F.D. Maurice의 영국 기독교 사회주의와 그 의미

Frederick Denison Maurice(1805-1872) was born a son of Unitarien minister in England. He was the most original theological thinker in England in19C. He belongs to no school or party. He was not mere theological system-builder, but digger of the truth. Maurice has felt and thought, written as a theologian. All other subjects were surbordinate to theology. For him the knowledge of Maurice's theology was his conviction of the nearness of God. Christ was a full and final revelation of the divine. Theology is a matter of life. Every aspect of man's being is related to Christ and falls within the Christian purview. From this viewpoint he approches his social reform. But Society was not to be recreated 'by arrangement of ours' but regenerated 'by finding the law and ground of its order and harmony, the only secret of its existence' in God. The beginning point of his social morality ist found in family life. "At my birth I am already in a society. I am related, at all events, to a father and mother. This relation is the fact of my existence." Next in order to the family is the nation. The bond, which holds society together as a community of persons is the will of a supreme Person. The foundation of the national community is a divine Person. Church and State are both requisite to the constitution of man. A State is as much a witness for God one way as a Church is a witness for Him in another way. In the divine purpose these functions are complementary and the one needs the other. Dor Maurice the principle of socialism, and of Christianity is cooperation rather than competition. Christians can join with socialists to bring to lighr the foundational principle of cooperation, which is the only possible condition of society. Christian socialism seeks not to make society anew, but return it to its original ground. For forty years the doctrin of Maurice kept the whole forward movement in the social and political life of the England people in unio with God and identified with