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CHAPTER XI [p.180]

CHRISTIANITY


It has been noticed how "Characteristic" or "Specific" religion means
the carrying farther of the implications of "Universal" religion. It is
not only necessary to know the "grounds" of religion, as these reveal
themselves within the conclusions of the intellect: we have to plant
ourselves upon these "grounds"; we must _be_ what they _mean_. Thus,
religion becomes a personal task--something that can never be realised
until the whole nature comes to constant decisions of its own and acts
upon those decisions in the light of what has expressed itself in the
form of those over-personal norms which have further developed into a
conception of, and communion with, the Godhead. We have noticed further,
how this essence of religion was realised in the lives of great
personalities in history, as well as in the religions which they helped
to found.

Eucken does not hesitate to affirm that the highest of these religions
is the Christian [p.181] religion. The core of the Christian religion
consists, as we have already noticed, in its presentation of "a
world-denial and world-renewal" in a far higher degree than any of the
other religions, and also in the fact that it presents the union of the
human and the Divine in a clearer light than before. We have noticed,
too, how the Indian religions had to condemn the world in order to