After eighteen hundred years of education in Christianity the civilized world, as represented by its most advanced thinkers, holds the conviction that Christian religion is a religion of dogmas; that its teaching in relation to life is unreasonable, and is an exaggeration, subversive to the real lawful obligations of mortality consistent with the nature of man; and (p.69) that very doctrine of retribution which Christ rejected, and in place of which he put his teaching, is more practically useful for us.
To learned men the doctrine of nonresistance to evil by force is exaggerated and even irrational. Christianity is much better without it, they think, not observing closely what Christianity, as represented by them, amounts to.
They do not see that to say that the doctrine of nonresistance to evil is an exaggeration in Christ’s teaching is just like saying that statement that of the equality of the radii of a circle is an exaggeration in the definition of a circle. And those who speak thus are acting precisely like a man who, having no idea of what a circle is, should declare that this requirement, that every point of the circumference should be an equal distance from the center, is exaggerated. To advocate the rejection of Christ’s command of nonresistance to evil, or its adaptation to the needs of life, implies a misunderstanding of the teaching of Christ.
And those who do so certainly do not understand it. They do not understand that this teaching is the institution of a new theory of life, corresponding to the new conditions on which we have entered now for eighteen hundred years, and also the definition of the new conduct of life which results from it. They do not believe that Christ meant what he said; or it seems to them that he said what he said in the Sermon on the Mount and in other places accidentally, or through his lack of intelligence or of cultivation. 2 (see Matthew 6:25-34, Luke 12:33-34). . . .
. . . . All these principles appear to those who regard them from the standpoint of a lower conception of life as an expressive of compulsive enthusiasm, having no direct application to life. These principles, however, follow from the Christian theory of life, just as logically as the principle of paying a part of one’s private gains to the commonwealth to and sacrificing one’s life in defense of one’s country follow from the state theory of life.
As one of state conception of life said to the savage: reflect, bethink yourself! The life of your individuality cannot be true life, because that life is pitiful and passing. But the life of society and succession of individuals, family, clan, tribe, or state, goes on living and therefore must sacrifice their own individuality for the life of the family or state. In exactly the same way the Christian doctrine says the social state conception of life, Repent ye—i.e. bethink yourself, or you will be ruined. Understand that this is casual, personal life which now comes into being and tomorrow is no more and can have no permanence. Take the thought that the life you are living is not real life—the life of the family or society of the state will not save you from annihilation. The true, rational life is only possible for us according to the measure in which we can participate, not in the family or the state, but in the source of life Father; according to the measure in which we can merge our life in the life of the Father. Such is undoubtedly the Christian conception of life, visible in every utterance of the Gospel.—(p.71)
One may not share this view of life, may reject it, may show its inaccuracy and error, but we cannot judge the Christian teaching without mastering this view of life. Still less can one criticize a subject on a higher plane from a lower point of view. From the basement one cannot judge the effect of a spire. But this is just what the learned critics of the day are trying to do. For they share the erroneous idea of the orthodox believers that they are in possession of the certain infallible means of investigating a subject. They fancy if they apply their so-called scientific methods of criticism, there can be no doubt of their conclusion being correct.
This testing the subject by the fancied infallible method of science is the principle object to understanding the Christian believers, for so-called educated people. From this follow all the mistakes made by scientific men about the Christian religion, and especially two main misconceptions which, more than anything else, hinder them from a correct understanding of it. One of these misconceptions is that the Christian moral teaching cannot be carried out, and that therefore it either has no force at all—that it should not accepted as the rule of conduct—or it must be transformed, adapted to the limits in which its fulfillment is possible in our society. Another misconception is that the Christian doctrine of love of God, and therefore of his service, is an obscure, mystic principle, which gives no definite object of love, and therefore should be replaced by the more exact and comprehensible principles of love for men and the service of humanity.
The first misconception in regard to the impossibility to following the principle is the result of men of the state of conception of life unconsciously taking that conception as the standard by which the Christian religion directs men, and taking her Christian religion directs men, and taking the Christian principle of perfection as the rule by which the life is to be ordered; they think and say that to follow Christ’s teaching is impossible, because the complete fulfillment of all that is required by this teaching would put an end to life. “If all were carried out that Christ teaches, he would destroy his own life; and if all were carried out, then the human race would come to an end,” they say. ~~~~Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (Barnes & Noble, Inc. 122 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10011 p.68-71
