THE BUILDER October, 1927

The Grand Architect of the Universe

By Bro. R.J. Meekren

IN some respects the series of articles on the Masonic requirement
of a belief in God has been disappointing, in spite of the very
great interest of the articles themselves. We have had revealed
some very wide divergencies of opinion; but that such divergencies
existed was well known before, it was the hope of finding some
common, some agreed, understanding, that the series was projected.
Only one contributor, however, really endeavored to meet the
question as to what was required in Masonry as distinct from his
own individual creed; Bro. Covey-Crump in his article "The
Freemason's vision of God" did make a serious attempt to do this
from the point of view of the English ritual.

The first article by "A Lay Brother" was a confession. It tells the
intimate personal history of the transition from the unthinking
acquiescence of youth in what seems to have been most inadequate
religious teaching to the doubt and scepticism so frequent among
young men as they reach maturity. That the story is a typical one
everyone with experience must admit. The traditional and
stereotyped teaching of the average Sunday School does not prepare
young people to meet the questionings and doubts that will
inevitably arise as soon as they come in contact with the wider
life of the world or gain an acquaintance with science and
philosophy in our Colleges and Universities. This general failure
is realized by all who are conversant with the facts. It is
intensified by the breakdown of anything like religious life and
training in the home, even where the parents themselves are devout
church members. Such training while not likely to be more effective
intellectually than that of the Sunday School does at least form
habits which the weekly lesson cannot do. And habit is a stronger
anchor to faith than knowledge for most. A Lay Brother's experience
was therefore a typical one, and the fact that he felt it so was
one reason he gave for preferring to remain anonymous. The unusual
feature (we are afraid it is unusual) is that he did not rest in
the agnostic or skeptical state of mind but went on and
reconstructed out of the ruins a new, if somewhat nebulous faith in
a Something in and behind the world making for righteousness; to
adapt Matthew Arnold's well-known utterance.

This article attracted more notice than any of the others so far as
that can be judged from letters received. A few correspondents were
scornful, thinking the article immature or foolish; a judgment that
is hardly fair, for given the same circumstances almost any young
person's mind will react in the same way from unthinking acceptance
to active if superficial disbelief. And left to themselves, unaided
by those who have gone through doubt to a deeper experience, they
do very well indeed to come back to anything like a religious
belief.

Other correspondents were bitterly opposed to the tentative creed
expressed. Some went so far as to say that not only should the Lay
Brother never have been admitted into Masonry but that he should be
forthwith expelled. But the great majority sided with him, the
article has been copied and it has been read before Masonic
gatherings where it has met with approval. It is of course
impossible to estimate percentages among several millions of men
from a handful of letters, but there is no doubt that among those
readers of THE BUILDER interested enough to let us know what they
thought, those who approved the standpoint of the article were in
a large majority.

FUNDAMENTALISM AND EVOLUTIONISM

The second article was by the Rev. Dr. Briggs, a Past Grand Master
of Missouri. He wrote from the standpoint of Missouri Masonry, as
he interprets its rules and requirements. It seems that this Grand
Lodge requires a signed declaration from the applicant that he
believes in "one living and true God," and it is apparently also
necessary to believe in the divine authority of the Bible. We
gather also that in his opinion evolutionary theories cannot be
reconciled with the Bible, but whether or not he draws the
conclusion (which would seem to follow) that those who believe in
evolution cannot believe in the Bible as inspired and are therefore
debarred from Masonry does not appear. It would seem, in fact, that
Bro. Briggs really holds that only those professing belief in the
creed of one of the Protestant denominations are properly eligible
to Masonry. We suppose he accepts or excepts, Hebrews and
Unitarians, as we believe members of both these faiths are actually
accepted by Missouri lodges; but the position does not seem wholly
a happy one from the purely logical standpoint, for if the Jew and
the Unitarian may reject the New Testament wholly or in part, why
may not others reject the first chapters of Genesis?

In the third article Bro. Norris came to the defense of the Lay
Brother. Possibly in doing so he lessened the value of what he had
to say. He pointed out a number of difficulties in the Bible, which
appear as soon as any attempt is made to determine what the Bible
actually teaches about God. In subsequent correspondence with Dr.
Briggs he explained that his point was that on its face there were
contradictory estimates or conceptions of the Deity in the Old
Testament and that these needed to be explained. Dr. Briggs seems
to agree that this is so, too, though we presume they would not
agree on the explanation. From the point of view of evolution and
progressive revelation these things are not difficulties at all,
but merely vestiges of the different stages reached in the
religious development of a people. Dr. Briggs states plainly in his
first letter that "Freemasonry does not attempt theological
definitions but leaves each Freemason free to interpret the Bible
himself." But are not the statements that God is one and is a
living God, theological definitions? And is not the evolution of
religious ideas one mode of interpreting the Bible?

The Rev. John J. Lanier, priest, poet and mystic, made the next
contribution to the discussion by setting forth his reasons for
believing in God. In his article he made an effort to get beneath
the surface of credal and dogmatic forms of words to real
conceptions and meanings. His conclusion seems to be that as
personality seems to be the highest thing we know that we must
ascribe personality at least to God, which implies personal
relations between God and man. He essays the difficult feat of
distinguishing divine immanence in nature from pantheism. It is
difficult, not because the distinction is unreal, but from the
deficiencies of language in defining such matters.

GOD IN THE ENGLISH RITUAL

Bro. Lanier was followed by the Rev. W.W. Covey-Crump whose article
has already been mentioned. In England there is a definite
progression in the terms used for the Deity in the different
degrees, such as does not exist in any American ritual, though a
number of Canadian Jurisdictions follow England in this. In the
first degree God is presented as the Grand Architect, the
Archetypal Workman, the Builder of the World. In the second degree
He is known as the Grand Geometrician of the Universe. The first
conception is that of work, energy, constructive or creative power.
The second is that of knowledge, design, prescience. In the third
degree He becomes the Most High.

This progression is impressive, but it seems to raise certain
theoretical difficulties. Many Masons, whose orthodoxy has never
been impugned, even if their speculations are rejected by scholars
today, have supposed Freemasonry to have been in some sort derived
from, or connected in origin with the mysteries of antiquity, and
the object of these mysteries (so it has been supposed) was to keep
and conceal the knowledge of the one true, and we suppose, living
God. Now ex hypothesi these Ancient Mysteries took fit candidates
who knew only of many false gods, and revealed this truth to them
by stages as they were able to receive it. The English ritual seems
to follow this method in form; but in practice seems to demand that
the candidate shall fully know and believe what the Mysteries are
supposed to teach him. It seems something of a dilemma. The
American rituals are free of any such difficulty.

GOD OF MASONRY A CHRISTIAN DEITY

The next contributor was another clergyman of the Church of
England, Bro. House, who seems to quite definitely claim that the
Masonic conception of God is identical with that of Christianity.
In this he is the successor of a large school of Masonic authors,
of which Dr. George Oliver was a notable representative. There is
no doubt at all that Masonic tenets can be interpreted in a
Christian sense, the Rose Croix grade or order is really a
Christian version of the third degree, or rather was in its
original form. Every Mason who wishes to do so may so interpret
Masonry, and is free to seek to persuade others to adopt his views,
but to us it seems that Bro. Covey-Crump has a juster appreciation
of the minimum requirements of Masonry, and it is on the minimum
requirements that its universality must rest. Bro. Ferdinand Oudin
also takes this view, and it would seem that he was prepared to
accept even a lower minimum. Bro. Carter then followed with an
attempt, perhaps too philosophical for those without special
knowledge, to show that as "all roads lead to Rome" so all
speculation concerning the First Cause or Origin of things will
bring one to an essentially theistic belief, if only followed
honestly to the end.

HISTORY OF THE BELIEF IN GOD REQUIREMENT

The last article of the series, by Bro. Daynes, reviews the
historical setting of this requirement. This is of quite a
different character from any of the others, but certainly has its
place in any attempt to clear up the obscurities and confusions of
thought that evidently exist on this important subject. Bro. Daynes
has marshalled, in the scholarly way that all acquainted with his
work have come to expect from him, all the early evidence on the
subject. There is a clear case that as far back as we have any
record till the time that Anderson published the Book of
Constitutions the Christian faith was assumed as a matter of course
in Freemasonry. The Old Charges forbid heresy as they do disloyalty
and treason to the king. And in view of this the Grand Lodges, such
as those of Northern Europe, which demand Christian belief as an
essential requirement, have a real justification. They can claim
truly to have held closer to the original tradition than the
Masonry of the rest of the world.

But there is the possibility that in holding fast to the original
form of Christian Masonry they may have departed from the original
spirit. English Masons are charged to be loyal to their king--
American Masons to be loyal to their flag and constitution--the
requirements are very different but the content is the same,
namely, that they should be good law-abiding citizens of their
country. Heresy in olden times was very much in the same class as
treason, it was an offense against the law, and therefore we cannot
build too much on the ancient articles forbidding it. There is a
real difference, and practically a great difference in accepting a
situation that exists, and taking sides in a controversy. The first
really means that the point has never been raised.

CORRESPONDENCE

Some of the letters that were received have been published in the
Correspondence Columns of THE BUILDER. They were fairly typical,
many others were equally worthy of publication, but limits of space
made it impossible. On looking through them the present writer does
not see anything that has not been brought forward in some form in
the discussion. As has been alrea.dy noted the majority favored the
liberal or modernist side of the question, agreeing with the Lay
Brother and Bro. Norris.

One Missouri Mason in reference to the article of Dr. Briggs says
that he believes:

. . . matter is only the manifestation of life. We could not see
life if there were no matter. Force and matter cannnt he separated.
Some philosophers claim there is no matter at all that it is all
life or force that we see. ... Even if chemistry should produce
life artificially as Haeckel expected would eventually be done,
still we have to ask whence the force in the matter which becomes
living? Here we have no other answer but - God.

A Montana brother says:

The average Mason realizes that there is a Supreme Being, differing
only as to what that Supreme Being is.

The remark is perhaps trite, but it is the fruit in this case not
of reading or scholarship, but of the experience of an aged Mason
on the edge of that bourne from which no traveler returns. Another
brother also nearing the bound of life says that man:

As the "last word" of creation, so far as we know, and endowed with
Reason and a capacity for progress and self improvement . . .
[finds it] unthinkable to believe that matter was created out of
nothing by a Creator that created himself. From this premise we
find ourselves in the world or universe of Nature . . . governed by
the universal laws of nature and that this means nothing more or
less than Nature's God, to which many have bowed in the past, and
thus, it may be, have lived better than they knew.

He goes on to quote the beliefs of such men as Burroughs and
Edison. This way of thinking, confused as it appears, seems to be
that of many Masons today. It shows two things at least,
dissatisfaction with traditional religion as it has been presented,
and yet a clinging to the idea of God in some form or other.

RESULTS OF THE SERIES

The discussion as a whole then seems to have done nothing but
develop the differences of opinion and belief that every observant
Mason knew existed. But to do this much is to the good. And though
the more orthodox or fundamentalist may think, and even say, that
the modernist and liberal minded have no place in the Craft, we do
not at all expect that they will begin preferring charges against
them.

The fact is that while American Grand Lodges insist on belief "in
one true and living God" or some equivalent formula, and while
articles reiterating certain stock sentiments periodically appear
in the Masonic press, and are constantly being repeated by lodge
orators, more especially Grand Lodge orators, and while the great
majority of American Masons accept it, apparently, as the "proper
thing," yet never in actual practice do we hear of a lodge
inquiring what a candidate means when he says he believes in God.
To some, words and forms of words do not seem to mean very much,
and they are precisely those who are most rigid about the exact
pronunciation of the local Shibboleth. If a man says that he is
going away tomorrow, or promises to pay a sum of money next week,
the meaning is clear and unmistakable. But when we begin to discuss
things that lie deeper uncertainty enters, and the deeper we go the
greater becomes the doubt that we really mean the same thing when
we use the same words. To people who have never thought, or whose
thinking is superficial, it is simple--God is God, and if a man
professes belief in God, belief in God is what he means.

Some years ago when the question of the recognition of French
Freemasonry was being discussed, during and just after the war, it
was urged on one side that the Grand Lodge of France maintained the
formula in its rituals, the "Grand Architect of the Universe."
Against this the Conservatives agreed upon an argument that became
a sort of slogan, that the requirement was a religious belief in
God and not a philosophical one. This sounds well, and it is fairly
clear what is meant by it, or at least the kind of thing intended.
It meant practically that the use of the formula "Grand Architect
of the Universe" was no good, or at least insufficient.

PHILOSOPHIC AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

But what is the difference between a philosophical and a religious
belief? It can be taken two ways. A religious belief may be taken
as that of one who accepts the creed of some religion--accepts it
on the authority of that religion. Then a philosophical belief is
one held by a man who belongs to no organized religion, is not a
church member, does not accept the creed of any denomination, but
has by his own meditations and reasoning arrived at a belief in
God. This does not seem to be what was intended at all. There are
probably thousands and thousands of American Masons who belong to
no church, or at least do not accept the authority of any church or
religious system as binding upon their beliefs and opinions.

The other alternative is that a religious belief is one tinged with
emotion, with personal feeling, that with belief in God, goes
reverence, awe or love. Then (if the two terms are really meant to
be antithetic as appears from their use) the philosophical attitude
is the one that accepts a God as a First Cause or Primal Origin, as
demanded by the nature of our minds, but is otherwise indifferent
to it. This is probably nearer what those who used the terms had in
mind; but are there not in our churches plenty of people who accept
the belief but to whom it makes no real difference? Is there a
clergyman or minister of the Gospel who has not preached about and
at such people ? And it cannot be denied that there are many of
them in the Craft. Men too indifferent about God to think about Him
much less deny Him. We all know them. They pass muster, as they do
in the churches, as long as they pay dues and make contributions -
but while these pass anyone who thinks outside the limits of
orthodoxy is at once condemned by the orthodox group. But which of
the two is really the most irreligious? Of course we know what dead
wood will do, it will stay where it is put, even if it rots. While
what is alive is incalculable and therefore cause for apprehension,
for it may go in the direction we don't want it to go.

Is it then all a matter of our own personal prejudices -- or rather
of group prejudices? We don't like to have our own creeds called by
this name, yet we at least are prejudiced in their favor. What is
it but prejudices in favor of sectional Shibboleths, that keeps the
different Christian denominations from uniting into one church? We
make the lesser things of more importance than the greater. The
great thing in Christianity is the revelation of God in Jesus
Christ--Christianity is that or nothing. All the orthodox sects
agree on this--yet they cannot agree otherwise. Is it not something
the same in Freemasonry? If it be anything it is a Fraternity of
just moral, upright men, but when the question of recognition
arises the character of the men judged never enters into
consideration at all.

MASONRY AND RELIGIOUS TOLERATION

But the fact remains that in spite of our accepted formulas there
is no attempt to make them real. Perhaps history may help us here,
as it so often does, to obtain a clearer idea of the situation.
What first strikes us, both from the present day state of Masonry
throughout the world and the facts of its past, is that (as is
natural and perhaps inevitable) it faithfully reflects the
prevailing sentiments and conditions of the community. In Mediaeval
England it condemned heresy, as Bro. Daynes has shown us. Heresy of
course meant Lollardism first of all, Wiklifism and later perhaps
Protestantism. Still later Masonry became Protestant and Papistry
became the heresy, and also treason against the king. Later still,
when the ideas of tolerance first began to emerge in society,
Masonry suddenly proclaimed a most tolerant attitude. Anderson's
statement was truer perhaps than he knew, that Masons were always
charged to be of that religion which was practiced in the country
where they lived. Whether so charged or not, thus Masons always
have been. But literally what he said implies that religion was a
matter of no consequence to Masonry, and to save trouble the Mason
should profess whatever the state required.

The "Moderns" were more tolerant than the "Ancients" even though
there was some reaction from Anderson's first proclamation of
religious, that is credal, indifference. The two organizations drew
their membership from different social strata. There was no cheap
rationalist press in those days, and though Deism and other liberal
ideas were prevalent in the upper circles of the community it had
not touched the lower classes from which the lodges of the
"Ancients" were recruited. Thus we find they were more definite in
their religious requirements than their rivals.

Today we find that in those Protestant countries where religious
indifferences have not yet become widespread that Masonry is
Protestant, and Christian. Perhaps this is not the whole story, for
this Christian Masonry is also very exclusive and aristocratic, and
as long as it remains under present conditions it will never lack
all the candidates it needs, any more than the Order of the Bath
does in England or the Legion of Honor in France.

On the other hand in Roman Catholic countries Masonry is agnostic,
perhaps atheistic, in the sense at least that the majority of its
members are probably atheists. The reason for this is obvious.
Atheism is the normal reaction of the educated thinking men in all
Roman Catholic countries to the religious teaching given them in
childhood and youth. That this is so. is a simple matter of
statistics, whatever may be the reason for it; it is what we find
in every such country from South America to Poland. And as the
average man ascribes any faults or failings he thinks he has
discovered in his wife to womankind in general, so the educated man
of Roman Catholic countries ascribe to all religions the
superstitions, abuses and inconsistencies they see in the religion
of their families.

Thus we find at the two extremes that Masonry takes the color of
the mental and spiritual outlook of the classes from which its
recruits are drawn. In Roman Catholic countries the only classes
from which they can be drawn. How then is it with us? It would look
as if the same rule were at work in America, too. More and more our
churches are bewailing the indifference and defection of their
members. Less and less does the younger generation seem inclined to
take their parents' places in organized religion. The churches are
striving by semi-commercial methods to keep going, by advertising,
by sensational services, by social activities, anything and
everything but doctrinal dogmatic, religious teaching.

The average man, the man we rub shoulders with in the street car,
with whom we do business, or meet in lodge, does not deny God, he
simply never thinks about Him, he has no interest in the subject.
His. religion is summed up pretty well by a statement often heard,
"If a man tries to live a fairly respectable, honest life he will
be all right in the future," if there be a future, about which he
is not sure. It is utterly useless to deny that this average man is
not represented, fully represented in the Craft. He is there, and
if we are honest with ourselves we must admit he is there, just as
in many cases he is still a contributing member to some church or
other.

It has nothing whatever to do with the argument, logically
speaking, but it may possibly help towards relieving some readers
of sundry suspicions that may have been aroused as to the purpose
or tendency of this article. The writer is a communicant of a
respected and orthodox Christian Church, and he is a Churchman
before he is a Mason. If it were conceivable that circumstances
should arise that would make it necessary to choose between the
two, with whatever regret, he would abide by his church and give up
Masonry. To a convinced Christian there can be no comparison
between his religion and anything else in the world. It may be for
this reason that he is inclined to think that not only is
Freemasonry not a religion, but it is only (if at all) a very
humble handmaid of religion. Religion stands on its own feet,
whether Christianity or Theism, and the support of Freemasonry
really seems something of an impertinence. Freemasonry is a
wonderful thing, it embodies a most noble ideal, and it is wholly
consistent with true religion, but if we realized its true
functions, the fact that it was not something else than it is would
not disturb us.

MASONRY AND CHRISTIANITY

Since the advent of the Prince of Peace, Christianity and Masonry
have gone hand in hand in the work of charity and love. Before that
happy epoch, as a writer has observed, alms houses and eleemosinary
institutions were unknown. Poverty (except among the Masons) was
without a friend, and the humble supplications of distress were
lost amid the proud pursuits of ambition, the wild and terrible
clangor of arms and the sweeping desolations and cruelties of
persecution, anarchy and despotism.--Freemason's Magazine, January,
1842.
