Christus auctor ; a manual of Christian evidences

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction 1-8

I. Christianity Offers Credentials. The Evidences. The Reasonable Use of Reason 9-16

Introduction

"Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." — St. Jude.

"Stand fast in the faith." — St. Paul to the Corinthians.

"That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ." — St. Paul to the Ephesians.

"Nor will the Higher Criticism disturb the conclu- Bion of our common sense. It has run its course and perished in the counter-currents of its own antagonisms. Acids and alkalies of hostile theories have neutralized each other. Opposing electrical forces have adjusted themselves into equilibrium. The sky is cleared by its own violence, and we may once more discern plain truth by plain reason." — John McDowell Leavitt.

INTRODUCTION

Blaise Pascal in his Pen sees has left fragmentary materials for an apologetic treatment of Christianity, which he hoped to have made the work of his life. For so great a task he declared ten healthy years were required, while God had given to him only four sick ones.

For more than twenty years, as the writer of these lines has had opportunity, he has pondered the Evidences of Christianity and studied many of the masterpieces of the literature of the subject. But they have been busy years, crowded with toil and care, which denied him the leisure, if he had possessed the capacity, required for attaining the learning necessary to a just presentation of even the outlines of the great argument.

From the standpoint of an amateur in apologetics, however, he has felt the need of a treatise in which the Evidences of Christianity should be presented in a different form from that of any with which he was acquainted. The older writers have seemed to take too much for granted, and besides, since their days the field of controversy has been entirely changed. Not a few of the modern writers, on the other hand,

4 The Policy of Concessions

have appeared to grant too much and to make concessions to rationalism which may be justly regarded as scarcely less than betrayals of truth.

This modern policy of concessions to rationalism, made in the interest of what has been called "a distressed faith,"1 is unwise and unnecessary. It must be resisted and reversed, or a devouring criticism, having mutilated and mangled the Holy Scriptures, "the Oracles of God," will presently proceed to an attempt to discrown and dethrone even the very Christ of the Prophets and Apostles himself. For, as Bishop Ellicott truly forewarns the Christian world, "The same spirit that has found irreconcilable difficulties in the supernatural element of the Old Testament will ultimately challenge the evidence on Avhich the Incarnation rests. And the more so as all the age-long testimonies of the Old Testament, all the foreshadowings of all the promises that were greeted from afar, all the sure words of prophecy, will have been explained away; and there will remain nothing pave two narratives, which, it will be said, bear so patently the traces of illusion, or, at the least, cf an idealism expressing itself under the guise of alleged facts, that the doctrine of the Word become flesh, the doctrine which is the hope,

'Ellicott's "Christus Comprobator," page 11.

A Stand Must Be Made 5

light and. life of the universe will be surrendered to the last demands of what will have now become not a distressed, but a ruined faith. When that blessed doctrine is surrendered, the total eclipse of faith will have commenced and the shadows of the great darkness will be fast sweeping over the forlorn and desolate soul."2

Already indeed a tendency is observed in certain quarters "to minimize the knowledge of our Lord in His human nature/'3 and to set up a plea of nescience for Him in order to offset his testimony to the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures, to the end that the assumptions of a destructive criticism may not be embarrassed by open and undisguised conflict with Him while still calling him Lord.

Against all this mistaken movement of theological compromise a firm stand must be made, if a shred of Christianity is to be left for transmission to the generations to come, or even if the faith of the present generation is to be maintained. At this present moment over wide areas of Christendom there are visible the characteristic parasites of a dying religion — mistletoe growths, such as Mormonism, Spiritualism, and Christian Science. Unless the

'"Christus Comprobator," page 31. "Ibid., pages 85-96 and 97.

6 Christianity or Superstition, Which?

influence of recent "destructive criticism" is speedily overcome the Christian world must prepare for an age of the most grotesque superstitions. It can not return to paganism — the gods of the heathen world are dead beyond the hope of resurrection. But after it has renounced the guidance of the Bible, it will be forced to follow the lead of a blind but deathless instinct of religion into an era of ghosts and goblins. When the God of Samuel has been forgotten, having been dissolved in precipitate and corrosive speculations of "redactions" and "redactors," the witch of Endor will be resorted to, or mayhap multitudes will fly to the superstition of an infallible Pope, to whom John Henry Newman fled in order to down the spectres of his own raising. When in riotous rationalism Christendom has wasted the substance of a rich revelation inherited from the ages past, the prodigal will awake amid a famine — "a famine not of bread, but of hearing the words of the Lord" — and will be forced to starve, or to join himself to some citizen of the far land whither he has heedlessly wandered.

Forefending against a calamity so great, a stand must be made around the person of Jesus. His authority must be made the bulwark of the faith "once (once for all) delivered to

"Christ the Central Evidence" 7

the saints." As the Reverend Principal Cairns has truly said: "In the great struggle between faith and doubt the key of the position is the person of Christ himself, and so long as the obvious meaning of the Gospel narrative as to the life, character and work of that central figure can be accepted 'as fact and not delusion/ no weapon lifted against Christianity can prevail."* Jesus is the true Defender of the Faith. He is the refuge of Truth in this "age of doubt," as he hath been its "dwelling place in all generations."

From the standpoint of this confident belief have been written the pages which follow. ~No claim of originality is made for what is contained in them. Most of it can be found scattered throughout the apologetic literature of our own and other lands. It is, however, here brought together in a form of argument not hitherto adopted by the evidence writers, as far as the present writer is acquainted with them. The strength of the discussion is in the method of its structure, and not in the originality of its materials.

It is put forth in the hope that it may steady the faith of some and restore the confidence of other wavering souls, and thus honor Him

'"Christ the Central Evidence of Christianity," page 1, in "Present Day Tracts," Vol. I.

8 The Standpoint of this Writer

"whom the glo»ious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets and the noble army of the Martyrs praise; whom the Holy Church throughout the world doth acknowledge ; who is the King of glory, the Everlasting Son of the Father." Unto Him be glory and power and dominion "throughout all the generations of the ages of the ages!"

CHRISTIANITY OFFERS CREDENTIALS. THE EVIDENCES. THE REASONA- BLE USE OF REASON

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." — St. Paul.

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." — St. John.

"Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" — Zophar the Naamathite.

"We must enlarge our mind to the magnitude of divine mysteries, not limit them to the narrowness of our understanding." — Lord Bacon.

"The last step of reason is to perceive that there are infinitely many things which surpass her; and if she does not attain this knowledge, she is weak indeed! " — Pascal.

"The whole compass and system of the Christian Evidences unquestionably has nothing like it, nor approaching to it in the annals of the world. It is a phenomenon standing alone." — Davison.

Christianity Offers Credentials. The Evidences. The Reasonable Use of Reason.

Christianity is the only one of the religions of the earth which approaches man as a reasonable being, offering credentials to certify its divine authority when demanding his submission. There are Evidences of Christianity, but no evidences of Buddhism, or Brahminism, or Mohammedanism.

The Evidences of Christianity are the proofs by which its claims to be accepted as the revelation of the only true God are attested.

Evidences appeal to reason, and Christianity submits its Credentials to the scrutiny of reason, insisting that the investigation of its claims shall be carefully and even severely conducted. It would not have men renounce the use of this God-given faculty in dealing with the highest and most solemn interest of life — religion. On the contrary, it demands that men shall employ reason, that spurious revelations may be exposed, the true faith established, and the genuine revelation correctly

interpreted.

12 Credentials, Not Contents, Considered

But while demanding the use of reason, Christianity insists that reason shall not be used unreasonably. In seeking to ascertain if God has made a revelation to man, and if so, what that revelation means, investigation can not be too severe. In determining this great question of fact, no room must be left for delusion or fraud. But in settling this question the credentials and not the contents of the revelation are under consideration. The hypothesis of a revelation is, that it is given to impart knowledge which the unaided reason is unable to discover. It begins where reason falters and fails. "It is therefore to be expected that it should communicate some truths not to be fully comprehended by the human understanding. But these we may safely receive upon the authority which declares them without danger of violating truth."1 "We have a right to sit in judgment over the credentials of heaven's ambassador, but we have no right to sit in judgment over the information he gives us."* It is an unreasonable use of reason to reject a revelation in Avhole or in part, because its contents do not accord with some a priori notion of what it ought or ought not to contain.

"'Theological Institutes," by Richard Watson, Vol. I., page 113.

"Chalmers's "Evidences of Christianity," "Vol. II., page 445.

An Absurd Use of Reason 13

Before the authority of reason may be justly allowed so enormous an extension it should be shown that the human mind is able to construct a philosophy of the Infinite, and formulate an ethical system perfect enough to test divine purity. But if human intelligence were competent to achieve successfully so great a task the necessity of a revelation would not exist. If such were its power, long ago men by searching would have found out God, and without a word from above they would have known the Almighty to perfection. But the human reason has no such power. Such use of it is unreasonable, for it makes the human mind the standard of the possible, the true and the good, and that too in the very moment of its confession of weakness and insufficiency. Such a use of reason is "as absurd as a man's making his visible horizon the limit of space."8

To the contents of a revelation human reason may not do more than apply the general tests of natural theology, viz. : that the revelation be consistent with itself and with the axioms of thought within which mental life and action are possible at all ; that it be not immoral but consistent with the ends of holiness, for which only a revelation can be conceived to exist ; that it

•Charles Hodges's "Systematic Theology," Vol. I., page 50.

14 Reasonable Tests of Revelation

be adapted to the wants of man as a free, moral agent, not commanding his obedience without sufficient evidence that the command is from heaven, nor constraining his obedience by coercive proofs that would leave no room for freedom of thought and of action. These general criteria Reason is under the most solemn obligations to Truth to apply with the utmost care and caution. Before by these tests it denounces a revelation as absurd, immoral or superstitious, it must be sure that its attitude is entirely judicial, and not that of a defendant in the dock pleading against the jurisdiction of the court and the validity of the law which threatens his condemnation. All disturbing influences arising from intellectual pride, mental waywardness, or moral eccentricity must be severely excluded while the credentials of that which claims to be a message from heaven are scrutinized.

The office of reason in religion we conclude is to determine the following questions, and these only: 1. Has a Revelation come from God ? 2. If so, where is it ? 3. Having found it, what is its real meaning?

In the settlement of these questions the processes of reason can not be too severe or too painstaking. These matters are issues of life and death. They affect the life that now is

Reason's Office and Duty 15

and that which is to come. They touch duty and destiny. They are too great for trifling, too far-reaching for man to incur any risks of mistake by renouncing reason, or by employing reason unreasonably. On the peril of his life he must pass upon them reverently, seriously, sincerely, and settle them for time and for eternity.

He can not after the manner of the Romanists transfer this responsibility to an Infallible Pope or to Infallible Councils. They are but men as he is a man. ISTo sanctification, or ordination, or aggregation, of fallibility can ever produce infallibility. Every soul must bear its own responsibility, and enjoy its own freedom. There is no room for the office of an attorney between any man and God. Every man must find and accept God's truth for himself.

On the other hand, he can not after the manner of the Rationalists undertake to revise God's revelation, or to reject it, because of any preconceptions of his own. He must settle these great questions of fact upon the evidence which lies before him. If he finds as a matter of fact that God has made a revelation, he must obediently receive it, and he must reverently seek the true interpretation of it. He must earnestly inquire, has God made a revelation? Where is it ? What does it mean ?

16 The Questions Herein Considered

The last of these questions belongs to the science of interpretation — Hermeneutics — with which the pending discussion is not concerned. The first two includes all that is involved in the Evidences of Christianity — Apologetics — and are the matters considered in the investigation which follows.

II

ASSUMING THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD, THE ANTECEDENT PROBABILITY OF A REVELATION 2

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." — Psalmist.

"O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down!" — Isaiah.

"Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat. Behold, I

go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I can not perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I can not behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand that I can not see him: but he knoweth the way that I take." — Job.

"If He has, or rather is a Heart; if the moral qualities which are discoverable in ourselves have any transcendent and majestic counterpart in Him; then supposing the question whether he has given a revelation to be for us still unanswered, or even unexamined, we do well to traverse all the corridors of history, to take counsel with the current wisdom and experience of the living, and to cross-question the recorded convictions of the dead, until we see reason to hope that a solution is at last at hand; until *the day dawn and the day-star arise in our hearts.'" — Canon Liddon.

II

Assuming the Existence of a God, the Antecedent Probability of a Revelation.

There is no God ; there is a God, but He has made no revelation of Himself to man ; there is a God and He has made a revelation of Himself to man. The foregoing are all the hypotheses possible to the human mind on the subject of God and a divine revelation. The alternatives of thought are therefore some form of Atheism, Deism, Pantheism or Revealed Religion. ~No account need be taken of any phase of Agnosticism, for it excludes itself from consideration at this stage of the discussion by its non-committal attitude on the question of the divine existence. We are assuming the existence of a God — which Agnosticism affirms is unknown and unknowable.

For the present we assume there is a God, and raise the question, Is it probable that he has made a revelation of himself to man ?

All the forces of Deism and Pantheism, by whatsoever name called, answer with one accord, No. Is this answer reasonable ?

If we think of God at all we must think of Him as infinitely powerful and infinitely good.

20 Atheism Better Than Deism

Impotence or evil we can not attribute to Him by whom all things were made and do now exist. But if He is both good and powerful He will not leave such a creature as man without all the light required for life and happiness. In the benevolence of God and the needs of man lies the antecedent probability of a revelation. As Canon Liddon says, most truly: "If we really believe God to be a Moral Being, we shall be prepared to find that he has spoken to us. The strength of the confidence with which we anticipate a revelation will vary exactly with our faith in the morality of God."1 And Atheism is less repugnant to reason than belief in an immoral God, or in a God morally neutral. It is more reasonable to believe that there is no God, than to believe that there is a God, and that he has left such a being as man, beset with the circumstances of sin and pain and death, without a word of guidance amid conditions so tragic and so perplexing. Man's origin, duty and destiny present problems, the solution of which vitally affects his welfare, but lies quite beyond his natural powers.

God's creatures of the lower orders, the

brutes, having instinct to guide them, and being

incapable of the sin and suffering possible to

man, do not need and could not receive a di-

"'Some Elements of Religion," page 205.

Deism and Pantheism Unreasonable 21

vine revelation. That they are without such supernatural guidance does not impeach the divine goodness. But man is appointed to a higher and more perilous position. To him is given the lofty and dangerous faculty of free agency, with all the possibilities of dreadful failure or glorious success. To him light from above is as needful as the air is to the fowls that fly, or as the water is to whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. If he be left without a revelation from God, no argument can clear his Maker of the charge of cruelty. Deism, which claims that there is a God but he has not revealed himself, puts an "immeasurably greater strain upon faith"2 than Christianity with all its miracles. And the attitude of Pantheism as to a revelation of God is essentially the same as that of Deism, with this difference, that the latter believes in a silent God outside the world, "banished" from his creation, while the former claims a dumb God, who is "only a fine name for the universe,"' beneath which he is "buried." Human nature and human needs cry out against such gods.

But it may be asked, Is an obiective revelation necessary for man,' and is the necessity for it such as to create the presumption that it has

"'The Foundations of Faith," by Rev. Henry Wace, A.M., page 58. •Liddon's "Some Elements of Religion," pages 63-68.

22 Is a Written Revelation Probable?

been given ? Is a written revelation probable ? May not reason, conscience, the light of nature, and the divine influence which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, be sufficient to meet his needs ? Men have been in the world certainly as long as sixty centuries, sinning, suffering and dying, and most of them have had no written revelation during all that time. ISTot less than twenty-five hundred years of the age of man elapsed before the books of Moses and Job were written. If a written revelation is necessary, why was its beginning so long delayed, and why was it not given in full at the outset ? Why is the written revelation not universal ? Why should millions sit in the region and shadow of death waiting for the light to reach them by the tardy compassion of the favored nations to whom were first committed the oracles of God?

A perfect answer to all these questions it is not possible to give. Such knowledge is too high for us. It is enough to say that the analogies of Nature would lead us to expect a revelation to be given to some in trust for the benefit of all. There is no equality of gifts, natural or supernatural. High ends of benevolence and brotherhood are doubtless served by sending the greatest blessings to all men by the hands of some men. Moreover, the purpose and

The Best Revelation for Man 23

plan involved in the existence of free moral agency must not be set aside by the method of a revelation, since the only object of a revelation is the moral well-being of the race. The means must be shaped to accomplish, and not to defeat, its own end. The question is not what God can do in the abstract, but what He can do in dealing with a free agent, having purposed that creation should reach its goal in virtuous free agency. The hypothesis of the divine goodness and the divine omnipotence does not require a method of revelation that should be best for some possible being. It requires the best form of revelation for the actual being, Man. A good God must not only give to his child, Man, light, but he must give the best light in the best way, Man being such a creature as he is.

There are but three methods which God could adopt in making a revelation to man:

1. Reveal himself independently to each man.

2. Reveal himself to one or more men, and have the revelation transmitted to all others orally.

3. Or make a revelation and transmit it from the few to the many by written as well as spoken words. Which is the best ?

If God should adopt exclusively the first method, he must reveal himself to each man by unmiraculous suggestion and influence, or ap-

24 Revelation Must Be Public

proach every* man with impressive phenomena attesting the immediate presence of Deity. If the revelation were given by nnmiraculous suggestion it would incur the peril of being unheard and unheeded. Moreover, since in such a case every man would hear for himself alone, with no other eye to see the divine presence, and no other ear to hear the divine voice, depravity might without the fear of detection report falsely the divine utterance. Presently the world would be filled with contradictory revelations, mutually destructive, and every vestige of true religion would be swept away by a flood worse than all the polytheisms of the ages. By such a method men would invert the confusion of tongues at Babel, and confound the speech of Deity. God himself would be made to appear polyglot, and monotheism would give place to polytheism. ~No fair tower of faith between heaven and earth would then be possible, nor city of God among men. A revelation to be of any use must be public, not private and personal.

On the other hand, if the divine approach to each man were publicly attested by miraculous manifestations, theophanies would become so common and universal that they would cease to have any power to impress man or attest the divine Word. Or they would come with such

Oral Tradition Inadequate 25

manifold terrors as to overpower the will and destroy free agency. In either case all the ends of revelation would be defeated by the method of revelation.

Clearly, therefore, the needs of man fix the method of divine revelation. Mercy to all requires that the revelation be given to the few, and the solemn obligation of giving it uncorrupted to the many be laid upon the men who receive the divine communications. It is equally clear that human instinct, as well as divine impulsion, would inevitably lead to the committing of these revelations to writing. The piety that would commend one to God as a proper medium for a revelation, as well as the divine authority which gave the revelation, would forbid exposing the heavenly word to the chances of oral tradition. The degenerate faiths among men to-day witness to the student of comparative theology how ineffectual is tradition to preserve the Word of the Lord against human corruptions. The common rule of evidence, which excludes hearsay testimony, points to the unreliability of statements transmitted by word of mouth, and shows how little authority a revelation resting exclusively on tradition would have among men.

"The man with a book" is looked for and longed for in all lands. This universal demand

26 "A Boole Religion" Required

for a written revelation has produced the almost universal supply which we see in the Zend-Avestas, Vedas, Korans and Bibles of the world. The contribution by the Jews of their sacred books, their only contribution to the permanent possessions of the race, has set them apart among the nations in sublime singularity as a "lonely people with their lonely book." And the majestic purity of their faith amid world-wide superstition attests the superior value and power of a written revelation over all oral tradition.

From the foregoing considerations, the dogma of Deism, that God has not made a revelation to man, does not seem reasonable. The presumptions of reason arising from man's needs and God's goodness are all against it. Assuming the existence of a God, the antecedent probabilities lead us to expect that somewhere and some-when he has made a revelation to man, and that it has been committed to writing. None but a "book religion" seems to satisfy the requirements of man's need. To use the clear, cogent words of a learned theologian: "The presumptions in favor of a divine revelation extend to its commitment to writing. No one would trust an important communication, designed for all men and all time, to uncertain oral tradition. Everybody knows how un-

A Book Religion or Constant Miracle 27

trustworthy are all unwritten anecdotes and memorabilia. How few of the reputed sayings and acts of Moses and the prophets, of Christ and the Apostles, outside of the Scriptures have come down to our times, and there is not one of them entitled to credit ! We should therefore naturally expect that if God revealed his will to prophets and evangelists, he would instruct them not only to make oral communications of them to the people of their own age, but also to commit them to writing, under the infallible superintendence of the same Power by whom they were revealed. Unless a constant miracle were wrought to keep the truth alive in the world, and preserve it unalloyed with error, its commitment to writing is the only conceivable method by which this end can be secured."4

But once the truth is committed to writing, and the writing has been accepted as a revelation from heaven, no miracle will be required to preserve it from corruption or from perishing. Pious zeal maybe relied upon to multiply copies of it, and an unmiraculous Providence may be trusted to protect the work of the consecrated zeal to which has been entrusted the miraculous communication. The God of Providence and

4Dr. Thomas O. Summers's "Systematic Theology," page 438.

28 The Boole His Peculiar Care

the God of Inspiration are not two Gods, but one, and we may be sure the one true God will not in his providential government of the world abandon the work of his own hands. His Supernatural Book will be the subject of his peculiar care. !Nor will He need the extraordinary means of miracle to preserve it. Miracle He will use to attest it in its origin, but the faith and love which it calls forth, together with his providential oversight, will be sufficient for its perpetuation. Hereby it will be so fixed that though heaven and earth pass away it will not pass.