Chapter 9
ETHICS OF THE
CREEDS
Abel Leighton
Allen
The Message
of New Thought
"Belief in limitations is the one,
the only thing, that causes limitation,
because we thus
impress limitation upon the
creative principle; and in proportion
as we lay that belief
aside, our boundaries will expand,
increasing life and more abundant
blessing will be ours."
IN view of our knowledge of the law of
mind, the power of thought, and the
undeviating law of suggestion, as
revealed by a study of modern
psychology, and the influence of
thought as affecting character and
personality, the subject of what should
be taught to growing minds becomes a
topic of universal interest. More
especially do these questions rise to a
profound degree of importance when they
are considered and analyzed in
reference to religious thought and
training.
The consideration of this line of
thought suggests an inquiry of the
deepest concern. Has the religious
instruction of the past been of that
healthful and constructive kind that
leads to the highest moral and
spiritual development? Has it been
creative in its tendencies and
effectual in developing the highest
personality in man? Has it been at all
times ethical and conducive to a strong
and robust morality? What effect have
these teachings had on the development
of character? We should be able to
approach the study of these questions
with open and impartial minds, and
bring to the discussion the spirit of
fairness which the consideration of
such questions requires for an
intelligent solution.
There can be no reason why these
questions should not be treated with
the same unbiased judgment
that we bring to bear on the solution
of all secular questions.
No institution is so venerable, or
clothed about with such authority, that
it should not be willing to invite an
examination of its underlying
principles and a study of its methods.
No institution, whether encompassed by
traditions or not, should be immune
from a fair investigation or a just and
intelligent criticism by thoughtful men
in every age. Time is the great
leveler, and ultimately men place a
just estimate upon all
institutions.
It has been truthfully said: "Humanity
has never really had but one religion
and one worship. This universal light
has had its uncertain mirages, its
deceitful deflections, and its shadows;
but always after the nights of error we
see it reappear, one and pure like the
sun." It is not necessary to confine
our investigations to the religious
teachings of the past. We may with
equal propriety direct our inquiries to
a consideration of the religious
instruction still administered to the
young and to ceremonials and rituals
constantly observed and practiced. They
offer an interesting field for
psychological study and metaphysical
investigation. Those who assume the
right and authority to administer
religious instruction seem either to
have never given study and thought to
the great lessons of modern psychology,
or wholly to ignore the effect of its
teaching. They seem to dwell in the
past, ignoring the truths that modern
psychology brings to men, a revelation
and knowledge of his own mind and soul
that ought to be heeded by all who
assume the responsibility of presenting
religious thought.
The neophyte is taught that a clean,
moral, upright life, with the strict
observance of the Golden Rule, alone
will not answer his needs; that a
religion of works is not sufficient for
his soul's salvation. Although he may
have "visited the fatherless and widows
in their affliction and kept himself
unspotted from the world," he must do
something more. He must look outward
and elsewhere for help and must
exercise a belief in a certain dogma
before he can hope for eternal rest and
happiness. He is told that a life of
works will not weigh, in the divine
scales, against a fixed and
necessary belief.
The student of religion marvels at the
theory that the qualities that endear
man to man and man to society do not
endear him also to God. He does not
understand why character, the best
asset in life, is not also the best
eternal asset. He does not see why an
unselfish life of duty should not be of
more value, both here and hereafter,
than a particular belief.
The exaltation of faith, or rather
belief, over character cannot lead to
the best moral and spiritual results.
The attempt to make character secondary
and subordinate to faith or belief
removes from man the highest ideal that
has yet been set before him. Faith or
belief does not depend on character.
Men seemingly devoid of character may
nevertheless have a supreme faith in
creeds and dogmas. It has been said,
whether truthfully or not is not
vouched for, that with one exception
every murderer ever executed in the
city of Chicago had a supreme faith and
belief in the whole doctrine of the
atonement.
Since faith or belief is not
necessarily linked with character, but
may be exercised by men who are
strangers thereto, it is dangerous
teaching to make faith the supreme fact
of man's existence. Relief is a slender
prop, unless reared on the enduring
foundations of morality, character, and
manhood.
The truths of psychology are slow in
making their way against established
religious customs. We observe that
public oral confessions of wickedness,
depravity, and weakness are constantly
made by religious worshipers as a part
of the recognized and established
public worship. They publicly confess
their manifold sins, accompanied with
the declaration that they are without
health or strength. The idea seems to
prevail that the worshiper can only
approach God, and that God will only
listen, when the worshiper comes in the
attitude of a spiritual mendicant.
These ceremonials and rituals, adopted
hundreds of years ago, when psychology
was unknown and when metaphysics was a
jargon, are still revered and preserved
on account of their antiquity and
because they were adopted by the
authority of an institution. What is
an institution but "the
lengthened shadow of one man?"
These ceremonies called worship are
affirmations and suggestions, made by
the conscious to the subconscious mind.
The laws of psychology reveal their
effect upon the subconscious mind. They
are seeds sown in the subconscious, and
will bring forth fruit in abundance
after their own kind. If they are not
spoken with tender feeling and from the
innermost depths of the soul, they are
idle and useless exercises and become
as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
If they are not poured forth from the
fountains of a sincere heart, however
sonorous their utterance,
they must fail to reach the
divine ear. If they spring from the
innermost depths of feeling, with the
spirit of true devotion, they become
seeds of weakness, depravity, and
disease, planted in the subconscious,
which by an unerring metaphysical law
will germinate, grow, and produce a
harvest like unto the seed sown.
These conceptions of worship originated
from thinking of God as a monarch
seated on a distant throne, separated
from man by a gulf, and man approaching
the throne in a servile and dependent
attitude. Although Jesus came teaching
a religion of democracy, the
brotherhood of man, and the Kingdom of
God within, yet the church has
continued to cling to and conduct its
worship on the monarchical plan and
idea.
True worship is not a confession of
weakness and depravity. God does not
want man, created in His own image, to
worship Him in fear or in the attitude
of a culprit. Jesus instructed his
followers, when they prayed, to go into
the silence and shut the door, but did
not tell them to debase themselves in
God's presence.
It is a strange conception also to
think of pleasing God by a stately
worship of pomp and circumstance. The
great soul, feeling the throbbing pulse
of the divine within, walks and talks
with God. It realizes God as an
enveloping presence, sweet as the
breath of eternal spring, bringing
ineffable joy and peace to the soul.
Divine itself, the soul cannot come
into harmony or unity with God by
belittling itself or proclaiming its
own depravity. The true worshiper
listens to the whispering accents of
the great soul within, and obeys the
still small voice that ever comes to
him whose soul is attuned to catch the
divine harmony that forever breaks
thereon.
Jesus said, the Kingdom of God cometh
not by observation, which being
rendered into modern phraseology means
that we cannot come into a realization
of oneness with God, or hear the
whisperings of the divine spirit, by
the observance of ceremonials, costly
robes, rituals, saints' days, pomp, and
stately worship. Confessions of sin are
acknowledgments of weakness. Such
affirmations send negative and
disturbing thoughts and impressions
into the subconscious mind, there to
germinate, grow, and bring forth more
negative and disturbing thoughts.
What we think, by an inexorable mental
law we become. The soul does not purify
itself or rise to spiritual heights by
thinking of evil, but by thinking of
the good, the true, and the beautiful.
The growing soul seeks light, health,
and strength. It looks within, it comes
into touch with the universal soul, it
finds joy and serenity and that peace
that surpasseth the understanding.
Health is not brought to the body by
thinking or talking of disease; neither
is peace brought to the soul by
thinking or talking of sin.
These perverted ideas of worship grow
out of the erroneous idea that God and
man are separated by a
gulf. The theologians said man was
weak, indigent, and sinful, and that he
must look outward and elsewhere for
light, health, and strength, rather
than into the depths of his own
infinite soul. They clothed God with
vanities, like a temporal despot,
jealous of His subjects, His own
children, and that He will not bestow
His benefits until man has pleased Him,
either by a worship of
craven humility or by that of pomp and
splendor. These are the fruits of the
theological conception of man's fall,
original sin, and his separation from
God.
In the beginning of the twentieth
century, as we look forth into the
world and there observe the constant
increase of crime and insanity, the
depravity, poverty, disease, and
wretchedness everywhere apparent, did
you ever pause and ask for the cause of
these conditions? Why is not man a more
nearly perfect being? What accounts for
this increase of crime and insanity,
now established by statistical and
indisputable proofs? The question
recurs again and again, in this age of
general education and enlightenment.
Why is this so?
There must be a cause for these
effects. The theologian would say the
devil is getting the upper hand of God;
that man has ceased to be religious and
neglects the religious sanctuary. He
would attribute present conditions to
the evil that Adam brought into the
world, now manifesting itself in men's
lives.
These explanations, or any other we
might receive from the theologian,
might have sufficed in medieval times,
or in an age of theology, when man
farmed out his thinking to the
spiritual advisers and accepted the
commands of ecclesiastical authority,
but they will not answer the
requirements of an age of thought and
reason. The reasoning faculties of man
require a more rational solution. The
thinking man looks for a deeper cause
and cannot bend his mind to such
sophistical explanations. His reason,
his experience, and the intuitions of
his own soul reveal to him another
cause. This is a social problem,
engaging the attention of the world and
reforms will be of small avail until
the true cause is found.
Psychology, science, and enlightenment
are fast exposing this, as many other
fallacies of the past, supposed to be
conclusively established. Nothing is
final or conclusive but truth, a fact
which some religious institutions seem
never to have grasped, or at least
never acknowledged. The key to a man's
life is his thought. Thought makes
character. Thought develops the soul.
Thought makes the man. Thought is
expressed in the personality. Thought,
either good or bad, is manifested in
all men's lives.
Never did Emerson speak more wisely
than when he said: "He who knows that
power is in the soul, that he is weak
only because he has looked for good out
of him and elsewhere, and so
perceiving, throws himself
unhesitatingly on his own thought,
instantly rights himself, stands in the
erect position, works miracles." Men
have looked outward and elsewhere and
have depended on the will and direction
of others so long for guidance and
power, that they have ceased to realize
that the seat of power and wisdom is
within their own souls. They have not
learned that as they throw themselves
unhesitatingly on their own thought, on
their own infinite resources, they can
instantly right themselves and produce
corresponding results in their lives.
They have forgotten that the Kingdom of
God is within themselves.
The character of a man's thought
determines his moral worth. Suggestion
is the power that molds thought.
Everything in life is a suggestion. Man
receives suggestions from environment,
from his associates, but most of all
from what he has been taught. The
quality of his thought is determined by
the quality of his teaching. It depends
on the mental and spiritual food upon
which his mind and soul are
nourished.
The modern thinker, not appalled by
tradition, is making bold to ask, Has
the mental and spiritual food for
centuries administered to man been of
the right or proper quality? Has it
furnished proper nutriment for mind and
soul? Has it built character? Has it
given man strength to contend with and
master the forces with which he is
surrounded?
The church has always claimed the
prerogative of providing the spiritual
education of man. It always begins with
the plastic mind of childhood. It has
told the child, and continues to tell
man in mature life, that he is
inherently bad, weak, and a worm in the
dust; that sin is his natural state,
that he is a fallen being, and has no
power within himself, but must look
outward and to another for all his help
and strength. He has been taught that
only as he believes in a
vicarious atonement can he
hope to escape the consequences of his
own sinful nature and tendencies and be
reconciled to and find harmony with
God; that to find a secure place in a
future world is the supreme purpose and
aim in life.
The great theme of theology has been,
what can man do to be saved, instead of
what can he do to make life beautiful,
true, and good--a life worthwhile.
These theological ideas have been set
forth in catechisms prepared for the
young, in order that in early life,
before reasoning was mature, they might
become fixed, settled, and established.
That these theological tenets might
sink deep into youthful minds, it was
made compulsory that they be thoroughly
committed to memory. They were also
taught that if they believed and
repented of their sins and wrong-
doings, whatever they might be, they
would all be blotted out and remembered
against them no more. They
were told that they were weak and
indigent and that there was only one
power to rescue them from their lost
condition, and that was in repentance
and a belief in the vicarious
atonement.
What should be expected of the boy or
girl starting out in life burdened with
such thoughts and ideas? They are
suggestions of weakness and depravity,
impressed upon receptive minds, sinking
deep into the subconscious, there to
germinate, grow, and work throughout
the years of their lives. Burdened with
such teaching, would you expect the boy
or girl to develop character, to be
brave, and to be strong to meet the
contending forces of life?
At this point we must not lose sight of
the great truth that there is an
unerring metaphysical law that
regulates the force and effect of each
thought impressed upon the subconscious
mind; that whatever is sown will grow;
that each thought and impression is a
seed that will bring forth fruit after
its kind and will find expression in
the life and personality of the
individual.
Taught moral weakness, would you look
for moral strength? Taught that they
were sinful by nature, have you a right
to expect goodness? Taught fear, how
could they be brave? Taught dependence,
should you look for independence,
character, and virtue? Instructed that
a belief and confession--a certain
mental conclusion--would relieve them
of the consequences of a misspent life,
would set aside the laws of cause and
effect, the incentive to an ideal life
is removed. The proverb says, Call one
a thief and he will steal.
Christian D. Larson says: "The
knowledge that counts is not the
knowledge of evil, nor facts about the
missteps of man, but that knowledge
that informs us how man may bring forth
the greatness and the beauty that are
latent within. The knowledge that
counts is not the knowledge that tells
us how to avoid the wrong, but how to
increase the power of the good."
Personal irresponsibility cannot
produce spiritual and moral character.
It does not fit men for the conflicts
and storms of life. Only as
responsibility rests upon a man, can he
build on a foundation of strength and
worth. Man is ever a builder, but only
as he trusts his own inherent
forces--the unbounded resources of his
own soul--will he build a spiritual
temple that can withstand the winds and
storms of life.
There exist in man two opposite forces
or principles, as in all the manifested
works of Nature. The one has positive,
constructive, and upbuilding
tendencies; the other negative,
destructive, and tearing-down
tendencies. The one constructs and
builds, and is the basis of all life
and growth; the other dissolves,
disintegrates, and tears down, and is
the cause of all weakness, dissolution,
and decay. The one is active and
directs the life-forces to build; the
other is inactive and negatives the
same forces. The one produces
unfoldment, development, and growth;
the other, arrested strength,
stagnation, and decay.
We see the workings of these forces and
principles throughout all the
operations and processes of Nature. She
has her actions and reactions, she has
her springtime and summer of life and
growth, and her autumn and winter of
death and decay. She has her season for
the bursting bud, also for the falling
leaf. Nature symbolizes these two
principles in colors. Green symbolizes
life and growth, the yellow betokens
death and decay.
Nature has endowed man with a will that
must determine by which of these
contending principles he will be
controlled, whether the positive and
the building or the negative and the
unbuilding. Whatever strengthens the
will is constructive, whatever weakens
it is destructive. Whatever prompts man
to step forward and upward is
constructive; whatever induces him to
step backward is destructive. Whatever
points man toward self-mastery is
constructive; whatever tempts him to
submit to his baser nature is
destructive. Whatever increases
self-reliance and confidence in his own
powers is constructive, whatever takes
away self-reliance and causes man to
rely on others is destructive. Whatever
produces in man the consciousness of
the indomitable forces of his own soul
is constructive; whatever inspires man
with a sense of weakness and
inferiority is negative and
destructive. Whatever establishes a
spiritual paternalism over man's soul
to be exercised by others weakens his
moral fiber and makes him a slave of
external forces.
The instruction given to man, whether
religious or secular, is valuable or
otherwise according as it strengthens
the one or the other of these
contending principles. Education that
augments the power of the will is
constructive; that which weakens it is
destructive. Applying this test, it is
plainly apparent that the greater part
of man's religious instruction has had
the direct tendency and effect of
weakening and destroying his power of
will. His will-power being weakened, he
has become defenseless and dependent
upon external influences, the victim of
superstition and the slave of fear.
Practically the entire scope of man's
religious teaching has been negative in
character. Fear, weakness, and moral
depravity have been the ideals set
before man. Even the Ten Commandments
are mostly negative and place before
man's mind the evils they would have
him refrain from.
The more thoughtful of the orthodox
clergy are now outspoken in their
declarations that we cannot make men
good and strong, that character cannot
be developed, by repeating to them the
negative commandments. The lawgiver
from whom Moses borrowed the Ten
Commandments might have told man to be
honest, instead of not to steal. When a
man is honest, he does not want to
steal. When kindness is in a man's
heart, he does not want to murder. What
the world needs is more positive
teaching and less negative. Men and
children alike are not made good and
strong by don'ts. Negative rules of
conduct do not build character, do not
develop manhood and womanhood. These
qualities are built up only as the
latent divinity and forces within are
called forth into expression and
activity.
But, someone says, your
characterization of the quality of
theological instruction is not borne
out by observable and recognized
results. Look at the vast array of
noble men and women living model
religious lives, revealing the
sublimest examples of manhood and
womanhood, who have received the
religious instruction you now
criticize. Their lives are a standing
protest against what you say.
True; every religion is productive of
men and women of the highest religious
types. They sometimes rise above their
theological training; they listen to
and obey the intuitions of their own
souls. The highest spiritual
development is expressed in their
lives, in spite of their theological
teaching and not because of it. Then,
too, the majority of men and women grow
away from the fetters and creeds and
limited theological conceptions, into
higher and more rational planes of
spiritual thought. They rise above the
narrower confines of thought, into more
exalted fields of spiritual
endeavor.
But the real question is, what is the
tendency of a system of teaching that
impresses on man's mind a sense of
weakness, inferiority, and a debased
and wicked nature? Theology claims much
credit for what has been done in the
world since the advent of the Christian
era, to which it is not entitled. There
is no desire to minimize in the least
the great work that has been done for
man under the banners of the Christian
church. It is true Christian nations
have set the highest ideals before the
world; we must not forget also that
they have at times set the lowest. If
man has established a fair standard of
civilization, we must not forget also
the relentless religious wars fought in
the name of the Prince of Peace.
Civilization was not even a name when
religious institutions controlled the
lives and welfare of men. Whenever
these institutions were supreme in
power, they were ever the faithful
allies of tyrannies and despotism. They
remain so today in certain countries of
the world. Man has made social and
civil advancement only as he broke away
from the restraining influences of
these institutions, only as he
exercised independent thought and
action, only as he felt the spirit of
democracy.
The Christian nations have had the
highest ideals before them by which to
direct their work. When divested of
every vestige of theology, the life and
simple utterances of Jesus have been
the great example before the eyes of
man. With a perfect understanding of
the laws of life, he presented the
completest ideal and type of manhood
the world has yet observed. For nearly
two thousand years that ideal has stood
before man as the most potent influence
in molding his life, in spite of the
hindrances and obstructions thrown
around it by the ingenious subtleties
of the theologians. They have obscured
the ideal by theological perplexities
and limitations. They raised him to a
pinnacle to which man could not hope to
aspire. They separated him from man by
a gulf so wide that man could never
hope to bridge it.
Notwithstanding all this, man has been
led by that great ideal into a truer
realization of the brotherhood of man
and to a higher and better conception
of life and his relation to God.
Theologians told man to worship Jesus,
rather than to follow his footsteps.
Jesus directed man what to do; they
told him what to believe.
The purpose of theology was to make man
religious by fear. It labeled him with
the mark of an outcast. It held before
him the threat of eternal punishment,
as the motive for a religious life. It
prescribed a belief and repentance as
the antidote for what they termed man's
lost condition. Fear never developed
virtue or established moral character.
Fear has ever been the fruitful mother
of man's woes and misfortunes. Fear
retards all growth, whether physical,
mental, or spiritual. Science and
experiment reveal it as a source of
physical weakness and as the prolific
mother of disease. It destroys the
power of will; it is the enemy of
progress. It chills every worthy
and benevolent impulse in man.
Someone asks, Do you believe in the
atonement? Not in a vicarious
atonement. I would feel myself debased
to cast my sins and offenses on that
Gentle Soul who never had a thought but
love and kindness for man. If I
believed in the vicarious atonement, I
would have to believe in the separation
of God and man, which everyone who has
caught the inner vision knows is only a
fable, and a superstition. God is
universal, God is omnipresent, God
dwells in man, God was never separated
from man except in belief--except as he
follows the false light set up by an
Augustine, to make a vicarious
atonement possible.
Do I believe in an atonement? Yes, in a
real atonement; each soul has its own
atonement. It must be purged of the
dross and superfluities of life, before
it can become pure. The atonement is
finished when the soul has come
into harmony and unity with God. Each
soul must purify itself. The law of the
soul recognizes no proxies.
Every individual must obey the eternal
mandates of his own being, the voice of
his own masterful soul, that ever
speaks to him who listens. Man must
walk by that light that lighteth every
man that cometh into the world, the
light of his own soul. It leads man by
a divine path, and at each step the
light grows clearer until in the
fullness of time he shall stand forth
in the radiant splendor of eternal
truth.
Chapter
10
* * * * *
The Message of New Thought
Table of
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