Five present-day controversies

Front matter

By Cuartes E. JEFFrerson, D.D.

Nature Sermons .. . ... >. $1.50 Five Present-Day Controversies 1.50 Under! Twenty <5.) se eputet sO What the War Has Taught Us 1.50 Old Truths and New Facts. . 1.50

Roman Catholicism and the Ku Klux Klan. . Paper, net 25c.

Contents

.. Lwo. VIEWs OF THE BIBLE. . .» . 19

. EVOLUTION AND THE BooK oF GENESIS . 47

Roper VIRGIN BIRTH 325 oe ae eS CULE ISHLOF: CREEDG Wi) ot on nih et oh a kOe . ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND THE Ku

Preface

E have arrived at a season of religious controversy. This is a good sign. It proves that we are intellectually alive. Some

good people are afraid of controversy. They think it is an evil—an evidence of depravity. They do not realise that controversy is indispensable in a world of growing minds. It is the Lord’s doing, and instead of scoffing at it, or running away from it, we ought to accept it gladly as a part of the discipline of life. We all see that controversy is inevitable in politics and science. Our political progress has been won only through long and vigorous contention. Our Federal Constitution is a product of controversy. Fifty-five men debated, almost fiercely, every provision of it through four months, and it was finally adopted by the Colonies only after a heated and exciting discussion extending Over many months. Science has filled the world with her triumphs, but every step forward has been through battle. Conflicting schools have contended with each other vehemently, and out of the struggle have come assured and invaluable results.

To suppose that controversy in religion is reprehensible, and that inside the Christian Church it is lamentable and fatal, is to show a strange ignorance of the way in which the Church has advanced and added new dimensions to her life. All the Old Testament prophets were controversialists. They were in perpetual conflict, not only with the representatives of pagan religions round about them, but with men inside the Jewish Church. If the prophets had not contended unceasingly with the priests, the Jewish religion would have been smothered under ceremony and tradition.

All through His brief earthly career Christ was in controversy with the religious leaders of His day. He had certain ideas which He wished to establish, and He could not establish them without combating the ideas of prominent contemporaries. All His Apostles were controversialists, and they accepted their fate as something which Christ foretold. “Do not think,’ He had said, as He sent them out, “that your work will go forward in the midst of tranquillity. It will not be peace, but a sword. You will make your way in the midst of dissension, and controversies will tear even families to pieces.”

Paul was one of the mightiest controversialists of all history. If he had not fought with all his might against men in the Church whose ideas he felt sure made void the Gospel of Christ, the Christian religion might have been strangled in its cradle. Only dead ages in history have been quiet. Whenever the Church is awake it is a Church militant, combating false or outgrown ideas, always contending for a larger and fuller life. The ages in which it has been peculiarly alert and mentally aggressive, are the ages in which strong men have contended valiantly for ideas which clashed with current opinion.

The Nicene Creed is a product of controversy. The ablest men in the Church were divided, and the conception of Christ’s relation to God had to be worked out. The result of the contest is embodied in the Nicene Creed.

Our New Testament Canon was arrived at after long discussion. Some of our books with difficulty got in, and others almost got in and finally failed. How could a Canon of Scripture ever have been formed if keen and discriminating minds had not by mental toil achieved clean-cut conclusions, and then been willing to defend these conclusions against all comers? It is foolish, therefore, to disparage or to fear controversy. It may not be pleasant, but it works out many a blessing. Those who sniff at it, and call it a squabble or a wrangle or a quarrel or a futile waste of time, do not set a high value on truth. They prefer tranquility to intellectual progress. Because controversialists fall sométimes into ugly moods, some persons conclude that all controversy is of the devil. If a man cannot defend his position without losing his temper, and using bitter and un-christian words, it is not because controversy is a bad thing, but because he has an undisciplined spirit. It is not stating the truth and contending for it which has brought controversy into disrepute, but the petty and mean ways in which discussion has often been conducted by men who could not control their tongue, because they had never subdued their heart to the law of Christ. Controversy is a wholesome and advantageous thing when rival ideas or ideals are up for consideration, and he is not the highest type of Christian who is unwilling to pay whatever price such controversies involve.

For the last twenty years we have had quite too little controversy in our American Churches. We have, in order to escape dissension, allowed many things to drift. Our pulpit leaders have in too many cases kept silence on matters which ought to have been discussed, and have allowed traditions to retain their grip on minds which should have been delivered from them. It is a shame, for instance, that so many American Christians are belated in their view of the Scriptures. The seventeenth century theory of Inspiration is absolutely untenable—as completely discredited among those who know the facts as is the Ptolemaic astronomy. That theory must go, and every minister to whom the light has come, ought to do what he can to drive it out of the human mind. Either the Bible is inerrant, or it is not. ‘Those who believe it is not, are under bonds as lovers of the truth to build their conviction into the minds of those who are mistaken,

Is Christianity tied up to any particular theory of the method of creation? Is the Bible a book of science? Is the Book of Genesis in its ideas of creation binding on Christians? These are questions which will not down. They are important questions and deserve an answer. It is no more possible to laugh them down than it is to laugh back the tide. Why should we wish to ignore them? Why not face them and answer them? There are men of distinction who are doing their utmost to make the Bible a book of science, and to saddle on the Christian Church interpretations and conclusions which Christianity is not able to carry. Shall we let these men go unanswered? Shall we be content to busy ourselves with so-called social service, using our hands and our feet, allowing these great questions of the mind to go unnoticed? ‘That is the way to lose the new generation. Old people sometimes get tired of thinking, but young people never do. Youth has boundless curiosity concerning scientific questions, and thousands of young people want to know about the old stories in Genesis. Alas for the preacher who has nothing to say on these matters!

Was Jesus born of a virgin? Had Jesus an earthly father? Is it necessary to believe in the Virgin Birth in order to be a Christian—a church member—a minister of Christ? How dare we turn our back on questions like these? They are among the most practical questions of our day. They cannot be ignored. Somebody must answer them. Who is going to answer them if Christian ministers keep silence? ‘To run away from them is cowardice.

What are we going to do with the Apostles’ Creed? Shall we banish it from public worship? Is it dishonest to give old phrases new meanings? Is a man a hypocrite when he says he believes in the resurrection of the body, when the men who wrote that article believed one thing and he believes another? These are questions which thoughtful people all over the country are asking, and they have a right to ask them, and it is the duty of leaders of the Church to answer them. How can a man be a leader if he refuses to lead? How can he clarify the minds of others unless he clarifies his own, and having clarified it, sets forth his conclusions in language which all can understand?

Along with these questions of theology, there are questions of policy concerning which many minds are confused. One of them is—‘ What is the best way of curbing the encroachments of the Roman Catholic hierarchy?” Just now, it is unusually confident and aggressive. In various parts of Europe it is working with a vigour unknown since the Reformation, and in our own country it is pushing its ideas on the public mind, and putting forward efforts to enhance its prestige and its power with a cleverness and boldness which are exciting widespread alarm, What is the wise thing to do? Millions of American citizens believe that the only effective way of overcoming this mighty ecclesiastical machine, is by an oath-bound secret organisation. In this organisation are found members and ministers of our Protestant denominations. Are they pursuing a justifiable course? Is this the Christian thing to do? Here, then, is another question which demands an answer. It is easy to pass on and say nothing. But is that what a Christian minister ought to do? Membership in such an organisation is wise or it is foolish, and the leaders of the Christian Church ought to have an opinion in regard to it. If they have an opinion then laymen have a right to know what that opinion is.

These are five of the great controversies of our day. I did not prepare these discourses with the intention of publishing them, but the demand for them has been so urgent, and has come from so many parts of the country that I am giving them to the publisher with the hope that whether all my readers agree or not with the conclusions I have arrived at, they may be stimulated by what I have written to think more earnestly and fruitfully on these high and perplexing themes.

Cray: New York.

T TWO VIEWS OF THE BIBLE

I TWO VIEWS OF THE BIBLE *

N the first chapter of his Second Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul uses an expression which to me seems an admirable state-

ment of the function of a Christian minister. He says to his Corinthian friends—‘‘ We do not have lordship over your faith, we are helpers of your joy.” He has written somewhat positively, as was his custom to do, and on reading it over, what he has written sounds a trifle dogmatic, and so he throws in this apologetic sentence— “We ”—that is, Silas, Timothy and I—“do not want to lord it over your faith, we are simply helpers of your joy. You stand fast in your own faith.” In other words, every man must have a faith of his own. No other man can give it to him, but another man may be able to help him clarify his faith, strengthen it, and defend it. ‘That is the function I hope to perform in these sermons. I shall not attempt to dictate to anybody what he is under obligation to believe, but I should like to assist him in arriving at con-

* Preached in the Broadway Tabernacle, Sunday morning, February 3, 1924.

clusions which will contribute to his freedom and peace and joy.

We begin with the Bible. The Bible is the stormcentre of the religious world in our generation. All the great religious controversies which are now raging are rooted in the Scriptures. There are two views of the Bible contending for supremacy, or, in other words, two views of Inspiration. No body of men in the Christian Church is denying the inspiration of the Bible. That point is not up for discussion. All members of our Evangelical Churches are agreed that the Bible is inspired— that it is the greatest book in the world, the best book and the most useful—the immeasurably precious treasure of the Christian Church. The only question which is stirring the minds of thoughtful men today is the question as to how the Bible is inspired. What is the nature of the inspiration, and to what extent does it go? Before one plunges into any controversy, it is desirable that he should see clearly just what the point at issue is. The question before us is— What theory of Inspiration shall we hold?”

The first theory about which we are to think may be called the “dictation” theory. According to this theory, the Bible is a dictated book. It was dictated by God. God wanted to deliver a message to mankind, and so He chose certain men to whom He dictated His message, and the men have written down His message in documents which constitute our present Bible. This view of the Bible is clear, and easily understood. We know what dictation means. When a man dictates a message he makes use of an amanuensis. ‘he amanuensis does not supply any of the ideas or any of the words. The message belongs entirely to the man who does the dictating, and the message is his from beginning to end. If a man does not have an amanuensis he uses his own pen. ‘The pen is an instrument in his hand—not at all responsible for what he says. And just so is an amanuensis an instrument which the dictator makes use of. He is a “pen man.” According to one view of the Bible, the men who wrote the Bible were “pen men.’’ God dictated the message and these men wrote it down. According to this theory, the Bible is God’s Book. It is not man’s book. It is a Divine book and not a human book. It is the “ Word of God.” That is a title which has been applied to it for hundreds of years. Many persons still make use of it. It is an appropriate title to use if you hold the dictation theory. If the Bible is a dictated book, the whole Bible belongs to God. Every book of the sixty-six books is His, and every paragraph and every sentence in every book. They are all His, and because they are His, they are equally authoritative. In a book which God has dictated there can be no errors. Infinite Wisdom could not dictate mistakes. If God dictated the Bible, then the Bible is infallible. It is the final authority.

You cannot go beyond the Bible for the reason that you cannot go beyond God. God, in the Scriptures, has given the world His final message. ‘This is the dictation theory stated in the baldest terms. Very few persons probably hold it in that extreme form. Whenever a large number of people hold any theory, they hold it with different degrees of tenacity and strictness. The dictation theory has many modifications. Almost every one is willing to admit that there are errors in the Bible which is in our possession.

For many hundred years the Bible was tran- ‘scribed from one skin to another by copyists, and it was impossible to keep errors from creeping in. There are errors in the Bible due to the carelessness of copyists. Moreover, the Bible has been translated from two languages into English, and the translators were not infallible. ‘They have here and there made mistakes. Every one is willing to grant that there are errors in the Scripture due to the .fallibility of translators. And then many persons are willing to admit that it was ideas and not words which God dictated. God gave an idea, and allowed His amanuensis to clothe it as he chose. - Every Bible writer was at liberty to make use of his own vocabulary, and to employ his own individual style. In this way we can account for the fact that Isaiah writes in one way, Jeremiah in another, and that both of them differ widely from Amos and Hosea. We all know that Paul does not write like

John, nor John like Peter, from which we may infer that God did not dictate words. His dictation was confined to the ideas. The old doctrine of verbal dictation has well-nigh disappeared. But after all these modifications have been made, this theory remains—the dictation theory. The Bible is the “ Word of God ”—authoritative in its every part—the infallible guide of mankind.

This is the traditional view of that part of the Christian world in which we have all grown up. This was the view, if not of our fathers and mothers, at least of our grandparents. Nearly every one of us can remember some saintly grandfather or grandmother, or uncle or aunt, who made a practice of reading the Bible through every year, beginning always with the Book of Genesis, and never halting until arriving at the end of Revelation. To be sure it was hard reading in many places, but this did not deter the brave-hearted Bible reader. It was very dull in Leviticus, and very dry in Numbers. There were long stretches of desert in the Books of the Chronicles, but the reader plodded patiently forward, feeling that God must be pleased because such reverence was being shown to His Word. ‘These good people of the earlier day read the Bible after this fashion, because the preachers held the dictation theory. They believed the whole Bible to be the Word of God, and had no hesitation in dipping into the Scriptures at any point for a sentence by which to establish any idea which they wished to lodge in the minds of their hearers. Many of the sermons preached a hundred and two hundred years ago are insufferably dull to us because they are little more than a string of Biblical quotations. The minister started out with something he wished to prove, and he proved it by making a miscellaneous collection of quotations taken from all parts of the Bible. Esther was just as authoritative as Isaiah, and First Kings was as reliable as Hosea. The earliest portions of the Old Testament stood on the same level as the latest portions of the New Testament, because all alike were the Word of God. The preacher used the Bible in this way because this was the way in which the theologians used it. When you pick up the Confessions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, you find that every article in them is supported by quotations from the Scriptures. It is interesting to note that no distinction whatever is made between the Old Testament and the New, or between one Book of the Old Testament and another Book. ‘The theologians made no distinction when it came to quoting the Scriptures, for the reason that it was their con-~ viction that all the Books of the Bible were the Word of God. This, then, is the traditional view, and it survives to the present hour. ‘There are many people in all parts of the country who hold the dictation theory of Inspiration, and in some parts of the country it is the dominant view.

Whenever you hear a person say he “ believes the Bible from cover to cover,” or that he “always takes the Bible as it reads,” you may confidently infer that that person holds the dictation theory of Inspiration. When you hear any one say that “ the Bible which was good enough for his mother and his grandmother is good enough for him,” you may conclude that that person believes that the whole Bible is the authoritative and infallible Word of God.

Over against this dictation theory of Inspiration, there is another theory, and for lack of a better word I am going to call it the “illumination theory.” According to this theory God is Light, and since God is Light, the Holy Spirit is Light, and when the Holy Spirit comes into a human mind, that mind is lighted up, or, as we usually say, “inspired.”” A man is inspired when he sees things more clearly than other men see them, or when he sees some things which other men do not see at all. If a man sees more or less clearly spiritual realities and spiritual distinctions and spiritual relations which escape the attention of the average man, we call that man inspired. The men who wrote the Bible were inspired because their minds were lighted up by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

According to this theory there must be degrees of inspiration just as there are degrees of illumination. You can illumine a room brilliantly, or you can illumine a room partially, or you can illumine a room very dimly. You may let all the gas jets burn, or you may turn half the gas jets out, or you may allow only one gas jet to burn. In the first case, you will see everything in the room with great distinctness. In the second case you will see many things clearly while other things lie in shadow. In the last case many things will escape your eyes. And so if we accept the theory of illumination, we are not reluctant to admit that some Bible writers were more illumined than others. Some saw distinctly, and some saw only dimly. And because of this difference in the degree of illumination we cannot put all the Bible books on the same level. They are not all equally authoritative. They are not equally binding on the conscience of living men. There was some light in the minds of the patriarchs, but not sufficient for them to be greatly troubled because they were polygamists or because when it served their purpose they could tell lies. ‘There was more light in the minds of the judges, especially Samuel, and there was still more light in the minds of the prophets, while the illumination became far more intense in the minds of the Apostles. And when we come to Jesus of Nazareth we find His whole mind so flooded with light that He could say—‘I am the light of the world.”

If we hold the theory of illumination, we are able to conceive that Inspiration must be progressive. Truth comes into the minds of men as the sun comes into the eyes of the world. The dawn begins with only the faintest tinge of light low down in the eastern sky, but little by little the sun climbs, crowning first the hills with glory, and later on filling the deepest valleys with light. Thus came the Sun of Righteousness into the consciousness of the human race. At first the light was faint and uncertain, but little by little it grew until things that could not be seen at all at first, became later on clear as the sun at noon.

If Inspiration is indeed progressive, we shall not be surprised to find that in the earlier stages of Hebrew history there were many crudenesses of conception, and many rudenesses of conduct, which have long since been left behind. Because the Jews believed a certain thing in the morning of their national life, it does not follow that that idea is still binding on us; and because good men did certain things three or four thousand years ago, it does not follow that they are examples for men of our own generation. Many things in the Bible have long since been outgrown. Many ideas have been exploded, and many practices have been discarded. We all see, without difficulty, that the great mass of Levitical ritualistic legislation does not belong to us. The civil legislation of the Jews has also been left behind, the political ideas are antiquated, all of the science of the Bible has been outgrown, many of the moral ideas of the Scriptures have been left far behind. This is because Inspiration is progressive, and the Spirit is guiding humanity into wider ranges of truth. According to this theory of Inspiration, we are not to consider the Bible as the “ Word of God,” but rather the literary record of the progressive revelation of the character and purposes of the Eternal.

Possibly, at this point, some one may ask what difference does it make which of these two theories aman holds? The answer is that up to a certain point it makes no difference whether a man believes in the Ptolemaic astronomy or the Copernican astronomy. He may believe that the earth is flat, or he may believe that it is round, and in both cases he can live a happy and successful life. In my boyhood I knew a farmer in Western Pennsylvania who held the Ptolemaic theory. He was a sensible man, and a noble man—a member of the Christian Church, and respected and honoured by all who knew him. But he steadfastly maintained that the earth was flat, and that the sun and moon and stars revolved around it. He believed all this because the Bible said so. The Bible, to him, was the “Word of God,” and he was unwilling to accept the opinions of the astronomers when they set up their opinions against the opinions expressed in the Scriptures. And what harm did this do him? He sheared his sheep, and fed his pigs just like all the other farmers, and got just as much pork and wool as any of them got. He sowed his grain and reaped his grain just as his neighbours did, and his barns were just as full as theirs. The seasons came and went for him, as they did for other men —summer following spring and spring coming after winter, and winter following autumn. Spring laid her blossoms at his feet; summer filled his lap with fruits; autumn stored his barns with grain; and winter spread over his fields a blanket of spotless white. ‘The sun rose and set for him; the moon waxed and waned for him; and the constellations—cohorts in the shining army of the Lord of hosts—marched nightly across the fields of blue for him. And so it is with one’s view of Inspira- -tion. One man may believe that the Bible is a dictated book, and the other man believe that it is an illumined book; and both men will find it a lamp to their feet, and a light to their path. To each man it will be meat and drink. To each man it will give comfort, strength and joy—both men by reading it will be able to go down into the valley of the shadow of death saying—“I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.”’ Both men will be able, because they have feasted on this Book, to say to the King of Terrors—“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Uptoa certain point it makes no difference to which of these two theories you subscribe.

But if you wish to explain the phenomena presented by the Bible—if you wish to account for certain things which are to be found in the Bible— then the dictation theory will not serve you. So long as a man simply feeds his pigs and shears his sheep, sows his fields and reaps them, it does not matter whether he follows Ptolemy or Copernicus. But if he wishes to understand why there are eclipses of the sun, and why there are eclipses of the moon; if he wants to explain the motions of the planets; if he wishes to know why the constellations hold one position in midsummer and a different position in midwinter, then he must let the Ptolemaic theory go. He cannot satisfy his mind, if he wishes to use his mind upon the stars, with the theory of Ptolemy. It was the astronomers who first protested against the Ptolemaic theory, and decreed that it must go. It had to go because it crumbled in the presence of the facts. It made no difference to the common masses of men whether Ptolemy was right or Copernicus. They could marry, and give in marriage; they could eat, drink and make merry. They could buy and sell and get gain just as readily under the Ptolemaic astronomy as under the Copernican astronomy, but every man who became a student of the stars had to surrender the Ptolemaic theory. He was forced to become a disciple of Copernicus.

So it is with the Bible. The average man is not a student of the Bible. The things he finds in it do not disturb him. He gives his life to certain forms of work, and after working hours he gives himself up to certain forms of pleasure. The difficulties and mysteries of the Bible do not trouble him. But if a man becomes a student of the Bible and tries to explain it to his own mind, he is obliged to surrender the dictation theory of the Scriptures, and look around for another theory which will fit the facts. That is why the protest against the dictation theory came, first of all, from the Bible scholars in our theological seminaries. Here were groups of men whose business it was to make a study of the Scriptures, and when they studied them earnestly and thoroughly, they discovered that the dictation theory was not tenable.

It is stated in the Scriptures that God made the earth in six days. We are sure He did not dictate that. We are told, once in Exodus and once in Deuteronomy, that He wrote the Ten Commandments with his own finger on two tables of stone. We are convinced that He did not dictate that. It is written by a Hebrew historian in the tenth chapter of the Book of Joshua that in answer to a prayer of Joshua, “the sun hasted not to go down about a whole day.” It is not likely that God ever dictated that. When you turn to the New Testament you will find Paul in the fourth chapter of his First Letter to the Thessalonians saying that the Lord is going to come down out of heaven with a shout, and that when He comes the Christians who are dead are going to come out of their graves first, that these risen Christians, along with the Christians who have not died, are going to be caught up in the clouds where they will meet the Lord in the air. Nothing like that ever happened, and therefore we are very sure God did not dictate that. In the last Book of the New Testament, we find at the very beginning of it these words—“ The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to shew unto his servants, things which must shortly come to pass.” Now, many of the things written in the Book of the Revelation did not come to pass, nor have they come to pass yet, nor will some of them ever come to pass, and therefore we may be sure that God did not dictate the last Book in the New Testament. It is difficult to believe that He dictated any of them, and therefore it is our duty to let the dictation theory of the Scriptures go.