RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT 



values. And thus in casting aside the mytho- 

 logic formulas in which religious obligation was 

 formerly symbolized, we do but recognize the 

 obligation as more binding than ever. 



In criticism of the religious theory thus briefly 

 expounded, it will doubtless be urged that such 

 religion is too abstract, too coldly scientific, to 

 have any general influence upon action, and can 

 therefore be of no practical value. The concep- 

 tion of sin as a phase of maladjustment will be 

 pronounced incapable of awakening the needful 

 feelings unless there be joined to it the anthro- 

 pomorphic symbol of an offended God. And it 

 will moreover be asserted with vehemence, that 

 in place of a Father whom men can love and 

 venerate, we are giving them a mere philoso- 

 phical formula, calHng for no warmer feeling 

 than calm intellectual assent. Granting that our 

 doctrine is philosophically the reverse of athe- 

 ism, it will be urged that here extremes meet, 

 — and that an infinite and therefore unknow- 

 able God is practically equivalent to no God 

 at all. 



In reply to the latter objection it is hardly 

 necessary again to remind the objector that upon 

 similar grounds, and with equal plausibility, the 

 early Christians were called atheists by their pa- 

 gan adversaries. The reproach of atheism has 

 been well defined, by Mr. R. W. Mackay, to 



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