William Blake--The Early Works

This is very much a work in progress, so don't take what I'm about to say too seriously, unless I wind up seeming really brilliant, in which case this is exactly what I meant.
In the fashion that way leads onto way, I found myself amidst William Blake this afternoon. Having not read Blake in a very long time, I decided to spend a bit of time in his neighborhood, beginning with the earliest works:

• All Religions are One (1788), and
• There is No Natural Religion (1789).

Part of me could simply dismiss these works as the pseudo-philosophical ruminations of a young man. However, at age 31 in 1788, Blake would seem old enough to recognize self indulgence in his thinking, one would hope.
The simpler of these works, the earlier one, is the more difficult to reconcile with a Christian worldview.

The Voice of one crying in the WildernessThe Argument. As the true method of
knowledge is experiment, the true faculty of knowing must be the faculty which
experiences. This faculty I treat of.
Principle I. That the Poetic Genius is
the true Man, and that the body or outward form of Man is derived from the
Poetic Genius. Likewise that the forms of all things are derived from their
Genius, which by the Ancients was call'd an Angel & Spirit & Demon.
Principle II. As all men are alike in outward form, So (and with the same
infinite variety) all are alike in the Poetic Genius.
Principle III. No man
can think, write or speak from his heart, but he must intend truth. thus all
sects of Philosophy are from the Poetic Genius adapted to the weaknesses of
every individual.
Principle IV. As none by travelling over known lands can
find out the unknown, So from already acquired knowledge Man could not acquire
more; therefore an universal Poetic genius exists.
Principle V. The
Religions of all Nations are derived from each Nation's different reception of
the Poetic Genius, which is every where call'd the Spirit of Prophecy.
Principle VI. The Jewish & Christian Testaments are An original
derivation from the Poetic Genius. This is necessary from the confined nature of
bodily sensation.
Principle VII. As all men are alike (tho' infinitely
various), So all Religions , &, as all similars, have one source. The true
Man is the source, he being the Poetic Genius.

Here's an argument that we hear from a lot of secular people. In an effort to avoid seeming isolationist or intolerant, they'll argue that all religions are basically the same. They'll claim that all religions take people to the same place. The distinctions, they insist, come not from any essential difference but from various people looking at the same goal from a different vantage point. To those people, I'd have to politely say, "Rubbish."
More specifically, as we read Blake's words here, I notice that he's finding the source of true religion not in a transcendent God but in a human genius. No Christian can read these words and feel comforted.
The second of Blakes works, the 1789 There is No Natural Religion, is not quite so clear. Let's look over its few words.

The Argument. Man has no notion of moral fitness but from Education.
Naturally
he is only a natural organ subject to Sense.
I. Man cannot
naturally perceive but through his natural or bodily organs.
II. Man by his
reasoning power can only compare & judge of what he has already perceiv'd.
III. From a perception of only 3 senses or 3 elements none could deduce a
fourth or
fifth.
IV. None could have other than natural or organic
thoughts if he had none but organic perceptions.
V. Man's desires are
limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he has not perceiv'd.
VI. The desires & perceptions of man, untaught by anything but organs of
sense, must be limited to objects of sense.

(b)
I. Man's perceptions are not bound by organs of perception; he
perceives more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover.
II. Reason, or
the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we
know more.
III. [This proposition is missing.]
IV. The bounded is
loathed by its possessor. the same dull round, even of the universe, would soon
become a mill with complicated wheels.
V. If the many become the same as the
few when possess'd, More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul; less than All
cannot satisfy Man.
VI. If any could desire what he is incapable of
possessing, despair must be his eternal lot.
VII. The desire of Man being
infinite, the possession is Infinite & himself Infinite. Conclusion. If it
were not for the Poetic or Prophetic Character the Philosophic &
Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, and stand still, unable
to do other than repeat the same dull round over again.

Application. He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who
sees the Ratio only sees himself only. Therefore God becomes as we are,
that we may be as he is.

Here we have a lot of confusing words, hardly the sort of thing that Blake will give us next in the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. In fact, if this were all that Blake had left us, we'd ignore these words. But since Blake is an important English poet, we can't simply dismiss him, regardless of how bizarre his theology or philosophy might seem.

However, before we write William Blake off as a complete nut-case, I would suggest that we might be able to read here a more orthodox thinker than we saw in the previous work. Look at that final sentence: "God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is." Before you start letting all of that Poetic Genius nonsense from the year before bother you, imagine this statement as describing the Incarnation. Indeed, man cannot by his own powers effect things beyond the physical realm. Only when God became man did man manage to attain to holiness and salvation. This is Christianity.

I'm not saying that this was Blake's intention. Blake's theology is troubling enough that we should never read him without a healthy bit of skepticism and caution. But when we read these sentences, we can wonder if an understanding of Christ, albeit a twisted one, might not have been lurking in his thought.