Did the prophetic claim that social justice was { 173} sanctioned by Yahweh help its advance? Probably. I see no reason to doubt that it did somewhat--how much it is impossible to say. So far as the claim was accepted by the nation, it would assist the forces working for reform. But religious sanctions are far more powerful when they are explicit and detailed, as the history of Christianity has shown. And we must remember that the prophetic claims were not always accepted. Religion is usually conservative and more or less conventional. The ritual element plays a considerable part in religious morality. It is as hard to change the people's ideas of God as it is to change their conceptions of justice and goodness. For this reason, I am not convinced that the religious sanction was of much advantage in the evolution of morality. The old has even more of the use of the sanction than has the new. Moral forces need to be vigorously based upon human nature and human relations if they are to dominate society and control the ethical standards which public opinion demands. The presence of religious sanctions simply beclouds the real factors at work. Morality can never, in the long run, be something pressed upon man from outside; it must express his life and its needs.
It cannot be denied that supernatural sanctions have often been very effective for certain types of people in certain anarchic periods. The robber baron of the Middle Ages, credulous and superstitious, was restrained at times by his fear of the penalties threatened by Mother Church. But so is a burglar by a pistol pointed at him, even if it is not loaded. In the past, a code of morality much in advance of the times has, no doubt, often been aided by religious sanctions. But { 174} it is foolish to base one's theories upon exceptional conditions. We must remember that the situation confronted by the Christian tradition after the breakdown of the political and social life of the Roman Empire was abnormal. A turbulent mass of barbarians faced the ethics and theology of an overthrown civilization. It cannot too often be pointed out that this situation was unhealthy in many ways. It is not good for a people to have codes of morality thrust upon it from outside. Especially is it bad when the code is in many ways untrue to human nature under normal conditions. Ascetic, other-worldly Christianity distorted the impulses of mediæval man. And it is certain that religious sanctions, alone, enabled it to control society.