Someone has recently said that "the trend of religious thought in our day is in the direction of the substitution of social utility for theological sanction. We ask of the new thing presented to our consideration, not is it in accord with the divine will, but rather is it likely to benefit humanity?" Statements of this nature are becoming more and more frequent today and suggest some grave and interesting questions. Is advancing thought bearing us farther and farther away from the possibility of any recourse to a will above the human? Are those who look to physical science for the final amelioration of the human lot true prophets of the future? And is our only refuge from this grosser materialism the more refined materialism of that doctrine of immanence which in various systems of the day identifies Deity with the human mind and will?
We are at a dividing of the ways. It is certainly true that creeds and mere beliefs are fast losing their hold upon men; that the emphasis is on the practical significance of things nowadays, and that abstractions which have no relation to the conduct of life find little place in the advancing tides of thought, but are swept aside like so much debris in the course of live currents. It is small wonder, then, that the timid and conservative cry out upon the prevailing spirit as an altogether destructive and irreverent one, or that the bold and overconfident are inclined to protest that nothing is stable, not even truth!
To the upholder of the cherished theological traditions the situation is a really serious one. There would seem to be no basis of reconciliation between the age-old concepts of Deity and the present-day assertions of the authority of humanity, and the average Christian is in the dilemma of holding to a superior intelligence so aloof from humankind that the links between them are too uncertain to admit of any definition whatever, or of adopting a pantheistic theory which would bring Deity down to the level of an imperfect humanity. It is not strange, therefore, that a religious faith resting on any such vague or unworthy basis should fail to hold the loyalty of thinkers in this analytical age.
