In the foregoing discussion it has been demonstrated that there rests upon every human being a strict obligation of professing some sort of religion. Man as a creature depends wholly on God his Creator, and reason demands that he should make due acknowledgment of this dependence. Such an acknowledgment, however, he can make only when he freely subjects his intellect and will to the sovereign authority of God, and, in consequence of this subjection, brings his life into harmony with God's law. Now, this free submission to God, which finds practical expression in a life of virtue and worship, is the very essence of religion. Hence the physical necessity whereby man is of his very nature a creature, is the source of that moral obligation which constrains him to make religion an essential part of his life.
But from the fact of creation follows another consequence, which is not less peremptory in its demands upon man's allegiance to his Creator. It is this. As the fact of creation makes the practice of religion a moral necessity, so is it also the ultimate foundation upon which rests man's obligation to profess a particular form of religion. As man's Creator, God has a right not only to demand worship, but to determine the kind and form of that worship. His dominion over man is absolute, extending itself not only to man's being, but to his actions as well. Consequently, if He chooses to be worshiped in any particular manner, it is not for man to demur but to render Him a prompt obedience, even though he might, for reasons of his own, be more strongly attracted to other forms of divine worship.
Of course, if God had placed man in a purely natural state of existence, this obligation would never have been reduced to act. For in such a state man would have had only reason for his guide, and reason points mainly to the necessity of religious worship, not to the precise manner in which that worship should find external expression. I say mainly, because in a general way reason seems to inculcate some one or another form of prayer and sacrifice as an appropriate expression of man's religious sentiments, and in so far we may say that unaided reason alone would determine even the manner of worship as required by the Creator of all. Even in the purely natural state, man would clearly recognize his dependence on God's power and his indebtedness to God's bounty, and the spontaneous impulse of his rational nature would find utterance in prayers of petition or of thanksgiving as occasion might demand. He would be conscious of God's sovereign dominion, of His power over life and death, and in recognition of the same he would naturally be led to immolate some victim or another as a sacrifice acceptable to the Deity. Yet aside from this general determination in the expression of religious sentiments, the purely natural state of human existence would not call for any definite form of religious worship. Such forms might indeed be adopted, but that would be a matter of free choice and not of imposed obligation.
Hence before we can answer the question whether God has imposed upon us the obligation of worshiping Him in some particular manner, or, if you will, of professing some particular form of religion, we must evidently inquire whether God has made known His will in this regard through other channels than the voice of unaided natural reason. If this can be established our duty is obvious; for in such an event His ruling in the matter must necessarily determine our course of action. If He has seen fit, for instance, to reveal a body of truths the full understanding of which lies beyond the reach of our finite intellects, we are in duty bound to accept them on the sole authority of His infallible word. If He has laid down certain rules of conduct that impose restrictions where the dictate of our natural reason would leave us free, we are under moral obligation to shape our actions in conformity with His sovereign will. If He has established a form of worship which alone He will accept as legitimate, we are thereby prohibited from worshiping Him in any other form. In this our own personal likes or dislikes count for nothing; the one question is: What has it pleased God to enact along these lines? As He has said, so must it be done; for He is the Lord of all.
Here, however, we come again to a parting of the ways. In spite of their carelessness in religious practice, most men are still agreed that some sort of religion is a matter of strict obligation; but the particular form of religion, they will have it, has been left to man's own choosing. Man, they say, has his reason to guide him, and whatever transcends reason has for him no existence. Hence even where religion is still tolerated, it is fast becoming a thing of man's making. The divine element is made to yield its place to the human; the will of God is overshadowed by the will of man, and all professedly supernatural religions are gradually supplanted by one that is wholly natural in character. There is to-day observable on all sides an ever-growing tendency to naturalize religion; to bring it down to the level of an exact science; to a science that admits of no truths which the intellect cannot fathom and acknowledges no laws that go beyond the scope of natural reason. Christianity itself, it is claimed, is, as far as its historic truth comes in question, nothing else but unaided nature's highest aspiration after God. Its mysteries are held to be for the most part susceptible of natural explanation, and if any there be that cannot be thus explained, they must be set aside as so many unwarranted additions to the glad tidings announced to the world by Jesus of Nazareth.
The reasons that underlie this naturalizing tendency are many and various, determined for the most part, though perhaps unconsciously, by motives of self-interest which affect each individual in the final shaping of his conduct. Some prate of naturalism because it is the fashion of the hour; others because they have no appreciation of things that lie beyond the narrow range of sense-perception; others, because their lives are in glaring contrast with the truths contained in supernatural religion; others, because they misapprehend the nature of supernatural faith; and, finally, one and all fail to understand the far-reaching consequences that necessarily flow from the fact of creation. Men of this class have come to look upon nature and nature's laws as something that is absolutely unchangeable; as something with which even God can in no wise interfere. That nature depends on God, not only for its existence but also for its operations, seems never to enter their minds; and so, without even examining into the matter, they simply hand down their opinion as the final verdict, that, whereas supernatural religion presupposes an interference with the laws of nature, it is ipso facto impossible, and therewith they end all further contention.
Hence the task now before us calls for an unbiased inquiry into the claims of supernatural religion. To make this inquiry more profitable in its final results, we shall view the matter first theoretically, considering the nature of religious faith, the possibility of revelation, and the credentials by which the fact of revelation must be established. This done, we shall take a practical view of the question, applying the conclusions arrived at to Christianity; thus showing, not only that supernatural religion is possible, but that it exists as an actual fact. Possibly this method of procedure demands more reasoning than may appear desirable in a work intended for the general public, yet the difficulty is more apparent than real; for by a judicious use of illustrations and examples the reasoning, though in itself perhaps somewhat abstruse, may easily be brought within reach of the ordinary reader. It has, moreover, this advantage, that it enables even those who are altogether unfamiliar with the subject to read these chapters with profit.
In the following discussion, therefore, the existence of God and the fact of creation are assumed as sufficiently proved in the preceding chapters. Hence the argumentation is not made to bear upon the objections of professed Atheists and Materialists, but only upon difficulties that are usually urged by persons who glory in the name of Rationalists. As a general rule, men of this school of thought admit the existence of a personal God, and they readily grant that this God must be worshiped in spirit and in truth; but to their way of thinking all practical truth comes within the range of unaided reason, and, therefore, they follow this same reason as their only guide. They aim at independence in thought and at freedom in worship, and thus unshackled in theory and in practice they fancy to have discovered the one rational system of religion that must perforce commend itself to all men of sense.