Religion in an age of doubt

Front matter

BT 15 . S53 1914a Shebbeare, Charles John, 1865-

*

EDITED BY THE REV. WM. C. PIERCY, M.A.

Preface

HE following pages — of which the substance was delivered in the form of lectures to the Vacation Term of Biblical Study in the Divinity School at Cam¬ bridge in 1911 — may be described in the language of modern journalism as an ‘ open letter to the teachers of religion/

Religious teachers of all grades — from the theological Professors in the Universities at one end of the scale to the Sunday School Teachers at the other — are engaged, and ought surely to feel that they are engaged, in a great co-operative enterprise. They are therefore all concerned in some measure with the same problems : and difficult though it necessarily is for any writer to gain the ear of an audience so varied, it can hardly be said that the attempt does not need to be made.

Voluntary association in a common work requires a common plan of campaign. ' Image the whole’, said Mr. Browning, ' then execute the parts/ But this is a day of specialists : and while in the various departments of the study of religion there is appearing a great quantity of work of quite extraordinary brilliancy, it is only in a few circles that the conception of theology as a con¬ nected scheme of knowledge can be said to exist at all. Moreover our theologians have abandoned the habit, which marked the theology of the Middle Ages, of asking ix

X PREFACE

clear and definite questions and formulating a definite answer.

In one sense the work of the Christian teacher is in every age the same. He must interpret, in relation to the duties and prevalent conceptions of his own time, the unchanging doctrines of the Gospel. It is sometimes said that the main difficulties of Christian work in the present generation are not theological or philosophical but moral. ‘To be a real Christian to-day ' says the Bishop of Oxford, ‘ involves a great deal of trouble about matters which are called social.' If justice is one of the weightier matters of the law, and if the present condemna¬ tion of those who do the unpleasantest part of the world's work to insufficient and precarious payment is contrary to justice, then the truth of the Bishop's words must be admitted. The Church has the duty of ' binding and loosing ' ; and it cannot discharge this duty by merely criticizing and rejecting in turn the various proposals for social remedy.

But if it is true that to be a Christian involves ‘ trouble about matters which are called social ' it is none the less true that to be a Christian teacher involves trouble about matters which are called intellectual. Till Christianity has full possession of our minds it will never have com¬ plete influence upon our conduct. And the intellectual problems which now confront us are exceptionally diffi¬ cult.

There are at the present moment, besides those schools of thought and piety with which the majority of Anglicans are most familiar, three great religious movements doing active work in the world, yet working in almost complete

PREFACE j d

isolation from one another. There is, first, English Evangelicalism ; there is, secondly, the moral and doc¬ trinal theology of the Church of Rome ; there is, thirdly, that far-reaching tendency in the religious thought of Germany which is associated with the name of Ritschl. This theological situation, taken as a whole, presents us with a momentous question. The following essay is an attempt to disentangle this question from others which tend to obscure its importance. Are we, in a word, to accept the theological revolution which ‘ Ritschlianism ’ seeks to accomplish ; and if we accept it, how are we to set out upon the work of reconstruction that must follow ? If this question is once fairly faced, however it may be answered, English theology can hardly remain just what it is now.

The special purpose of the present volume has necessi¬ tated an arrangement and naming of Chapters which may in itself provoke criticism. ‘ What can be the value of a book ’ — it may be said — * which deals with Evan¬ gelicalism in ten pages, Buddhism and Judaism in eight, the Doctrine of the Trinity in twenty ? If the writer who proceeds on these methods is suspected of mere indolent “ book-making ”, he has only himself to thank.’

It is, perhaps, a sufficient answer that one chief aim of this volume is to point a very simple moral — to urge the importance for every Christian teacher of a compre¬ hensive conception of his subject.

The specialist is, unquestionably, a very valuable per¬ son. To trace (let us say) the mental development of Kant or of Ritschl — to shew minutely the changes in their view between one edition and another — is to do an

PREFACE

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in

excellent work. But it is more important, after all, to know what the teaching of Kant and Ritschl is about , and what their relation is to our own problems. Such com¬ prehensive knowledge is not only the more valuable in itself : it is also the one condition on which the other kind of knowledge can attain any value whatsoever. The specialist, therefore, like the bee, is often labouring rather for others than for himself.

It is well, then, that we should ask whether the present reaction against the encyclopaedic methods of the past is not being carried too far. Are we not missing, in theo¬ logy as in other pursuits, a great opportunity ? Is it right that theology should become a merely antiquarian study ? May it not be that, if we would rely less on tradition and more on the Holy Spirit, we might justly hope to produce — even before the present century has run its course — a theory of the Universe which shall be as much in advance of that of Hegel, as Hegel himself is in advance of St. Thomas Aquinas ?

But while these latter questions are for the future, the two already mentioned seem to press for immediate answer.

First : Has our theology — has even all the theology which calls itself Liberal — really learned the lesson of Ritschl ? Have we sufficiently recognized that, for the individual, the Christian life is in large measure inde¬ pendent of Christian doctrine : that the plain man who knows but little theology, and perhaps even rejects what he knows, may yet, by moral insight and by the experi¬ ence of sin forgiven, gain such a knowledge of Christ as shall enable him to take his place as an active member

PREFACE xm of Christ’s Body — a partaker through Christ of the Life of God ?

Secondly : When the Ritschlian lesson is once com¬ pletely learned, will it not then be needful to look back ? The individual Christian can live without theology : the Church at large can never dispense with it. We have not yet, however, made full use of those older intellectual methods which Ritschlianism has tended to displace. We have not yet exhausted the religious value of the old-fashioned ‘ proofs ’ of God’s existence. Perhaps, then, when wTe have sat a little longer at the feet of Ritschl,1 we shall find time to recur to the older methods with the added insight which his teaching has brought us, and so to lay the foundations of a doctrinal system which basing itself upon a knowledge of the present reality of God’s pardoning Grace, shall at the same time furnish a rational ground for the hope of future Glory.

I wish to express my gratitude to rny old friend Mr. Clement Webb (Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford), and to my neighbour Mr. Philip Malleson (Vicar of Great Tew), for many most useful suggestions. The value of what I have learned in discussions with Mr. Webb and other friends — and, above all, from the teaching and influence of my Father — is quite beyond my power to estimate.

1 In the days of Lux Mundi, Ritschl had, in England, hardly yet appeared above the horizon. For the writers of Foundations he has already sunk some way below it. The noonday of his influence upon Anglican Oxford may, conceivably, have syn¬ chronized with the appearance of Contentio Veritatis : but it would not be easy to prove this from its pages. His treatment of Ritschl is the chief defect — perhaps the only defect — of Arch¬ deacon Peile’s admirable Bampton Lectures.

SYLLABUS

I A Practical Problem. II. The Rival Methods.

A large — probably an increasing— number of our contemporaries may be described as men who believe in Duty without believing in God. This fact forces the Christian preacher to consider what is the ultimate foundation of Christian doctrine. Is its true basis in personal experience or in supernatural revelation ? Are the facts on which it primarily rests events occurring to-day, or events which occurred long ago ?

III Theology Past and Present.

The answer to these questions which is given by the Ritschlian School is well-known. Ritschl teaches (a) that Christian theology must base itself on the personal experience of ‘ justification ’ through Christ : ( b ) that religious knowledge and scientific knowledge cannot be united in a single homogeneous system.. We shall find that he is right in the first, and wrong in the second, of these assertions. We shall conclude that theology, while needing the complete revision which he demands, cannot be limited as he would limit it : that if it is to make good its claim to survive in the modern world at all, it must— while admitting to the full the claims of freedom in thought — seek to regain its old position as Queen of the Sciences : that the construction of such a philosophic theology is the best method of giving intellectual support to religion in an age of doubt.

IV Morality. V Duty.

How far wall the method which relies solely on moral and spiritual experience carry us ? First, it can show — by the kind of arguments used by Kant — the absolute supremacy of Duty.

xv

XVI

SYLLABUS

VI Guilt.

From the knowledge of Duty as an * Imperative ’ arises the recognition of universal guilt — * conviction of sin ’ .

VII Deliverance from Guilt.

All the higher religions seek deliverance from Guilt : but this deliverance cannot really be attained either {a) by asceticism and gradual self-purification, as at¬ tempted in Buddhism, or ( b ) by * good works ’ and moral behaviour, as in Pharisaic Judaism and the common morality of the world. Both these methods are found by the awakened conscience to be insufficient.

VIII Christianity.

Christianity seeks deliverance from guilt not by * works ' but by ‘ faith ’ : and this ‘ faith ’ is interpreted in Christian practice as an act of will — a wholesale sur¬ render of the will to God. ‘ Justification by faith * is not to be interpreted as implying * justification by ortho¬ doxy’. The unique success of the distinctive Christian method can be learned in spiritual experience.

IX Christ ; and X The Historical Jesus.

The successful application of the Christian method is found in practice to be associated invariably with submission to the influence of Jesus : Whom we may truly claim as its Author.

XI Evangelicalism ; and XII. The Keswick School.

Thus the method which relies on experience can estab¬ lish the supremacy of Christianity, and its essential connexion with Christ. But an assent to the claims of Christ which remains merely intellectual is not yet reli¬ gious. Knowledge of Christianity does not become religious till it has been proved by personal obedience. The personal adoption of Evangelical methods in the inward life — even apart from the acceptance of Christian dogma — will reveal to us spiritual laws * valid for every rational being.'

XIII The Ritschlian Revolution. XIV Ritschlianism

AND CHRISTOLOGY

The systematic statement of these laws, as verified in experience, is the true basis of Christian theology. The doctrines of Grace, of Adoption, of the Holy Spirit,

SYLLABUS xv a of the absolute supremacy of Jesus Christ in the spiritual sphere, and of His absolute claim to our obedience, can be established by this method alone.

XV The ‘ Argument from Design.’

But the Ritschlian theology has its limitations. The mere appeal to experience cannot establish the belief in a Future Life, the traditional Christian doctrine of special Providence, or the belief in the ‘ personality ' of the Creator. We must therefore reconsider those * rationalistic ’ arguments — such as the * Argument from Design ’ — upon which Ritschlianism has looked coldly. The Argument from Design, revised and restated, estab¬ lishes an optimistic view of the Universe which (for those who accept the Christian standard of values) involves Theism.

(1) Defects of the argument as it stands. (Just as

popular materialism explains the world b}^ atoms, but does not account for the existence of the atoms themselves, so popular Theism explains the world as the work of God, but leaves the existence of God unexplained and inexplicable.)

(2) Yet the argument contains a correct thought. The

beauty and harmony in the forms and colours of Nature is recognized by reason as an ‘ end in itself ’. The same is true of other occurrences in the world, e.g. the moral and intellectual life of man. In virtue of this realization of * ends ' approved by reason we pronounce the world a ‘ rational ' whole. If we can truly say ‘ It is no accident that in Nature rational ends are realized ’ we are affirming a be¬ lief in the rationality of the world which — if thought out — involves a general Optimism.

XVI A Future Life.

Such an Optimism if accepted must be carried out to its natural conclusion. For those who accept the Chris¬ tian belief in the supreme value of conscious life, and the goodness of matter, Optimism involves the hope of heaven and of a bodily resurrection.

But the thinking out of such a thorough-going Op¬ timism as this entangles us in difficulties which only a philosophical theology can hope to solve.

SYLLABUS xvni

XVII The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

XVIII. The Task of the Future. XIX The

Parting of the Ways.

We find ourselves led by the seand similar considera¬ tions to the following principles : —

(а) Religious knowledge must begin in personal moral judgments and spiritual experience.

(б) The ' rationalistic ’ arguments which lead to an

optimistic view of the Universe are valid.

Thus our religious judgments cannot be kept apart from our view of the world in general. Theology must develop a Theory of the Universe.

(6) Such a constructive task, if undertaken systematic¬ ally, will involve a philosophical criticism and ‘ reconstruction ’ of our common notion of the world.

It is our duty, if we accept these principles, to apply them boldly to such theological questions as those of ‘ the doctrine of the Trinity the ' atonement ' mir¬ acles \ the * Sacraments etc., etc.

And first of all it is necessary to give definite answers to certain preliminary questions. What is to be our conception of Sin ? What is to be our doctrine of For¬ giveness ? Again, are we to retain the time-honoured opposition between ‘ Reason ’ and ‘ Revelation \ or should the modern theologian avow as his aim the estab¬ lishment of a Christian Rationalism ?

PAGE

Chapter I A Practical Problem

LL the religious convictions which I have been able to retain/ said a thoughtful Undergraduate recently , ‘ might be written on the back of a single Postage-stamp/

The words were spoken as if they were felt to be the record of a total decay of faith. And such indeed they may actually have been.

Yet it would surely have been well that any one who heard them should bear in mind that the contrary and more hopeful view was also tenable. This meagre remnant of religious conviction, if it included — as appeared to be the case — a sincere belief in the absolute supremacy of Duty, may well have been of far more worth than the speaker himself imagined.

The Gospel speaks of ‘ faith like unto a grain of mus¬ tard seed/ Such faith, it is implied, has immeasurable powers of further development. May it not be then that — just as the seed is the germ of the completed tree — so a genuine faith in the supreme claims of Duty is the germ, if not of all that is of value, at any rate of all that

B is in the strictest sense vital, in the theology of Christen¬ dom ?

The question deserves, at least, a serious answer. The worthlessness of ' bare morality ' has been, as we know, a common theme with preachers : and if our 4 morality * is mere self-interested conformity to estab¬ lished custom, it then merits a great part of what has been said in its dispraise. To the Christian, who, like Bunyan, has descended into the depths of religious con¬ flict, the doctrines of ‘ Mr. Legality of the town of Mor¬ ality ’ will always appear to be not merely inadequate but a snare, since the greatest of all obstacles to repen¬ tance is self-satisfied virtue. But if, on the other hand, Duty and the Moral Law are taken, not in this superficial sense, but in the graver significance in which the words are used by Kant — if they involve the belief in a per¬ petually valid * Imperative/ a command which we cannot disobey without incurring guilt and condemnation — then the sincere recognition of what Duty means, coupled with the perception that the Law which it implies is one to which man never fully attains, leads directly to that * Conviction of Sin ' which it is the characteristic aim of Christian preaching to produce. And Conviction of Sin is a stepping-stone to further knowledge. Apart from the sense of personal guilt, the Christian conception of Salvation must be wholly unintelligible ; but when this sense of guilt exists in an effective form, there is always a hope that the meaning of Salvation as Christianity conceives it will become plain by contrast.

This subject has an importance which is not merely theoretical. It has a direct bearing on the work of the

A PRACTICAL PROBLEM preacher, the apologist, and the theologian. How, for example, is the Christian preacher to address himself to those who believe in Duty but not in God ? How is he to seek to convince the minds of the ‘ Godless good ’ — of the men to whom Duty and Righteousness mean much and God means little or nothing ?

It is with special reference to this practical problem 1 that the following pages have been written. Unbelief of this particular type is already common in all classes of society, and it is probably on the increase. In many minds — too serious and thoughtful to be shaken in their moral convictions — religious doubt is still the natural product of physical enlightenment. And the more physical knowledge is disseminated — as it must be and ought to be disseminated — among the masses of our people, the greater probably will be the growth, at least for a time, of materialistic unbelief.

In some quarters, no doubt, it is the fashion to speak as if materialistic unbelief belonged to a byegone genera¬ tion. ‘ When/ said an elegant critic, ‘ I read a book like Haeckel’s Riddle of the Universe , I murmur gently to myself the words “ a.d. i860.” ’ But such light¬ hearted contempt — whether real or affected — is out of place. Whatever may have been the merits or demerits of this particular book — and some of its merits were great — the creed of which it is an able exposition is always a formidable foe to religion. It strikes its roots so deep in what Lotze called the ‘ natural theory ’ 2 of reality, that

1 It should not be assumed that a pastoral aim is intrinsically inconsistent with intellectual frankness. Nor is it inconceivable that by frankly rationalistic methods we may reach an unex¬ pectedly conservative conclusion.

2 Lotze, Metaphysic, Eng. Trans., vol., i., pp. 29, 35, 36.

we may reasonably expect to see the debate with materialism still in active progress when many of the questions which seem more interesting at the present moment have been long forgotten.

At any rate the materialistic view is widely prevalent now ; and it has great influence even in religious circles. In spite of the philosophical work that has been done — since i860 — by T. H. Green and others, questions are still asked, by well-informed men favourably disposed to religion, which betray a lurking fear that if religious beliefs were brought fairly out into the open they would not long be able to defend themselves successfully against the assaults of Science. " All physical changes/’ — we hear it said — “ including the changes of the weather, appear to be linked by unchanging laws to events that have preceded them. What room then is left for the action of divine Providence ? All our mental life seems to be dependent upon processes taking place within the brain — processes which are as much subject to physical law as the weather or the tides. What place then is left for the influence of the Holy Spirit ? Again is not Christianity explainable by anthropological methods as itself a mere natural phenomenon ? Can it any longer, in the light of recent discoveries, even assert its uniqueness among the religions of the world ? Have not savage religions anticipated both its dogmas and its rites ? Can we then show any real evidence that the ‘ Hand of God * has been at work in Nature, in history, even in the history of religion ? And is the notion of God — as an omnipresent invisible Being, holding in His mind at once all the complicated contents of the Universe 1 — really

1 Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe , popular edition, p. 97.

A PRACTICAL PROBLEM conceivable at all ? Is not such a God a contradiction in terms ? The only invisible substances which we can readily conceive of as filling space are certain gases. The common notion of God, therefore — it has been suggested 1 — regards Him as a ' gaseous vertebrate ’ : and if we seriously try to think out our religious notions into clearness is it not to some such unmeaning contradiction that we shall ultimately be reduced ? Again, is it possible to disentangle even the most impressive doctrines of religion from the antiquated theory of the world with which they are traditionally associated ? If we cease to believe in Heaven as a place beyond the sky, what conception of Heaven are we to substitute ? And do not similar difficulties crop up on every side ? Christ appears to have looked forward to collecting all nations before His judgment seat. Could He have framed this conception if He had rightly estimated the numbers of the human race ? Where on the earth 2 is room for such a scene of judgment to be found ? And are not the moral difficulties in the conception of Divine judgment even greater than the physical ones ? Is not God too far responsible Him¬ self for the evil of the world to occupy the judicial throne ? Is it not — in dealing with an Omnipotent Being — some¬ thing of an evasion to say that He merely * permits ’ evil ? Must He not be conceived as ‘ causing ’ it ? 3 For even if we can acquit Him of complicity with the evil wrought by the free will of man, did He not still implant the evil tendencies and passions by which that free will has been seduced ? Is it then substantially unfair if we complain that, having enmeshed us round

1 Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, popular edition, pp. 93 and 102.

* Acts i. 11.

8 Isa. xlv. 7.

with predestination, He has no right to ‘ impute our fall to sin * ? 1 Moreover is not ‘ predestination ’ — or at least ‘ determinism ’ of some kind — the only scientific theory ? To Dr. Johnson’s assertion that we ‘ know our wills are free, and there is an end of the matter,’ might we not retort with truth that we * know ’ that our con¬ scious life is dependent on the brain ? Lastly, do not the physicists threaten that one day they will prove — by the actual production of a living organism in the laboratory — their right to explain on mechanical princi¬ ples all the phenomena of life and consciousness ? ”

To such questions, of course, we can often give an answer which sounds effective in debate. The material¬ istic arguments — we may say — prove too much. The argument that ‘ a God invisibly present must be conceived as gaseous or nothing ’ might equally be used to prove the non-existence of the human mind. Our feelings and thoughts, though invisible and immaterial, are certainly real. If then an immaterial mind is possible, why not an immaterial God ? 2 Again — when it is said that

2 The rejoinder is sometimes made that mental life is only physical life regarded in another aspect. If this mode of expres¬ sion serves provisionally for the clearer statement of any psy¬ chological problem, we have no right to object to it. But as an ultimate account of the facts it is obviously unsatisfactory. We find two quite distinguishable objects of experience — matter and consciousness. If, because he finds it hard to explain how these two are related, the physicist cuts the knot by declaring that they are not two facts but one, he merely shows that science may have its evasions no less than theology.

Some of the other * difficulties ’ mentioned above are inci¬ dentally touched upon later. Does the conception of a God who is ‘ attentive at all times to millions of contradictory prayers ’

A PRACTICAL PROBLEM there is no ‘ room ' for divine action — it may be shown that on the contrary, physical and spiritualistic ex¬ planations may be valid side by side. The fact that one explanation is within its own limits complete, does not always exclude the right to demand another. The colour of an animal, for example, is due to the chemical elements that compose its body. But even if .our explanation of its colouring is chemically complete, we may still seek to account for these tints by the part they have played in the evolution of the species. 1 Similarly a complete physical explanation of all the elements of our mental life, if such a thing were possible, would not prove that no more remained to be said. The fact that the ex¬ planation was physically complete would not prove our mental and moral life to be the mere accidental product of physical forces. Even in the supposed case of the living organism produced in the laboratory, the physical factors would not be the whole story. It would be absurd to say that f no room is left ' for any other ; for we must leave ‘ room ’ at least for one other factor — the mental labours of the producer. Indeed the analogy might seem to make rather in favour of the doctrine of an Intelligent f Designer ’ of the world than against it.

But we need something better — something more

(Haeckel, p. 97) differ in principle from the case of the debater who sees in a flash of thought all the divisions and subdivisions of an elaborate reply ?

1 The chemical explanation of formic acid — once supposed to require ‘ vital force ' for its production — is so complete that the acid can be produced by artificial means. But this fact does not forbid us to seek an evolutionary explanation of the occurrence of formic acid in ants and nettles.

systematic — than ' good debating answers.’ 1 The fact is that the character of the explanation which satisfies a man’s mind depends on the particular phenomena with which he happens to be familiar. The man who is concerned simply with physical phenomena will rest con¬ tented with physical explanations. The man who has observed chiefly the phenomena of the moral life will often be satisfied with theories that take insufficient account of physical facts. Each however has a right to be heard. The impression of physical uniformity is no illusion : but neither again is the sense of moral guilt an illusion. And the intellectual problem has not been solved till both these classes of facts have been adequately and systematically accounted for — a conclusion which is quite in agreement with the view that the sense of Duty and of Guilt is the foundation stone of Christian Apologetics.

1 It would be especially well worth while to set out in system¬ atic form some of the apologetic arguments which sound im¬ pressive in poetry. As Wordsworth wrote of the ‘ intimations of immortality ’ which may be derived ‘ from recollections of early childhood/ so Mr. Browning has given us his intimations of immortality from recollections of the Morgue at Paris. M. Bourget’s romance Le Disciple closes with a somewhat similar piece of reasoning. There is indeed even an element of humour in trying to picture the impression which these passages of litera¬ ture must leave upon the minds, say, of Prof. Karl Pearson, or Dr. J. G. Frazer, or Miss Jane Harrison. The connexion of thought is plain enough, no doubt, to all who have understood the presuppositions in the minds of the authors. But the argu¬ ments, as arguments, would be of greater theological value if set out in systematic shape.