Helps to faith : a contribution to theological reconstruction

Front matter

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Dedication

To all lovers of Truth who are seeking a stable foundation 07t which to build a faith that will give strength^ cofnfort^ and inspiration for service here^ and a triumphant hope for the life hereafter.

Preface

It is with no little diffidence, and witli no conscious trace of dogmatism, that the author puts forth this little volume, embodying some of the results of his own thinking, as a humble contribution to that reconstruction in theology which is so marked a feature of our times. The subjects treated, and the manner of treating them, have been determined very largely by the aim of the book, as indicated by its title. The author feels that in this, as in all transition periods in the history of religious thought, there is danger that some will mistake the transient and changing forms of doctrine for the substantial foundations of Christian faith, and in yielding their former doctrinal opinions may surrender, also, their faith in God, and in Jesus Christ, through whom and in whom He has revealed Himself to humanity. He has had in mind, also, those who are untrained in theological subtleties, and whose minds are more or less confused by current discussions, but who sincerely desire to know and to accept the truth concerning the great questions of faith

Preface

and duty, doctrine and destiny. To point out the original sources of faith and to clear away some of the debris of outgrown theories, so as to make faith easier, has been the author's aim in all these studies. May He who often chooses humble instruments to accomplish His wise purposes be pleased to make this volume a help to the faith of many honest, inquiring souls! So shall the author's purpose be fully realized.

Contents

Preface ...... 7

Introduction . . . . .13

Part I Some Facts On Which Faith Rests

I. Testimony of the Religious Instincts . . . .

II. The Disharmony in Man's Nature

III. God's Self-Revelation

IV. Jesus as a Revelation of God V. Given Christ, Christianity Follows

VI. What Then Shall I Do With Jesus?

VII. Learning of Jesus

VIII. At the Feet of Jesus

IX. How THE Ideal is Made Real

X. The Meaning of Christ's Death

XI. The Nature of Faith and Its Re lation to Salvation

XII. What Must We Believe?

XIII. The Holy Spirit

XIV. Christian Experience, or God in Us

XV. The Church

XVI. The Literature of the New Tes tament

XVII. Is Revelation Continuous? .

XVIII.

101 109 117 125 133

140 150

Contents

XVII. Is Revelation Continuous? . . 150

XVIII. Christianity Vindicated by History 158

Part II Some Obstacles To Faith

I. Objections Classified . . 167

II. Origin of Moral Evil . . 170

III. Election .... 174

IV. Sin, Salvation, Retribution . 180 V. Science and Revelation . . 187

VI. Revelation Progressive . . 194

VII. Abuse of Authority in Religion . 201

VIII. Conversion — The Old Doctrine and

THE New Light . . . 209

IX. A Divided Church . . .217

X. Moral Delinquencies . . 224

XL The Slow Progress of the Kingdom OF God .... 232

XII. The Creed of Unbelief . . 239

Introduction

I CAN NOT agree witH those who characterize the present age as an age of doubt. This undeserved reputation is the result, let us think, of the tendency to investigate old beliefs, old forms of doctrine, old systems of philosophy, old theories of economics, and whatever else the present generation has inherited from those which have preceded it. But this sort of doubt, which desires to know the foundations on which things rest, and which seeks to verify the doctrines, traditions and philosophies which have come down to us, is entirely consistent with faith in God and His well-authenticated revelations. Such doubt is ever the forerunner of a larger and truer faith. It may be doubted if any previous age of the world has possessed more intelligent, well-grounded faith in the invisible God and in the eternal verities than the age in which we live. It is the author's belief that the present trend of thought and of feeling is toward faith and religion, rather than toward infidelity and irreligion.

Nevertheless, while saying this much in vindication of the people who inhabit the world to-day, it is true beyond question that the faith of many is weak and ill-supported, and that some have made shipwreck of their faith through the defilement of their consciences and through neglect of those things which strengthen belief in God and in invisible realities. For some time the author has cherished the plan, when opportunity would offer, to prepare a brief work with the view of strengthening the faith of the weak and of helping those who are honestly seeking for an intelligent basis upon which to build faith. This he hopes to do in two ways: First, by a restatement of some of those fundamental things on which faith rests, or by which it grows; and second, by seeking to remove some obstacles out of the way which hinder faith. The latter is scarcely less important than the former, because of the tendency of the popular mind to confuse the theories and traditions of men which have become attached to Christianity in its passage through the centuries as barnacles cleave to the keel of a vessel, with the facts, truths and principles which enter vitally into the kingdom of God.

So much as to method. The motive which lies behind this effort is the desire to contribute, if only in some small degree, to the

Introduction

building up of a stronger and more intelligent faith in God, as He is revealed in Jesus Christ, and His spiritual reign among men. The most valuable possession a rational soul can have is a simple yet strong and robust faith that brings one into communion with God and that holds him to a life of loyal service to God and His fellowmen through all the temptations, vain philosophies and modern vagaries *'of science, falsely so-called.*' Such a faith brings its possessor into the enjoyment of a spiritual inheritance of which neither the vicissitudes of life nor death itself can deprive him. It is the light by which the believer walks in the dark days when earthly helps have failed him. It is an invisible chain that binds his soul to the throne of God and holds it secure amid all the storms and tempests which may beat upon it. It is the secret of strength in our weakness, of joy in our sorrows, of hope in our despair, of triumph even in our defeats.

It is clear from what is stated above, that by the t&rm faith is meant, not a set or formula of abstract doctrines, but the soul's spiritual vision — the power that apprehends the invisible. There is in every normal, rational

human being what may be called the faithis faculty. This only needs sincerity and purity of heart, the hungering and thirsting after righteousness, the necessary instruction in the things of the kingdom of God, to enable it to perceive spiritual realities, to apprehend truth, to lay hold of it with avidity, to recognize the reality of God and of His will as the supreme law of the universe and as the highest motive to righteous living. This faculty, like every other power of the soul, needs cultivation, needs something, in other words, on which to feed in order that it may grow and become the controlling force in all our choices and actions. While it is the duty of religious teachers to cultivate faith in the people, it is no less the duty of every man to seek to increase his faith by all the means within his power so that he may be what God would have him to be, and achieve what it is possible for the soul to achieve that lives and labors under the * 'power of the world to come." Who of us may not say, with one of old, *'I/ord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!" To Him must we look for that increase of faith which the tasks and trials of the Church demand to-day, and His guidance is humbly invoked in presenting to the public these "Helps to Faith."

PART I

Some Facts on which Faith Rests

When we would examine the bottom facts of religious faith, we must deal with the foundational fact of human nature. Both the need and the capacity for faith in an invisible God grow out of the fact that man was created in the image of God — a rational, moral and self-determining being. But, omitting for the present the origin of man, or the source of his capacities, we are to deal first of all with human nature as we find it — its capacities, its aspirations, its longings, its needs. About these there can be little room for differences of opinion, and we are now seeking basal and accepted facts for the ground of our argument.

Taking man as we find him, what is he? The most obvious fact, perhaps, is that he possesses a body with certain simple but pressing needs which clamor for attention.* But these material needs having been met and

* Instead of saying, "Man has a soul," it is truer to fact to say that man is a soul, and has a body. The soul or spirit is not the thing possessed, but is itself the possessor.

satisfied, there are still other and higher needs which manifest themselves and require satisfaction. The rational nature asserts itself by asking questions, first, perhaps, concerning its material environment, and how this maybe used to meet the needs of the body. It soon rises, however, to higher themes, and asks whence man came, why he came, and whither he is going. The fact that man raises such questions differentiates him at once from all lower orders of being. The highest animals below man are not capable of inquiring into their origin, nature and destiny. This capacity in man furnishes a new basis of classification, and separates him by a wide chasm from all lower forms of life.

As this reasoning and questioning being continues his investigations, he perceives within himself a higher capacity than that of mere reasoning. He is conscious of a desire to worship. He is, by the very law of his being and by the constitution of his moral nature, religious. Food for the body and knowledge for the mind do not satisfy the insatiable longings of the heart. There is an instinct, if we may not call it knowledge, of the infinite and of the eternal. He becomes dimly conscious of his obligations to a being or beings superior to himself, to whom he owes homage and worship. This religious instinct has found expression in some form in every tribe or people that has made any progress out of mere animalism. If there be an apparent exception to this general rule, it is because, in all probability, we have not yet fully understood the tribe or nation which is supposed to constitute the exception. At any rate, the religious nature is sufficiently universal to leave no doubt that it enters into, and constitutes an essential part of, our common human nature. It has been a fundamental mistake of the materialistic class of scientists, of those sometimes denominated naturalists^ that they have failed to make any account of man's religious nature in the application of the inductive method of reasoning. Surely it must be a very imperfect induction of facts that ignores the most significant and characteristic facts of human nature! Small wonder that wrong conclusions have been reached concerning man and his relations to the invisible when there have been left out of the premises such patent and commanding facts as man's moral nature and religious instincts!

One of the changes which have come over modern scientific and philosophical thought is the clearer and more universal recognition of the essential place which religion holds in man's nature. This has resulted from a more careful and critical study of man, from a truer and profounder psychology, and from a truer application of the inductive method of reasoning which must take note of all the facts and make room for these facts in its theories. There is practical unanimity among the world's thinkers to-day as to the reality and normality of man's religious nature, and therefore as to the necessity of religion in order to man's complete and normal development. There is absolutely no clue to man's history in the past, and no explanation of the spiritual phenomena associated with human history, without the recognition of this basal fact, that man is by nature and endowment a worshiping being. This at least is the conclusion to which the best thought of modern times has led us. We may accept it, therefore, as a secure basis from which to reason.

But if the religious nature in man be normal, organic, whence came it? Why should man possess a nature that leads him to reverence and worship a superior being if no such being exists? It avails nothing to attribute man's origin to Force, and spell it with a capital. Man does not worship blind material force. It is only the intelligence, the thought, the will, in a word, the personality, that lies behind force that calls out man's homage and worship. The irresistible conclusion is that if religion be normal and the crowning feature of man's nature, then there is a Being who so created him, and who is worthy of his love, of his worship and of his obedience. And this is true whether we accept the evolutionary method of creation or the theory of a direct and immediate creation, for in either case there must be a Creator, and the facts of human nature, as we have indicated them, find their only explanation in a Creator who possesses in an infinite degree those qualities and faculties which we find germinal in man. He is not to be reasoned with who would argue that man's rational, moral and religious nature, his splendid idealism, his lofty aspirations and longings after the infinite, sprang from the fortuitous combination of atoms, and the accidental operation of blind material forces. The fact of human nature, as we see it and know it, is proof irrefutable of the existence of an All-wise and All-gracious

Being who is the Author of man, and who is guiding his development toward some far-off, majestic consummation.

If 'Hhe heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork,'^ even more so does the rational and moral nature of man declare His glory and power. *'Two things,'' says Kant, ^'fill me with awe; the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." The better we understand the significance of this moral law within us, this higher nature, crying out for satisfaction which the world cannot give, the more assuredly will we understand that He who gave us that moral nature is the Creator and Law-giver of the universe — the Being worthy of our sincerest worship — who made us for Himself and who alone can satisfy the soul's deepest and highest needs.

It may be said that, while it is true beyond reasonable doubt that the testimony of man's intellectual nature to the existence of intelligence in the material world, does prove the existence of an Infinite Mind in the universe, yet there is less satisfactory proof that this Mind is a personality who is good and gracious, and worthy of man's love and worship.

But this conclusion fails to give full value to the witness which man's religious instincts bear to the existence of a being worthy of our worship. ''Religion as we have seen, is natural to man, and practically universal. It does not wait for proof of the existence of God; it springs up from an intuitive sense of unseen realities. Man looks upward and prays; he thus bears testimony to his sense of dependence and obligation; he thus recognizes a power and an authority above him; and he thus assumes that there is some one to whom his prayer may properly be addressed. Religion may be crude and superstitious, and the object of worship unknown and misjudged; but the universal impulse and practice declare that religion belongs to the nature of man, and that there is a Being above man for him to worship. The religious constitution of man asserts that there is some Being whom man may worthily address in prayer.

"We instinctively trust our intellectual powers, and experience proves that we are safe in doing so, for we and the world are made upon one method. Are we equally safe in trusting the testimony of this religious intuition? Certainly we are, if we live in an honest world. Religious worship, obedience, and aspiration are as normal to man as sensation or reasoning. Any one of these powers may be misinformed or misdirected, yet they are genuine powers of man. Sense and reason are normally trustworthy, and so, we instinctively affirm, is the impulse to aspire, obey and worship in the presence of a higher Power. . . . In a world of reality every power has its counterpart,— the eye has light, the reason has truth, and the religious nature has God. If the religious nature in man has no real being corresponding to it, no one who is worthy of the adoration and trustful obedience that man is moved to give to One above him, then we can only say that man was born with his highest nature looking out into empty space. He was endowed with noble powers that can only mislead and disappoint him; and thus he comes into being possessed of a nature that is essentially false. Moreover, it is the highest in him that is false. But if human nature is false in its highest region, — false by being made so in its very constitution — then we cannot be sure that it is true in any department of its activity. If we say that man's highest nature naturally deceives him, we resign all right to rely upon our nature or the validity of our powers, and confidence in our mental processes is at an end. We are compelled to trust our own powers just as truly in the religious realm as in the physical or the intellectual. If we are not safe in this, we are sure of nothing; and the powers that we are compelled to trust affirm that there is One above us who is worthy of our love and adoration.''*

That the testimony of our religious nature is abundantly confirmed by the experience of the best and most advanced people of the world wall appear in subsequent chapters. It has been made sufficiently clear, so far, that if we are to rely on the testimony of our religious nature, which is man's highest nature, we must conclude that there is a God answering to the demands of this nature, who is worthy of our worship and our service.

♦Clarke's "Outline of Christian Theology," pp. 118-120.