Chapter 4

CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY MEN OF SCIENCE.

Attitude of Men of Science to Religions in General--What Religion
is, and What is its Significance for the Life of Humanity--
Three Conceptions of Life--Christian Religion the Expression of
the Divine Conception of Life--Misinterpretation of
Christianity by Men of Science, who Study it in its External
Manifestations Due to their Criticising it from Standpoint of
Social Conception of Life--Opinion, Resulting from this
Misinterpretation, that Christ's Moral Teaching is Exaggerated
and Cannot be put into Practice--Expression of Divine
Conception of Life in the Gospel--False Ideas of Men of Science
on Christianity Proceed from their Conviction that they have an
Infallible Method of Criticism--From which come Two
Misconceptions in Regard to Christian Doctrine--First
Misconception, that the Teaching Cannot be put into Practice,
Due to the Christian Religion Directing Life in a Way Different
from that of the Social Theory of Life--Christianity holds up
Ideal, does not lay down Rules--To the Animal Force of Man
Christ Adds the Consciousness of a Divine Force--Christianity
Seems to Destroy Possibility of Life only when the Ideal held
up is Mistaken for Rule--Ideal Must Not be Lowered--Life,
According to Christ's Teaching, is Movement--The Ideal and the
Precepts--Second Misconception Shown in Replacing Love and
Service of God by Love and Service of Humanity--Men of Science
Imagine their Doctrine of Service of Humanity and Christianity
are Identical--Doctrine of Service of Humanity Based on Social
Conception of Life--Love for Humanity, Logically Deduced from
Love of Self, has No Meaning because Humanity is a Fiction--
Christian Love Deduced from Love of God, Finds its Object in
the whole World, not in Humanity Alone--Christianity Teaches
Man to Live in Accordance with his Divine Nature--It Shows that
the Essence of the Soul of Man is Love, and that his Happiness
Ensues from Love of God, whom he Recognizes as Love within
himself.

Now I will speak of the other view of Christianity which hinders
the true understanding of it--the scientific view.

Churchmen substitute for Christianity the version they have framed
of it for themselves, and this view of Christianity they regard as
the one infallibly true one.

Men of science regard as Christianity only the tenets held by the
different churches in the past and present; and finding that these
tenets have lost all the significance of Christianity, they accept
it as a religion which has outlived its age.

To see clearly how impossible it is to understand the Christian
teaching from such a point of view, one must form for oneself an
idea of the place actually held by religions in