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CHAPTER 7 |
The principal cause of our bad social organization is false belief.
We ought to pay great attention to our public affairs. We should be ready to modify our opinions, to renounce our former ones, and to thoroughly understand the new. We should cast off our prejudices and should reason with an entirely free mind. The sailor who keeps the sail set in the same direction in spite of the changing of the wind will never reach port. (Henry George)
It is only necessary to frankly adopt the doctrine of Christ in order to perceive at once the horrible lie in which each and every one of us is living. (Daily Reading, January)
Christian doctrine, the real significance of which we are grasping more and more, teaches that man’s mission is to manifest ever better and better the universal rule of conduct, and it is love that proves the presence of this rule in us. That is why the highest law that should guide us is love.
All the ancient religions recognize that love is the essential condition for a happy existence. The sages of Egypt, the Brahmans, the Stoics, the Buddhists, and others declared the principal virtues to be kindness, pity, compassion, and charity – in one word, love in all its forms. The highest of these doctrines, especially those of Buddha and Lao-Tse, went as far as recommending love to every human being, and for people to return good for evil.
However, none of them placed this virtue as a supreme law that should be the only motive of our acts. This was the distinctive trait of the most recent religion, that of Christ. All previous doctrines proclaimed the love of one’s neighbor as one of the virtues, while the doctrine of Christ is based on the metaphysical principle of love, the supreme law, which should guide us in our daily life and which allows no exception.
Christ’s teaching should not be considered as entirely new. Standing out distinctly from former beliefs, it is only the clearer and more precise expression of the principle that previous religions divined and taught instinctively. Thus it is that instead of love being merely one of the virtues, as it was for them, Christianity has made it a supreme law, giving man an absolute rule of conduct. The Christian doctrine explains why this law is the highest, and indicates as well the acts that man should or should not commit after having acknowledged the truth of this teaching. It follows, with great clarity and precision, that the observance of the supreme law, and because it is supreme, should not allow any exception, as the previous doctrines did, and that love is love when it is given in the same degree to other nations, other religions, and even to the enemies who hate us and do us harm.
That is the progress made by the Christian doctrines, and therein lies its principal virtue. The explanation of why this commandment is the supreme law of life is given with special clarity in the Epistles of John:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. (1 John 4:7,8,12,16b; 3:14)
According to this doctrine, our ego (our life) is the divine principle limited by our body, and manifests itself in us by love. It is why the true life of each of us is the manifestation of love. How we should interpret this conception of the law of love in our acts has been indicated to us in the Scriptures on numerous occasions, and with special clarity and precision in the fourth commandment of the Sermon on the Mount.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ (Exodus 21:14) But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.” (Matthew 5:38-39a)
Foreseeing, no doubt, the exceptions that would inevitably appear when the law of love is applied, verses 39b and 40 of the same chapter state clearly that no circumstances whatever should arise that could permit any deviation from the strict commandment of love: do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.
“If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.”
In other words, this means that violence directed against you does not justify the use of violence by you. The same condemnation of our breaking the law of love, when we feel justified by the attitude of others, is even more clearly indicated in the last commandment of the Sermon on the Mount.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor (Lev. 19:18) and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48)
It is this law of love and its recognition as a rule of conduct in all our relations with friends, enemies, and offenders – in fact, everyone – that inevitably brings about the complete transformation of the existing order of things. It does this, not only among Christian nations, but also among all the populations of the globe. And this is also the essential difference between Christian doctrine in its true conception and previous religions. This is the progress that has been accomplished in the universal conscience of mankind.
The previous religious and moral doctrines that acknowledged the benefit of love in human life allowed, however, certain circumstances in which the realization of this law cannot be obligatory. Also, as soon as it ceases to be a changeless law, its beneficence disappears and the doctrine of love is reduced to fruitless teaching, not modifying in any way the mode of living that is founded on violence. On the other hand, true Christian doctrine, making of the law of love a rule without exceptions, in the same way abolishes the possibility of any violence, and cannot, in consequence, help but condemn every state founded on violence.
It is just this signification of Christianity that was hidden from men by false Christianity, because the latter acknowledges love, not as a higher law, but, with the example of previous doctrines, as only one of the many rules of conduct, useful for observance when circumstances do not prevent it.
The Christian doctrine in its true sense, affirming love to be the supreme law and not allowing violence in any case, answers so well to the human heart, gives such a certainty of liberty, and gives happiness so independent of all desire that it should have been accepted, one would think, from the moment it was known.
In fact, men seek to realize it progressively, in spite of the efforts that the Church is making to hide its true sense. Unhappily, when the true sense of this doctrine began to appear, the greater part of the Christian world was already so accustomed to see the truth in the outer forms that it was no longer possible for it to perceive the exact sense of the doctrine, or its opposition to the existing state. That is why those who have more or less understood the Christian truth should free themselves, not only from the lying forms of false Christianity, but also from the belief in the necessity of a social state founded on the false religion of the Church.
Thus it is that the men of our time, having rejected the dogmas, the miracles, the sanctity of the Bible, and other articles of faith, are incapable of freeing themselves from the false static doctrine that, thanks to false Christianity, hides the true doctrine. On the one hand, most of the workers continue to practice the cult by tradition, to believe in the Church to a certain degree, and to believe as well in a static government founded on the official religion, which is so contrary to real Christianity. On the other hand, the so-called educated classes have for the most part abandoned this official religion a long time ago. They consequently do not believe in Christianity, but continue to believe, as unconsciously as the workers, in the static organization, which has violence as its principle, and which was established by the same Church Christianity in which they no longer believe.
So neither the one nor the other can imagine any other social organization than the one founded on violence. It is really this unconscious faith, this superstition of the Christian world, according to which violence is the indispensable principle of every social organization, which constitutes the principle obstacle to the Christian doctrine in its real sense.