For the intellect alone
is inadequate either to express that life as it exists, or to call it
into existence where it does not exist. The tendency to ritual in our
time is a tendency not to substitute aesthetic for spiritual life, though
there is probably always a danger that such a substitution may be
unconsciously made, but to express a religious life which cannot be
expressed without the aid of aesthetic symbols. The work of the intellect
is to analyze and define. But the infinite is in the nature of the case
indefinable, and it is with the infinite religion has to do. All that
theology can hope to accomplish is to define certain provinces in the
illimitable realm of truth; to analyze certain experiences in a life
which transcends all complete analysis. The Church must learn to regard
not with disfavor or suspicion, but with eager acceptance, the
co-operation of the arts in the interpretation of infinite truth and the
expression of infinite life. Certainly we are not to turn our churches
into concert rooms or picture and sculpture galleries, and imagine that
aesthetic enjoyment is synonymous with piety. But as surely we are not to
banish the arts from our churches, and think that we are religious
because we are barren. All language, whether of painting, sculpture,
architecture, music, poetry, or oratory, is legitimately used to express
the divine life, as all the faculties, whether of painter, sculptor,
architect, musician, poet, orator, and philosopher, are to be used in
reaching after a more perfect knowledge of Him who always transcends and
always will transcend our perfect knowing.
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