Six years after his ordination Ralph Waldo Emerson left the Unitarian Church.

The tall,
stately man who bore a passing resemblance to Abraham Lincoln felt Christian dogma had
outgrown its usefulness to modern man. It was too anachronistic, too fixed on "past tradition and
the words of the dead" (Ferguson Carr 1579). His resignation, however, was not intellectual or
spiritual as it was physical. He was still influenced by Unitarianism as his career as a writer and
lecturer took off, between 1837 and 1838 (Wright 41), though he had quit the church presumably
because his moral vision was not compatible with its teachings. If we analyze his 1844 essay,
"Experience," we see that it's the case he continued under Unitarian influence.
The Unitarianism Emerson embraced originated in Baltimore, Maryland, in the living
room of Lucy Channing Russel and her husband, on the 25th of April, 1819. On this date, an
audience of forty people gathered in Russels' living room to hear a sermon by Lucy's brother,
William Channing Russel (Kring 29).
William Channing Russel was an upstart fresh out of divinity school, but he carried
himself, and spoke, well enough to impress his audience. He was invited to speak again on a
return trip to Baltimore. This was the occasion for the famous "Baltimore Sermon." In it
Channing explained what in the first part of his sermon he titled "Unitarian Christianity" (Kring
30).
Channing was one among liberal Christians. Liberal Christians held unpopular notions;
for one, they were usually antitrinitarian (Kring). But Channing's sermon added to their infamy.
As Kring writes, "The sermon left shock waves all over the country that were to last for several
decades" (31).
Channing contended rationality (science, philosophy, etc.) and religion were symbiotic;
that man wasn't "fallen" as at a place to achieve great things; and that traditional dogma was
often at odds with a morally perfect god. Kring writes, respectively:
In brief, Channing said that the Bible is a book containing revelations of God, but
that it is "written for me, in the language of men, and ... its meaning is to be
sought in the same manner as that of other books." Thus, if we are to understand
the Bible correctly and as God intended, we must make allowances for the
perplexities of human language and for the differing circumstances through
human history. All of the criteria of reason must be brought to bear upon the
sacred texts, just as these criteria are used with respect to any other book (31).
In essence, Channings' "Baltimore Sermon" reveals his deep belief in the
perfectibility of an rather than in man's "fallen state." It is this aspect of Channing
which is perhaps the greatest significance ... (30).
Channing criticized the Calvinistic doctrines of depravity, election, and damnation
on the grounds that this would make a morally imperfect God. A morally perfect
God, Channing said, would be wholly loving and wholly forgiving to all his
creation, not to an elect few. Channing also objected to the orthodox idea of the
mediation of Christ, for, he said, if Jesus had died to placate an angry God, as the
Calvinists insisted, then God would not be wholly loving and not wholly
forgiving (31).

These same contentions abound in "Experience," albeit, not in the forthright, explicit
writing of a sermon. It's felt that Emerson's style requires "vast annotation and philosophic
glossing" to be understood. But they're there, in the text. For instance, the notion that religion
and rationality are symbiotic can be extrapolated from Emerson's theory of human life. "Human
life," Emerson writes, "is made up of two elements, power and form, and the proportion must be
invariably kept, if we would have it sweet and sound" (1661).
At its core, Emerson's philosophy is Aristotelian, because it's based on necessary
relationships between different elements. In man, this relationship occurs between the body and
intellect. Emerson's idealized man is both brawn and intellect. To anyone who limits himself to
either brawn or intellect, Emerson writes:
Everything runs to excess: every good quality is noxious, if unmixed, and, to
carry the danger to the edge of ruin, nature causes each man's peculiarity to super
bound. Here, among the famers, we adduce the scholars as examples of this
treachery. They are nature's victims of expression. You who see the artist, the
orator, the poet, too near, and find their life no more excellent than that of
mechanics or famers, and themselves victims of partiality, very hollow and
haggard, and pronounce them failures ... (1661).
Now, in reality, this relationship is between the divine and the physical world. Reality is
neither a base copy of a platonic super reality nor a waiting room on the way to heaven.
Likewise, reality is not a purely physical and soulless playground. "Underneath the inharmonious
and trivial particulars," Emerson writes, "is a musical perfection, the ideal journeying always
with us, the heaven without rend or seam" (1663).
Given these necessary relationships, it makes sense to say that rationality and religion are
symbiotic, because since science and philosophy either explain away or quantify reality, they are
incomplete without acknowledging the implicit divinity in nature.
Emerson balked at the strong positivism permeating the sciences of his day. Through
positivism and naturalism man was reduced to a catalog of physical sensations and neuroses.
How could anyone forget Emile Zola's saying, "I have simply done on living bodies of work
which surgeons perform on corpses?" Emerson writes:
I know the mental proclivity of the physicians. I hear the chuckle of the
phrenologists ... the grossest ignorance does not disgust like this impudent
knowingness ... The physicians say, they are not materialists; but they are:Spirit
is matter reduced to an extreme thinness: O so thin! ... What notions do they
attach to love! what to religion! One would not willingly pronounce these words
in their hearing, and give them occasion to profane them (1657).
Such sordid takes on life are unnecessary. It's true, that there's a lot to life that is cause for
grief. Next to gravity, "life is not fair" is the next most-indisputable law of the world. But is there
a reason we can't look beyond the present and try to make the best of it all with one may hope to
accomplish?
It is in this Optimism that Emerson echoes Channing again; that man isn't so much
damned as at an opportunity to make the best of his situation. For Emerson life was a question of

temperament. "The more or less depends," he writes, "on structure or temperament" (1656).
Granted someone had the right attitude they were capable of anything. He continues,
"Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a
cold and defective nature?"
Emerson is enamored with man's condition. He writes, "How easily, if we would suffer it,
we might keep forever these beautiful limits, and adjust ourselves, once and for all, to the perfect
calculation of the kingdom of known cause and effect." because "Everyman is an impossibility,
until he is born; everything is impossible, until we see success" (1662).
This positive idea contrasts Calvinistic doctrine strongly, in which man is abject and
hoping on an uncertain fate, hoping he'll make it to heaven, that this is all that matters in life.
There is no question of enjoying life. Why god would create man to keep him in such a state of
anxiety was beyond Channing, since god is morally perfect. In a similar way, Emerson defends
god's "moral nature" and echoes the Unitarian position again.
Emerson's god was a vital force. It affirmed life. He writes, " ... I can see nothing at last,
in success or failure, than more or less of vital force supplied from the Eternal" (1663). God can
even be said to be nature itself. He continues, "Bear with these distractions, with this coetaneous
growth of parts: they will on day be members, and obey one will" (1663). And this god was all
we could expect from life, bad or good. He writes, "Divinity is behind our failures and follies
also" (1658).
But this was not the god of Calvinism. For the Calvinist god existed in beyond, in a
heaven not every would get to see as some were predestined to be damned. By contrast, this life
is a transitory phase of pain and danger. In affirming that God was in nature, however, and that
everything shares of this essence, Emerson was upholding god's moral standing by making it
impartial, that is, fair.