The Problem of Christianity by Josiah Royce

First published: 1913

Edition(s) used:The Problem of Christianity, with an introduction by John E. Smith and with a new foreword and a revised and expanded index by Frank M. Oppenheim. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Church history; critical analysis; essays

Core issue(s): Church; constancy; ethics; forgiveness; morality; problem of evil; redemption

Overview

The Problem of Christianity is based on a series of lectures that Josiah Royce delivered at Oxford University toward the end of his life. During these lectures he stated “the problem” in various ways, but his basic question was, “In what sense, if any, can the modern man consistently be, in creed, a Christian?” This question implies a potential contradiction between being a Christian and being a “modern” human. However, Royce, who recognized the desire for salvation as a fundamental human drive, had long since decided that Christianity was the human race’s “most effective expression of religious longing.”

In the book, Royce wishes to investigate what it means to belong to a Christian community—or, for that matter, any community. He rejects the notion that belonging means abandonment of the quest for living truth, unthinking adherence to static doctrine, or surrender of the will to a dominant individual. As essentially social beings, he says, people come together in a church to express their individual longing for salvation, and collectively they seek the truth that leads to salvation.

Royce amplifies on the Christian ideas of community, sin, atonement, and saving grace. That a community comes together to pursue shared individual goals implies that its members are loyal to one another for the sake of those goals. Further, a community of people exercising free choice is preferable to one made up of “puppets.” Therefore, inevitably, community members run the risk of betrayal. In a Christian setting, to act against shared goals is to commit treason against the community and, implicitly, against one’s own best interests.

Royce turns to the questions of forgiveness and atonement. Historically, most societies, including Christian communities, have required transgressors to accept responsibility and express remorse for misdeeds. According to Royce, however, this is not enough to repair the injury to the community or to the transgressor’s self. Of course, one who has “sinned” against the community may be forgiven, in the sense that the community will not exact any penalty, but the sin itself remains a permanent historical fact. Forgiveness alone cannot repair the injury, and unless that injury is repaired, the transgressing individual lives in what Royce calls “the hell of the irrevocable.” As for the injured community, the fact remains “that we are helplessly dependent on human fidelity for some of our highest goods, and so may be betrayed. . . .”

The community must perform the act that will heal its own spirit by restoring trust. That is, atonement is required to reverse the consequences of the betrayal and effect a true reconciliation. Atonement has a special meaning for Royce. It is performed by a third party acting on behalf of the community in a way that makes the community stronger for having experienced both the betrayal and the reconciliation. Royce has in mind Christ’s willing sacrifice of his life to atone for the sins of humanity. It is humanity’s acceptance of this sacrifice that made Royce decide Christianity was the “most effective expression of religious longing.” He adds that Christianity expressed this truth as “a report concerning the supernatural work of Christ.”

Christian Themes

It would be easy, but it would be a mistake, to perceive Royce as putting philosophy ahead of religion—conceiving an ideal community and then singling out a faith, which just happened to be Christian, as the best example of that ideal. A faithful Christian, Royce wanted to understand what made his religion unique and supremely worthy of adherence, and he did so through the medium of philosophy. He also employed philosophical investigation to help him and his students comprehend all the phenomena of life: the nature of human society, religious experience, ethical action, suffering, and the problem of evil.

Earlier in life, he had been convinced that all truth, including the apparent contradictions of ordinary life, was to be found in what is called absolute idealism. Royce was one of a few American philosophers who believed in this concept, developed by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. However, by the time Royce came to write The Problem of Christianity, he had changed his idea about the nature of this consciousness. Initially, for him, it had resided in a single, absolute mind, or all-encompassing consciousness. Later, he saw it as residing in a community of truth-seeking individuals who constituted a kind of second-order self while retaining their individual identities. This was a community of hope and grace, best exemplified, in Royce’s estimation, by the churches to which Saint Paul had ministered. On the other hand, Royce was disappointed in some doctrine-bound churches that seemed to have lost sight of the truth-seeking spirit that ought to guide them.

In large part, Royce revised his concept of absolute idealism to meet earlier criticisms by his contemporaries. In particular, his good friend the philosopher William James had complained that absolute mind, by resolving all the suffering and apparent evils of life, seemed to relieve individuals of moral responsibility. Royce himself was wary that inflexible church doctrine could have the same effect. Though a devout Christian, he rejected the idea that belonging to an organized religion requires one to adhere to static beliefs.

In The Problem of Christianity, Royce replaces absolute mind with Universal Community. He identifies a process in which a truth-seeking spiritual force guides individuals toward the salvation for which everyone longs. Royce acknowledges that doctrine is not static but can evolve continually. He maintains that, far from claiming a permanent lock on the truth, Christian communities, however imperfect, should be bound together by loyalty to one another and to the quest for spiritual reality. In that sense, he declares, “the Church, rather than the person of the founder, ought to be viewed as the central idea of Christianity.”

As to the problem of evil, it was not simply apparent in Royce’s life, but a part of direct personal experience. In 1907 Royce and his wife committed their eldest son to a state mental institution, without any expectation of his recovery from severe depression and delusion. Three years later, their son died of typhoid fever. Historically, all Christians have struggled with the question of why God would permit this type of suffering. As an idealist, Royce might be expected to conclude that it was “all for the best.” However, he was unwilling to explain it away in this fashion.

In his view, evil is an inevitable fact of an imperfect, changing world. What concerns him is the response of fragile human beings to evil. His answer involves a sort of counterpressure to evil: We should remain loyal steadfastly to moral goodness and spiritual truth, which are also forces in the real world and are the opposite of evil. Evil can never be finally defeated in the everyday world. However, in this world, the will to confront and overcome evil is one source of meaning and value for the Christian community.

Sources for Further Study

Clendenning, John. The Life and Thought of Josiah Royce, Revised and Expanded Edition. Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 1999. A biography of Royce, revised and expanded since its original publication, after the discovery of previously unpublished correspondence by the subject.

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. In The Works of William James, edited by Frederick Burkhardt. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985. Originally published in 1902. In a sense, this book by Royce’s good friend was a foil to Royce’s philosophy. James was concerned with the religious experience of exceptional individuals, while Royce focused on that of ordinary people.

Oppenheim, Frank M. Royce’s Mature Philosophy of Religion. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987. Tracing the evolution of Royce’s ideas from early life, this Jesuit scholar emphasizes the continuing relevance of Royce nearly a century after the philosopher’s death.

Peirce, Charles S. Reasoning and the Logic of Things: The Cambridge Conferences Lectures of 1898. Edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992. The American philosopher Charles Peirce presents his philosophy of semiotics, an important influence on Royce’s concept of the community of interpretation.

Smith, John E. Royce’s Social Infinite: The Community of Interpretation. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1969. Discusses important influences, especially that of Charles Peirce, on the major element in Royce’s thought.