The rise of modern religious ideas

Front matter

I

WORKS ON MODERN THEOLOGY

GENERAL EDITOR

Preface

This volume is based upon the Earl Lectures, given before the Pacific Theological Seminary, at Berkeley, California, in September, 1912.

A number of years ago, in response to the request of Doctor James M. Whiton, I promised to write a book on the "Antecedents of Modern Theology," as one of a series dealing with modern religious thought. Circumstances delayed its preparation, and, when the invitation was received to give the Earl Lectures, it seemed wise to take a kindred theme as the subject of the course. With the gracious approval, both of the seminary authorities and of the editor of the series, the present volume, which contains the substance of the lectures, but in a different form and considerably enlarged, appears as the first of the series on modern religious thought.

The limits imposed by the nature of the series, while permitting a more extended discussion than was possible in a course of six lectures, yet forbade aught but a summary treatment of a few representative topics, and even these, I am well aware, are presented in an all too fragmentary and incomplete fashion. But, in spite of its limitations, it is hoped that the book may serve its purpose, not as a history of modern religious

ix

X PREFACE

thought, which it does not pretend to be, but as an account of the influences which have promoted, and of the circumstances which have attended, the rise of some of the leading religious ideas of the present day, in so far as they differ from the ideas of other days, and hence may fairly be called modern. If as such it shall in any degree contribute to an understanding of the existing situation, its aim will have been achieved.

Thanks are due to my colleagues, Professor George A. Coe and Professor Thomas C. Hall, for their kindness in reading the proof of certain chapters and aiding me with valuable suggestions.

Contents

PAGE

Editorial Note vii

Preface ix

Book I Disintegration Chapter

I. Pietism 5

II. The Enlightenment 11

III. Natural Science 24

IV. The Critical Philosophy 45

Book II Reconstruction

V. The Emancipation of Religion 61

VI. The Rebirth of Speculation 81

VII. The Rehabilitation of Faith 104

VIII. Agnosticism 144

IX. Evolution 166

X. Divine Immanence 187

XI. Ethical Theism 222

XII. The Character of God 240

XIII. The Social Emphasis 254

XIV. Religious Authority 270

Index 311

THE RISE OF MODERN RELIGIOUS IREA&

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DISINTEGRATION

The Protestant Reformation resulted in course of time in the formation of systems of theology as elaborate and scholastic as the Roman Catholic. While the authority of Pope and Council was rejected, the new systems were, to all intents and purposes, as binding on the Christian conscience as the old had been. The Bible, not the Church, was now theoretically supreme, but the Bible was supposed to have found its adequate and final interpretation in the symbolical books of the Reformation, and of these the theologians were the recognized exponents. Saving faith, it was generally believed, involved the acceptance of the whole Christian revelation, and as faith was made the only condition of salvation, orthodoxy acquired an even more prominent place in Protestantism than in Catholicism, where good works were regarded as equally important.

In the late sixteenth century, and throughout a considerable part of the seventeenth, scholastic orthudoxy was in control in most parts of the Protestant world. The great aim of the Reformation, it was agreed, had been the purification of doctrine, and unless its doctrine were pure, no church could claim to be a true church of Christ. Nervous concern for their own soundness in the faith was for long a leading characteristic of most Protestant communions. Intolerance was even more general and more bitter than in Roman Catholicism, for there was not the same consciousness of strength in the divided churches of the Reformation as in the one great body of the Middle Ages. Intellectual agreement, covering often the smallest minutiae of doctrine, was made the principal, often the sole, ground of fellowship. New sects arose upon the basis of disparate interpretations of all sorts of matters, and the salvation of those of other views was almost everywhere denied.

But the various Protestant systems, with all their differences in detail, were identical in their main features, for they were the fruit of one great movement and were conscious of a common opposition to Roman Catholicism. The salient fact in the situation was not the existence of numerous and alien Protestant theologies, but of a common Protestant theology, essentially one in spite of all differences in detail and in spite of all disagreements between the sects. The salient fact in the situation, indeed, was not merely the oneness of Protestant theology, but the oneness of Christian theology, both Protestant and Catholic, for in most of their essential features Protestantism and Roman Catholicism were still identical.

DISINTEGRATION 3

Though the Reformers broke with the old church and substituted a new doctrine of the nature and means of salvation and the place of the church for the Roman Catholic doctrine, they retained the greater part of the traditional theology. The historic doctrine of the Trinity — three persons in one substance; the creation of the world out of nothing in six days by the power of the Almighty; the original perfection of Adam and his subsequent fall, entailing upon all his descendants the burden of sin and making them subject not merely to physical death but also to punishment in a future life beyond the grave; the existence of hell as a place of everlasting torment and heaven as a place of everlasting bliss; the need of a supernatural redemption to free men from the eternal consequences of their sin, both original and actual; the provision of this redemption by Jesus Christ who was both God and man — two natures in one person — and who was born of a virgin, suffered, and died that the wrath of God might be appeased and men be saved, and who rose again from the dead ; the requirement of repentance and faith in Christ in order to attain salvation; the necessity of a supernatural revelation of God's will and truth that the way of life might be known, and of divine help that being known it could be followed; the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible; the supernatural origin, preservation, and guidance of the Church ; the appointment of the sacraments as means of divine grace — all this and more was believed both by Catholics and Protestants, and it is this common body of theology that constitutes the main substance of historic orthodoxy and is to be contrasted with the modern religious ideas whose rise I am to trace in this volume. Everywhere dominant within the principal Protestant communions of the seventeenth century, this old orthodoxy gradually suffered disintegration, and is to-day widely, and in greater or less part, discredited within those very communions. The forces making for its disintegration were many and various. The most important of them demand brief consideration.

Chapter I Pietism

In the latter part of the seventeenth century Philip Jacob Spener, a pastor in Frankfort on the Main, distressed by the prevailing irreligion of his day, began a practical religious work out of which grew the great movement known as German pietism. The principles upon which Spener built were not new — they had long existed, both in Lutheran and Reformed Protestantism— but he gave them a currency which they had not before enjoyed, and they became ultimately allcontrolling in the religious life of Germany. In the over-emphasis of theology and in the widespread identification of saving faith with orthodoxy, Spener saw one of the principal causes of the decline in religion and morality. True piety had been too largely lost sight of, and the practical duties of the Christian life. There was needed above all a revival of personal religion in the form of deeper spirituality and greater devotion. Spener had no quarrel with Protestant orthodoxy, and attacked none of the doctrines of the traditional Lutheran system, but his attitude, nevertheless, was wholly different from that of his theological contemporaries. To them purity in the faith meant everything — the guarding of the deposit of truth handed down by the Apostles and after centuries of corruption recovered and reformulated in the Confessions of the Reformation. To him the religious life of the individual Christian seemed most important — his regeneration by the Holy Spirit, his union with Christ, his sanctification through the indwelling Divine.

The movement was a protest of individualism against institutionalism and in this respect one in spirit with the Reformation itself. Conformity to an external standard, submission to an -external authority, unquestioning acceptance of a given system of truth, attendance upon public religious services, and participation in established rites — all this was not enough. There must be the personal experience of conversion and the personal devotion of the heart and life to Christ. Religion, according to Spener, is an individual, not merely a corporate, matter, and in some degree at least every true Christian must have an independent religious life of his own, a life of direct communion with Christ, not dependent upon the ministrations of a priest or the mediation of the Church.

The movement was also an assertion of the religious rights and responsibilities of the laity. A fundamental principle of Spener' s was the universal priesthood of believers, involving the duty of mutual instruction, inspiration, and reproof. This principle he put into practical operation by starting meetings among the laity for the devotional study of the Bible and for prayer and spiritual edification. These meetings mul-

PIETISM 7

tiplied rapidly and proved a most effective means for the reformation of the religious life and for the spread of the pietistic movement. Through them the laity were trained in self-expression, and their sense of religious responsibility was vastly enhanced. Without doubt they did much to undermine the dominance of theologians and the control of speculative theology in the churches of Germany. In all of them the study of the Bible, not for doctrinal, but for devotional purposes, was made a fundamental matter, and the tendency was to foster a practical and undogmatic Christianity wholly unlike the official Christianity of the scholastic period.

One result of pietism's change of interest from dogma to life was the rapid growth of the spirit of tolerance for other views and other sects. Spener felt more at one with Christians of pietistic tendencies in other communions than with those of another spirit in his own. In the Reformed churches and even in Roman Catholicism he recognized that the experience of regeneration and union with Christ was common, and it meant much more to him than the possession of an orthodox system of theology. Of the unconverted and worldly-minded he was not tolerant; with them the true Christian could have no communion, even though they were members of the same Church. But true children of God, wherever found, were bound together by a common spirit. Thus pietism was disintegrating, not only of the traditional system of theology, but of existing ecclesiastical institutions as well.

Pietism affected the traditional theology and promoted its disintegration not simply by bringing about a general change of emphasis from doctrine to life, but also by drawing a distinction between important and unimportant doctrines, thus tending to reduce the traditional system to low terms. As has been said, Spener rejected no part of the orthodox faith, but he recognized as essential only those beliefs which promoted personal piety or had a direct bearing upon the Christian life. This, too, meant a radical change of attitude. Saving faith had been generally identified with, or at least made to include as an essential element, the acceptance of the whole orthodox system. Whatever the relation of any particular doctrine to practical life and conduct, as a part of the revealed truth of God it must be believed if one would be saved. It was necessary to accept it not because it appealed to a man, or affected his life and character, but because it had been revealed. To treat it as unimportant or as a matter of indifference was to show contempt for God from whom it came. The principle was identical with the Roman Catholic which made obedience to the Church in all matters of faith as well as practice essential to salvation. From the point of view of Protestant orthodoxy, as wTell as Catholic, to distinguish between essential and unessential doctrines is a fatal error. But this is exactly what pietism did. While not denying or questioning any part of the traditional system, it deliberately put certain doctrines into the forefront and made the acceptance of them alone necessary. The truth of the doctrines of regeneration and sanctification by the Holy Spirit every

PIETISM 9

Christian must experience for himself. All doctrines which he could not thus experience and which by their very nature stood apart from his daily life he could afford to forget.

Of course, however sound in the faith Spener might remain and however active he might be in religious work, his principles must be anathema both to the orthodox theologians and to the ruling ecclesiastics of his day. A bitter controversy speedily broke out which ended in a complete victory for pietism, and for half a century it remained the dominant force in German religious life.

The effect of pietism upon the old dogmatic system was disintegrating but not wholly destructive. As a matter of fact, while many doctrines were pushed by it into the background and permanently lost interest for most Protestant Christians, and while the general attitude toward dogmatic theology was changed, certain articles of the old faith were given a new hold upon the Protestant world. Just because the practical bearing of a doctrine was made the test of its importance those doctrines which were wrapped up in the pietistic interpretation of the Christian life, and were inseparable from it, acquired a value they had not had before, and when rationalism came upon the scene, with its negation of these very doctrines, they were made the heart of a new orthodoxy which continues to the present day largely unconscious of the difference between itself and the older orthodoxy which it has displaced, in fact much more akin to that older orthodoxy than the original relation between

IO pietism and scholasticism might lead us to expect. But of this later. Here I am concerned with pietism only as a disintegrating force. As such its work was twofold. It undermined respect for dogmatic theology in general, turning men's attention from orthodoxy to life ; and it reduced the traditional system to comparatively low terms by distinguishing its essential from its unessential tenets.

Chapter II

The period of the Enlightenment witnessed a general change of the widest range and deepest significance in the temper and attitude of the peoples of Northern and Western Europe. Tendencies already at work in the age of the Renaissance, after being checked for some generations by the Protestant Reformation and the religious wars which followed, became everywhere dominant in the eighteenth century, commonly known as the century of the Enlightenment, and the whole world of thought and culture was transformed. The humility, the self-distrust, the dependence upon supernatural powers, the submission to external authority, the subordination of time to eternity and of fact to symbol, the conviction of the insignificance and meanness of the present life, the somber sense of the sin of man and the evil of the world, the static interpretation of reality, the passive acceptance of existing conditions and the belief that amelioration can come only in another world beyond the grave, the dualism between God and man, heaven and earth, spirit and flesh, the ascetic renunciation of the world and its pleasures — all of which characterized the Middle Ages — were widely overcome, and

ii men faced life with a new confidence in themselves, with a new recognition of human power and achievement, with a new appreciation of present values, and with a new conviction of the onward progress of the race in past and future.

The fast multiplying discoveries of physical science and the ever advancing conquest of the forces of nature gave them a growing sense of mastery over their environment, while the promise of ever new secrets to be disclosed and ever new victories to be achieved made the world far more interesting than it had once been and endowed it with a new fascination for serious and thoughtful minded men. Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Francis Bacon's Atlantis were early illustrations of the new attitude. The latter, particularly, with its picture of the great improvements to be effected by mechanical contrivances of all sorts, was prophetic of a frame of mind that has become increasingly common in more recent generations. The present world appealed to men, not simply for what it was but for what it was becoming. The idea of indefinite progress, the confident expectation of a continuous advance in human culture and a continuous betterment of the conditions of earthly life, laid hold of the imagination and kindled the enthusiasm of an ever enlarging circle.

As time passed it became more and more common not simply to expect progress but to labor to promote it. Discontent with existing conditions of one sort and another increasingly took the form of agitation, rather than resignation, "until finally the man who tamely and piously submitted to industrial oppression or economic injustice, consoling himself and his neighbors with the picture of a future life where all would be well, became an object not of admiration, as he would once have been, but of contempt. The active virtues gradually crowded the passive into the background, and the latter lost their glamour even for religious-minded men.

The fruits of the spirit of the Enlightenment, which has thus been hastily characterized, were seen in every sphere — political, social, economic, industrial, scientific, philosophical, ethical, and religious. In some the effects were more marked than in others and the changes more rapid. In some transformation was already complete in the eighteenth century, in others it is hardly yet under way. The period of the Enlightenment specifically so-called is long since over, but the world is still living under the control of some of its ideals, others it has not yet attained to, while still others it has already transcended.

In the political sphere the Enlightenment promoted constitutionalism, laid the foundations of democracy, undermined belief in the supernatural origin of the State and the divine right of kings, and destroyed the theocratic ideas of the Middle Ages and early Protestantism. Institutionalism gave way to individualism in every line, and reverence for the great political, social, and religious institutions of the past rapidly waned. The theory of natural rights, carried to hitherto unheard of lengths, was accepted as axiomatic. Developing industry and commerce completed the destruction of feudalism and contributed to economic freedom and to the disappearance of timehonored social distinctions.

Culture was becoming largely secular. Intellectual leadership was passing from the clergy to the laity, and education from the Church to the State. That morality should be divorced from theology and acquire an independent value of its own was almost inevitable. As was natural in an age when the worth of the individual human life was emphasized above all else, when ecclesiasticism and theological ethics were at a discount, and when reaction against party strife was widespread, benevolence, or regard for the good of others, came to be regarded as the supreme virtue. The notion of the universal brotherhood of man grew more and more common, and though it led to practical philanthropy on a large scale only in the nineteenth century, it had wide influence already in the eighteenth in abating cruelty, race hatred, class antagonism, and religious intolerance, and in fostering humanitarian ideals. Everywhere a milder, more humane, and more cosmopolitan spirit was making headway, at any rate among the educated classes. Underlying the whole movement was a new appreciation of present values, a new trust in man, and a new interest in human life.

In philosophy rationalism, beginning with Descartes, and sensationalism and empiricism, beginning with Hobbes and Locke, took the place of the old theological method. Both meant a revolt against the authoritarianism of the Middle' Ages in the interest of the thinking and perceiving individual. In the one case truth was to be known by its clearness and self -consistency rather than by the testimony of tradition and revelation. In the other case it was to be discovered by reflection upon the facts given in sense perception. The human reason, whether as a faculty of forming clear ideas or of drawing conclusions from the data of experience, became the supreme court of appeal, and the notion that a thing could be true and not rational from the human point of view was regarded as a scandal. The reason to which appeal was made, as time passed, came to be regarded more and more as the common sense of the mass of men. With their confidence in the individual, thinkers believed in sharing their philosophy, like everything else, with the people at large, and abhorred all esotericism and mystery. A privileged class seemed as much out of place in the intellectual realm as in the religious or political, and popularization was carried on in every line on a scale never before seen.

In the religious sphere — our particular concern here — the effects of the Enlightenment were very great. The old theological system still existed but little modified by the Protestant Reformation. The Enlightenment brought it into widespread discredit and seriously weakened, where it did not altogether destroy, its hold upon thinking men. And with the old theology Christianity itself suffered a reverse and seemed for a time about to perish from the earth. The secret of the trouble lay in the fact that the traditional Christian system was framed in an age whose intellectual atmosphere was vastly different from that of the period of the Enlightenment.

The latter is commonly called the age of rationalism, as if in it alone human reason was applied to the investigation and consideration of Christian truth. As a matter of fact there have been few periods of Christian history when the human reason was not so employed. In the early centuries the Patristic theologians, who did most to frame the historic Christian system, made use of the intellectual principles and methods commonly current in their day. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the golden age of Catholic orthodoxy, the application of reason to religion reached its zenith, and Christianity was subjected to a scrutiny of the most minute and exhaustive character. But in the Middle Ages as a rule the intellectual atmosphere and the rational principles generally accepted by thinking men were to all intents and purposes identical with those prevailing when the historic system was framed, and so the application of reason to religion meant the confirmation, not the criticism, of the old. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the age of nominalism, reason and religion were divorced, and the latter was accepted, despite its admitted irrationality, by Occam and the later schoolmen on the authority of the Church, by the Protestant reformers on the authority of Scripture. Luther even denounced the reason and gloried in proclaiming the disharmony between the Christian gospel and the mind of the natural man.

But those who came after him soon began to feel

THE ENLIGHTENMENT I J

the need of rationalizing the new system as the old had been, and the consequence was the scholastic period in Protestantism which lasted for a full century. As compared with that of the Middle Ages, Protestant scholasticism had the great disadvantage of being out of line with the prevailing intellectual currents of the day. As a result it was from the beginning a narrower, more inhospitable, and intolerant thing than its Catholic prototype, and its downfall was the more speedy and complete. From the point of view of its partisans it was a thoroughly rational system, based to be sure in considerable part upon revelation, but according throughout with the principles of human reason as they understood them.

What happened in the period of the Enlightenment was not that reason then first began to be applied to Christianity, but that reason was differently interpreted, The intellectual atmosphere of the Enlightenment— its general spirit and attitude — was utterly unlike that of the Middle Ages and of Protestant scholasticism. As a result demands were made upon the traditional theological system which it could not meet. That it was radically out of harmony with the new way of looking at things speedily appeared, and the only alternative was to transform it or to reject it, to adjust it to the modern world or to abandon it as forever outgrown. In the late Middle Ages, when the leading thinkers were all Catholic theologians and for the most part monks, the situation had been saved by recourse to the figment of the double truth. The still unquestioned authority of the Roman Church was then great enough to support faith in the irrational. But in the seventeenth century, the period of a rapidly growing lay culture, when the long conflict of the sects had undermined confidence in all ecclesiastical authority, such recourse was an impossibility for most thinking men. And so began the age of rationalism so-called, when the application of reason to religion resulted in the criticism and repudiation of the old faiths, not, as so often in the past, in their confirmation. In other words the age of rationalism was not, as distinguished from other periods, the age of reason, but of the conflict of the new reason with the old.

The emergence of such a conflict always raises the question of authority. So long as the past and present are in harmony there is no dispute over the matter. By common consent reason and revelation are taken to be mutually confirmatory. But when the intellectual atmosphere changes, the supporters of the old system, unable to appeal longer to rational principles of common acceptance, are likely to substitute authority for reason and to maintain, not the unwisdom of the present as compared with the past, but the unwisdom of all reason as compared with revelation. To fortify the old faith, appeal is taken to the supernatural, and it is thus removed from the dangerous arena of rational consideration and discussion. It depends then upon how far the age has traveled from the old, whether revelation, the truth once deemed rational, shall be regarded as merely above reason or as contradictory thereto. In the former case those who retain the old system may still accord reason a large place in the religious realm, and may recognize its instrumental if not its normative or critical function; in the latter case it will inevitably be denounced as having no place therein.

A fundamental tenet of the traditional Christian system, both Catholic and Protestant, was the fall of Adam, resulting in the depravity of the whole human race and its inability to save itself from the consequences of its sin. With this was bound up the belief in Christianity as a supernatural redemption, in Christ as a divine Saviour, in the Church as the sole ark of salvation, and in the sacraments as indispensable means of grace. With all this, as with the doctrine underlying it, the spirit of the Enlightenment was largely out of sympathy. A controlling principle of the new age was the worth and ability of man, a controlling ideal his independence and self-reliance. It was inevitable that two so widely different points of view should come into speedy conflict. InSocinianism,in Arminianism, in seventeenth and eighteenth century rationalism, opposition to the old appeared in varying forms and degrees. Sometimes it meant only a slight revision of the existing system — the opposition being neither thoroughgoing nor consistent — sometimes it meant its complete transformation or rejection. Always the doctrine of the fall was minimized, or its scope narrowed, and its effect upon the nature and character of man reduced to low terms. This meant of course a growing loss of emphasis upon those doctrines which were bound up with it. If man was not as helpless as had

20 THE RISE OF MODERN RELIGIOUS IDEA been supposed, his need of supernatural redemption and supernatural power was less imperative. Already by the Socinians of the sixteenth century we find the function of Christianity reduced to the revelation of truth in order that man may know the way of life which, once known, it is wholly within his power to follow. This estimate of Christianity prevailed more and more widely among the rationalists. The gospel ceased to mean supernatural power given from above and came to mean only supernatural light.

But it was natural that the question should be raised, Why is supernatural light needed? If man has inherent power to follow the way of life, why may he not also discover it for himself? The Socinians replied in good traditional fashion : "So glorious a recompense and the sure means of obtaining it must wholly depend on the will and counsel of God. But this will and counsel what human being can explore and clearly ascertain, unless they be revealed by God himself?"1 In other words God demands of man something else than mere natural virtue, or righteousness grounded in the nature of things. But it was inevitable in the period of the Enlightenment that there should be a growing number to whom this generally accepted position seemed wholly vicious, and by the so-called deists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was vigorously attacked. The belief that God requires, whether in faith or conduct, anything arbitrary or morally indifferent, interferes, so they claimed, with the practice of true virtue, and has 1 Racovian Catechism, Sec. II, Chapter i.