BOOKS OF THE DAY

PAGE

Symbolism and Belief (Dr. W. R. Inge) ..

1151

Mr. Churchill and Germany (Christopher Hobhouse)

1152

Germany Speaks (Prof. E. H. Carr) ..

1153

The Middle Way (Honor Croome) . .

1153

Anatomy of Oxford (Graham Greene) ..

1154 Parliamentarian General (A. L. Rowse . .

1156

The Woman Who Could Not Die (Mark Benney) Confessions of an Innkeeper (Derek Verschoyle) Living with Lepchas (Michael Spender) The Ladies of Alderley (C. E. Vulliamy) Fiction (Evelyn Waugh) .

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SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION

By DR. W. R. INGE

" QUESTIONS regarding the element of symbolism in our religious conceptions take us to the very heart of the religious problem." Few will be found to dispute this dictum of Mr. Bevan. No more suitable subject for a Gifford Lecturer could be chosen.

Out of the twenty lectures prescribed for the course, the author has omitted four, which he prefers to publish sepa- rately. There are some others which are not very closely connected with the main subject ; they give Mr. Bevan an opportunity for tilting at the Hellenistic element in Catholicism, without which it would be safe to say that there would be no European Christianity. The two lectures on Time hardly do justice to a most difficult subject. The notion that the time-process will " come to an end and be succeeded by a timeless one " does not suggest that he has thought very deeply on the problem. A timeless state cannot be in succes- sion to anything. Alternatively, though " purposes are achieved only in their final result," " an endless time-process may be realising a divine purpose." A purpose which needs endless time before achieving its final result is eternally frustrate. He also strangely assumes (misquoting me for that purpose) that if, as Christian philosophy generally holds, there is no past or future for God, it follows that He cannot be aware of events in their relation of earlier and later. How- ever, no one can be blamed for failing to throw new light on the terrible problem of Time. Even Plato's much admired " Time is the moving image of eternity " invites the question how that which has movement as its primary characteristic can be a symbol of that which is essentially unmoving. Of recent writers, none has handled the subject better than Mr. Brabant in his Bampton Lectures.

The chief interest and importance of the subject of these lectures is the question what kind of reality ought to be attri- buted to religious dogmas. Mr. Bevan here makes a valuable distinction. There are some religious symbols which resemble Plato's myths. They are poetical representations of beliefs which cannot be rationalised, since the human mind is mani- festly unable to correlate them with our other knowledge. In these cases the myth, avowedly inadequate, should resemble the truth as far as possible. This is Plato's method, as stated by himself. Such symbols are those which relate to the creation of the world, and to eschatology in all its forms. It is useless to ask why there is a world, and how it came into being. " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The rest is poetry and speculation.

Christian eschatology is an amalgam of incompatible theories about the future life. But though it is a mass of contra- dictions, it manages to preserve those beliefs which the human mind thinks most important. Death does not extinguish the soul. The good are rewarded, the bad are punished. Popular theology holds these beliefs in a very crude form, imagining local and temporal joys and penalties. The philosophical conception of eternal life is translated into endless duration. In quite modern times the belief in a law of progress, " the last great western heresy," has added the idea of progress in eternity, for which neither Christianity nor philosophy gives any warrant.

The other class of symbols are historical dogmas. Here the element of symbolism is less obvious and more disputable. For instance, to take the two which are most discussed just now, those who accept the traditional accounts of the miraculous birth of Christ and the resuscitation of His crucified body Symbolism and Belief. By Edwyn Bevan. (Allen and Unwin. t5s.) receive them for the most part not as symbols but as literal facts. Those on the other hand who accept them, as they say, symbolically, do not need them as symbols, and retain them as time-honoured vehicles of truths which could stand without them. And yet it is plain that, even for those who accept them in their literal sense, they differ greatly from events in the order of nature. They are facts of so extra- ordinary a kind that if they were not connected with religion the most overwhelming proofs would be needed to make them credible, proofs which from the nature of the case are not forthcoming. And yet they are believed without hesita- tion. It is plain that such beliefs are a normal product of simple faith, not its cause or foundation.

This becomes more obvious when we reflect that these historical dogmas, however well established, prove nothing which is of any interest for religion. The birth of a human child from an unfertilised ovum would make a tremendous sensation in biology, and would lead to awkward social and legal consequences, as introducing a slight element of un- certainty where at present no further proof is required. The one sphere in which one might suppose that such an occur- rence was of no interest whatever is that of religion. For the purely pagan notion of a deity taking the place of a human father does not here come into consideration, nor would it be true, judging from such analogies as nature furnishes, that the offspring of such a union would be " perfect God and perfect man."

Similarly, the resurrection of the dead body of Christ is obviously only the preamble to the ascension into heaven.

If the idea of a local, geographical heaven has been discarded, the temporary reappearance of the material body is rather embarrassing than an aid to faith in the divinity of our Lord. And yet the large majority of believers are deeply distressed if any doubt is expressed about the empty tomb.

These dogmas then have a peculiar character. If they are taken as flat historical recitals, they prove nothing that we wish to believe. If they are treated as mere fables, they are equally devoid of value. As held by religious persons, they form a bridge between fact and value, the temporal and the eternal, matter and spirit, however we like to put it.

In this sense we may speak of them as symbolic or sacramental. The anger felt by traditionalists against modernists is not because the latter interpret the dogmas symbolically or sacra- mentally—this is admitted to be right—but because they substitute another interpretation of the facts on the basis of pure naturalism.

It is not a matter of indifference to a Christian whether the whole Gospel story is fact or symbol. Perhaps the revelation might have been made without what the Church calls the Incarnation. But the removal of the historical figure of the Founder would change the character of the religion, turning it into a non-historical mysticism ; and this would be im- possible. There are therefore limits beyond which the admission of a mythical element in Christianity cannot go without ceasing to be Christian.

That we cannot know God as He is, is admitted by all theologians. He reveals Himself in various ways, in and

through the various experiences of human life. But it stems to be the doctrine of the New Testament that love is in a special sense the hierophant of the divine mysteries. " God is love ; he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him." Here, it seems, we are brought near to thai state in which man can behold his Maker face to face, no longer " as in a mirror, by means of symbols."