the Father, and he always prayed to the Father. We believe him to have been divine, but not Deity; we believe humanity in its degree of perfection is divine. We do not look upon Jesus as God, but as man. We do not worship him nor pray to him, for he taught us to offer out prayers to God. And yet, as Unitarian Christians we follow the leadership of Jesus, not that there are no other great ethical and spiritual teachers and leaders; not that what Jesus taught had not been substantially taught by Hillel and other devout Jews; by Confucius, the Chinese philosopher; by Buddhists and others, but because Jesus is inclusive of them all, because he gives life and zest and spirit to what had been formally taught before, and because he makes his teachings apply to the whole human race emphasizing that there is one common brotherhood of men and one universal father of us all.
We do not in the least detract from Jesus: we honor and love his memory, his teachings, his beautiful life; his sufferings touch us, and we can utter the highest praises to him who gave his life to seal his teachings rather than to deviate from what he conceived to be truth. As a God he should be expected to live a perfect life, to utter faultless teachings; but how would that touch my life? But, as a man liable to commit wrong, to utter error, to suffer trial, pain, disappointment, and all but chagrin and despair, he touches me and my life as a human brother.
Believing in Jesus, then, we do not understand to consist in accepting so much metaphysical and speculative dogma concerning his miraculous birth, life, works, death and resurrection, belief about him, his incarnation, his deity, his atonement, his relation to trinity. We understand true belief in Jesus to consist in believing in him, his life, character, and his spirit. We honor God, ourselves, and man, more by love to God and man, devotion to truth and duty, to self-sacrifice, patience, gentleness, bravery and fidelity, than we do by accepting any speculative doctrine concerning the deity of Jesus.
When I shall have dealt with one more phase of the subject I shall have finished. Our discussion would be very incomplete should I not give considerable attention to the nature of man, what is meant by salvation, and the incidental problems of good and evil.
By means of historic remains we are able to settle two questions concerning man:
- He has been upon the earth hundreds of thousands of years.
- He began this life low down in the scale of intellectual and moral being. The crudity of his domestic utensils as well as those of warfare show that he possessed very little intellectual culture. All history and all evidences of a prehistoric nature indicate beyond any question that man’s development into the higher intellectual and spiritual life has been one of progression. Through experience, through association, through conflict, urged on by the germs of conscience, of intuition, of intellectuality, man climbed to a point where he could look up into the face of God and exclaim “My Father” and God smilingly responds “My Child.” Man is not in a ruined state but in an imperfect state. He has God for his father; he is made in the image and likeness of God, a little lower than the angels, and is therefore of divine origin, is divine and capable of indefinite improvement.
Now, the most important feature of this discussion is in this connection. The gravest consideration with all of us is, “What shall I do with my Life? How can I make the most of it?” Having failed to answer these questions correctly and to solve their riddle by lives of the highest type, all is chagrin and bitter disappointment. If all that I have said has any point, any meaning, it should combine to make plain the riddle of character building, soul development.
Oliver Wendell Holmes says, “We must study man as we have studied the stars and the rocks. We need not go to our sacred books for astronomy or geology. Do not stop there. Say how bravely, as you will sooner or later have to say, that you need not go to any ancient records for our anthropology. Do we not all hope, at least, that the doctrine of man’s being a blighted abortion, a miserable disappointment to his Creator, and hostile and hateful to Him from his birth, may give way to the belief that he is the latest terrestrial manifestation of an ever upward-striving movement of divine power? If there lives a man who does not want to disbelieve the popular notions about the conditions and destiny of the bulk of his race, I should like to have him look me in the face and tell me so. We have taken the disease of thinking in the natural way. It is an epidemic in these times; and those who are afraid of it must shut themselves up close or they will catch it.”
Dr. Savage in his lecture on “The man of Evolution” says: “If there is a supreme power in the universe capable of making such a humanity as is preached, and of treating his child as he is represented as treating man, then, though I may have to submit to his power, as feeble nations submit to despots, yet I will not, cannot, love him, nor bow to him my knee. And if I must go to hell with the noble livers and the great thinkers of the world than I would choose it rather than a place of court favorite in the presence of the one who makes evil and torture and everlasting prison-houses for his own glory.”
But such gloomy and pessimistic preaching as is done all around us is not the true position and condition of matters. It does not harmonize with the facts of experience nor judgment of critical reason: it is not in accord with the noblest conceptions of the Bible, and the true teachings of Jesus. The Book of Ecclesiastes exclaims at the end of a grand climax, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” And the prophet Micah says, “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God.” Jesus summed up the whole law in love to God and man. Time and again he illustrates the love of our Heavenly Father by means of referring to our earthly parents, and insists that as our earthly parents know how to give good gifts unto their children much more doth our Heavenly Father know how to give good gifts unto His children. We believe, then, there is something essentially good and pure in human nature, and we everywhere appeal in our teachings to this, our higher nature, to assert itself by living the better life.
“ But,” says someone, “there is evil in the world: how came it here and how are we to deal with it?” There is embraced in answer to these questions matter enough for a lengthy discourse. I can only hint here at a few things. A very thoughtful and learned, as well as deeply pious, Methodist minister once said to me that he could not answer these questions satisfactorily to himself without acknowledging the existence and power of a personal devil. I begin by acknowledging the existence of pain and evil. I do not agree with the Christian Scientists in denying their existence. It is too palpable to experience to stop to cavil one minute. Our knowledge of the fact comes to us by means of what Noah K. Davis calls the “Immediate Perception of the Object.” In the next place, I should show the use of pain and evil by a process of reasoning something like the following. All things are essentially good and pure within themselves. “Sin is the bad use of a good thing.” The development of character is the business of life, but there could be no morality, no perception of the good except by a contrast with the bad. Hence, that man may be a free moral agent and morally responsible, God has arranged the moral universe in such a way that man may do the wrong if he chooses. Shakespeare sees this principle in several instances. In King Henry V, the king exclaims to Gloster, “God Almighty! There is some soul of goodness in things evil. Would men observingly distill it out, etc.” And again in another play, the Duke, exiled, speaks in the forest of Arden to those around concerning this same subject.
“ Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head, And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books, in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
In commenting on this passage from Shakespeare, O. B. Frothingham exclaims: “A sweet expression of the faith that good comes out of evil, and if good comes out of evil, good must be in it, the water in its desert, the fountain in its rock.” Hunger, cold, poverty, adversity, pain, misery, suffering and disappointment, all have their own uses in the development of character. These things are all arranged by a good and wise providence, and we should view and use them as such. There is no place in the universe for the devil, and it is time his satanic majesty was dethroned. But sin is self-consuming. Good is positive; Evil is negative. Goodness is constructive while wickedness is destructive. Goodness must live, but wrong must finally perish.
Be not troubled. Have faith in God. Faith, Hope and Righteousness must live; error must flee away. All pain, all evil, all wrong, must fail. All truth, all goodness must triumph.  |
