The Incarnate Purpose: Essays on the Spiritual Unity of Life — Key Ideas to Explore

peculative thought acts as an impetus to the mind to set about the finding of evidence that shall induce a natural growth of knowledge from mystery. Were there no knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, its development could not continue, for stagnation of thought, checking mental activity, must lead subsequently to degeneration. It is the effort to get, rather than the getting, which is the zest of existence. Without the hunger of mind and body, how could the nourishment necessary for the continuity of mental and physical life be obtained?

Truth is infinite, as God is infinite, and apprehension of this divine fact does not rest upon evidential testimony. But comprehension entails the evidence of reason, and is necessary to the evolution of the human understanding. Such evidence forms a link between mystery and knowledge, and offers a means by which the maturing intellect of man may obtain a gradual conversion of mystery into knowledge. Desire must precede fulfilment. May not the longing to penetrate ever further into mysteries not as yet, by reason of our imperfections, demonstrable to our intellects, be the pioneer of the discovery of truths now unknown, but which in the fulness of time will be given as the spiritual inheritance of all those who, being pure in heart, shall see God in a light of revelation that has kept pace through all ages with the evolution of mankind?

In such a manner does it seem that the desire for proof of human immortality should be considered.

It is difficult to conceive how, on the physical plane of existence, evidence of the survival of human individuality after death could be obtained.

The results of modern psychical research would seem to show that it is possible for the spirit of a dead person to be temporarily reinvested with a physical form other than its own body, and to communicate by this means with living persons. It is suggested that a spirit can so control a living person as to direct itself through him as a medium for some purpose not necessarily known to him. It is further suggested that, presupposing the survival of individual consciousness after death to be a fact, a disembodied spirit might so possess a living person with its influence as to become virtually reincarnate. It is known in ordinary life that the will of one person can so influence the thoughts of another as practically to annihilate his individuality, which, falling more and more completely beneath this dominating mental force, becomes finally a mere passive instrument of another's will. Is it not possible that this same domination of one personality over another, so often noticed in life, may be continued after death in an even more intense degree, and thus provide proof of the survival of individuality?

Unfortunately, although such hypotheses have been supported by psychical evidence and phenomena seemingly confirmative of their truth, there has been as yet no positive assurance that this so-called proof of survival of individual consciousness is not the result of telepathy either deliberately or innocently evoked from an extreme sensitiveness of the medium to the mental suggestions of those who desire to see the particular phenomena that are subsequently produced.

The Catholic Church asserts the possession of incontrovertible proof of the reality of human immortality, teaching that, unless the resurrection from the dead of the body of Christ be accepted as an actual historical fact, the Christian religion must of necessity become a vain and purposeless thing. But the evidence adduced in support of this doctrine is, from a scientific point of view, by no means conclusive. It is not, however, from Christian dogma alone that the hope of immortality has been born in the human breast; and justification for the reasonableness of that hope does not therefore rest solely on evidential testimony of the truth of the miraculous resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Although it would seem that the survival of individual consciousness after death, whether it be attested by a possible spiritual reincarnation, or whether by the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection, cannot be regarded as assured by any evidence satisfying the requirements of scientific criticism, yet we are not therefore justified in assuming that confirmation of the reality of these spiritual apprehensions of human immortality will be for ever withheld from the human understanding. Man, being capable of foreseeing death as an inevitable termination of his earthly existence, has conceived the idea of spiritual survival as a possible corollary of physical life. But for the justification of this hope there is as yet no conclusive evidence, since demonstration of its truth necessitates a transference of thought from the finite reckoning to that of Infinite Truth veiled as yet in mystery.

A creature which by reason of its organisation lacked the intellectual capacity to imagine its death, could not know the desire for immortality. Before man arrived at that stage in his evolution when he was able to foresee his death as an inevitable occurrence, we may suppose that he knew no craving for life after death. But the instinct of self-preservation, common to all forms of life, becomes in him the natural precursor of the hope of immortality--that spiritual desire which gives a special and divine character to humanity. That intellectual development which gives the capacity to foresee the inevitableness of physical dissolution is thus responsible for the apprehension of a spiritual survival of death. Recognition of the truth that the life of the world continues after the individual has suffered physical death carries with it some consciousness of the circulation of other vital force. Knowledge of death is thus preliminary to man's perception of the continuity of life, and a necessary preparation for his acquisition of such consciousness of impersonal vitality as leads to his apprehension of a Spiritual God, whence he perceives his own vitality to be derived. With recognition of God as the Divine Spirit of Life, his hope of immortality is justified of its conception. For if the life of God be in man, his spirit cannot die. Is not this self-knowledge the spiritual birthright of all men, to which Christ referred in the words, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (St John iii. 3)?

Out of a knowledge of death, consciousness of spiritual life is evolved, from which springs the desire for immortality. "Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead" (1 Cor. xv.).

The evolving intellect of man has given him knowledge of the inevitableness of death as the termination of physical existence, and from this evolution of intellect is born the spiritual apprehension of the resurrection of the dead--of that immortality of the Divine Spirit of Life which is the veritable essence of the teaching of Christ, and which finds endorsement in the modern scientific interpretation of the laws of Nature. Does not the evolutionary theory of the descent of man, by showing his spiritual development to be in accord with the scientific explanation of his origin, endorse the words of Christ relating to his spiritual inheritance of immortality?

Hope, the outcome of the imaginative or creative faculty in man, is the pioneer of knowledge, for it is by that reaching out of the human mind into realms of speculative thought that ideas and apprehensions, if true, become gradually clothed with evidence of their truth, according as the spiritual and physical evolution of man makes him more capable of approaching the illimitable and infinite glory of God.

The self-education of a child is achieved by a continual process of verification of his speculative thought by evidence. His ideas are regulated by the evidence he can deduce capable of realising them, when they are instantly registered as experience, which forms an ever-broadening base for further speculative flights of the imagination. As the mind matures, this faculty of speculative thought becomes, under the name of initiative, the germ of all undertakings calling for personal direction and action. A man undertakes to do certain things because he has confidence in his executive powers. He has experienced the evidence of his capability and verified his powers, and he therefore dares to go boldly forward into wider fields of action. A child still crudely experimenting for evidence of the truth of his own small infantine powers of apprehension, has as yet no conception of yet vaster knowledge awaiting his more matured mind. The knowledge and power possessed by his father are a mystery to him, calling forth his respect and awe, so that he scarcely dares to think he may one day be as wise himself.

The knowledge of God and of Infinite Truth which a man has not in its completeness is a mystery to him, calling forth his respect and awe as his own powers inspire his little son with a like veneration. But nothing forbids a man from changing the mystery of God into a knowledge of God, _if he have understanding capable of meeting the revelation_, just as there is nothing to forbid a child from making the mystery of his father's knowledge his own possession if he have adequate power of comprehension.

Evidence _is_ a proper test of all truths possible of comprehension, but it is no test of the existence of Infinite Truth, by which the world and the affairs of men are formed for a purpose withheld as yet in its entirety from the imperfect human understanding.

Where it has been given to man to penetrate some way into the knowledge of so-called Natural Law, a beautiful coherency in the structure and continuity of life has always been observed. The Unity of Nature, and the working together of the Whole of Life, is a fact, the evidence of which has been deduced and declared over and over again in corroborative detail as the results of scientific investigation. Could the history of the intellectual attainments of man be to-day unrolled before his wondering gaze, there would, we are told, appear no break in the perfect continuity of his ascending life, but instead a perpetual adjustment of the evidence of his speculative thought--of evidence so contrived as to keep pace with his capacity to understand. And could his future history be in a like manner revealed to him to-day; could he foresee that mysteries, now so incomprehensible, are yet destined to be comprehended by him as knowledge, we are justified in believing there would appear the same beautiful coherency in his spiritual evolution which has marked his material progress in the past.

When man is ready to receive the verification of the immortality he hopes for, but for which he has as yet no scientific evidence, we may be sure it will be given to him. Signs are not wanting that this almost universal craving of the human race is not to remain for ever unsatisfied. Meanwhile, can we not watch one hour? The day is certain when we shall all in our own persons receive confirmation of the truth of our apprehensive hope for immortal life. Can we not, then, in acquiescence with the Will of God, which all experience teaches us to be a directing Will for Good, rest content in the belief that because evidence of a truth is never withheld from those capable of understanding it, so we, when we are ready for a verification of this desire of the soul, may be given the evidence for which we hope?

ONE of the most perplexing and saddening problems of life, which presents itself in mournful frequency to thoughtful minds, is that of so-called unmerited suffering. This seeming injustice, co-operative throughout Nature with the struggle for existence, is a stumbling-block to many thinkers to whom the creed of propitiation for sin and suffering in the person and mission of Christ, as well as those dicta of Natural Science which declare the sacrifice of the weak and helpless to be a necessary accompaniment of evolutionary life, appear rather as different aspects of vicarious suffering than as reconciliating explanations of its compatibility with the supreme government of a God of Love. Is it not the fact that a large proportion of our trouble and perplexity concerning certain problems of spiritual morality has origin in our resentment at the seeming injustice of the operation of the law of suffering? In grief and sadness of heart we cry out against the infliction of sorrow and pain upon those who are made to suffer vicariously for the wrong-doing of others. Surely a God who wreaks vengeance for one man's sin upon his innocent children cannot be a God of Justice! Surely the dealing out of madness as the reward for superlative endeavour, strenuous idealism of thought, and consistent self-denial, the inflicting upon finely organised sensitive temperaments a capacity to suffer in a measure scarcely appreciable by coarser natures, cannot be by the direction of a God of Love! When we behold the visitation of such mental and physical torture upon pure and upright men and women, whose conduct seems utterly undeserving of punishment, we ask ourselves if such things can be in accord with the supreme government of Divine Love. Our hospitals and asylums are recruited largely from the ranks of those who suffer from the wrong-doing of others. Inherited disease and tainted environment set from birth a handicap tantamount to foredoomed life-failure upon the children of the multiplied unfit, whose continued tenancy of the earth constitutes a deterring factor in progressive life. If these things are done by divine ordinance, surely the laws of human justice, framed for the punishment of wickedness and vice, and for the maintenance of virtue and its reward, are more in accord with a true conception of a government of Love and Justice! Can it truly be the Will of God that the innocent shall suffer for the guilty, the pure for the impure, the just for the unjust? If so, for what end are these things ordained?

Most of us have at one time or other "withered and agonised" under the relentless insistency with which some such ideas as these have intruded upon our spiritual tranquillity. We try to put them aside as beyond our understanding. We tell ourselves that we lack faith, that we are not meant to comprehend the mysteries of God. And yet, if the Creator endows His creatures with the ability to question, and thus approach, the border-land between Known and Unknown, Seen and Unseen, can it indeed be irreverent or presumptuous to look to Him for guidance from mystery into knowledge, from ignorance into understanding?

If the revelation of God be indeed a revelation throughout Nature, chronicled by the evolving collective consciousness of Creation; and if the incarnate purpose of Love be recognisable as the vesture of the Spirit of Life, God; can a like unfolding of the Will of Love be withheld from personal and individual understanding?

It is clear that problems of spiritual morality must be approached from the spiritual plane of thought. That which pertains to the manifestation of spiritual consciousness and which is subject to the time-limit of human calculation must be dissociated from apprehension and contemplation of the eternal verities. If we would regard life as a Whole, and thus attain a right appreciation of the relation of individual consciousness to spiritual unity, we must learn to live in the Whole. If we desire a true understanding of the government of life; if we would conduct aright our critical inquiry into the methods by which the law of suffering manifests the progressively revealed Will of Love; if we would behold this Will of Love pictured upon the face of life, and receive the same spiritual illumination upon our souls, we must first establish a right attitude of heart and mind towards the divine revelation.

Differences noticeable between the religious and scientific interpretations of certain phenomena are not necessarily fundamentally hostile the one to the other, since each represents an opposing point of view rather than a contradictory likeness of fact. Any system of reflective thought, registered as opinion and propagated as substantial truth, may appear in opposition to any other established line of thought; but neither should be on this account judged as wholly right or wholly wrong, since each may be a perfectly correct impression of the thing seen, if the reflective machinery available has been properly employed. For whether artistic perception be utilised as an aid to the desire so to interpret Nature as to provide an endorsement of psychical apprehension, or whether it be directed towards the production of evidence for the verification of intellectual conjecture, the alternative result of a religious or a scientific interpretation of life is equally dependent upon focus for its representation in kind.

Under certain unlike conditions of light and distance, two artists engaged in the representation of the same object produce totally different impressions of the thing seen. Difference of focus in the actual outward vision; difference of personality, whereby difference in the mental powers of registration, reconstruction and expression becomes apparent, are together productive of difference in representation. A discerning critic does not, however, condemn either picture as worthless or incorrect because the one does not resemble the other. He knows that a just opinion of their respective values rests upon his ability to gauge that relative difference of focus which is responsible for their dissimilarity. The worth of his criticism depends upon his capacity so to focus his own point of view as to embrace and reconcile the differences of aspect in the representations submitted to his judgment. Given this ability, he is aware that his perception of the reconciled differences has enlarged his own appreciation of what he is called upon to judge. His criticism becomes his own enlightenment. Thus it appears that true critical appreciation is based upon the focussing of diverging points of view into converging actuality; and only when inquiry is attended with such impartial discernment can elucidation ensue.

The question of suffering, particularly of vicarious suffering, is one which, from the intimate nature of its bearing on the spiritual as well as on the physical aspect of human consciousness, gives rise to certain apparent irreconcilable differences between the religious and the scientific interpretation of its place and meaning in the scheme of life. On the one hand we have the point of view derived from that type of mind which cannot dissociate suffering from sin, regarding each as a concomitant consequence of a derangement of the divine and originally perfect order of Creation by reason of the intervention of Evil in opposition to God's Will for Good. Such is the creed of pessimistic suffering--a practical denial of the progressive action of the Spirit of Love. On the other hand, there is the point of view derived from that type of mind which believes the susceptibility of organisms to contrasting sensations to be a necessary factor in spiritual as well as in physical evolution. Such is the creed of optimistic suffering--the affirmation of the inherence of the divine Spirit of Life in all creatures, whereby pain and evil are shown to be as truly ordained by God as those opposing elements of consciousness known to us as joy and good, to the end that for evil so much good more, for sorrow so much joy more, may be evolved through the transmuting and progressive purpose of His Will.

Here, then, are two aspects of the phenomenon of suffering--two pictures of life drawn from two points of view--the one apparently so irreconcilable with the other as to make it difficult to realise that it is indeed one and the same objective which is subjected to critical inquiry, _i.e._ the compatibility of sin and suffering in a world created and controlled by a God of Love. But we are not justified in condemning, on the score of dissimilarity of conception and treatment, either representation as incorrect or worthless. The point of focus is responsible for their seeming contradiction. May not, therefore, some adjustment of our powers of critical discernment give us a point of focus which shall embrace both aspects, reconcile their seeming contradictions and differences, and enable us to draw one comprehensive conclusion from them both, to the enlightenment of our intellectual and spiritual consciousness? Our analytical appreciation is directed towards a fair consideration of different aspects of a natural phenomenon. Is it not possible to attain a vantage-ground above the divergence of aspects high enough to allow us to behold the spiritual and physical signification of suffering as one harmonious accompaniment of spiritual and physical evolution, in accord with the divine directing Will of Love?