Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/71

46 that unearned love ought to be gratefully returned. And for this principle theology as such gives no foundation. But on the other hand, upon what should the ideal principle itself be founded? Why is unearned love to be gratefully returned? Is this principle founded once more on some doctrine of the constitution of human nature? The same objection would again appear. A physical fact is no ideal. So, then, this insight is just an insight, the acceptance of an ideal wholly for its own sake? But then returns the old objection. What is such an unfounded ideal but the individual caprice of somebody? Let the faithful be never so devoted; still there are the unregenerate, who are somehow to be convinced of a truth that they do not recognize. And how are they convinced, if at all? Not by showing them the facts, which they have already known without conviction; but by arousing in them a new feeling, namely, gratitude. Thus the Christian ideal seems to have for its sole theoretical foundation the physical fact that man often feels gratitude. It is true that no one can accuse Jesus of expressly giving this or any other theoretical foundation to his doctrine. He was necessarily wholly free from the theoretical aim in his dealings with the people. But for us now the point is the theoretical point. If the foundation of Christian ethics as popularly understood be not the physical fact of the Father’s love, then is it not just the physical fact of the frequent existence of gratitude? And is either of these a satisfactory foundation for an ethical theory as such? Nay, if Christian ethics be the highest from the practical point of