The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 30 : XXX THE NECESSARY LIMITATIONS IN THE ARGUMENT And, first, let us definitely state, in the light of the principles already traversed, the necessary limitations in the theistic argument. From our present position, we can see beforehand, that no strict and demonstrative proof of the existence of God...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 23 : XXIII THE SEEMING UNREALITY A LARGE FACTOR IN OUR MORAL AND SPIRITUAL TRAINING This would mean the recognition that, besides all the causes with which we have been dealing
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 34 : XXXIV THE METHOD OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE The consideration of these needed emphases in modern religious life, itself, suggests the two great positive ways, already considered, of coming into assured personal relation to God. They are not really two ways, but rather two aspects of our one great method...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life : I THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF THE INQUIRY Our deepest need, always, for any ideal view or for any ideal life, is faith in the reality of the spiritual, faith in a God who can save us from being at constant war with ourselves. We all need a God, who can make rational and consistent our deepest...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 35 : XXXV DOCTRINE AS EXPRESSION OF EXPERIENCE WITH CHRIST If one turns, now, in the third place, in fulfilment of the positive problem of seeking reality for the spiritual life, from the rational argument for the existence of God, and the problem of personal relation to God, to ask for the way in which...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 31 : XXXI THE MAIN LINES OF ARGUMENT It should be remembered that we are here speaking of argument, not of life-experience. We may argue, first, directly from the fact of Christ himself,
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 25 : XXV OUR VERY QUESTIONINGS A PROOF OF REALITY But, with reference to all these unremovable causes of the seeming unreality of the spiritual life, we should not fail to notice that our very questionings here are an evidence of reality. It is hard to see how else the questions could arise at all...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 21 : XXI THE SPECIAL BEARING OF LIMITATIONS AND FLUCTUATIONS ON THE SPIRITUAL LIFE Thus far, in our consideration of the inevitable limitations of our natures, we have been considering effects which are not peculiar to the spiritual life, but which are essentially the same for all spheres of life. We...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 29 : XXIX FACING THE FACTS OFTEN IGNORED The inquiry into the causes of the seeming unreality of the spiritual world is fundamental. Unless it is thoroughly made, no attempted positive argument can satisfy. But, on the other hand, this inquiry cannot be thoroughly made, as we have seen, without really...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 33 : XXXIII THE NEEDED EMPHASES IN MODERN RELIGIOUS LIFE If one asks, now, what is involved in these statements, and attempts to characterize the Christian way to communion with God, he will be obliged to say that, for the fully modern man, the way must be ethical, Christian, social, biblical, practical...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 05 : V FORGETTING THE COMPLEXITY AND UNITY OF LIFE When we turn to the misconceptions which come from ignoring the psychical conditions, which are common to the whole of life, we can perhaps deal with them most promptly and comprehensively by noting the bearing of what I have called the four gre...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 09 : IX SOME COMMON LOGICAL FALLACIES This practical nature of all belief itself indicates that, for the sake of the spiritual life itself, a protest is constantly needed in the interests of the whole concrete reality and of the whole man. In the last analysis, perhaps the greatest danger that can beset...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 17 : XVII THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF EXTERNAL RULES But if we are not to make the mistake of thinking of the spiritual life as a life of magical inheritance, but rather as clearly involving laws and conditions, neither are we to make the opposite mistake of conceiving the spiritual life as a life...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 13 : XIII THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS But difficulty for the spiritual life and thought may come, also, from ignoring the difference of the religious problem from the philosophical problem, as ordinarily conceived. I am confident, that many serious difficulties arise...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 07 : VII NO MERELY THEORETICAL SOLUTIONS All our knowing, then, once more is necessarily bound up with the whole man and with the whole of life. And this must mean that in religion, certainly, no merely theoretical solution of our problem is possible. Everything that has been said in recent...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 19 : XIX THE CONDITIONS OF A DEEPENING PERSONAL RELATION It is perhaps still more obvious that, if the relation to God is a personal relation at all, the laws of the spiritual life must be primarily the laws of a deepening personal relation; and that, wherever any soul is ignoring such a deepening...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 03 : III THE ORDER OF THE DISCUSSION Exactly this is the problem of the first of the two large divisions of our inquiry. From the discussion of the reasons for the seeming unreality, we are then to turn, in the second division, in the light of the principles brought out in the first divisi...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 15 : XV THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF IMITATION It is equally important for us to remember, if the spiritual life is to be real to us, that it is not a life of the imitation or repetition of the experience of others. That we need others here, as elsewhere, is clear. That we come into most that is...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 11 : XI DIFFICULTY IN THE CONCEPTION OF GOD There are, still, certain special applications of the doctrine of relativity that, because of their direct bearing on the religious life, it may be worth while briefly to consider. It is often urged, that the very terms we apply to God show that we must be out...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 02 : II THE MEANING OF THE THEME And what is meant by the reality of the spiritual life? How much, in the first place, should reality involve? The value of religious opinions and experiences, it may be said with James, "can only be ascertained by spiritual judgments directly passed upon them, judgments...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 18 : XVIII THE WAY INTO THE GREAT VALUES Plainly, if the spiritual life is a true sphere of normal living at all, it must have its natural conditions, and failure to fulfil these conditions must result in the spiritual life becoming unreal. The very fact that the religious life is so intimately...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 06 : VI KNOWLEDGE NEVER MERELY PASSIVE In the same way, no rational conception of the spiritual life can afford to forget the modern psychological emphasis upon the central importance of will and action. This conviction will plainly affect the entire point of view, and may easily change, as we shall see...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 10 : X SOME TRADITIONAL OBJECTIONS Besides the influence of these common fallacies, religious thinking and living are likely to be hindered by failing to set aside certain traditional objections, that are supposed to put religious life and thought at peculiar disadvantage. Some of these have been...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 14 : XIV THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF STRAIN From these inherited difficulties, which affect both religious thinking and living, we turn to another class of misconceptions particularly affecting concrete religious living, and which arise from mistaking the nature of the spiritual life itself...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 04 : IV IGNORING BODILY CONDITIONS We find ourselves living an apparently dual life, with its bodily and psychical sides. As to both, we have a certain constitution, the nature and laws of which we may not wisely ignore anywhere. We can regard the constitution of our being and its laws, if we will...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 12 : XII THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS We have now passed in review the misconceptions, injurious to the spiritual life, which arise from ignoring the likeness and connections of the spiritual life with the rest of life. And we turn now to note the misconceptions which...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 16 : XVI THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF MAGICAL INHERITANCE A third misconception of the nature of the spiritual life, which is certain finally to give the sense of its unreality, is that it is a life of magical inheritance of results. Our own time is particularly liable to have this feeling. So far...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 08 : VIII THE PRACTICAL NATURE OF ALL BELIEF But the psychological emphasis upon the influence of the practical interests in all consciousness, and upon the whole concrete life of the whole man, not only means
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 20 : XX LIMITATIONS AND FLUCTUATIONS COMMON TO ALL OUR LIFE From the removable causes of the seeming unreality of the spiritual life we turn, now, to the study of the second class of causes of this sense of unreality, which, while not removable, are still recognizable. These unremovable causes may...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 24 : XXIV THE SPECIAL RELIGIOUS NEED OF THE UN-OBTRUSIVENESS OF THE SPIRITUAL The chief difference, no doubt, consists in the fact that, in the religious life, we are dealing with the most fundamental of all relations
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 32 : XXXII THE NEED OF THE MODERN MAN MET ONLY IN CHRIST Surely Herrmann is right in saying that theologians of all schools may at least agree as to the general meaning of personal Christianity. "It is a communion of the soul with the living God, through the mediation of Christ. Herein is really...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 36 : XXXVI ILLUSTRATED IN THE DOCTRINE OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITY To take a single example, how has Christ really proved himself to be the one great source of faith in immortality, just as he is the great source of our idea of God and of our faith in God? What, indeed, in this modern day is the ground...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 28 : XXVIII MANS ESSENTIAL NEED OF RELIGION But in order that the spiritual life might become to us most real and significant, we found not only that it must be connected indubitably with all that is realest to us, but must also be seen to make its own unmistakable and indispensable contribution to life...
The Seeming Unreality Of The Spiritual Life. Part 22 : XXII THE WITNESS OF OUR CONSCIOUSLY BEST HOURS This close connection of the religious and the ethical leads us to emphasize the important principle that, when we find fluctuations in our convictions concerning the reality of anything, we must ask for the witness of our consciously best hours...
