What shall I believe?

Chapter I

CONCERNING BELIEF. By Rev. Allen Macy Dulles, D.D., Professor of Theism and Apologetics 1

Don Quixote as representing current notions. — Popular definitions. — " Pistis " in the New Testament. — Faith defined. — Evidence necessary to faith. — Faith helps the soul to advance into unseen. — Seeking faith is not having faith. — Tennyson in error. — Belief coextensive with truth. — Knowledge and belief. — Willingness to believe is not belief. — Demonstration not possible. — Pragmatism. — Faith proportionate to evidence. — Doubt destructive of faith. — Saying " I believe/' is not believing. — Intellectual honesty. — What is meant by evidence or proof. — Faith not " an assumption for moral gain." — Hope confused with faith. — How to evade a creed. — The will and belief. — The moral element. — Belief beset by doubts. — The victory of faith.

Chapter II

CONCERNING GOD. By Rev. Willis Judson Beecher, D.D., Professor of the Hebrew Language and Literature 31

Introduction. Old-fashioned Theism. I. Theistic doctrine includes " the law of the persistence of energy." — The theist versus the agnostic scientist. — Nehemiah and Herbert Spencer. — The catechism and current science. — Theism affirms that persisting energy is not all.

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II. It includes the doctrine of God as immanent. — Different conceptions of divine immanency. — The universe as living force. — Manifesting everywhere intelligence and purpose. — Nehemiah's view. — One of the commonplaces of theology. — Its place in the inferior religions. — Tennyson's " Higher Pantheism." III. And the doctrine of God as transcendent. — Not merely omnipresent Being, but self-revealing. — One who cares, and who approves or disapproves. — Especially self-revealing in Israel and Christ and the Scriptures. — Anthropomorphic expressions for transcendence. — No doctrine of an " absentee God." — Inadequate ideas, due to neglect. — Christ's conception of our Father in heaven.

Chapter III

CONCERNING JESUS, CHRIST. By Rev. James

Stevenson Riggs, D.D., Taylor, Seymour and

Ivison Professor of Biblical Criticism ... 55

Introduction. Jesus is not satisfied with a merely

intellectual judgment regarding Himself. — He is

the Christ both of history and of experience and

can never be completely considered except under

both aspects.

I. The Christ of History:

(a) The facts of the gospels are necessary

to the existence of Christianity.

(b) The Church is in no danger of losing any

of these facts.

(c) The historical Christ is now more clear-

ly seen than ever before.

II. The Christ of Experience. The Spiritual Import of Christ:

(a) He is to us the revelation of the char-

acter of God.

(b) He is to us the way and means of God's

forgiveness.

(c) He is the motive power of the Christian

life.

(d) He is the surety of our final and com-

plete redemption. iv

CONTENTS CHAPTER IV.

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CONCERNING THE BIBLE. By Rev. George Black Stewart, D.D., LL.D., President, Professor of

Practical Theology 79

I. Belief about the Bible is affected by two influences: (a) By our early education, (b) By our intellectual and religious environment. — These influences are always active, either in harmony or opposition. — The conflict between our early training and our own experience starts most of the interesting questions about the Bible. — We can have a doctrine of the Bible which allows us to retain both our intellectual integrity and our reverence for the Scripture in the presence of modern thought. II. Belief in the Bible is secondary to belief in God. — Zeal for the Bible leads some to reverse this order, to the confusion of thought and the discredit of the Book. — Man's chief duty is to get right with God, not with a book.

III. Belief in the Bible recognizes its variety and its unity. — The Bible is not a book but a library. — The variety is in form and content, the unity is of the spirit. — The great dominant ideas are the same although expressed variously and with progressive clearness.— This unity is only adequately explained by the activity of the Spirit of God.

IV. Belief that the Bible is essentially a religious book. — Its historical and other matter are not its chief concern, nor final in determining its value for us. — Whether a certain part is history or myth, or history or story, does not affect the chief question about the Book. — Does the Bible deal with spiritual realities and that in a trustworthy manner, is the chief question. — It solves man's fundamental religious problem. — Its center and charm is Jesus Christ. — He is its principal credential and without Him it would lose its place. — Because of its relation to Him it is a revelation, as well as a record of revelations. — Jesus Christ carries the Book to the preeminence that is His, and it will abide there as long as He does.

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V. Belief that the Bible is a creative force. — The Old, and especially the New, Testament have had great constructive influence in the world. — This influence is not due to its historical or literary quality, but to its unique spiritual quality as a word of life.

VI. It is the Book of our Religion. — Christianity is not the religion of a book, but a religion with a book. — It finds men and thus shows itself to be a veritable candle of the Lord. — Practically, even for the stiffest inspirationist, only those parts are inspired which are profitable.

Conclusion. Our belief in the Bible leads us to exhort men to repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ. — Our belief in the Bible leads us to rejoice in the most critical study of it. — It is a book of light and bears the test of the light.

Chapter V

CONCERNING MAN. By Rev. Allen Macy Dulles,

D.D., Professor of Theism and Apologetics . . 99 Man a mystery and a problem to himself. — The utterances of true science are welcome. — Evolution places man at or near the goal. — Other animals superior to man physically. — The brain does not think. — Not his body but reason distinguishes man. — Philosophy exalts man. Man's marvelous performances. — Man a child of God. — Man capable of being religious. — Man by nature akin to God. — Tennyson, Goethe, Pascal. — Mankind presents frightful contrasts. — Man's self-debasement. — What is the " natural " man. — Adam. — The Adamic nature. — Sin as " natural " to man. — The Fall, a misuse of power. — Man has no will, he wills, — The flesh or sarx. — The conflict of approbation and conduct. — Spiritual enslavement. — Salvation a spiritual freedom.

Chapter VI

CONCERNING SALVATION. By Rev. Harry Lathrop Reed, A.B., Assistant Professor in New

Testament Greek 127

The cry for mercy, a testimony to the universal yi

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consciousness of sin and need of a saviour. — The world religions have therefore all been religions of Salvation, offering a way of Salvation. — One religion has proved itself the religion by offering the Way. — The various and varied conceptions of Salvation and the Way which are found in the New Testament. — Their agreement that Salvation is deliverance; from the past, in the present, and for the future.

I. From the past — Forgiveness. — Forgiveness in the life of Jesus: He forgave; He spoke of forgiveness as a reality; He illustrated forgiveness; He interpreted sin and forgiveness in terms of personal pronouns; He proved forgiveness possible, by proving God a Father; He made forgiveness possible by the cross. II. In the present — a power and a life. — A power to overcome the power of sin, and a life to live, through a vital union with Christ. — The characteristics of that life. — Godward — Manward — Saved to serve.

III. For the future — an inheritance, reserved, and yet to be revealed.

Chapter VII

CONCERNING THE CHURCH. By Rev. Edward Waite Miller, D.D., Hyde Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Polity . . .151 Belief in the Church an essential article of Christian faith. — The Church an imposing historical institution. — Meaning of Ecclesia in the New Testament. — Christ's use of the word. — The separation of the Christian from the Jewish Ecclesia. — The figures under which Paul represents the Church. — The three distinctive features of the Apostolic Church: (a) Democracy in government; (b) Variety in external features; (c) Unity of spirit. — The unity of the Church a fact for faith. — The unity of the Church a " unity of the Spirit." — The external uniformity of the Catholic Church in the Empire. — The Church divided into Greek and Roman. — The rise of the Protestant churches. — The numerous churches represent the Church. — The Church- as adequate authority. — The relation of Church and Kingdom. — The Church as servant of Christ.

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CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII.

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CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION. By Rev. James Stevenson Riggs, D.D., Taylor, Seymour and Ivison Professor of Biblical Criticism 183

Introduction. The method of attack in our day is the distinction between " The Easter Message " ( the story of the empty grave ) and " The Easter Faith" (the spiritual import of the Resurrection) and the rejection of the Easter Message. I. The Easter Message — Christ actually, physically rose from the grave.

(a) The Scripture evidence for this fact.

(b) The difficulty of accounting for the fact

by any form of " vision " theory.

(c) The necessity of the fact to the faith of

the church.

II. The Easter Faith — Christ having risen from the dead lives forevermore. — The significance of this fact to the church is:

(a) That it gives validity to the life and

death of Jesus :

1 In verifying His own predictions.

2 In making good His declaration

that " life " shall triumph over death for all believers.

3 In opening the way for the vital

realization of the forgiveness of sin.

(b) That it gives the promise and pledge of

the redemption of our complete personality.

1 Personality in the Bible includes

body with soul.

2 Christ's resurrection is typical of

our bodily resurrection

( 1 ) The Resurrection scenes in

the gospels have a twofold significance.

(2) It is not the body which

we put into the grave which shall rise.

(3) The spiritual body a mys-

tery but a certainty.

Chapter IX. Page

CONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE. By Arthur Stephen Hoyt, D.D., Bellamy and Edwards Professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral

Theology 203

I. The Almost Universal Faith in a Future Life.

(a) It marked the childhood of the race. —

It marks the childhood of each man. — It is hard for a child to believe in death.

(b) The great thinkers have believed in a

future life. — Testimony of philosophers and poets.

(c) However crude and dim, the faith has

been seen in all ages and lands. II. Whence Comes the Wide-spread Faith in a Future Life?

(a) Nature gives suggestions of the future. — Science has nothing against the hope: the doctrine of evolution logically implies it. (b) The experience of man gives the strongest suggestion. — If God is just, true, good, there must be a future life. — Human love is stronger than death, (c) This the prophecy of immortality, the presumptive argument. — The need of a surer word.

III. The Teaching of the Bible.

(a) The Old Testament largely silent. —

Trains the spiritual life. — Out of the higher life of men gleams the hope.

(b) Christ makes the hope sure by mani-

festing and giving eternal life and by proving its power in His resurrection.

IV. Christ's Revelation of the Future Life.

(a) Glimpses of its fullness and blessedness.

— His significant silence. — The future involved in His life.

(b) The reverse of the picture. — The shadow

on the wicked. — The penalty of sin is sin.

V. The Influence on the Present of Faith in the Future Life.

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