Adler, Felix. An Ethical Philosophy of Life.
Copyright 1918. Reprinted by Ethica Press, 1986.
Chapter IX
Religious Fellowship as the Culminating Social Institution
IN this chapter I shall undertake to sketch the plan of a religious society as
determined by the spiritual ideal herein set forth. The religious society is the last term
in the series of social institutions, and its peculiar office is to furnish the principle
for the successive transformation of the entire series. It is to be the laboratory in
which the ideal of the spiritual universe is created and constantly recreated, the womb in
which the spiritual life is conceived. No single religious society can adequately fulfill
this purpose. The spiritual ideal itself must necessarily be conceived differently by
different minds; but the great general purpose will be the same, despite variations in
shades of meaning and points of view.
The fellowship of the religious society must be based on the voluntary principle;
membership must be a matter of free choice.(1) In antiquity the
boundaries of the political and religious organizations coincided. The citizen was under
obligations as a part of his civic duty to worship the divinities of the state. In modern
times a state church is still maintained in some countries and supported out of the public
funds, while dissenting and nonconformist bodies exist more or less on sufferance at its
side. But this arrangement is harmful, especially so to those whom it seems to favor.
Erastianism paralyzes religious spontaneity. The state, it is true, is profoundly
interested in the flourishing of ethical idealism, and in the constant rebirth in its
midst of spiritual ideals. But it is not competent to determine what the character of
these ideals shall be. The moment they cease to be freely produced they lose their
life-giving power. The state within limits may enforce actions; it may not even attempt to
enforce beliefs.
On the other hand, the "secularization of the state" has given rise to the
deplorable impression that the state exists only for so-called secular purposes, and has
stripped the idea of the state of the lofty attributes with which the greatest thinkers of
antiquity had clothed it. It is the function of the religious society, dwelling uncoerced
in the midst of the state, to reinvest the state with the sacred character that belongs to
it. I do not of course intend to exalt the state after the manner of Hegel, as if it were
a kind of earthly god or to set it up as an object of religious or quasi-religious
devotion. The object of religious devotion is the infinite holy community, the spiritual
universe. The function of the religious society is to generate the ideal of the infinite
holy community, of the spiritual universe. The family, the vocation, the nation, are
sub-groups of this, lesser entities. Even mankind itself is but a province of the ideal
spiritual commonwealth that extends beyond it. To concentrate worship upon the state or
nation as some propose, would be to usurp for the part the piety that belongs to the
whole.
In describing a religious society three main aspects are to be borne in
mind:
The teaching, the organization, the worship.
A. The Teaching
In the religious society as here conceived there is to be worked out a
body of doctrine, and there is to be a body of specially designated teachers. Am
ethico-religious society cannot ignore or dispense with a general philosophy of life and
statements of belief. It cannot restrict itself to encouraging practical morality without
regard to what are called metaphysical subtleties. A moral society of this kind would soon
become ossified. On the contrary, an ethico-religious society should excel in the
fertility with which it gives rise to new metaphysical constructions and original
formulations of ethical faith. The will cannot be divorced from the intellect. The active
volitional life cannot be successfully stimulated and guided without the assistance of
the mind as well as of the imagination.
But the relation between philosophy and formulas of belief on the one
hand and volitional experience on the other should be the reverse of what it has been in
the past. Here there must be a new departure. The doctrine, the formulations, whatever
they may be, must not be dogmatic but flexible. Growing originally out of ethical
experience, they must ever prove themselves apt to enlarge and deepen ethical experience.
By this test they will be judged and they must therefore ever be subject to revision and
correction. Every dogma, every philosophic or theological creed, was at its inception a
statement in terms of the intellect of a certain inner experience. But then it claimed for
itself eternal validity, compressing the spiritual life within its mold,. and checking
further development. The body of doctrine which I desire and foresee will likewise be an
interpretation of ethical experience, intended to make explicit the fundamental principles
implicit in ethical experience, and thereby clarifying it, and assisting its further
unfolding. But it is not and should never be allowed to become dogmatic. The difference, I
take it, is plain: in the one case experience contracted in procrustean fashion into a
rigid formula, in the other case an elastic formula adapted to and subordinated to the
experience.
Thus much for the bodv of teachings. There should also be a body of teachers. A teacher
in an ethicoreligious society will retain something of the character of his
predecessors-priest, prophet, rabbi, pastor. The priest is the mediator of grace; the
prophet is the seer of visions; the rabbi is learned in the Divine law, and the pastor is
the helper of the individual in securing his individual salvation. But these functions
will now be seen in an altered light, and will be radically modified in their exercise.
The magical attribute of the priest disappears. The confident prediction of future events,
based on the assumption that the moral order is to be completely realized in human
society, has ceased to be convincing. The Divine law is no longer identical with the Law
revealed in the Scriptures and their commentaries, and the salvation of the individual is
to be accomplished by other means.
The religious teacher of the new kind is to resemble his predecessors in being a
specialist. The word specialist in this connection may, perhaps, awaken misgivings, and
these must be removed. He is not a specialist in the sense of having a conscience unlike
that of others, or in being the keeper of other men's consciences. Nor shall he impose his
philosophy of life or his belief authoritatively, but propose it suggestively. His best
results will be gained if he succeeds in so stimulating those whom he influences that they
will attain an individualized spiritual outlook of their own, consonant with their own
individual nature and need. But specialists of this kind are indispensable. The generality
of men have neither the time nor the mental equipment to think out the larger problems of
life without assistance, and the attempt on their part to do so leads to crudities and
eccentricities of which one meets nowadays with many pathetic examples among those who
have severed their connection with the traditional faiths, and have tried in their groping
fashion to invent a metaphysic or a creed of their own. (2)
The preparation of the ethical teacher for his special task consists in
making himself thoroughly acquainted with the great religious systems of the past, in
which much that is of permanent spiritual value is enshrined.(3) He is to
fit himself to revitalize what is vital, not to repristinate what is obsolete. There is
required of him a first-hand knowledge of the great ethical systems, and of their
philosophical backgrounds: furthermore acquaintance, so far as it is as yet accessible,
with the moral history of mankind, as distinguished from the history of ethical thinking;
in addition, he should intensively study the economic, social and political problems of
the time from the ethical point of view, and the psychology both of individual and
national character, so far as that fascinating and difficult subject has been opened up by
competent writers. Apprenticeship in the social reform movements of the day, direct touch
with the inner life of people, on its healthful as well as on its sick side, is also
presupposed.
Since no single person can be adequately prepared in these various
subjects, and since a variety of gifts and talents is demanded, it follows that the
teaching function shall be exercised by a body or group of teachers, not by a single
pastor at whose feet the congregation are supposed to sit. Some of the persons engaged in
this work will excel as public speakers, others as writers, others as teachers of the
young, others as leaders of vocational groups. But all these different functionaries must
learn to work, not only in harmony, but in organic, reciprocal support, themselves
illustrating in their group life the spiritual relation, the knowledge and the practice of
which they are to carry out into the world. The guild or group idea must be applied to the
religious teachers of the future.
B. The Organization
Every religion exhibits a certain form of organization peculiar to
itself and derived from its controlling idea. The organization of the Buddhist fellowship
is dependent on the Buddhist ideal of preparation for absorption in Nirvana. The
constitution of the Jewish synagogue reflects the conception of the relation of the Chosen
People, as an elite corps of the divinity. The organization of the Christian church
is characterized by its bifurcation into an ecclesia militans and an ecclesia
triumphans, and further by the idea of incorporation into the body of Christ, a
difficult mystical conception as of a typical divine individual including within his body
a multitude of other individuals.
The organization of the ethico-religious society has been foreshadowed in the
chapter on the vocations. The society is to be divided into vocational groups. In each
vocational group is to be worked out the specific ethical ideal of that vocation. In the
groups the general ethical philosophy of life is to be applied, tested and enriched. The
so-called ethical teachers will here come into fruitful contact with those who are in
touch at first hand with actual conditions, and are cognizant of the difficulties to be
surmounted in ethicizing vocational standards. The members of the groups in democratic
fashion will contribute to the advancement, not only of ethical practice, but of ethical
knowledge, and thus become on their side teachers of the teachers. The danger of the
formation of an ethical clergy will be averted. The teachers will be in certain respects
the pupils of the taught, and the relation be reciprocal, that is, ethical.
Among the groups the vocational group of Mothers will occupy the
central place. The influence of women, especially of the mother group, must penetrate the
religious society through and through, for the purpose of drawing the entire fellowship
together into a coherent unity. Women henceforth will take a deeper interest in the
ethical development of human society. A main factor, if not the only factor in the ethical
development of human society, is the elevation of the vocational standards. The group of
mothers will therefore be in close touch with the other vocational groups in order to gain
a knowledge of the higher standards therein proposed, in order to appraise them, and to
inspire the growing generation with the devoted purpose to carry these standards out in
practice.
C. The Worship or Public Manifestation of Religion
The ideal of worship likewise must undergo transformation. It has meant
an act of homage toward a superior or supreme individual; it has meant eulogistic
affirmation of the power, wisdom, goodness, of that individual; it has meant prayer or
petition for help from that individual. It has also meant spiritual edification.
In all these various modes, religious worship heretofore has focused
attention on a single individual deity as one who embodies in himself the sum of
perfection. In thus presenting the ideal of perfection' it has encouraged preference for
unity at the expense of plurality. The salient feature of the spiritual ideal sketched in
this volume is the affirmation, on ethical grounds, that plurality is of equal dignity
with unity, and hence that the divine ideal is to be represented not as One, but as
manifold; not as an individual, however supereminent, but as an infinite holy community,
-- every human being being in his essential nature a member of that community.
But can worship be offered to the members of a holy community? In a certain sense one
might say, Yes, Preeminently so, since worship may be taken to mean Worthship, and the
worth intrinsic in our fellowmen is the object of our unceasing homage. At the same time
very different associations have gathered about the word. Public worship consists largely
of eulogistic singing, prayer, adoration, genuflexion, and these axe appropriate only to
deity conceived as an individual. We cannot even say with the Psalmist "the
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." For
though the beauty and order apparent in Nature is one aspect of nature on which we delight
to dwell, yet we cannot disingenuously suppress the counter evidence of disorder, ugliness
and suffering which Nature no less obtrudes on our sight. The argument from design implied
in the Psalmist's words is no longer tenable. Certainly -we cannot any longer pray for
material assistance as our forefathers did, or invoke supernatural intervention in
situations where human science and human helpfulness are impotent. But worship also aims
at ethical edification, by holding up to the mind the moral ideal as an object of
imitation, and as a rebuke to man's shortcomings. This indeed is its highest function.
Nevertheless the moral ideal, as we conceive it, is incapable of being presented in the
guise of an individual being, no matter by what superlative language the limitation
inseparable from individuality be concealed. The bare attributes of omniscience and
omnipotence are abstract and convey no positive meaning whatever. In actual worship a
concrete image is invariably associated with the notion of the individualized Deity, such
as the Father image or the Christ image. And as soon as this is done, the vast ethical
ideal tends to shrink to the dimensions of a human image; and instead of the ideal in its
fullness, only certain selected but inadequate aspects of ethical excellence are presented
to the worshiper.
And yet in an ethico-religious society also the public manifestation of
religion is indispensable. Of what elements shall it consist?
First, there are to be the public addresses by the teachers, having for their main
object to arouse or intensify a certain kind of spiritual distress, and then as far as
possible to appease it. Every religion in my judgment originates in a particular kind of
anguish, and is an attempt to assuage it. The spiritual distress in which the
ethico-religious society has its origin in the agonizing consciousness of tangled
relations with one's fellowbeings, and the inexpressible longing to come into right
relations with them. He is fit to be a public teacher of this religion who profoundly
experiences this distress, who desires nothing so much as to cease to be, for his part, a
thorn in his neighbor's. side. We are that, each of us, inevitably. The more this feeling
is strong in him the more will he arouse similar feelings in others, and thus awaken those
who are spiritually asleep, the self-righteous, the self-satisfied, and he will then
indicate to the utmost of his power, the way of relief.
The specific ethical ideals of life are also to be presented in public
assemblies -- the ideals of private ethics, of marriage, friendship, and the rest. These
expressions of the specific ideals, charged with feeling, and taking on appropriate
imagery, will gradually attain a certain classical fitness -- classical at least for a
time -- and may be used as public readings.
But is there a substitute for prayer?
Among the advantages of prayer is often mentioned this: that in it the soul reaches out
towards its source, and in so doing wonderfully recruits its spiritual energy. It finds,
ethically speaking, its second wind. It reaches down beneath its utmost strength to find
an increment of strength not previously at its disposal. The question is whether this increment
of strength cannot be obtained more surely and to better purpose in another way, namely,
by concentrating attention on the spiritual need of the fellow-beings with whom we are in
daily touch, and by becoming aware to what an extent the finer nature imprisoned in them
is dependent for its release upon our exertions. The appeal of the God in our neighbor is
the substitute for the appeal in prayer to the God in heaven, the call of the stifled
spiritual nature in the men and women at our side, is to draw out of us our utmost latent
force, the strengths underneath the strength.
The common life we share with our fellow-members in the religious
society demands expression in song and in responsive services. The high wave of this
common life welling up in us, rising to the surface, makes the glow of religious meetings,
gives them fervor, and a touch of rapture, not indeed the common life conceived as a
uniform life, but as the life we live in others, and they in us.
The addresses that awaken and appease spiritual pain, the presentation
of the various modes of right living, the songs that lift the individual above his private
self and help him to live, not indeed submerged, but rather spiritually accentuated in the
life of the whole, these are the public ]manifestations of ethical religion as I see them.
They will contribute to make of the society itself the symbol of its ethical faith. We
shall not have an external symbol like the cross: the fellowship itself will be our
symbol.
There will also be festivals. Every religion must have its festivals. In place of
Baptism the solemn taking of responsibility for the spiritual development of the child. A
festival of vocational initiation, like the ancient assumption of the toga. Festivals of
citizenship, inspired by the ideal of the national character as one to be spiritually
transformed. Festivals of humanity in connection with the commemoration of great events in
the history of our race and of great leaders who were inspired in some degree by the ideal
task of humanity. Festivals of the seasons, deriving their significance from the spiritual
interpretation of the corresponding seasons of human life, -- youth, middle age, old age.
And a solemn though not mournful festival in commemoration of the departed.
The religious assembly should itself be organized; the members of the
different vocational groups should be allocated to different parts of the meeting hall, as
were the Guilds in certain of the mediaeval cathedrals.
Besides the public manifestations, the private religion will receive
attention. The religious society as a whole is to be the microcosm of the spiritual
macrocosm, a miniature model of the ideal society, but care must also be taken for the
private communion of the individual with the spiritual presences which the ideal evokes.
There should be a special breviary for the sick, a Book of Consolation for the bereaved, a
Book of Friendship, a Book of direction for those who pass through the experience of sin,
and a book of preparation for those who face the end.
Footnotes:
(1) Among other ethical relations based on free election, friendship is
the most important. In a separate Book of Friendship which I hope to publish, I intend to
review the ideals of friendship as they have arisen from time to time in the history of
civilized mankindthe ideal of Pythagorean friendship, the ideals presented by Aristotle,
Kant, Emerson. And I shall endeavor to show in each case the connection between the
friendship ideal and the general philosophy of life. I shall then set forth that ideal of
friendship which is the corollary of the spiritual conceptions outlined in this volume:
the friend being in my view one who assists spiritual development as a spectator. He is
the faithful mirror of his friend's progress toward personality, the benevolent yet
incorruptible recorder and appraiser. By this token friendship is distinguished from the
interlocking relations such as that between partners in marriage, vocational co-workers,
etc.
(2) In certain Ethical Societies abroad, the fear of
encouraging the rise of a new clericalism led to the plan of drawing for ethical teachers
on professors of universities, and others engaged in various lines of practical activity..
These persons could of necessity give only the leavings of their time and thought to the
complex questions which they undertook to discuss; and the experiment, as might have been
foreseen, proved disastrous.
(3) It has been said that the science of today lives
only in superseding the science of yesterday. Whether this be true of science or not it is
not true of religion. The religions of the past are not merely superseded. There is much
in them that is to be reinterpreted, and thus perpetuated.
