“All superstition, all priestcraft, in its worst
and most evil sense – we cannot repeat this proposition too often, or put it
in too many shapes – has its root in vague, indefinite religious
apprehensions; not resting upon the knowledge and confession of a Being who is
not our image, but who has declared Himself to us that we might receive His
image”
Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872) was one of the great (some have argued he was the
greatest) Anglican theologians of the 19th century. Maurice (pronounced like Morris) critiqued the usual church
factions of his day and was seen as suspect by each of them as a result. He was
hardly a conservative. He was accused of being a universalist. He was an early
proponent of "Christian Socialism" which also made him suspect to
both "unsocial Christians" and "unChristian socialists."
But
he was also critical of liberal theology:
“Every hope I had for human culture, for the
reconciliation of opposing schools, for blessings to mankind, was based on
theology. What sympathy then could I have with the Liberal Party, which was
emphatically anti-theological, which was ready to tolerate all opinion in
theology only because people could know nothing about it?"
In
our own era of church factionalism, I appreciate Maurice's ability to cut
across party lines to engage appreciatively and critically with just about
everyone. One might say he was something of a radical centrist.
The
following is from a sermon of Maurice's on the significance of the Creed:
Let us understand this well, brethren, for it is
very important in reference to notions that are current in the present day. If
there is to be a religion of trust, and not of slavish cowardly fear, that
religion must have a Revelation, the revelation of a Name for its basis. A
religion which creates its own object cannot be one of trust. I cannot rest
upon that which I feel and know that I have made for myself. I cannot trust in
that which I look upon as a form of my own mind or a projection from it. . .
Neither can I trust in any shadowy, impalpable essence, or in any Soul of the world.
If this be the God I worship, my worship will be one of doubt and distrust,
whenever it is at all sincere. If I do not seek all strange, monstrous means of
propitiating the unknown Being, it is only because I am altogether uncertain
whether he is real enough for such services. . . All superstition, all
priestcraft, in its worst and most evil sense – we cannot repeat this
proposition too often, or put it in too many shapes – has its root in vague,
indefinite religious apprehensions; not resting upon the knowledge and
confession of a Being who is not our image, but who has declared Himself to us
that we might receive His image . . .
But the question – How is He a Father, how do I
know He is? cannot be evaded. The Church had no wish to evade it. She acknowledged
that something more was implied in the Revelation of a Father than His Name;
that there must be some one to reveal Him. She proclaimed the Name of His
only-begotten Son, our Lord. She says that He revealed Himself as he Son of God
by being conceived of the Holy Ghost our Lord, by being born of the Virgin
Mary, by suffering our death, our burial, by going down into the Hell we
tremble to think of; by facing all our enemies visible and invisible, all that
we actually know we must meet, all that our imagination dreams of; that He rose
again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right of the
Father, and will come again to judge the quick and the dead.
If God be absolute, eternal love, as St. Augustine makes the Catechist affirm, how has he shewn it? Has it come forth,
or is it all hidden in his own nature? Has it come forth to some other
creature, or to man? Has it met him where he needs to be met or somewhere else?
Has it encountered the actual woes of mankind, or only those which affect a
particular set of men? Has it been found mightier than these, or has it sunk
under them? Has this love been cheerfully entertained, or did it encounter
ingratitude? Was the ingratitude too strong for the love, or the love for the
ingratitude? Is the victory for all times, or only for that time? Is He who you
say is our Lord really our Lord? Does He reign over us? Will he leave all
things just as they are, or set them right at last? These questions have a
claim to be answered; that is no Gospel to humanity which does not answer them;
the Christian Church said, 'This is the answer' . . . And again, supposing the
words be true, all we have to do is to proclaim them and live upon them. He who
has sent us into the world for that end can prove them. Those that know His
Name will trust in Him, and so they find that He has not deceived them.
See also: On the Christian Creed: Some Questions & Responses
See also: On the Christian Creed: Some Questions & Responses
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