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REASON IN RELIGION
Volume Three of "The Life of Reason"
GEORGE SANTAYANA
ή γάρ νου ενέργεια ζωή
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.NEW YORKThis Dover edition, first published in 1982, is an unabridged republication ofvolume three of
The Life of Reason; or the Phases of Human Progress
, originallypublished by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1905.
REASON IN RELIGION
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
HOW RELIGION MAY BE AN EMBODIMENT OF REASONReligion is certainly significant, but not literally true.—All religion is positiveand particular.—It aims at the Life of Reason, but largely fails to attain it.—Itsapproach imaginative.—When its poetic method is denied its value is jeopardised.—It precedes science rather than hinders it.—It is merely symbolicand thoroughly human.
CHAPTER II
RATIONAL ELEMENTS IN SUPERSTITIONFelt causes not necessary causes.—Mechanism and dialectic ulterior principles.—Early selection of categories.—Tentative rational worlds.—Superstition arudimentary philosophy.—A miracle, though unexpected, more intelligible thana regular process.—Superstitions come of haste to understand.—Inattentionsuffers them to spread.—Genius may use them to convey an inarticulate wisdom.
 
CHAPTER III
MAGIC, SACRIFICE, AND PRAYERFear created the gods.—Need also contributed.—The real evidences of God'sexistence.—Practice precedes theory in religion.—Pathetic, tentative nature ofreligious practices.—Meanness and envy in the gods, suggesting sacrifice.—Ritualistic arts.—Thank-offerings.—The sacrifice of a contrite heart.—Prayer isnot utilitarian in essence.—Its supposed efficacy magical.—Theological puzzles.—A real efficacy would be mechanical.—True uses of prayer.—It clarifies theideal.—It reconciles to the inevitable.—It fosters spiritual life by conceiving it inits perfection.—Discipline and contemplation are their own reward.
CHAPTER IV
MYTHOLOGYStatus of fable in the mind.—It requires genius.—It only half deceives.—Itsinterpretative essence.—Contrast with science.—Importance of the moral factor.—Its submergence.—Myth justifies magic.—Myths might be metaphysical.—They appear ready made, like parts of the social fabric.—They perplex theconscience.—Incipient myth in the Vedas.—Natural suggestions soon exhausted.—They will be carried out in abstract fancy.—They may become moral ideals.—The Sun-god moralised.—The leaven of religion is moral idealism.
CHAPTER V
THE HEBRAIC TRADITIONPhases of Hebraism.—Israel's tribal monotheism.—Problems involved.—Theprophets put new wine in old bottles.—Inspiration and authority.—Beginningsof the Church.—Bigotry turned into a principle.—Penance accepted.—Christianity combines optimism and asceticism.—Reason smothered between thetwo.—Religion made an institution.
CHAPTER VI
THE CHRISTIAN EPICThe essence of the good not adventitious but expressive.—A universal religionmust interpret the whole world.—Double appeal of Christianity.—Hebrewmetaphors become Greek myths.—Hebrew philosophy of history identified withPlatonic cosmology.—The resulting orthodox system.—The brief drama ofthings.—Mythology is a language and must be understood to convey somethingby symbols.
CHAPTER VII
 
PAGAN CUSTOM AND BARBARIAN GENIUS INFUSED INTOCHRISTIANITYNeed of paganising Christianity.—Catholic piety more human than the liturgy.—Natural pieties.—Refuge taken in the supernatural.—The episodes of lifeconsecrated mystically.—Paganism chastened, Hebraism liberalised.—Thesystem post-rational and founded on despair.—External conversion of thebarbarians.—Expression of the northern genius within Catholicism,—Internaldiscrepancies between the two.—Tradition and instinct at odds in Protestantism.—The Protestant spirit remote from that of the gospel.—Obstacles to humanism.—The Reformation and counter-reformation.—Protestantism an expression ofcharacter.—It has the spirit of life and of courage, but the voice of inexperience.—Its emancipation from Christianity.
CHAPTER VIII
CONFLICT OF MYTHOLOGY WITH MORAL TRUTHMyth should dissolve with the advance of science.—But myth is confused withthe moral values it expresses.—Neo-Platonic revision.—It made mythical entitiesof abstractions.—Hypostasis ruins ideals.—The Stoic revision.—The idealsurrendered before the physical.—Parallel movements in Christianity.—Hebraism, if philosophical, must be pantheistic.—Pantheism, even when psychic,ignores ideals.—Truly divine action limited to what makes for the good.—Needof an opposing principle.—The standard of value is human.—Hope forhappiness makes belief in God.
CHAPTER IX
THE CHRISTIAN COMPROMISESuspense between hope and disillusion.—Superficial solution.—But from whatshall we be redeemed?—Typical attitude of St. Augustine.—He achievesPlatonism.—He identifies it with Christianity.—God the good.—Primary andsecondary religion.—Ambiguous efficacy of the good in Plato.—Ambiguousgoodness of the creator in Job.—The Manicheans.—All things good by nature.—The doctrine of creation demands that of the fall.—Original sin.—Forcedabandonment of the ideal.—The problem among the Protestants.—Pantheismaccepted.—Plainer scorn for the ideal.—The price of mythology is superstition.
CHAPTER X
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