Man as Outlet to the Divine. Emerson bases all that he says to the graduating class of Harvard Divinity School upon the intimate relationship between man and God earlier put forth in Nature. At the beginning of the address, he introduces the unity of God, man, and nature that he elsewhere terms the Oversoul, and he refers to this unity throughout. He stresses that a true sense of religion, indeed the very soundness of the individual and of society, are impossible to achieve unless a man realizes his direct access to God and recognizes that religion and virtue are within, not imposed or understood from without. Man has no need for “mediator or veil” between himself and God. This immediate connection gives man his innate and unlimited capacity for development toward God’s perfection. Man expresses his oneness with God through virtue in character and action. Emerson is very clear about man’s inherent potential for good, and about how the state into which the church has fallen has obscured our perception of human perfectibility: “[Man] learns that his being is without bound; that, to the good, to the perfect, he is born, low as he now lies in evil and weakness. That which he venerates is still his own, though he has not realized it yet.” “The Divinity School Address” is Emerson’s response to what he sees as a widespread crisis of faith caused by man’s disconnection from the source of his powers.
Scholars and critics have frequently commented upon the view of evil expressed in the address. Emerson declares that God is perfection, and that, through his connection to God, man is perfectible. Goodness, and the reward of goodness, are within man, who therefore does not require external structures to ensure his virtue. All of the world exudes a kind of sympathetic support of man’s goodness, because it is in harmony with the laws of the universe. Likewise, when a man deviates from the virtue to which God and the universal laws predispose him, he is instantly aware of disharmony within himself and with the universe, and evil is consequently its own punishment. Emerson goes on to state that, unlike good, which is a positive, absolute quality, evil does not have independent existence. It is “merely privative, not absolute”—nothing more than the absence of goodness. This sense of the relationship between good and evil departs radically from that offered by traditional religion. It presents a consummately affirmative outlook on human nature and possibility. However, some critics have found it one of the less convincing aspects of Emerson’s philosophy.
Emerson emphasizes that a direct connection with God is available to and exemplified in each and every person. This belief guides his discussion of the nature and importance of Jesus, whom he regards as a man, and as the highest demonstration of the expression of the divine spirit through the life and actions of a man. Jesus serves as a model and a source of inspiration for other men, but he did not achieve anything beyond the capabilities of humankind in general. The church has held Jesus up as different from and superior to other men, and has focused excessively on “the person of Jesus”—that is, on the particular qualities that distinguish Jesus from other men—rather than on his inherent similarity to the rest of mankind. Emerson insists upon the complete equality of every man in regard to the knowledge of God: “The soul knows no persons. It invites every man to expand to the full circle of the universe, and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous love.” Emerson sees the deification of Jesus as a disservice to man in general and to Jesus as well. Men cannot forge an understanding of the God within by emulating others, even such a powerful exemplar as Jesus. And Jesus loses humanity, warmth, and his true excellence when approached as “a demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks would describe Osiris or Apollo.” Jesus himself—“the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of a man”—understood better than anyone the divine nature of mankind.
