OUR statements in Chapter I, about the true nature of morality and the inner value it derives from the highest order of being, will not produce their full and lasting impression unless we demolish that caricature of the old Christian and Catholic morality which, since the time of Shaftesbury and Kant, is met with wherever there is the desire to displace the old ideal of a Christian life by another, a so-called higher ideal. We are told that Christianity has fostered in man a one-sided desire of happiness, injuring his morality, and that, by directing his gaze incessantly to a beyond of either bliss or misery, it has made of virtue an external matter and reduced it to a trade, with sometimes coarse, at other times refined, methods. To make one's own happiness the motive for the will is, according to Kant,{1} "the direct contrary to the principle of morality." To do right because of rewards or punishments is said to reverse the correct order of things. The sensual heaven described in the Bible, and the gross ideas of hell depicted by mediaeval artists, are said to show how little the inward nobility of virtue was understood by both primitive and mediaeval Christianity. Modern writers on ethics, especially since the time of E. von Hartmann, have constantly been repeating these and similar charges, generally spiced with contemptuous ridicule, and it cannot be denied that they have made a deep impression upon unsophisticated minds.
Yet this moral idealism and the indiguation with which it attacks Christian ethics are not quite so pure and genuine as it would appear. For most of our critics the abandonment of all thoughts of reward and consummation in another life follows from the fact that they have ceased to believe in such a future life of the individual. Where, however, the idea of immortality remains, it is impossible to banish from heart and mind all thought of eternity. Another equally prosaic reason, for what looks like noble resignation and absence of selfishness, is the feeling of impotence in man after he has become "autonomous" in volition and efforts, and deprived of the aid of an Almighty and Holy God. From this standpoint a just perception of morality, such as it presents itself to the conscience of a Christian, is out of the question. Lastly, we must emphatically protest against the supercilious air in judging the Church assumed by many who know nothing of her real teaching, nothing of the depth of her point of view, and who are far from able to appreciate her wealth of sanctity that has been confirmed by the centuries. Since the rejection of the idea of happiness in ethics reveals an ignorance of the human heart that must inevitably vitiate every system of morals, there is so much less excuse for charging with the promotion of vulgar selfishness a religion that has, in combating sensuality, in purifying the soul, and in practising unselfish charity, at all times pursued and attained the highest ideals.
Protestant theology is in so far to blame for these attacks as it reproaches the Catholic Church with effecting a false connection between morality and reward in the doctrine of merit. It is asserted that the mere thought of obligatory good works is dangerous to a pure and unselfish practice of virtue. The prospect of a reward in heaven is supposed, moreover, to produce a kind of speculation, in which the selfish will reckons up debits and credits and measures merits and sins.{2}
Any attempt to separate the idea of duty from every trace of eudaemonism, to eliminate the craving for happiness completely from morality, fails as soon as it is applied to the most elementary facts of the spiritual life; it destroys morality itself through removing it from its natural soil. All ethical teachers of antiquity start with the incontestable axiom that all men desire happiness. The better ones reject coarse, impure forms of happiness; the most rigorous, such as the Stoics, by making virtue itself the moral ideal, say at the same time that this ideal contains the true happiness.
When, in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ assigned to poverty, meekness, and patience a value far beyond that set upon them by ordinary, worldly people, and thus exhorted His followers to avoid all self-seeking, did He not speak of happiness in order to attract the eyes and hearts of men to the narrow way leading to salvation? "Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the meek," "Blessed are those that sorrow." Nothing is so general, and at the same time so varied in its expression, as the desire for a full and happy life. In his passionate and disorderly career a sinner pursues happiness; in his love and hatred, his revelling and reviling is expressed the longing of his heart for peace and joy. And so does the hope of victory sustain the moral man in his conflict with evil, and the vision of heaveniy glory consoles the saint amidst his sacrifices, prayers, and works of charity. A religion that thus makes use of the most powerful impulse of the human heart is open to the danger that passionate, undisciplined men may carry their sensual and imperfect ideas into the very highest subjects. Who can deny that the Christian conception of heaven and hell has suffered such coarse exaggeration, or that in many cases men have dwelt upon their personal destiny in the future life until they have given it an undue predominance over the deepest and noblest tendencies of morality?
But the possibility of abuse is inherent in everything that is intimately connected with the interests of humanity. The highest and noblest, if it is to raise mankind, must first descend into the depths of human nature and assume, as it were, the very flesh and blood of man, in order to spiritualize and ennoble him. A morality which cannot thus condescend remains a thing apart, abstract and ineffectual, and is, moreover, untrue and contradictory, since there is no obligation that is not based upon the will, no law completely alien to human nature. Indeed, where such a moral system is set up as alone justified in existing, and where it is antagonistic to a "more human" system, which aims at harmonizing morality and happiness, it has a positively injurious effect, since it leads actually to the other extreme, the unbridled and reckless pursuit of pleasure. It was thus that the Stoics, with their impossible rigorism, not only made themselves ridiculous, but promoted the growth of Epicureanism; it was thus that English and Italian Humanism, whilst opposing the Christian ideas of happiness, actually encouraged the crass utilitarianism of Macchiavelli and Hobbes. This we see that in France, together with Jansenism, that insisted upon the absence of all self-interest in morality, there grew up a system of economics that regarded naked selfishness as the natural law; and upon Kant's isolation of good will and the subsequent hostility to the Christian doctrine of immortality, there is now following a modern Eudaemonism, which more and more intoxicates itself in the naturalistic dreams of evolution, and to which the norm of right and wrong is pleasure and pain.
It is well known that Kant contradicts himself in consequence of his criticism of men's striving after happiness. He holds that in action the will must not allow itself to be determined by any hope of happiness and success, nor by the thought of eternal bliss to be obtained from God; it ought to set aside every suggestion of an aim or of real value and only keep in view the formal law of reason, the universality of the maxims. Subsequently, however, Kant has recourse to the conception of the highest good as belonging to all mankind, so that to each individual is assigned proportionately the happiness due to him. Kant says that the realization of this good must be demanded for the sake of morality itself, because virtue is worthy of such happiness. But bow unnatural, then, is the suggestion to the will that, in striving for this good, the demand itself must be denied, and invariably to desire the good (that in accordance with an interior law inevitably must cause happiness) simply from the point of view of duty and never from that of felicity.
Kant is too logical to be able to rid himself altogether of the impression produced by such thoughts, and confirmed by elementary manifestations of the soul life, and consequently he involuntarily substitutes the inferior and narrower idea of sensual satisfaction for the loftier conception of aiming at happiness, and represents all inclinations and needs of the mind as "pathological" affections. According to Kant, there is no universal criterion of happiness; we have only the judgments resulting from experience and determined by the sensation of pleasure; perfect happiness is "not an ideal of reason, but of the imagination, resting merely upon an empirical basis."{3} If this hypothesis were correct, Kant's line of argument would have a meaning, but, as a matter of fact, he completely ignores the existence of any spiritual tendency to happiness, belonging both to the reason and the will, and shuts his eyes to the intimate connection between the good as an absolute law and the good as enriching the life of the individual, although this connection is recognized not only by Christians, but by all deep thinkers.
If we look at the teaching of the general Christian life, as contained in the Bible and the doctrines and practice of the Church, we find both thoughts. In the first place we hear of law, the will of God, and the moral order, and then of happiness, salvation in God, and the moral sanction; both are connected in a most close and active way, but still so as to distinguish that the first ranks higher than the second. God is the beginning and the end; His unchanging holy perfection is the primary law and the ultimate end of all life. Just as creation proclaims the glory of God, so human action has no higher object than to magnify His Name and to accomplish His Will, that in itself is holy and good. Good is good because it conforms to the divine order and subordinates the individual to the whole; evil is evil because it is at variance with God and His order, and seeks personal gratification apart from truth and sanctity. The way to moral perfection must, on the whole, be one of self-denial and resistance to the desire for pleasure and the pursuit of individual aims, because human nature, limited and finite as it has become through sin, is still further injured in its moral order. But the steep path of self-renunciation, pointed out by the commandments, leads to a goal that affords the highest happiness to the individual; obedience to the absolute Good breaks though the limitations of the creature and bestows upon the soul a stream of divine light and life which not only raises and ennobles it, but increases its energy and happiness.
Man submits with reverence to the voice of conscience because it is the voice of the highest perfection and wisdom; he listens with awe, half fearing, half hoping, to God's promises announcing the requital for good and evil deeds. As God's judgments are just, it is clear that virtue must in itself be worthy of happiness, and vice must in itself deserve punishment; and so what is moral is evidently prior to what brings with it happiness or pain. The heavenly reward is overwhelming, uniting man with God, and the punishment is irrevocable separating him from God forever. Hence a value must be attached to morality that surpasses all other good, and in comparison with which man himself and his natural importance vanish altogether. If our critics had only taken into consideration that, to a Christian, heaven and hell do not stand simply for happiness and misery, for gain and loss, but for reward and punishment, -- i.e., for the expression of moral value, -- they would not have raised the untenable objection that our ideas of heaven and hell detract from the importance of morality. Holy Scripture teaches that an infinitely holy God accomplishes the sanction of the moral law in the way in which He must accomplish it, according to His divine justice, and that man in his moral life on earth sows the seed from which springs his eternal destiny. How, then, could it be possible for the "coarse pictures" of the future life to blind our eyes to the inner beauty and dignity of morality?
People are apt to overlook the symbolism in Holy Scripture and to give a literal interpretation to what is figurative and spiritual. They assign a literal meaning to the wedding feast and other things in the Apocalypse, and so justify themselves in reproaching us for having of heaven a sensual idea worthy of Mahometanism. Even in the Old Testament the idea of the sanctuary in the tabernacle, and especially of the Most Holy Place, as well as expressions in the Psalms and prophetical books, all show that happiness consists essentially in the presence of God and in beholding His countenance. In the New Testament the reward promised to the pure of heart is that they shall see God, see Him as He is, face to face; that they shall be transformed by His glory and be made like unto Christ, and that they shall glorify God in the kingdom of the blessed.{4} This spiritual glory will, it is true, be reflected upon the body after the resurrection, and upon all outward creation, and it will produce a sense of delight of the most exquisite sort. This is required by the inner unity and relation to God of all that has been created; but this bodily delight is so mysterious that it tends to encourage and edify and not to give rise to sensual and selfish imaginations.
The active blending in Holy Scripture of what is enjoined as law with the personal element, also characterizes Christian piety. There is little trace of any conscious effort to separate them, or to put apart what God has joined together. A child prays that God will make him good so that he may go to heaven, and a grown-up person, amidst the temptations and trials of life, looks forward hopefully to the life everlasting. The Church prays that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ, that we may deserve to enter His glory, and that in His spirit we may see what is right and ever rejoice in His consolation. Although the moral thought of being worthy of admission to the joys of heaven is here constantly mentioned, elsewhere the overpowering idea of God and the unselfish element in our service of God shines forth in all its fulness. Into the ordinary Christian life the lofty and all-embracing aim is introduced by the doxology, "Glory be to the Father, etc.," and by dedications of ordinary actions to God. In the "Our Father" we pray, first of all, that God's name may be hallowed, that His kingdom may come, and that His will be done, before we refer to our daily bread or to the forgiveness of our sins. Every Catholic learns in his prayers and from biblical allegories that, of the three theological virtues, charity is greater than either faith or hope. While in the most personal act of religion, the reception of the sacraments, all moral considerations play their part, and even fear of punishment is included amongst the permissible motives for contrition, the Church aims nevertheless at perfect contrition, proceeding from the love of God;{5} and where in confession this love is still incomplete and cold, it is naturally increased in Holy Communion, the banquet of love, where our glorified Redeemer gives Himself to the soul freed from sin. We can see in St. Augustine, the greatest philosopher of Christian antiquity, how the thought of God and His absolute goodness alternates with that of man's own happiness. Some modern writers on ethics fancy that "his chief aim in every department of his work is to promote the well-being of man's own entire nature." This is, however, a mistake, even if we do not take well-being in any narrow or selfish sense, but as meaning "the complete gratification of every part of one's nature, the restoration of all one's powers, and rapture penetrating one's whole being."{6}
In all his statements regarding morality St. Augustine undoubtedly starts with a desire for happiness; he indeed describes ideal happiness, the development of all man's faculties to their highest perfection, as the most complete bonum proprium, the best that man in his essence and subjectivity can receive. But above this gratification of the ego is the summa et incommutabilis bonitas, God, in His fulness of life and truth. To St. Augustine this alone is the centre of the moral order, this alone is the objective good at which we aim, and from which the powers of our mind receive their intensification, fulness, and satisfaction. God is so absolutely the foundation, source, and substance of the happiness of heaven, that all selfish considerations are eliminated from the will and nothing is left but pure love of what is good. "Man can attain happiness only by the means whereby he becomes good," and he becomes good by loving the highest good and by valuing God above everything "for His own sake" and "with no thought of reward." Not every kind of happiness is welcome to me, "nothing," says St. Augustine, "is sweet to me that does not lead me to God. May the Lord take everything from me and give me Himself!"{7} "This is happiness, to rejoice in anticipation of Thee and in Thee and for Thy sake"; "to adhere to God, to live for Him, and through Him to become wise and happy." A good man "lives, beholds, and loves; he lives in God's eternity, he beholds His truth, he rejoices in His goodness."{8}
Rest in God is at the same time activity, eager contemplation, and loving appropriation of His inexhaustible truth and beauty, and also sympathy with all His creation, love of one's neighbour, and zeal for the civitas Dei, the great kingdom of peace. God's infinity alone can supply refreshment and happiness to millions of His creatures without suffering diminution in the case of the individual or giving rise to feelings of fear and envy.{9}
In the very conception of justice and the moral order, and in "those unchanging rules and guiding stars of virtue which reside incorruptibly in universal truth and wisdom," God's everlasting goodness gives light to our understanding. Even reverence for these things is a kind of caritas, love of God in the widest sense; and in the same way every offence against the moral order implies a turning of the soul away from God, the absolute Good, and hence there follows, by an inherent necessity, punishment, loss of the happiness possible to a creature.{10}
The central position assigned by St. Augustine to charity had a great influence upon the piety and mysticism of later ages. Fear of God, as slavish fear of punishment, appears in his writings and those of his disciples almost exclusively in its educational aspect, and it was only later that scholastic writers distinguished the different kinds of fear. Childlike fear of offending God was highly esteemed as a fruit of love, and servile fear, which in the dread of punishment renounces sin, is approved as a first step on the way to love. Slavish fear which dreads punishment but still loves sin is condemned as an immoral imperfection.
Any one who acquires an intimate knowledge of this literature must be impressed by the anxiety displayed by the ascetical and mystical writers to bring Christians not only beyond the imperfect, initial stage of fear, but also beyond the too personal desire for heaven, and to reveal to them something much higher and greater. To prove this it is enough for me to quote a few passages from the "Following of Christ" by Thomas à Kempis, the best-known work of the kind. "Without charity, the outward work profiteth nothing. . . . He doth well, who regardeth the common good rather than his own will."{11} "Let me love Thee more than myself, and myself only for Thee, and all others in Thee."{12} "By seeking Thee alone and purely loving Thee, I found both myself and Thee; and by this love have more profoundly annihilated myself."{13} Perfection consists "in offering thyself with thy whole heart to the Divine will; not seeking the things that are thine, either in little or great, either in time or eternity."{14} "Grant that I may learn above all things to seek Thee and find Thee; above all things to relish Thee and love Thee, and to understand all other things as they are, according to the order of Thy wisdom."{15} "I had rather be poor for Thy sake, than rich without Thee. I prefer rather to sojourn upon earth with Thee, than to possess heaven without Thee. Where Thou art, there is heaven; and there is death and hell where Thou art not. . . . Bless and sanctify my soul with Thy heavenly blessing, that it may be made Thy holy habitation, and the seat of Thy eternal glory; and let nothing be found in the Temple of Thy dignity that may offend the eyes of Thy majesty."{16} The same spirit of most perfect morality makes itself felt in the writings of St. Francis of Sales, who is scarcely less read than Thomas à Kempis. It is particularly noticeable in the book called "Theotimus," a treatise on the love of God.
Scholasticism displayed a spirit in no way opposed to biblical and mystical piety, and the efforts of the scholastic writers to attain to clearness of thought have been of great assistance to those attempting to establish the true relation between morality and happiness. But it may be asked, did not the study of Aristotle, whom St. Thomas Aquinas followed so closely, cause ethical writers to adopt a utilitarian point of view, which is not Christian? Has not the idea of beatitudo, resembling the Aristotelian idea of eudaemonism, assumed such prominence as to obscure the proper theory of morality? What has already been said regarding the principle of the moral order shows at once that such a reproach could be justified only if St. Thomas, the greatest of the Scholastics, had at the same time been the greatest bungler who did not mind a few manifest contradictions in the foundations of his system. But in his ethics all essential points are in harmony, and the unity of morality and happiness, as recognized by St. Augustine, is brought out clearly and thoughtfully by St. Thomas. A misinterpretation of the word beatitudo, as well as inadequate knowledge of scholasticism in general, no doubt led to the misunderstanding to which I have referred. It is unjust to Aristotle to number him with the representatives of eudaemonism in the ordinary sense; with him eudaemonism is not subjective comfort, the gratification of desire through pleasure and enjoyment, but the development of human nature to its fullest activity, the intellectual and also the moral perfection of man. Striving after happiness is one of the moments, in the movement to an aim, which proceed from the nature of things and revolve in orderly fashion around a spiritual and divine centre.
St. Thomas adopts Aristotle's views, but fills up the gaps in the system and develops tentative suggestions in the spirit of Christianity. The highest Good, whence the sanction of moral obligation emanates, is the all-embracing and perfect essence of God. Being Himself perfect, God could not seek in the creation His own advantage, but only His own honour; i.e., the production of a worthy representation of His perfection. The accomplishment of this end is beneficial only to those creatures who were called forth from nothing to participate in God's goodness. In the case of irrational creatures, the full development of their powers fulfils the aim of their creation, yet not in such a way that these creatures are to be considered an end to themselves. Man, on the contrary, is in some degree an end to himself; his perfection is intimately connected with the highest aim; his nature is capable of a thinking and loving reception of God, as is shown by his innate interest in all that is good and true; his life is destined for permanent union with God, as is revealed by the immortality of the soul.{17}
The sense of void and disappointment experienced by the human will in all earthly aims and pleasures, and the continual increase in mental vigour and desires, of which a man becomes aware when he seriously investigates truth, are the plainest evidence that he is destined for God. His actual perfection and happiness are found in the recognition and immediate contemplation of God as the infinite fulness of being. The gratification of the will and affections, the feeling of happiness, is not the essence of beatitudo, but its consequence and completion. The substance of the highest intellectual life must first be given, and then peace and happiness flow from it. This great substance is so exalted, so far beyond the soul of man, that it fills with love rather than pleasure, with devoted admiration rather than selfish gratification. "We aim at the absolute end in order to possess it, but it is loved far beyond the measure of its possession."{18} "The happiness which includes love and joy is, as it were, an end subordinate to a higher end, and uniting us with the highest end of all."{19}
In speaking of earthly morality also, St. Thomas clearly distinguishes between amor concupiscentiae and amor benevolentiae, the love of desire and the love of benevolence. He says of himself and of all morally-minded Christians: "We love God with the love of friendship rather than with that of desire, because the goodness of God in itself is greater than any advantage which we can receive in its enjoyment. Hence man in caritas loves God more than himself."{20}
Both kinds of love are most closely connected in Christianity, but the absolute never fails to take precedence of the created, the universal of the particular, in all moral relations. According to St. Thomas, it is neither desire of happiness nor hope but love of God that constitutes the essence of every moral action, and is the vital principle, the forma, of all virtues.{21} Speaking with profound knowledge of the universal tendency of human nature to exalt the ego unduly to the rank of the absolute, St. Thomas remarks: "Human nature would never love anything that was not in some sense or other its own good, either in reality or in appearance. But human nature loves it, not because it is its own, but because it is good; for what is good in itself is the object of the will."{22}
If, bearing these fundamental principles in mind, we pass on to some objections and obscurities in the modern treatment of our problem, we shall first of all have to reject as unnatural Kant's distinction between the good and goodness, obligation and volition, and the form and matter of our endeavours, which he subsequently tried to bridge over in an artificial manner.
The rigorism of some teachers of religion, who violently separate love and hope, is inwardly false, both psychologically and ethically. There is only one God, who is at once the rule of sanctity and the source of happiness; and there is only one soul, which necessarily finds happiness in the love of what is good and divine, never in selfish enjoyment, but only in unreserved love of that which is perfect in itself. We are not merely permitted but we are bound to desire true, heavenly happiness, as, in so doing, we are developing the talents given us by God and bringing them from their rudimentary condition to ripeness and strength; and we are making clear and beautiful the likeness of God which He has impressed upon the depths of our souls. It is God's will that we should be happy; He desires it for His own glory, as we can see and adore His majesty only in the light of heavenly glorification; we can love Him with all our heart and strength only when we are near Him, and we can be removed from every possibility of falling into sin only when we thus behold and love Him.
The glory of God, regarded as the aim of the universe, compels us to make happiness our own personal aim. On the other hand, a true desire for happiness necessarily rises above itself to pure, adoring love. One who would think, "I am seeking my own safety and happiness in heaven; I could easily dispense with God," would not really be thinking of heaven as represented to us by Christianity, for that consists essentially in the adoration of God, it is His kingdom. A simple Christian who longs for heaven glorifies God by acknowledging his own poverty and dependence as well as God's riches and mercy, and by turning his thoughts to God as a flower turns to the sun. Progress in true morality, and still more its perfection in heaven, precludes all self-concentration and self-idolization. St. John saw the ancients and angels in heaven, singing "Holy, Holy, Holy" in love and adoration to the Most High; and in the same way the eyes of the blessed do not rest upon the gifts but on the Giver; and they are consumed by ardent love for God, for it is His boundless love that descends upon man, revealing the Godhead to him.
The good is intrinsically significant, wholesome, and perfect, but it also affords happiness and joy, for the latter are but the outward manifestation of abundant, healthy life. In organic nature the realization of important designs is secured by the sense of pleasure accompanying certain actions. In our intellectual and social life there are possessions and tasks that impress our will by their objective importance, and at the same time afford us sympathetic interest and enjoyment in their realization. In neither case is pleasure the purpose designed by nature, but the stimulus and encouragement of the effort to attain the end valuable in itself. The same is true of things connected with morality. Obedience to the moral law, the higher aim of life, brings with it a pleasant reaction, and the will, being consecrated to what is good, gains in goodness, power, and joy. Even one who, accepting the doctrines of Kant and the Stoics, tried to stifle natural inclinations, to flee from pleasure and to aim at the universal and intellectually imperative simply for the sake of its moral worth, could not help feeling that what at first was hard and painful became sweet and easy by practice and with increased knowledge, so intimately are goodness and happiness connected. It is absolutely contrary to nature to attempt to break off this connection and to insist upon representing the inevitable sensation of happiness always as a consequence and never as an aim.
As long as we stop short at particular instances, and do not regard the resulting happiness as a prelude to the ultimate harmony of virtue and joy, our experiences are too fragmentary and weak to strengthen and maintain our moral courage, or even to satisfy our idea of morality. Moral growth is too secret and too much assailed, to hold as universally true that here on earth virtue is its own reward. And where this is claimed to be the case, virtue is shown to be of a superficial character, since it is satisfied and rendered happy by what is imperfect and perishable, and so diminishes the serious conception of duty, the tenderness of conscience, and the dignity of the moral ideal.
There is nothing in the world comparable with the silent heroism of virtue, but just for this reason the virtuous sentiment, or consciousness of its possession, cannot be its adequate reward. For (1) it often happens that, owing to the close connection between mind and body, virtue is accompanied by so much pain, anxiety, and uneasiness, or by so many external troubles and persecution, as to lose almost completely its power to comfort and uplift the soul. In answer to the Stoics, the ancients used to point to the fear of death which during a storm at sea completely overwhelmed a self-sufficient philosopher. An attack of seasickness or a violent toothache are more than enough to put to rout any self-satisfaction arising from a sense of virtue. (2) Moral perfection must be humble and self-forgetful in this world; it is not a conscious but an unaffected greatness. A saint who realized himself to be the most perfect of all living men is -- apart from Christ, the God-man -- utterly inconceivable. And yet consciousness as such is not a fault, but an advantage; it is in knowledge of self that true inward self-possession consists. But only in heaven, before the face of God, can virtue endure its own full splendour without being tempted to self-exaltation. (3) If a good will is the most perfect thing on earth, it is proper that it should receive the recognition of others. A moral greatness that is never recognized as such, and never makes itself felt, either in the consciousness of the individual or in the world about him, is in this world practically destroyed and annihilated. Here below this sanction, however, is lacking; neither success nor permanent results, neither gratitude nor fame, so regularly follow virtue that we can regard them as a worthy crown and completion of the moral idea. (4) Kant, who refused to consider happiness as a stimulus to goodness, admits it only as counterbalancing the troubles and trials incidentally connected with goodness. Even with a Christian the thought of heaven is often taken into account much in the latter way. He rejects attractive temptations, overcomes indolence and difficulties, in order to give free scope to that sense of duty and love of God which bring the moral principle to expression in all its purity.
When compared with hedonism and utilitarianism, Christian ethical teaching is seen to differ (1) in insisting upon more than external compliance with the rules of morality. Where the scales of moral justice are held by the force of nature or by the favour and authority of man, all stimulus to and support for inward morality is absent; but God examines the heart also, and the thought of Him purifies and animates the soul in its very depths. (2) Our happiness is, in its essence, not sensual pleasure, but spiritual joy; hence it is not an obscure, passive sensation, but it is a clear surrender of the will able to appreciate its substance; it is, in short, mental activity. Such happiness cannot degenerate into egotistical self-seeking. Even the delight at making some scientific discovery or progress cannot be so completely separated from its object, or so selfishly regarded, as a sensual pleasure. But the good things of heaven, being high and abstract, make even greater demands upon the energy of our thought and desires. "Only a heavenly heart can grasp the happiness of heaven." (3) Happiness proceeds organically from morality and continues to be inwardly united with it, since the moral aim, the deepest ground of obligation, coincides with the substance of happiness. Although this parallelism does not properly apply to every stage and detail of morality, it is obviously true of its development as a whole. It may be argued that the idea of reward is opposed to this view; that reward implies compensation for some action that is of an uncongenial character and felt to be unpleasant. This makes the idea of reward mean payment for mechanical labour. But is not knowledge the reward for scientific research, and family happiness the reward for good training? Christian pedagogy should endeavour, of course, to put more emphasis upon the inner power of good to bring its own reward, and of evil to produce its penalty, but it will never be able to dispense with all reference to the ultimate justice in the next life. (4) The aim of Christian hope is not individualistic, as our opponents assert, but, as St. Augustine declared, it is the vita socialis sanctorum, the Civitas Dei. The statements in Holy Scripture, the intervention of angels for the good of men, the doctrines of the communion and intercession of the saints, the teaching of the Church regarding indulgences, etc., all show how actual is the connection, which faith reveals, not only between the members of the Church Triumphant, but also between them and those of the Church Militant and Suffering. The dogma of the resurrection of the body shows that we must not think of the future life as purely spiritual and hostile to the world, but we must believe that everything natural, including our own bodies, is destined to share in God's glory.
Viewed in this context, the thought of a reward in heaven, especially as contained in the teaching of the Church on the subject of merit, appears to be a natural consequence of most fundamental ethical principles, provided, of course, that its meaning is not distorted and obscured. People talk a great deal nowadays of the eternal value of morality, but nowhere is this made so clear as in the Catholic theory of merit as conducing to salvation. When even W. Köhler regrets that St. Thomas, who had no rival in singing the canticle of grace, allowed his theology "to end in merit," we see that the prejudices of the Reformers are still strong and active. Does not the Church's dogma contain the same pure idea of "retribution" and "reward" that pervades the philosophy and religion of all nations that believe in immortality? Did not even Kant say that virtue meant "worthiness to be happy," and did he not ultimately postulate the existence of God, precisely in order that, by His omnipotence, happiness might be assigned "exactly in proportion to morality"?{23}
These very expressions suggest at once the scholastic doctrine of merit, but with the difference that in Kant God's position towards the "autonomous" subject of morality is not dignified, and His omnipotence and mercy are pressed into the service of a self-glorifying virtue, whereas with us God is the prima causa and moral legislator, dominating morality from beginning to end, as it is made up of good actions that He will bless and reward, and that He has physically and ethically prompted us to perform. No Catholic theologian has ever represented "merit" as if God and man were standing face to face as independent litigants; none of them has ever spoken of any moral or cosmic excellence that was not due to God's action; all that is good, like all that is, proceeds from the Source of life, and scholasticism inherited this firmly established principle from St. Augustine. In saying that God is the cause of all things, we do not exclude the productive activity of the creature, but hold these two things as inseparably interwoven, and this principle of genuine theism has also been upheld by scholasticism, with reference both to morality and to nature. Luther's inability to see how these things could be interlaced is analogous to his denial of merit, and is connected ultimately with his tendency to a pantheistic and superficial view of creation.{24}
But is it not a defect in Catholic teaching that it considers a reward beyond all proportion as due to human effort? Does it not ignore the gratuitous element, the part played by grace in supernatural happiness? If this were really involved in the idea of reward, the blame would have to be laid upon Holy Scripture. Our Saviour bade His disciples "Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven,"{25} and He told them: "With the same measure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again."{26} In the same way St. Paul says that God "will render to every man according to his works; to them who, according to patience in good work, seek honour and incorruption, eternal life."{27} He frequently speaks of the bliss of heaven as a reward or a crown of justice.{28} We are prevented from giving an external interpretation to these words by other passages where a Christian's life is described as the seed whence the heavenly harvest will spring, as the branch invigorated by the sap flowing from Christ, the vine, or as a development of the spirit of Christ, dwelling in such as are forgiven. The close connection and equality between morality and its reward are expressed in each case with equal clearness, but the latter kind of texts shows that a divine element is imparted to the human will, explaining the proportion existing between moral actions and eternal life.
The dogma regarding the working out of our salvation has been further developed by the doctors and councils of the Church, but these biblical ideas are retained in undiminished force. St. Augustine, the doctor gratiae, and St. Thomas Aquinas do not merely let the doctrine of grace "end with merit," but they introduce merit as a constituent part in the doctrine of grace. The former asks: "To whom will God give the crown that is due? O Paul, thou who art little and great, to whom will He give it? Certainly to thy merits. Thou hast fought the good fight, thou hast finished thy course, thou hast kept the faith; to these merits of thine He will assign the crown that is their due. But, in order that it might be assigned to thee, thy merits were (in the first place) the gift of God."{29} "To whom could He, as a just judge, give the crown, if He had not, as a merciful Father, bestowed the grace upon him. . . . The Pelagians would not have expressed any opinion worthy of condemnation, had they understood our merits in such a way as to recognize in them gifts of God."{30}
In the same way St. Thomas teaches that there is no proportion, but "the greatest inequality" between human actions and supernatural happiness; "but if we speak of a meritorious action as proceeding from the power of the Holy Ghost, it merits everlasting life ex condigno. For we value the merit according to the power of the Holy Ghost, which urges us on to eternal life, as it is written in John iv. 14, 'It shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.' We value it also according to the dignity of the grace through which man participates in the divine nature, and, being adopted as a child of God, in virtue of his adoption receives the inheritance, as it is written in Romans viii. 17, 'If sons, heirs also.{31} The specific moral effect of the Holy Ghost and of grace is love (caritas); in this interior disposition, that regulates the whole being of man with a view to God, lies the fundamental condition and the very soul of human merit.{32}
Luther abandoned these principles of the Church and Christianity, but the reason for his doing so was not that there were abuses and excrescences in Catholic doctrine, nor that he desired a more serious and stricter carrying out of the absolute, unselfish principle of morality. I cannot deny that Luther was able to refer actually to unfortunate misrepresentations of the idea of merit, nor that in many passages he tries to minimize the fear and hope regarding one's own destiny, in order to lay stress on the higher intention of being good in God's sight and of living so as to thank and please Him. On the whole, however, his doctrine of justification is more eudaemonistic in character than the Catholic. With him conversion begins with agitating fear and alarm at the prospect of the judgment, having as yet no moral character at all. The desire for forgiveness and its satisfaction in faith in the Gospel have in Lutheranism a more personal and quietistic tendency than perhaps in any other religion. Faith is fides specialis, and its living interest turns away from the great world-embracing doctrines of salvation to the troubles and cares of the ego. Its task is to supply the ego with complete and irrevocable assurance of salvation. Whatever lies beyond this consolation, this certainty of grace and happiness, particularly the energy and duty of moral action, Luther carefully excluded from his idea of justification. He has been praised for transferring the happiness, at which he aims, to this world, and for uniting it more closely with morality than Catholic doctrine does. Those who praise him for this fail to see that this sort of happiness, the comfort produced by fiduciary faith, has nothing to do with morality, and that it is far from being that inner development and completion of it which Plato, St. Augustine, and others had in view. Luther's believer is comforted and happy, not because he is pure and good, but in spite of being impure and sinful. Luther inevitably rejected the Catholic doctrine of growth in goodness and merit because, in his opinion, grace does not make the bad tree really good, and Christ's sanctity does not penetrate so far into man as to communicate to him any ability to do right. He is therefore eager to hurl arguments against Catholic doctrine which even at first sight are seen to be worthless. For instance, he asserts that Christ would have died in vain if there were any merits, that under those circumstances even pagans and unbelievers could be saved, etc.
With deliberate assurance and perfect appreciation of biblical and patristic tradition, the Council of Trent established the really Catholic idea of merit as a fruit of justification, in answer to Luther's distorted views. It emphasized especially the fact that Christ constantly supplies, to those who are justified, that supernatural force which promotes, accompanies, and completes their good works, without which force these works can in no way be pleasing to God and meritorious. In supplying this force Christ shows Himself to be the head of us who are His members, the vine, of which we are the branches.{33} On the subject of meriting heaven, the Council commends those Christians only who "in order to overcome their indolence, and to encourage themselves to run their course, in harmony with the intention of glorifying God above all things, look forward also to a heavenly reward."{34}
As merit depends upon grace, the duty of humbly thanking God is increased, not diminished, if God by means of grace not only preserves us from guilt, but makes us fruitful in good works and capable of independently attaining our end. The Church has never taught that we have any merit in the sense of being able to confer some benefit or favour upon God, for which He subsequently shows His gratitude to us. Luther, on the contrary, represents God as egotistical when he assumes that without this mistaken conception the idea of merit has no meaning. The whole order of the universe and of grace is not the outcome of any need felt by the Creator; however, it is governed by laws which God, in His justice and wisdom, upholds, not for His own benefit, but for His glory. Modern objections to reckoning up merits still echo Luther's argument: "In that case we should have to do good and salutary works incessantly, and that is not possible." Those who think thus fail to see that moral life is a living unity, in which it is quite possible to do right incessantly, provided that the fundamental intention of doing everything for love of God is strongly developed. Where this is the case the individual actions are not isolated and distinct values, capable of being added together like a sum; nothing truly good is lost, the same as in a living organism there is never a moment of growth or a living force that is not effective. Of reckoning up and balancing debits and credits, or, in other words, of wiping out sin by means of good works, there is no suggestion in the teaching of the Church, at least with regard to mortal sin; as to venial sin, theologians ascribe to love the power to remove it, inasmuch as love is the life of the moral organism, and this life, as it becomes more abundant, overcomes small obstacles and disturbances.
It is hard to account for a very widespread idea among Protestants that Catholicism ascribes merit exclusively, or in a predominant degree, to works of supererogation, the fulfilment of the Evangelical Counsels. This is quite a mistake. The life of grace manifests itself primarily in the fulfilment of ordinary duties, and as long ago as at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, the Church declared in opposition to some heretical views: Non solum virgines et continentes verum etiam coniugati per rectam fidem et operationem bonam placentes Deo ad aeternam merentur beatitudinem pervenire.{35} According to St. Thomas{36} and his school, every action of a justified man that is not sinful is good, expedient, and beneficial, because motived by the spirit of love and meritorious for heaven.{37}
{1} Kr. d. pr. Vernunft (Kirchm., p. 41).
{2} W. James, for instance, follows Protestant theologians in thus presenting the matter (Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 461). Sell similarly remarks (p. 200) that the Reformation aimed at putting down "that unworthy bargaining for heaven which men gain or forfeit by individual actions."
{3} Grundl. z. Metaph. d. Sitten. (Kirchmann, 2d ed.), p. 41.
{4} Matt. v. 3, xxv. 34; 1 John iii. 2; 1 Cor. xiii. 9; 2 Cor. iii. 18.
{5} Cf. supra, p. 101.
{6} Eucken, Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker, 211; cf. a detailed argument in Mausbach, Ethik des hl. Augustinus, I, 51, etc., 84, etc.
{7} Enarr. 2. in ps. xxvi. 16.
{8} Conf. 10, 32; de civit., 12, c. 1,3; 11, c. 24.
{9} Cf. Mausbach, Ethik des hI. Augustinus, p. 70, etc., 79, etc.
{10} Ibid., pp. 92, etc., 115, etc.; de lib. arb., II, 52.
{11} I, 15.
{12} III, 5.
{13} III, 8.
{14} III, 25.
{15} III, 27.
{16} III, 59.
{17} S. c. Gentil., III, c. 112.
{18} In II, sent. dist. 3, q. 3 ad 3.
{19} Ibid., dist. 38, q. 1, a. 2; of. Mausbach, Ausgew. Texte, § 4.
{20} S. Theol., II, II, q. 26, a. 3 ad 3; cf. supra, p. 182.
{21} Cf. supra, p. 181.
{22} In II, sent. dist. 3, q. 3 ad 2. He speaks still more plainly in III, sent. dist. 29, q. 1, a. 3 ad 2: Quamvis unicuique sit amabile, quod sibi est bonum, non tamen oportet, quod propter hoc sicut propter finem ametur, quia est sibi bonum, cum etiam amicitia non retorqueat ad seipsum bonum, quod ad alterum optat. Cf. S. Theol., ii, II, q. 26, a. 3 ad 2.
{23} Kr. d. pr. V, 133, 149, etc.; cf. Kneib, Die Lohnsucht d. Christl. Moral., 1904.
{24} The pantheistic views of the Arabs led St. Thomas also to discuss this important theistic principle (S. c. Gentil., III, c. 69 and 70).
{25} Matt.v. 12.X
{26} Luke vi. 38.
{27} Rom. ii. 6, 7.
{28} Cal. iii. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 8.
{29} St. Augustine, Sermo 297, n. 6.
{30} De grat. et lib. arb., n. 15.
{31} S. theol., I, II, q. 114, a. 3, C. Gratia Spiritus Sancti, quam in praesenti habemus, etsi non sit aequalis gloriae in actu, est tamen aequalis in virtute, sicut semen arboris, in quo est virtus ad totam arborem. Et similiter per gratiam inhabitat hominem Spiritus Sanctus, qui est sufficiens causa vitae aeternae, unde et dicitur pignus hereditatis nostrae (ibid., ad 3).
{32} Ibid., n. 4.
{33} Sess. 6, c. 16.
{34} Sess. 6, c. 11.
{35} Denzinger ed., X, 430.
{36} Qu. disp. de malo, q. 2, a. 5 ad 7.
{37} How just the Protestant people are possessed of a very unedifying "reward idea" is revealed by an article contributed by Pfarrer Grethen to the "Protestantenblatt" (1912, No. 46). The author discusses the effect upon rustic piety of the wet summer in 1912, and says: "We hear on all sides that the country people were most embittered against God as the Lord of sunshine and rain, and that they did not hesitate to give expression to their indignation. . . . Their firmly rooted idea of reward made them question the divine justice, and the denial of God's existence was of daily occurrence." Had the doctrine of merit and of the heavenly harvest awaiting a Christian not been so thoroughly uprooted, the faith of these people would probably not have suffered such disastrous shocks!