The Origin and Development of Religion

B. Religion Not a Result of Self-Deception on the Part of the Will

Those who attribute religion to self-deception on the part of the human will argue as follows: Man, becoming dissatisfied with this earthly life, which he found full of imperfections, privations, and suffering, conceived a desire for a happier existence, and when he discovered that he was unable to improve his lot by his own efforts, he cast about for outside help, from imaginary beings, superior to, and favorably inclined towards, himself,—mighty beings of another world, who would help him to realize his ambition. Thus originated the idea of God and together with it that of religion.²⁹29“He [God] is himself the realized wish of the heart,” says L. Feuerbach, Das Wesen des Christentums, new ed. by W. Bolin, Stuttgart, 1903, p. 145.

An indication of this evolution is seen in certain names and activities attributed to the deity. Wuotan, whom the Romans identified with Mercury, is interpreted as the God of wishes.³⁰30L. Feuerbach, Vorlesungen über das Wesen der Religion, new ed. by W. Bolin, p. 314. Hermes (interpreter, magic formula) bears the magic wand denoting jurisdiction and is regarded as the representative of human wishes before the throne of the deity. The word Brahma, finally, has the double meaning of prayer (wish) and God. The deification of the wish could not be more plainly expressed.

Another argument for the alleged origin of religion in the selfish wishes of humanity is derived from the peculiar religious activity of the will. This activity, it is claimed, retains traces of blind instinct, which always serves man’s use and advantage; it is nothing but a naked egoism, solely intent upon its own benefit.³¹31“Who can deny that human egoism is the source of religion and theology? For if the adorability and venerability, and consequently the divine dignity, of a being depend entirely upon its relation to the welfare of man, if only a being beneficent and useful to man is divine, then the reason for the divinity of that being lies solely in the egoism of man, who regards all other things only as related to himself and values them according to this relation.” (Feuerbach, Vorlesungen, p. 78). The will, in submitting itself to God, acts from a purely selfish motive, i. e., a desire for the most perfect attainable happiness, to which even the deity is made subservient.³²32“The Christian God as food for consumption … is just as much an object of egoism as bodily food is among the heathen.” (Feuerbach, op. cit., p. 102). “The religious man negatives the futility of human activity by … making man the purpose of God, … employing the divine activity as a means of human salvation. … Thus man has only himself in view in and through God.” (Feuerbach, Das Wesen des Christentums, p. 37). Religious ideals and aspirations belong to the sphere of Eudaemonism and Utilitarianism. The prospect of obtaining the highest benefits is the most efficacious motive for leading a religious life, and if religion denies its followers earthly possessions, it does so for the distinctly Epicurean motive that these possessions cannot be enjoyed forever.³³33“Even when he [man] gives up all earthly goods, and rejects all sensual and human pleasures, this self-denial is only the means of attaining and enjoying heavenly or divine happiness.” (Feuerbach, Vorlesungen über das Wesen der Religion, p. 91).

As against these assertions we maintain that religion did not originate in self-deception on the part of the human will.

a) The interpretation of divine names alleged by our opponents is for the most part arbitrary. Wuotan was the god of the winds and of the realm of the dead, and sailed through the air with an army of departed spirits. His very name marks him out as the god of the winds, not of wishes.³⁴34D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Religionsgeschichte, Vol. III, 3rd ed., Tübingen, 1905, p. 556; J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, Vol. I, 4th ed., by E. H. Meyer, Gütersloh, 1875, p. 109. Grimm derives the word Wuotan from the Old High German watan, from wout = to hasten, to advance hurriedly. That Tacitus places him by the side of Mercury is probably owing to his alleged relations with the realm of the dead. Hermes, as the messenger of the gods, carries a herald’s rod, which may originally have had the form of a magic wand. But there is nothing to show that the Greeks believed this god to be the executor of human wishes to such an extent that he might be regarded as the personification of the latter.

The case is somewhat different with Brahma. This word has a twofold meaning. It signifies prayer and it is also the proper name of the deity. While this fact alone does not prove that the deity is the personification of human wishes, such an interpretation is not positively excluded, though rendered rather improbable by a study of the development of Brahminism. The word Brahma originally signified a prayer addressed to the deity, but in course of time, as Brahminism gradually assumed a pantheistic tendency, it came to mean an immersion of the mind into, and its identification with, the divine. Though this peculiarity of Brahminism seems to favor the view of our opponents, it really affords no information with regard to the origin of religion. For, on the one hand, the fundamental meaning of the word Brahma, i. e., “prayer addressed to the deity,” actually presupposes the notion and acknowledgment of a deity, and, on the other hand, it is not permissible to employ for the explanation of other religions a phenomenon peculiar to Brahminism without various qualifications.³⁵35Cfr. Chas. F. Aiken in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. II, pp. 730 sqq.; B. C. A. Windle, Religions Past and Present, N. Y., 1927, pp. 215 sqq.

b) The arguments derived by our opponents from the religious activity of the will are inconclusive.

α) The religious will, we are told, is related to blind instinct and consequently serves only selfish purposes. But, we answer, instinctive impulses and spiritual aspirations of the will are totally different things, which must not be confounded. Instinct manifests itself in objectively purposive acts, governed by sense perception,—which acts, however, are not perceived as purposive by the subject. Instinctive acts necessarily follow sense perception and possess in the impulse which directs them a guide for the satisfaction of needs which arise from the conservation and development of the individual or the species. The will operates quite differently. Its aspirations follow intellectual knowledge and are guided by an intrinsic appreciation of the object to which they are directed. The activity of the will is, moreover, subject to law, inasmuch as the moral consciousness indicates the direction which the will must take if its operations are to be conformable to human nature and to aid that nature in reaching its highest perfection. But the operation of the will is not the result of natural forces which work their effects with sheer necessity; it is rather the result of free choice and self-determination.

β) The religious aspirations of the will are not per se effects of a censurable egoism. The goal towards which religion seeks to draw men is truth and goodness in the spiritual possession of the most perfect of all beings, whereas egoism strives for the possession of purely material goods to the exclusion of those of a higher order. In the domain of the spiritual, in the life of the intellect and the will, this egoism has no place. Truth satisfies a thousand minds as completely as it satisfies one; a spiritual good can become an object of love for the whole race in the same way as for a few individuals.

But, it is objected, is not the deity, the alleged final goal of religious aspiration, in matter of fact degraded by man to the level of a means to an end,—that end being human happiness? This would be the case if there were question of sensual pleasures or material possessions. A material good can serve sensual pleasure only in so far as it is subjected to that pleasure as a means to an end, because sensual pleasure is essentially dependent upon the (at least partial) material incorporation of its object with the organism of the subject, whereas spiritual pleasure is enjoyed without any change in its object and without subjecting that object to the intellect and the will. Thus, too, it is with the happiness which man expects to enjoy in the possession of God. He attains possession of the supreme good by the activity of the will, directed by the intellect, which requires nothing more than the presence of the object. This presence determines the intellect and thereby subjects knowledge and love to the object. It is in this manner that, in the state of final perfection, God works upon the human intellect and the human will and incites these faculties to perfect acts of cognition and love. The spiritual feeling of happiness, well-being, and joy is merely an accompanying, though a necessary, complement of this activity of the intellect and the will. The final end and goal of man is and remains the Deity qua infinite truth and goodness; the knowledge, love, and happiness which man experiences in the possession of the Supreme Good, are wholly subordinate to this end.

We have just spoken of the attainment of man’s last end in the world beyond. But even in this world no religious activity deserving the name can be entirely selfish. Since the earliest times the worship of the Deity among all nations was primarily always a social function.³⁶36Cfr. A. Le Roy, The Religion of the Primitives, pp. 182 sq., 189 sq.; Fr. Heiler, Das Gebet, 4th ed., Munich, 1922, pp. 53 sqq. The gods are worshipped above all as patrons of the common interests of a group or of humanity at large. Only in so far as the individual constitutes a part of the whole, can he expect his prayers to be heard.

All religions, moreover, impose self-denial. Man is to be governed, not by his own wishes, but by the will of the gods. Some religions impose upon their followers the greatest sacrifices, culminating in the complete subjection of the will, nay, the surrender of life itself. For this reason it may be truly said that inordinate individual selfishness finds no support in what may be properly regarded as divine worship. It is only when that worship deteriorates and, setting aside its higher objects, turns to the lower deities and to fetishes, that selfish aspirations gain the upper hand. But this phenomenon is a symptom of decay, which never occurs at the beginning of religious development, and consequently may not be regarded as either a source or an essential property of religion as such.

γ) The religious activity of the will has nothing in common with Eudaemonism, with Utilitarianism, or with the peculiar beliefs of a certain school of Epicureans. All these systems primarily aim at material, sensible goods, in the quiet, undisturbed possession of which they see the maximum of earthly pleasure both for the individual and for humanity as a whole. The object of religious aspiration, on the contrary, is the supra-sensual, moral good, both in this life, as an activity governed by man’s compound nature, in its dependence upon God, and the ultimate goal in the next life, i. e., as the spiritual possession of God through knowledge and love. The attainment of this goal produces supreme happiness in the soul by harmoniously developing its powers and faculties without let or hindrance.

Our opponents assert that religion, like the Epicurean school mentioned above, rejects one pleasure in order to enable man to indulge all the more freely in another, keener pleasure. This is true only in the sense that religion teaches man to despise that which is mean and debasing, because it forms an obstacle to the attainment of the highest and noblest good. This teaching has nothing in common with that Epicureanism which craves only for sensual pleasure, whereas religion shows an exalted desire to lead human nature to that perfection which is the sole purpose of its existence. If there is anything to condemn in this, we fail to see it.³⁷37Cfr. H. Schell, Religion und Offenbarung, 3rd ed., Paderborn, 1907, pp. 129 sqq.; J. Mausbach, Catholic Moral Teaching and its Antagonists, New York, 1914, pp. 215 sqq.

3. Religion Not a Mere Emotion

The theories which we have just considered agree in regarding religion as a symptom of weakness, as a characteristic mark of the infancy of the human race. Mankind is supposed to have outgrown this weakness in the course of its development. The theory which we are now about to study, shares this view in one respect, but, in another respect, is opposed to it. Its defenders do not, indeed, regard religion as the highest development of the spiritual powers of the intellect and the will, but as a necessary substitute for the defects and limitations to which these faculties are subject. This substitute lies in “the consciousness of the infinite” or the immediate experience of God by the soul. The origin and essence of religion are traced to emotion, which is an activity of the soul differing from cognition and the exercise of the will.

Jacobi maintained that the world of the spirit, of the supra-sensual and free, can never become the object of intellectual knowledge, and that, consequently, the existence of God is indemonstrable and can only be felt. This feeling he called faith, and in his later writings he used the words “faith” and “reason” indifferently, as having the same meaning. Reason to Jacobi was opposed to intellect. Intellect led to the conclusions of Science, while “reason” led to God and the metaphysical. In this sense Jacobi said of himself that while his heart was Christian, his reason was pagan.³⁸38O. Pfleiderer, Geschichte der Religionsphilosophie von Spinoza bis auf die Gegenwart, 3rd ed., Berlin, 1893, pp. 224 sqq.

F. Schleiermacher finds in man, as the basis of religion, a particular faculty, the pious sense or feeling, by means of which there is an immediate intuition or feeling of the infinite and eternal amid the finite. To feel everything as a part of the whole and to become one with the eternal is religion. Piety or subjective religion is neither a matter of cognition nor of action, but a determination of feeling or self-consciousness.³⁹39Pfleiderer, op. cit., pp. 298 sqq.; Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube, 1821; cfr. the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. IX, p. 467; L. F. Miller, A History of Philosophy, New York, 1927, pp. 293 sq.

Ritschl asserts that religious knowledge consists solely in value judgments, i. e., ideas regarding our attitude towards the world, which are of importance only in so far as they awaken feelings corresponding to the promotion or hindrance of man’s dominion over the world. “Religion,” according to this writer, “is a belief in spiritual powers which supplement the faculties of man with a view to enable him to attain goods or the highest good.”⁴⁰40Pfleiderer, op. cit., pp. 482 sq.

John Stuart Mill sees the essence of religion in the energetic direction of the emotions towards an ideal of the greatest perfection and sublimity, transcending all objects of selfish desire.⁴¹41Pfleiderer, op. cit., p. 605; W. G. Ward, Essays on the Philosophy of Theism, London, 1884.

Sabatier explains religion as “an activity of the spirit, apprehending in itself the super-dominion of the Supreme Spirit by an anterior act of faith, by a tremendous instinctive élan of a being that is on the verge of destruction, but becomes conscious of its own dignity, and lets the religion of the spirit break forth with irresistible power from its own bosom. If we consider the religious belief of the spirit in itself and in its supreme dominion in this first psychological moment of its existence,” he says, “it is but the higher form and, so to speak, the prolongation of the instinct of self-preservation, which rules all nature. The spirit, crushed beneath the weight of material objects, rises up again and triumphs in feeling its own eternal dignity.” According to Sabatier, “revelation is the progressive knowledge of God in the consciousness of each individual. Knowledge of God arises from the internal emotion of adoration. From this emotion springs prayer. The emotion of fear gives rise to the concept of divine justice, the emotion of love to the idea of divine goodness and paternity. Hence dogmas represent emotions; they symbolically express religious experience. Certain simple doctrines, such as the Fatherhood of God, are immutable. Others change, (a) by desuetude, such as belief in eternal punishment; (b) by intussusception, i. e., development of new meanings, e. g., the Trinity; (c) by the renovation of old or the creation of new concepts, e. g., justification by faith.”⁴²42A. Sabatier, Esquisse d’une Philosophie de la Religion d’après la Psychologie et l’Histoire, Paris, 1897; Les Religions d’Autorité et la Religion de l’Esprit, quoted by T. J. Walshe, The Principles of Catholic Apologetics, London, 1926, p. 75.

William James says that religion, “like love, like wrath, like hope, ambition, jealousy, like every other instinctive eagerness and impulse, adds to life an enchantment which is not rationally or logically deducible from anything else. … Religious feeling is thus an absolute addition to the subject’s range of life. It gives him a new sphere of power. … If religion is to mean anything definite for us, it seems to me that we ought to take it as meaning this added dimension of emotion, this enthusiastic temper of espousal, in regions where morality so called can at best but bow its head and conscience. … Discarding the over-beliefs and confining ourselves to what is common and generic, we have in the fact that the conscious person is continuous with a wider self, through which saving experiences come, a positive content of religious experience which, it seems to me, is literally and objectively true as far as it goes.”⁴³43W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 23rd impression, New York, 1922, pp. 47 sq., 514 sq. (Italics are the author’s).

The Modernists hold that religion consists essentially in a certain mysticism, which aims at enabling man to experience the vivifying presence of God in his soul. Tyrrell derides the Schoolmen for trying to reach God through syllogisms rather than by way of religious experience.⁴⁴44G. Tyrrell, Scylla and Charybdis; cfr. A. Gisler, Der Modernismus, 4th ed., Einsiedeln, 1913, p. 515. According to the Modernists, we read in the Encyclical “Pascendi,” “religious sentiment comprehends within itself an intuition of the heart, whereby man immediately and without an intermediary apprehends the reality of God and obtains a conviction of His existence and operation, both within and outside of man, which far exceeds all scientific conviction in firmness.”⁴⁵45Encyclical “Pascendi;” cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart-Umberg, Enchiridion Symbolorum, No. 2081.

The advocates of this theory all agree in holding that religion is a feeling of certainty and confidence, of elation and power, and the majority of them trace this peculiar sentiment to man’s connection with the all-controlling divine power and perfection. They differ in this, that some of them do not regard the feeling of helplessness and impotence, of dissatisfaction and yearning for a happier life, to which they ascribe the origin of religion, as completely overcome by the religious sentiment, whereas others define religion as purely and simply a feeling of perfect safety and joy, of triumphant power and liberty, and again others see in it an immediate realization and actual comprehension of the Deity.

This divergent teaching compels us to distinguish three different forms of religious emotion, namely: (1) as the expression of a need felt by the soul; (2) as the expression of joy and satisfaction, and (3) as the expression of a real union of the soul with the divine essence. None of these three forms, as we shall see, furnishes an adequate explanation of the nature and origin of religion.

Religion, in its essence and origin, is not a mere emotion.

1. Religion is not an emotion expressive of an inborn need of the soul. Religion rests on the conviction that there is a God. Where there is nothing but a feeling of helplessness and a yearning for union with a higher power, religion does not yet exist. A man’s consciousness of his own impotence and his desire for help may indeed smooth the way for religion, and facilitate its acceptance, but it can never take the place of religion itself. For religion, being unreserved submission to, and reverent service of, God, essentially implies the clear perception and firm conviction that God is the author of nature and the ultimate goal of every creature. It is only on this indispensable foundation that emotion can be super-added as a development and as the crown of the religious life.

2. Religion is not an emotion of joy and satisfaction. Satisfaction and joy are felt when the desired goal is reached and the soul rests content in the possession of a good that is adapted to its nature. But joy in itself is not religion. It assumes a religious character only when it enters into relationship with religion and its objects, inasmuch as it accompanies religious knowledge and religious acts of the will. Even religious joy is not the essence and root, but rather the blossom and fruitage, of religion.

3. Religion is not an emotion produced by the union of the soul with the Godhead.

a) The phenomena cited against this proposition by the Modernists are not conclusive.

α) The Modernists allege certain interior psychological (for the most part pathological) experiences which in matter of fact have nothing whatever to do with religion. To this category belong mind cures,⁴⁶46W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 94–97, 102–105, 108, 120–124, 137. photisms or luminous visions,⁴⁷47Op. cit., pp. 251 sqq. ecstasies,⁴⁸48Op. cit., pp. 394 sqq.—all accompanied by an indescribable realization of the immediate presence of the one, all-pervading, and vivifying Divine Spirit, which, according to these writers, is identical with the subconscious portion of the spiritual element in man.

β) Other examples are taken from the domain of experience. Attention is called to certain individuals who had been cold and indifferent towards religion until they suddenly received full light and assurance from their own subconscious experience. What is meant by “religious experience” may be seen from the following account of a “revival meeting”: “The preacher spoke eloquently and forcibly of the necessity of bringing religion into the ordinary affairs of everyday life, and of not being ashamed to confess one’s beliefs before all men. The dimly lighted chapel was packed with folk hanging on the preacher’s every word. The air was electric, charged, as it were, with emotion. The preacher seemed to take complete possession of his audience, and as his grip upon them increased, his voice sank lower and lower. He appealed to all to abandon themselves to the promptings of the Spirit stirring within them. ‘Let those who are resolved to live a new life, stand up and let all men see that they are not ashamed of their faith.’ Waves of emotion seemed to surge through the crowded chapel. A young woman stood up, pale and shaking, and was led out to the vestry, where a band of evangelical helpers was waiting to confirm the converts. Another followed, then a man or two, and the flow ceased. And now the preacher began with a new earnestness, warning all of the danger of struggling against the inner movements of the Spirit. ‘A week or two ago, I had just finished a course of mission sermons in a North country town, and the crowd were streaming out of the chapel into the night. Suddenly, in the court-yard in front of the chapel, there was a rush of wind and a whirring of wings. A young woman screamed, “He’s gone, He’s gone, the Holy Spirit has left me!” and fell into a dead faint. Night after night during the mission she had resisted the invitation to stand up and confess her faith before men, and now it was too late—too late for ever, for she died a few days later.’ Again the preacher appealed for those to stand up whose hearts had been changed,—and now converts came thick and fast.”⁴⁹49Cfr. The Month, London, May, 1927, Vol. CXLIX, p. 388. “How far such emotional conditions rest on a basis of reasonable conviction,” comments the writer (J. L. King) whom we are quoting, “it is difficult to estimate, but we are bound to respect and even to reverence such experiences, since they are the cherished possession, in many cases the only possession, of those who know nothing of the treasure-house of the Church’s teaching. It is unlikely, however, that resolutions taken under such an emotional stress as has been described, will be able to survive the strain of daily humdrum practice, unless solidly supported by intellectual conviction; while it is certain that they will not so survive in the face of an intellectual rejection of the idea of God.” There is no need of postulating a divine revelation in the subconscious soul to explain such a phenomenon. Truths which once actually engaged the soul, may have been preserved in a habitual state until, under favorable circumstances, they suddenly rearise before the mind with victorious clarity. Then, too, we must always reckon with the possibility of supernatural enlightenment and the operation of divine grace.

γ) The intuitive, mystical knowledge of God which some Modernists substitute for the abstract, philosophical knowledge of Him, per se exceeds the powers of human reason and, because of its inevitable obscurity and vagueness, undoubtedly is in most instances to be regarded as a hallucination. But here, too, we must leave open the possibility of a knowledge such as, according to revelation, we may expect in the life beyond, and which seems to have been granted to certain saints already here below, as a special privilege.

δ) The private revelations and apparitions from the lives of the saints which are cited by the Modernists in favor of their claims, prove nothing; first, because all these phenomena belong to the realm of the supernatural and do not, as the Modernists assert, arise from the natural union of the soul with God; and, secondly, because they do not serve to establish new religions, but merely to communicate the blessings and graces of Christianity, and both as to content and certitude (this is true especially of so-called private revelations) are completely subordinated to the existing economy of salvation.⁵⁰50Cfr. M. Grabmann, Wesen und Grundlagen der katholischen Mystik, Munich, 1922, pp. 56 sqq.; Aug. Poulain, S.J., Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII, pp. 5–7.

b) Religious experience of the Modernist type lacks that universality which it would have to possess if it belonged in any way to the essence of religion.

If this interior experience were indeed the divinely intended religious activity of man, it would have to be universal, inasmuch as every human being is obliged to lead a religious life, and no one may be deprived of the opportunity of doing so. As a matter of fact, those who claim to experience the actual presence of God in the manner described above, form but a very small percentage, not only of the whole of mankind, but even of the number of those who take religion seriously.⁵¹51Cfr. J. Mausbach, Die Religion und das moderne Seelenleben, in Religion, Christentum, Kirche, Vol. I, 5th ed., Kempten, 1923, pp. 1 sqq.

The theory that religion is purely a matter of sentiment, therefore, has no foundation in fact. But how is it that so many adhere to this false idea nowadays? Dr. Mausbach answers this question substantially as follows: (1) Those who allow themselves to be governed by sentiment fail to perceive the intellectual element in religion. Others, who lead a devout life, regard the idea of God as so natural, and the principles of religion as so self-evident, that they pay little or no attention to the intellectual labor that is involved in its acceptation and defence, and advert solely to its moral and edifying features. (2) It is a special privilege which religious truths have over purely mundane thoughts, that they possess much greater power to stir the feelings, to elevate men and render them happy. The truths of religion derive this power from the fact that they embody the highest and greatest things that lie within human reach. It is for this reason that a residuum of religious emotion remains in the soul even after it has lost the knowledge of God. (3) The sentiments of reverence, love, gratitude, etc., are precious fruits of the knowledge of God and, therefore, catechists, preachers, ascetics, and others make special efforts to elicit religious emotions in the soul, frequently neglecting the facts of the Redemption and the dogmas of the faith in the belief that these are sufficiently well known to the average Christian. (4) Many overstress the importance of sentiment in religion in the hope of thus escaping painful conflicts between faith and science. Nevertheless, religious sentiments which are not based on the idea of God, are a contradiction in themselves. But as soon as reason forms concepts about God and His relation to the world, conflicts between religion and science become possible. He who does not wish to represent purely worldly sentiments as religious, must see to it that his religion has a definite and characteristic intellectual content.⁵²52Mausbach, op. cit., p. 84 sq.; cfr. K. Girgensohn, Der seelische Aufbau des religiösen Lebens, Leipsic, 1921, pp. 309 sqq., 436 sqq. From all that has been said and quoted, it will have been possible to gain a fair idea of what may be embraced under the term “religious experience” or “sentiment,” when used by a non-Catholic writer. “It has no certain objective value. On the other hand, that there are sentiments and emotional states proper to religious intellectual activity cannot be denied; indeed such affective tendencies are of the very greatest assistance in the religious life of the individual. … The Catholic view may be thus epitomized:—In the first place, the existence of God, as a hypothesis, does not involve intellectual contradiction or repugnance. Secondly, the fact that He exists follows as a necessary inference from the following two premisses:—(1) There exist in the world things which are the effects of other causes. (2) In order that things should exist, whose being is contingent on other causes, there must be a Cause which is itself uncaused. In other words, if we go back along the series of cause and effect, we must either accept a processus in infinitum, which is a contradiction in terms, or come to an Uncaused or Absolute Cause, who is God.” (J. L. King, l. c.; see note 49, supra.)

4. Religion Not a Product of Animal Instinct

“We must content ourselves,” says Eduard Von Hartmann,⁵³53Das religiöse Bewusstsein der Menschheit im Stufengange seiner Entwickelung, Berlin, 1881, p. 11. “with having gained, from the demonstration of a religious relation in the soul of the brute beast, the conviction that all intellectual life is homogeneous and differs only in degree, also in regard to religion, which up to the present time has been commonly considered a specific prerogative of the human soul. … We are forced to admit the existence in higher animals of such intellectual qualities as the desire to live in common, pity, love, the tendency to repay good and bad, gratitude, loyalty, fidelity, humility, magnanimity, contrition, devotion, a willingness to make sacrifices for others, heroic self-denial, nay, even the sense of duty; and consequently we cannot doubt that animals would be capable of entering into religious relations if they were furnished with fit objects for this purpose in a comprehensible, i. e., sensibly perceptible, form. Since this is accomplished for animals by intercourse with men,” he adds, “we cannot but attribute a religious character to the relation that exists between our more intelligent domestic animals and their masters.”⁵⁴54Op. cit., pp. 4 sqq.

This curious view is harbored by nearly all those who profess the theory of Monistic evolution. But it is untenable, as we shall show.

Aside from the fact that Monistic evolution regards man as the descendant of animal ancestors both as to body and soul,—an assertion which it does not prove and which involves a contradiction,—it unjustifiably puts certain acts of more highly developed animals, because of a purely external resemblance to human acts, on a level with the latter. This is contrary to experience, which teaches that those phenomena of brute life which we loosely call love, gratitude, sorrow, etc., are merely manifestations of the animal instinct, even when they occur in the intercourse of animals with men. This instinct may be variously modified by habit and training, but it never transcends the level of exclusively material and sensible needs in the functioning of animal life. Its only object is the preservation of the individual and of the species.⁵⁵55Cfr. F. Knickenberg, “Die Dressur und ihre Grundlagen,” in Natur und Offenbarung, Vol. L (1904), pp. 705 sqq.; H. Muckermann, S.J., Humanizing of the Brute, St. Louis, Mo., 1906; IDEM, Attitude of Catholics toward Darwinism and Evolution, 4th ed., St. Louis, 1924. For this reason the “love” of an animal for its progeny ceases as soon as the young has outgrown the need of parental care, and the “affection” and “gratitude” shown by a horse or a dog sometimes manifests itself in such a way that it inflicts serious damage upon the master. We have in mind an instance where a dog refused to let anyone come near its owner, who had been mortally wounded by the accidental discharge of his gun, until the man had bled to death. That a dog will sometimes “starve itself to death” on the grave of its master may be explained as a result of its having been so accustomed to that particular person that his absence causes the animal keen suffering. The presence of its master may become a vital necessity to a dog, just as alcohol may become a vital necessity to a drunkard. Even men and women can grow so accustomed to their environment that a separation from it will entail serious illness. Need we wonder that a brute beast, which is unable to neutralize the influence of environment by intellectual considerations, is affected in a similar manner? No matter from what point of view we regard the behavior of even the most “intelligent” animals, it is absolutely impossible to discover therein a religious element.⁵⁶56Cfr. C. Gutberlet, Der Mensch, 3rd ed., Paderborn, 1911, pp. 553 sqq.; P. von Schanz, Apologie des Christentums, Vol. I, 4th ed., Freiburg i. B., 1910, pp. 139 sqq.

The Evolutionary Phases of Religion According to Lubbock.—Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) enumerates the following stages or phases through which, in his opinion, religion has passed in the course of its development:

1. Atheism, or the absence of any definite ideas on the subject of the existence of a deity.

2. Fetishism, the stage in which man supposes he can force the deities to comply with his desires.

3. Nature-worship or Totemism, in which natural objects, such as trees, lakes, stones, animals, etc., are worshipped.

4. Shamanism, in which the superior deities are regarded as far more powerful than man; their place of abode also is far away and accessible only to “Shamans.”

5. Idolatry or Anthropomorphism, in which the gods take still more completely the nature of men, being, however, more powerful; they are still amenable to persuasion; they are part of nature, and not creators; they are represented by images or idols.

6. In the next stage, the deity is regarded as the author, and not merely as a part, of nature, and becomes for the first time a really supernatural being.

7. The last stage is that in which morality is associated with religion.⁵⁷57Sir John Lubbock, The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man, 5th ed., London, 1889, pp. 209 sq.

Criticism of this Theory.—The assumption that Atheism was the preliminary stage of religion is arbitrary and untenable, for, as we have pointed out before, there has never been a godless nation or tribe, and, as we shall see presently, the religious beliefs of those nations which stand lowest in the scale of culture and social progress do not permit us to conclude that their ancestors were atheists. In the light of what we have said above, Fetishism, in spite of its wide diffusion, cannot be regarded as the beginning of religion. Like Fetishism, so all the other forms of religion enumerated by Sir John Lubbock,—altogether aside from the fact that morality did not enter into relationship with religion in the seventh phase of the latter’s development, but from the very beginning of the human race was always and everywhere in close connection with it,—are found among various nations at the present day. That they followed one another in the order described by Sir John is an aprioristic assumption not supported by facts, but based entirely on Modernistic principles of evolution. It is quite as gratuitous as the theory that Monotheism developed from Polytheism. Both propositions are postulates of evolutionistic Monism, refuted by the fact that religious development demonstrably began with pure Monotheism, and Polytheism with its innumerable varieties did not arise until a much later date, when religion had entered upon its decline. We shall discuss this aspect of our subject more fully in the next section.