Adolf Wuttke · 40 of 107
Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION LXXXVI.
As the moral is the free realizing of the good, and as the good itself is the inner law and nature of the divinely-created All, hence, in every moral activity, man comes into relation to this All, and this All—as well as also God himself—becomes in its entire existence, so far as within the scope of man, an object of the moral activity, namely, either in that as a good it is brought into unity with the moral person, or appropriated by the same,—or in that, as material capable of being modified, it is formed by the moral activity.
I. The moral life relates primarily always to God. God can be an object of the morally-pious activity only in so far as he is conceived of as a personal spirit; to an impersonal God there can be no moral relation. This moral activity is not a mere receiving, but it is a real acting, namely, in that man not only turns himself toward God, but in that he also turns God toward himself; the good that is realized by this activity becomes actual, however, not in God, but in us, in that it brings us into communion with God, so that consequently all pious activity is at the same time a moral producing for ourselves.—As God upholds, and rules in, all creatures, hence all moral activity without exception stands in relation to God, and all realizing of the good works communion with God. All that is moral is also pious, and all that is pious is also moral. Hence all duties are also duties to God, and religious duties do not stand along-side of other duties, but they include them in themselves.
Every view is defective which excludes from the moral life any thing whatever that comes into the life-sphere of man. This is precisely that which distinguishes rational creatures from the irrational, namely, that the latter have always simply a quite definite and restricted scope for their life-manifestation, while every thing else is indifferent to them, and as good as not existing, whereas rational creatures have an interest in all that exists, and bring it into some manner of relation to themselves. Perfect indifference to the world is Indian, but not Christian, wisdom; God is indifferent to nothing, and for this reason moral man, the image of God, is so also. The collective All and God himself constitute the life-sphere of the moral. Because of the inner unity of all things, every moral act not only reverberates in the whole universe, and there is joy among the angels in heaven over one sinner that , but this act itself acts upon the All, for all that is good and all that is capable of good belong together in one great unity. The declaration: “Whether life, or death, or things present or things to come—all are yours” [1 Cor. iii, 22], holds good in its fullest sense of the moral life, although indeed our moral bearing toward the different forms of existence is correspondingly different; to nature the moral spirit is related as dominating, to God as obeying.
The conceiving of God himself as an object of the moral activity is a fundamental point in Christian ethics. It is true the also required reverence toward the gods, but this exercise of piety did not rise to a dominating power over the entire moral life. In recent times it has become a favorite view to regard the moral as not relating to God at all, but only to man, or indeed also to nature; it is even said that God cannot be an object of the moral activity, seeing that because of his unapproachable sublimity he must be inaccessible to all human influence. Evidently, with this view of the matter, prayer is narrowed down to a mere pious exercise without any other possible efficacy than to benefit the person so exercising; it would be more consequential, however, for those who think thus to follow Kant, and discard prayer altogether as empty and meaningless. It does not come within our scope to answer here the question, how the answering of prayer is reconcilable with the eternally-immutable nature of God, but we simply accept from dogmatics the unquestionably Scriptural principle, that God actually does hear and answer prayer, that prayer and its answering are not a delusion, but that proper prayer really and truly conditions the answering of the petitions, and that consequently it has a positive influence on the bearing of God toward man. True prayer is impossible so soon as I entertain the opinion that it has no effect, that the gracious turning of God toward me is not in some way conditioned thereby. This does not imply that God comes into any manner of dependence on man; whatever he does is eternally self-determined, but it is determined in view of the moral bearing of man as divinely gifted with rational freedom. In this sense, prayer is really a moral activity in relation to God, and God is a real object of the same. Prayer is the beginning and the end of all moral activity. The sentiment: “Pray and work,” holds good of all and every moral life; the two do not stand beside each other, but consist only in and with each other.
God, as living and personal, cannot sustain a relation of indifference to human conduct. If we can speak in any proper sense of a displeasure of God at sin, of a wrath of God against sin, then must also, conversely, the pleasure of God in the moral conduct of man be of a real character, and hence, in some manner, conditioned by said conduct. The moral activity as relating to God is per se necessarily pious; but to presume, for this reason, to exclude it from the sphere of the moral, would be very inconsistent; for in fact it takes place with freedom, and with moral consciousness and with moral purpose, and it is frequently, in the Scriptures, expressly required as a duty; and all duties are moral. But, on the other hand, all duties are also pious, inasmuch as morality is always in very close association with piety (§ 55), and no duty can in fact be truly fulfilled without being regarded as an expression of the divine will, and hence without pious submission to that will. We therefore must reject the view that there are no moral duties toward God, and no moral influencing of God; if there are sins against God, as, for example, blasphemy, then there must also be duties toward Him,—and we must, further, reject the view that the duties toward God constitute a special group entirely distinct from the others, so that in fact the duties toward man might be fulfilled without at the same time also fulfilling those toward God.
The distribution of the subject-matter of ethics into duties toward God, duties toward one’s self and duties toward other men, was formerly very usual; it was, however, only partially correct. God fills, in fact, heaven and earth, and the statement of Christ that whatever “ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” [Matt. xxv, 40], is of course true also in relation to God. It might, however, be said that, while it is true that all other duties imply in themselves also a fulfillment of duty toward God, yet that the converse is not true, so that consequently the duties of piety might be considered by themselves, seeing that in fact in the duty of worshiping God no other duty is directly implied. This is, however, only seemingly so; for in every duty toward God, I fulfill also directly at the same time a duty toward myself: I cannot possibly love and honor God without exalting myself into communion with Him; whatever man does to the honor of God is at the same time a self-transfiguration; he cannot praise God as his Father without confirming himself as the child of God. Moreover he can do this only in so far as he, at the same time, divests himself of illegitimate self-love; and only that one can be in communion with God, who likewise enters into communion with the God-fearing. The fulfilling of our moral duties toward God implies consequently in itself, really and directly at the same time also, the fulfilling of our duties toward those who are beloved of God. Hence, the moral relation to God is the central spring of all other moral life, and our duties toward God do not stand co-ordinate with and apart from our other duties.