The reaction against metaphysics in theology

Front matter

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER

THE REACTION AGAINST METAg PHYSICS IN THEOLOGY

Ico

Part I. The Nature and Motivation of the Reaction against Metaphysics in Theology

3. In Non-Christian Religions

4. In the New Testament

5. In the Ancient Catholic Church

6. In the Roman Catholic Church

7. In the Older Protestantism

8. In Religious Romanticism

9. In the Ritschlian Movement

10. In Positivism

11. In Pragmatism

Part II. Consequences to Religion of the Anti-Metaphysical Reaction

12. As Seen in the Early Church

13. As Seen in the "Double-Truth" Theory of Later Catholicism and Early Protestantism

14. As Seen in Kantianism and Its More Immediate Consequences

15. As Seen in Ritschlianism

16. As Seen in Pragmatism

I. Theology is the systematic expression of religious conviction, i.e., of belief with regard to the nature and activity of the deity, more particularly in so far as these are related to the vital interests of men.

In modern Protestant theology there are, in general, two methods, the conservative and the radical.1 The former emphasizes objectivity as opposed to the merely subjective. The latter stands for internality as distinct from all that remains external.2 But this distinction seems bound to disappear. The conservative is seeing ever more clearly the necessity of inner assurance; the radical, the importance of objective validity.

Conservatism in its original form recognized no distinction between biblical and systematic theology. All biblical statements, literally or allegorically interpreted, were suppposed to form, without further criticism, the content of Christian theology, which everyone was in duty bound to accept. As a matter of fact theologians usually made a selection of such texts as appealed to them most strongly, and made them determining, not only for theological construction, but also for the interpretation of all other Scripture passages. The necessity of allegorical and other arbitrary and unscientific methods of exegesis was transcended when once there was frankly recognized the distinction between a purely historical and a constructive or normative science — a distinction which was already implicit in Luther's critical evaluation of scriptural books according to the norm of the gospel. The difference between the two disciplines in question was originally felt to be, however, not so much a difference of form as of content. There were

1 It should be noted that the conservative method may be retained even when the content of the theology is radical, e.g., in Socinianism; while even one who is conservative as to content of his theology may dare to employ the radical method. In this section the terms "conservatism," "conservative theology," "conservative theologian," and their antitheses, where used without further qualification, do not refer to content3 but to method.

2 The term "objective" is here applied to that which is sufficiently confirmed or verified to be regarded as real and true. By "subjective" is meant that which is doubtful, because it is the unverified opinion of the subject. That is "internal" which has its evidence within one's own experience and thought, while that is "external" which has its evidence only in the experience and thought of another, if at all. The union of objectivity with internality is the desideratum.

i elements in the Bible that seemed to resist the unifying efforts of the system-builder, and this became one of the chief factors in making the transition from the biblical to the systematic fundamentally a process of subtraction of refractory and unassimilable elements.1 At first the endeavor was made to confine this elimination to certain phases of Old Testament thought. But once the subtraction principle was admitted, it soon assumed a more radical form, and was applied to all that could not readily be harmonized with what one felt compelled to believe on other than biblical grounds. Some felt free to apply the principle to all biblical materials save the recorded teachings of Jesus; others now give it application here also, assuming, however, that the parts pruned away do not represent the thought of Jesus but a misinterpretation of his teaching on the part of the primitive church; while still others — and here we have the conservative method in its most radical form — declare that even in what we must in fairness regard as quite probably the thought and teaching of Jesus there are elements which cannot find a place in the systematic theology of the modern Christian.

Still, even in its most radical form, this method intends to be conservative. It is generally considered "safe," as providing, supposedly, for the retention of all the elements of permanent value in primitive Christian belief. It thus has obvious advantages for the preacher. But, on the other hand, this gain in point of content would seem to be offset by a weakness with respect to certainty. How can the theologian know that he has not retained elements which may yet have to be eliminated? So far as his methodological principle is concerned, no distinction is made between what is either essential to faith or verifiable in some way, on the one hand, and that which, on the other hand, has simply not yet been proven unbelievable. As regards certainty, the former is reduced to the level of the latter.

The radical method is interested above all else in certainty. Rejecting all purely external authority, it seeks to set forth the religious convictions which have grown up out of the theologian's own experience and reflection. To those who pursue the conservative method, this other seems compelled to oscillate between a negative position and purely individual opinion in questions of religion. Of the method in its most

1 Parallel with the elimination of certain phases of biblical thought, there goes on a process of addition of certain elements from modern thought; but so long as the method remains in principle conservative, this addition is incidental, and, in the more conservative forms, unconscious. It is the necessity for subtraction that is a matter of concern to the theologian himself, and significant for our present purpose.

radical form this is doubtless largely true; but it is possible, even for the one who has adopted this radical principle, to enrich the positive content of his system not only without a loss of inner certainty, but even with a decided gain in objective validity. It is perhaps the chief merit of Ritschlianism that it has led the radical theology in this conservative direction. It has pointed out how the individual can, certainly without the loss of individual autonomy, respond to the ethico-religious appeal of the Christian gospel, and can appropriate to himself, through experience and reflection, those values which are cherished in the Christian community, and of which the New Testament Scriptures are the most original available expression. Thus directed, the radical theology moves by a process of addition toward a position ever more fully Christian in content, and this with a positive gain rather than loss with respect to certainty. The religious faith of the individual becomes, psychologically speaking, more certain and objective by being known to be essentially Christian.

But theology based upon this radical principle must be greatly enriched by a critical but sympathetic study of the most significant expressions of the Christian faith (notably the New Testament), if it is to compare favorably, so far as content is concerned, with the type of theology previously described. The question is constantly pertinent as to whether full justice has been done to the content of the gospel. Theoretically the two types of theology, the conservative type modified by the principle of subtraction, and the radical type modified by its principle of addition, should ultimately coincide as to content.1 But, as a matter of fact, there seem always to remain certain elements of biblical and ecclesiastical doctrine which the conservative method cannot exclude and the radical method cannot include, so long as the theology, whether conservative or radical, remains merely dogmatic and nonphilosophical. Consequently, when the two types of theology are brought into contact with each other, this residual content becomes problematic for both; and, in the case of the conservative theologian, a measure of uncertainty tends to arise with respect to the entire content of his system, simply because he has not from the beginning made certainty a primary consideration.

2. Before proceeding to investigate the reaction against meta-

1 The essential content in both is in a sense the same, for the conservative method starts from the classic expression (in the New Testament) of the Christian faith and experience, while the radical starts by expressing the faith and experience which have resulted from one's own response to the religio-ethical appeal of Jesus.

physics in theology,1 it will be well to seek some definition of the nature and sphere of metaphysics in general.

As a preliminary definition it may be said that metaphysics is the theory or science of reality. Mere dogmatic statements or bare practical postulates with regard to the nature of reality do not properly come within the category of the metaphysical. It is not always true, let us hope, that metaphysics is, as Bradley facetiously puts it, "the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct,"2 but it certainly aims to be a finding of reasons; it is fundamentally an intellectual or truthseeking process. In the words of Professor James, it is "an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly and consistently."3 This is not a complete definition, but it is true as far as it goes. It remains to be emphasized that it is with the nature of reality that metaphysics is concerned. This was the original application of the term. Since Kant, however, the term has frequently been used to designate the theory of knowledge as well. This has its explanation in the fact that the problem as to the possibility of knowing reality has developed naturally out of the problem as to the nature of reality. But in the interest of clearness it is better to confine the term metaphysics to its narrower signification of the theory of reality, or, as Kiilpe expresses it, "the elaboration of a theory of the universe."4

The divisions of metaphysics correspond to the divisions of reality. In the Wolffian philosophy, which was the heir of Aristotle and all the centuries of scholasticism, metaphysics was subdivided into a general part called ontology, and three special parts, viz., rational cosmology, rational psychology, and rational theology. Under the changed point of view introduced by the Kantian philosophy, ontology, i.e., the theory of being or reality in general, was developed into epistemology, or the science of the categories by which reality is known, or rather by which the reality to be known is constructed in being known. This is the only metaphysics recognized as legitimate by the Kantian philosophy. The three special parts of metaphysics were criticized and rejected as pseudo-sciences. In Lotze we find a return to constructive metaphysics, which is divided into ontology, cosmology, and psychology, while the missing part, theology, reappears in the philosophy of religion. But it is probably truer to the fundamental interests of metaphysical think-

1 The present investigation is, in its primary intention, preliminary to a study of the function of metaphysics in theology.

2 Appearance and Reality, Preface. 3 Textbook of Psychology, p. 461. -» Introduction to Philosophy (Eng. tr.), p. 27.

ing to abide by the Wolffian classification, however utterly we may repudiate the method employed in that philosophy. Our classification would then be as follows: Metaphysics is primarily concrete or material; the abstract or formal part is derivative and of little independent interest. Material metaphysics is subdivided into cosmology, psychology, and theology, while formal metaphysics is identical with general ontology. From this last the transition is easy to epistemology, but this carries one beyond the domain of metaphysics proper.

The definition of metaphysics as the theory or science of reality, and its subdivision into cosmology, psychology, and theology, together involve the assumption of the reality of the world, the soul, and God. But there may be difference of view as to whether reality is to be regarded as existing within or beyond immediate human experience. Unsophisticated common sense declares that one and the same object exists both within and beyond, i.e., it is partly within and partly beyond, or sometimes within and sometimes beyond, and yet it always remains one and the same object that is immanent and transcendent. Many types of philosophy, as materialistic sensationalism, Platonizing idealism, and critical agnosticism, hold that reality belongs to the extra-empirical only; experience gives but appearance. Within recent years several philosophers1 having certain affiliations with the older empiricism of Hume and Mill have taken the opposite position. Several examples of a "philosophy of pure experience" have appeared, holding that the only reality is the reality of immediate human experience,2 and thus that the real nature of anything is "what it is experienced as." This immediate empiricism, being a philosophy of immediate human experience, might be called the newer or psychological positivism, as distinguished from the philosophy of mediate human experience, which was the real nature of the older empiricism and positivism. But any metaphysic which outrages common-sense cannot satisfy for long, and there must be sought a way of doing justice to reality both within and beyond immediate human experience, and that without duplicating reality, as Cartesian dualism does. Philosophy must be enlightened common-sense.

1 E.g., Karl Pearson, The Grammar of Science; R. Avenarius, Kritik der reinen Erfahrung; J. Dewey, "The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, II, 393-99.

2 In human "experience" here social as well as individual experience is meant to be included. The solipsistic view, which would confine reality to immediate individual human experience, is too outre for any philosopher.

The treatment accorded metaphysics in the various types of "experience philosophy" is significant. The positivism of Comte was interested primarily in the physical. It sought to get beyond immediate experience, or the psychological, to the reality mediated by it. The metaphysical or metempirical, as transcending what sense experience mediated, was ignored or repudiated. The new position is interested primarily in the psychological. It seeks to express the reality mediated by psychological experience entirely in terms of psychology. Corresponding to the old metaphysics there might conceivably be a metapsychology, but all that transcends the scope of psychology is either non-existent or inaccessible. One may arbitrarily take his choice of world-views, or else confine himself to psychology. Then instead of cosmology and theology he would have the structural, functional, and genetic psychology of the idea of the universe and the God-idea as created by human thought. The only real metaphysics left is the more intricate part of psychology. But this position cannot commend itself to any but those who are so infatuated with psychology as to be oblivious of the claim made by common-sense, natural science, and religion, that there is a reality transcending the immediate experience of human beings.

Nor will it do to make a mutually exclusive division of reality between the sciences and metaphysics, assigning to the former the empirical and to the latter the transcendent. Metaphysics is interested in reality and although sometimes, it would seem, chiefly, still not merely, in transcendent reality. It seeks a synthetical apprehension of reality which shall combine inductions from the facts of experience with workable hypotheses as to the transcendent. Hence the line of cleavage between the special sciences and metaphysics will not be a hard and fast one so far as content is concerned; it will be found rather in the different purposes for which the material of experience is employed.

This begins to suggest something different from the old a-priori, dogmatic, experience-contradicting metaphysics that has figured so largely in the history of theology and philosophy, and against which the modern mind has so justifiably reacted. The modern man has no more use for the mediaeval types of metaphysics than he has for the mediaeval types of casuistry; but it may very well be that there is a place and a need in modern life and thought for casuistry that shall recognize as a criterion not only the inner motive but the social effect of action, and for a metaphysic that shall not be satisfied with the test of consistent deduction from uncriticized " innate" principles and theological doctrines, but that shall construct, on the basis of the essential postulates of morality and religion and other fundamental interests of human life at its best, a world- view that will be regarded as a hypothesis, one element in the verification of which will consist in its agreement with the facts of human experience.1

1 N. W. Marshall, in his book, Theology and Truth, p. 259, describes the metaphysical method as "the imposition of an ideal upon the given, the substitution of the ideal for the given, and the assertion that this ideal is the real." He emphasizes the incompetence of the old dogmatic a-priorism, but, like many others, does not seem to recognize the need and the possibility of a different type of metaphysics.

PART I

THE NATURE AND MOTIVATION OF THE REACTION AGAINST METAPHYSICS IN THEOLOGY

3. In any historical investigation of the mutual relations of metaphysics and theology it will be found that there have been very frequent and most vigorous and persistent protests against the introduction or retention of the metaphysical element. Or, more accurately, because of the felt unsatisfactoriness of the results of attempting to harmonize the doctrines of the religion in question with other supposed truths about reality by means of a reasoning process which, in its more deliberate and methodical forms, is called metaphysics, there have been repeated reactions against the attempt itself as well as protests against its results. In contemporary history the outstanding example of such reactions is found in the Ritschlian theology, but the history of Christianity abounds in similar reactions, and many movements of the same kind have occurred in many other religions as well. For purposes of comparison some of these may be mentioned.

In the history of Chinese religion we find the reaction of the Confucian Meng-tse against the quasi-philosophical speculations of Lao-tse and his not very numerous followers. In this Meng-tse is a typical representative of his people. The reaction is perhaps not so much an attempt to guard a threatened religious certainty or content even, as it is a revulsion of the constitutionally practical against the seemingly fruitless subtleties of abstract speculation.

The case of Buddhism is interesting. Here we have a new religion with intensely practical interest, reacting emphatically against a religion or congeries of religions whose way of salvation was the way of metaphysical speculation. Buddha would have his disciples consider only what favored peace and holiness, and not pry into such questions as the finite or infinite character of the world. To primitive Buddhism, ethically protestant as it was against a religion essentially metaphysical, the problem of excluding metaphysical speculation was a matter of life and death. To speculate would not only imperil all certainty as to the vanity of this present life and lead possibly to a disintegration of the underlying world-view, but also and especially to become interested in speculative questions would be to be bound by another tie to the world, and thus to turn deliberately aside from the Way of Salvation.

In the ancient Greek religion the protest against metaphysical speculation was comparatively insignificant and ultimately failed. There was an inner kinship between the religion of this naturalistic and liberty-loving people and the naturalizing criticism and free speculation of the philosophers. Still there were outbursts of conservative religious zeal from time to time, as, for instance, against Xenophanes, whose theological speculations seemed to the people to be destroying their religion; again after and in reaction against the at first welcomed teaching of Anaxagoras in Athens ; and yet again in the attempt of Aristophanes to discredit such free thinkers as Euripides and Socrates, followed by the martyrdom of the latter. Among the more practical and less speculative Romans the conservative movement in the Augustan age was more successful.

In the bitter, persecuting hostility of ancient Mazdeism toward Manichaeism we have a typical example of the reaction of a religion of arbitrary will against all syncretizing and consequently rationalizing tendencies. The case is similar to that of Buddhism, save that here it was the old obedience-religion which reacted against the new rationalistic heresy, while there it was the new heretical obedience-religion which reacted against the old speculative religion. In the Manichaean system, for the antagonism of the good and evil personal beings, Ormuzd and Ahriman, there was substituted the opposition of two impersonal cosmic principles, while instead of authoritative revelation gnostic insight was made the criterion of certainty. There was not only a radical departure from the older content, but the adoption of a principle which made further departure probable and thus tended to undermine all certainty as to the older beliefs. This explains the persecuting reaction.

Throughout the history of the religion of Israel there can be traced an ever-renewed opposition on the part of the vital piety of the older faith against a series of leveling movements primarily of life rather than of reflective thought, but tending in the direction of heretical metaphysical speculation. An early example is the conflict of the prophetic Jahvism with Baalism and other influences of pagan civilization. Every anti-Jahvistic movement was to be crushed out, regardless of any evidence that might be advanced in its favor.1 The strenuous protest of the Chasidim against the religiously perilous Hellenistic culture — a protest giving its real strength to the Maccabean uprising — was closely similar in religious interest to the earlier Jahvistic prophetism. Prob-

IO REACTION AGAINST METAPHYSICS IN THEOLOGY ably continuous with this Chasid movement was the settled, and finally successful opposition of the Pharisees to the rationalistic and sceptical Sadducees. To the pious Jew Greek science was an invention of the devil.1 Even Philo acknowledges2 that his synthesis of Greek wisdom with Hebrew religion was not favorably received by contemporary Judaism. Later expressions of the same exclusive religious conservatism appear in the distrust evinced toward the rationalizing tendencies of Moses Maimonides, and in the abrupt excommunication of the detested heretic, Spinoza.

But perhaps the closest parallel to the reactionary movement in Christianity is found in the history of Mohammedanism.3 From the ninth century to the eleventh there existed in the East a tendency to seek to harmonize the doctrines of Islam with the principles of reason, sometimes interpreted from a neo-Platonic, at other times from an Aristotelian standpoint. Among the reactionary movements the most violent was that headed by Khalif Motawakkel; the most systematic and permanent, that undertaken by Al Ghazzali, whose Destruction of the Philosphers championed the Muslim faith against the rationalists. He combated especially those Aristotelian notions adopted by Al Farabi and Avicenna which involved a departure from Islamic faith, such as that the world is eternal, that God's essence is thought only, that God takes no cognizance of particulars, and that the soul only is immortal. Moreover he sought to found religious certitude upon mystical religious experience rather than upon mere tradition or the confirmations of reason. It is significant, not so much of the ability of Al Ghazzali as of the genius of the Mohammedan religion, that from the twelfth century to the nineteenth orthodoxy and mystic piety prevailed in the Eastern schools. In the West also the rationalistic philosophy was rejected. Even the famous Averroes, like the sceptical Omar Khayyam of the East, had his popularity and influence chiefly outside of Mohammedan circles. By his own people he was proscribed and banished, with the result that orthodoxy and implicit faith remained triumphant.4

1 Book of Enoch; see Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, p. 50. 3 De Somniis, i. 16,17.

3 Cf. De Boer, The History of Philosophy in Islam (Eng. tr.), passim.

* It is interesting to note that among the religions mentioned, those in which the anti-metaphysical movement has triumphed are strongly practical in interest and have a tendency toward legalism and an appeal to external authority. Christianity resembles them in these characteristics; will the reaction against metaphysics finally prevail in it also ?

II

4. Coming to Christianity we find already in the New Testament a rejection of mere intellectualism and uncontrolled speculation in matters of religion.

In the recorded teachings of Jesus there is a recognition of the spiritual conditions of religious knowledge. The largest content of religious truth is not necessarily the possession of "the wise and understanding."1 Not intellectual qualifications but faith and moral obedience are the primary requisites for religious certainty.2

In the early writings of Paul there is a discrediting of "wordly wisdom" in the realm of religion.3 It is evident that he includes in this category the Grecian philosophy;4 apart from the gospel and Christian experience, not even this highest secular wisdom can give adequate religious knowledge. The "natural man" cannot arrive at the truth of faith ; it is spiritually discerned.5 And not the content alone, but the certainty of religious conviction also has its source primarily in religious experience rather than in rational processes.6 Christian faith should not stand in the wisdom of men.7

In the later Epistle to the Colossians the situation confronted is very clearly the encroachment into the church of some form of gnostic thought. The writer fears lest this type of "philosophy" should play havoc with the Christian community.8 He is especially solicitous lest there should be a loss with respect to the content of the Christian faith, and above all lest the fantastic speculation about "powers" should lead to a failure to recognize the unique place of Christ as "above all principality and power."9

In the Pastoral Epistles the problem has become still more serious, and the protest against a spurious "gnosis"10 seems to be the main purpose of the letters. It is a matter of the utmost concern that the essential doctrines of Christian faith should be conserved, and that no incongruous elements should be "introduced."" The moral effect of

6 Similar to the teaching of Jesus and Paul (in these letters) is that of James to the effect that religious knowledge has its source in inner revelation (Jas. 1 : 5; 3 : 13-17).

10 1 Tim. 6 : 20; cf. Titus 1 : 16; I Tim. 1:4; 4: 1, 3, as indications that gnosticism was the movement attacked.

heresy is dreaded.1 But there is a care for certainty also. The speculative, "questioning" attitude is discouraged,2 and appeal is made for assurance to divine revelation,3 and explicitly to the authority of Jesus Christ and of the apostle Paul.4

In perhaps still later epistles (James [?], Jude, and II Peter) the still greater intensity of the reaction is indicated by the increased strength of the language of denunciation of "destructive heresies."5 It is more keenly felt than ever that a departure from the essentials of Christian belief proves disastrous for the moral life, and so is to be avoided as diligently as sin itself.6

5. In dealing with the anti-metaphysical movement in the history of Christian thought, only outstanding and typical examples can well be adduced. In the early church Marcion, Tatian, Tertullian, and Athanasius demand special attention.

Marcion, as Harnack says, was one of the few pronouncedly typical religious characters before Augustine.7 He attached himself with vigor to what he took to be the religious kernel of Christianity, viz., the Pauline gospel of grace and faith, and rejected not only the additional content incorporated into Christian doctrine from Jewish tradition, but also — if, with Harnack, we read correctly between the lines of Justin and Tertullian — the additional certainty sought by the Gnostics through cosmological speculation. While Marcion doubtless shared many of the characteristically Greek ideas of his gnostic contemporaries, in his thinking religious experience was construed more, after the manner of Paul, as a moral renewal than as a transformation of underlying substance; and so cosmological speculation generally, whether of Gnostics or Catholics, was rejected as injurious, rather than helpful, to religion. The value which this position was felt to have is indicated by the very large following which Marcion secured.

The place of the type of apology represented by Tatian in the general apologetic movement of the time requires to be reviewed with special care. The real theological position of any apologist is usually difficult to determine, for the reason that the exigencies of controversy demand that he view things largely from the general point of view of his opponent. Thus there is often a wide difference between the basis of the

7 Harnack, History of Dogma (Eng. tr.), I, 284; see further pp. 266-69.

apologist's own religious certainty and the foundation which he seeks to lay for a favorable attitude toward his religion on the part of others. Naturally enough this frequently involves a difference too between the content held and the content defended. The history of the theology of the typical early Christian apologist was somewhat as follows. He had sought the satisfaction of his religious needs in Greek philosophy, only to be disappointed. Being brought into contact with the Christian gospel, it appealed to him as meeting his requirements and called forth his faith. He accepted it for what it claimed to be, a divine revelation, and continued to believe in it as such because it continued to satisfy his religious needs. But especially in the intervals between times of deeply emotional religious experience, the conclusion as to revelation tended to become a premise, so that the thinker would reassure himself by recalling that his beliefs were vouched for by divine authority. But this was just the point at issue in discussion with non-Christians, and could not, of course, be made the presupposition of an apologetic. Recourse was had necessarily to the content of the gospel, as the apologist understood it. But Christianity, as the apologist understood it, was the true philosophy. He had come to it with his thinking more or less saturated with Greek philosophical concepts, and in accepting it he had retained many of his former ideas. The result was that the Christianity so appropriated was considerably modified in form and ultimately in content. The course naturally suggested to the apologist accordingly was to show that the doctrinal content of the Christian religion was not only unobjectionable to the Greek mind, but acceptable in the highest degree. It is the highest self-expression of the divine Reason, and so is more truly rational and philosophical than the philosophy of the Greeks. Such was the course taken by Justin, Aristides, and Athenagoras. But just here Tatian diverged from the beaten track.1 With respect to the basis of his own certainty and the main content of his theology he does not, in his "Address to the Greeks," differ materially from the others ; but in his general attitude and method of apologetics he does.2 He is violently antagonistic to Greek philosophy, and disparages speculative attempts as being fruitless of practical results. Instead of framing subtle arguments he makes dogmatic statements. Like others of a much later date, he evidently thought dogmatics the best apologetics.