The evolution of Christianity

Preface

We are living in a time of religious ferment. What shall we do ? Attempt to keep the new wine in the old bottles ? That can only end in destroying the bottles and spilling the wine. Attempt to stop the fermentation ? Impossible ! And if possible, the only result would be to spoil the wine. No ! Put the new wine into new bottles, that both may be preserved. Spiritual experience is always new. It must therefore find a new expression in each age. This book is an attempt to restate the eternal yet ever new truths of the religious life in the terms of modern philosophic thought.

The teachers in the modern church may be divided into three parties : one is endeavoring to defend the faith of the fathers and the forms in which that faith was expressed ; one repudiates both the faith and the forms; one holds fast to the faith, but endeavors to restate it in iv FBEFACE.

forms more rational and more consistent with modern habits of thought. To confound the second and third of these parties, because they agree in discarding ancient formularies, is a natural but a very radical blunder. The New Theology does not tend toward unfaith; it is, on the contrary, an endeavor to maintain faith by expressing it in terms which are more intelligible and credible. I hope that the reader of these pages will discover that I have not abandoned the historic faith of Christendom to become an evolutionist, but have endeavored to show that the historic faith of Christendom, when stated in the terms of an evolutionary philosophy, is not only preserved, but is so cleansed of pagan thought and feeling, as to be presented in a purer and more powerful form.

Mr. Drummond has contended, not that there is an analogy between natural and spiritual laws, but that the natural and the spiritual belong to one kingdom, so that the natural laws are projected into the spiritual world. It is my endeavor in this volume, in like manner, not to trace an analogy between evolution in the phy-

PREFACE. v

sical realm, and progress in the spiritual realm, but to show that the law of progress is the same in both. In the spiritual, as in the physical, God is the secret and source of life ; phenomena, whether material or spiritual, are the manifestation of his presence ; but he manifests himself in growth, not in stereotyped and stationary forms ; and this growth is from lower to higher, from simpler to more complex forms, according to well defined and invariable laws, and by a force resident in the growing object itself. That unknown force is God — God in nature, God in the church, God in society, and God in the individual soul. The only cognizable difference between evolution in the physical and evolution in the spiritual realms is that nature cannot shut God out, nor hinder his working, nor disregard the laws of its own life ; but man can and does. These principles constitute, to borrow a musical phrase, the motif of this book. The chapters which constitute the book were originally delivered, extemporaneously, as lectures before the Lowell Institute of Boston. After their delivery their publication was called for. They had not been reported in full, and vi PBEFACE.

compliance with the request for their publication necessitated writing them. In some instances criticism showed that I had failed to make my meaning clear. In such cases I have modified my original statements. But this has been done only for the purpose of avoiding misapprehension, not because in any case I have thought it prudent to modify the opinions expressed. I have not hesitated to incorporate in the book, as in the lectures, the substance, and in some cases the phraseology, of previous periodical publications ; chapter fourth is to a considerable extent such a modification of matter previously printed.

To some readers the chapter on the Evolution of the Bible, and that on the Evolution of the Soul, may seem to surrender vital and essential articles of Christian faith. I hope to others they will make all that is vital in the faith of the church concerning justification, sin, and redemption more rational and credible. My aim has been, not to destroy, but to reconstruct.

LYMAN ABBOTT.

Bbooklyn, N. Y., May, 1892.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Evolution and Religion . . . . .1 II. The Evolution of the Bible ... 26

III. The Evolution of Theology : The Old The-

Chapter I. Evolution And Religion

Evolution is defined by Professor Le Conte as "continuous progressive change, according to certain laws, and by means of resident forces." Religion has been defined by an English divine as "the life of God in the soul of man." It is my object to show that the Christian religion is itself an evolution ; that is, that this life of God in humanity is one of continuous progressive change, according to certain divine laws, and by means of forces, or a force, resident in humanity. The proposition is a very simple one ; illustrated and applied, it may help to solve some of the problems which are perplexing us concerning the Bible, the church, theology, social ethics, and spiritual experience.

All scientific men to-day are evolutionists. That is, they agree substantially in holding that all life proceeds, by a regular and orderly sequence, from simple to more complex forms, from lower to higher forms, and in accordance with laws which either now are or may yet be understood, or are at all events a proper subject of hopeful investigation. The truth of this doctrine I assume ; that is, I assume that all life, including the religious life, proceeds by a regular and orderly sequence from simple and lower forms to more complex and higher forms, in institutions, in thought, in practical conduct, and in spiritual experience. It is my purpose not so much to demonstrate this proposition as to state, exemplify, and apply it.

As "evolution" is the latest word of science, so "life" is the supreme word of religion. All religious men agree that there is a life of God in the soul of man. Max Muller suggests a more scientific definition of religion, — but the two are identical in sense, though different in form. He says that "religion consists in the perception of the Infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man." 1 The Christian religion, then, is the perception of that manifestation of God, historically made in and through Jesus Christ, which has produced the changes in the moral life of man whose aggregate result is seen in the complex life of Christendom, past and present. As

1 Natural Religion, p. 188.

EVOLUTION AND BELIGION. 3

all scientific men believe in evolution, — the orderly development of life from lower to higher forms, — so all Christians believe that there has been a manifestation of God in Jesus Christ which has produced historical Christianity. As I assume the truth of evolution, so I assume the truth of this fundamental article of the Christian faith. With the scientific believer, I believe in the orderly and progressive development of all life ; with the religious believer, I believe in the reality of a life of God in the soul of man. It is not my object to reconcile these two beliefs, but, assuming the truth of both, to show that this divine life is itself subject to the law of all life ; that Christianity is itself an evolution. Applying this law to the history of the Christian religion, it is my object to show that the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ has been a gradual and growing manifestation, and that the changes wrought thereby in the moral life of man have been gradual and growing changes, wrought by spiritual forces, or a spiritual force, resident in man.

There are in Professor Le Conte's definition of evolution three terms. Evolution is first a continuous progressive change; second, according to certain laws ; third, by means of resident forces. Each of these elements enters into and characterizes the development of Christianity.

Christianity has been, not a fixed and unchanging factor, but a life, subject to a continuous progressive change; this change has been, not lawless, irregular, and unaccountable, but according to certain laws, which, though by no means well understood, have never been either suspended or violated; and the cause of this change, or these changes, has been a force, not foreign to man himself, but residing in him. Thus Christianity, whether regarded as an institutional, an intellectual, a social, or a moral life, has exemplified the law of evolution.

A few more words of exact definition are needed, for it cannot be doubted that in the discussion concerning the relation of Christianity to evolution — or in the larger and less exact phrase, concerning the relation of theology to science — there has been much ignorance and more prejudice: on the part of theological experts, ignorance respecting the true nature of evolution ; on the part of scientific experts, ignorance respecting the true nature of religion. The theological discussions of our time grow out of an attempt, on the one hand, to restate the principles of the Christian life in terms of an evolutionary philosophy, or in terms consistent with that philosophy; and, on the other hand, out of resistance to this attempt, either by denying evolutionary philosophy altogether, or by maintaining that the Christian religion is an exception to the ordinary laws of life : that it is not and cannot be a continuous progression, but is and must be always unchanging; that it is not governed by certain laws, certainly not by laws which man can understand, but is dependent on the inscrutable if not capricious will of an unknown Person ; that it has its operating causes, not in a force or forces resident in humanity, but in a force or forces outside humanity. As I have said, I do not propose to discuss this question, except as an attempt to restate the principles of the Christian life in the terms of an evolutionary philosophy is such a discussion ; but it is evident, if such a restatement is to be made, that we must understand at the outset what we mean both by evolution and by the Christian life.

The doctrine of evolution, then, makes no attempt whatever to explain the nature or origin of life. It is concerned, not with the origin, but with the phenomena of life. It sees the forces resident in the phenomena, but it throws no light on the question how they came there. It traces the tree from the seed, the animal from the embryo, the planetary system from its nebulous condition; it investigates and ascertains the process of development : but it does not explain, or offer to explain, what is the difference between the seed which is a living thing and the grain of sand which is dead, or between the vitalized and the unvitalized egg, or what there is in the nebulae which produces out of chaos a beautiful world fitted for human habitation. One may with Haeckel believe in spontaneous generation, or with Tyndall disbelieve in it, and in either case be an evolutionist. Evolution traces only the processes of life; it does not offer to explain the nature or the origin of life. Life antedates all progress; and evolution only traces progress. The evolutionary theologian, then, must believe that the spiritual life shows itself in a continuous progress according to an orderly and regular sequence ; but his belief in evolution will throw no light whatever on the question as to the secret of that life which antedates spiritual progress. He must believe that this spiritual force is resident in humanity ; but how it came to be resident in humanity, evolution cannot tell him. This he must learn, if at all, elsewhere.

Making no attempt to explain the origin of life, the evolutionist insists that the processes of life are always from the simple to the complex : from the simple nebulae to the complicated world containing mineral substances and vegetable and animal life ; from the germinant mollusk through every form of animate creation up to the vertebrate mammal, including man ; from the family, through the tribe, to the nation; from the paternal form of government, through the oligarchic and the aristocratic, to the democratic ; from slavery, — the patriarchal capitalist owning his slave on terms hardly different from those on which he owns his wife, — to the complicated relationship of modern society between employer and employed. In this movement, notwithstanding apparent blunders, false types and arrested developments, the evolutionist sees a steady progress from lower to higher forms of life. The Christian evolutionist, then, will expect to find modern Christianity more complex than primitive Christianity. For the purpose of this comparison, I do not go back of Bethlehem: then, the confession u Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God," — now, the Episcopal Thirty-nine Articles, the Methodist Episcopal Twenty -four Articles, or the Westminster Confession of Faith of Thirty-three Chapters, with their numerous sub-sections; then, the simple supper-talk with the twelve friends, met in a fellowship sanctified by prayer and love — now, an elaborate altar, jeweled vestments, pealing organ, kneeling and awe-stricken worshipers; then, meetings from house to house for prayer, Christian praise, and instruction in the simpler facts of the Master's life and the fundamental principles of his kingdom, — now, churches, with preachers, elders, bishops, sessions, presbyteries, councils, associations, missionary boards ; then, a brief prayer, breathing the common wants of universal humanity in a few simple petitions, — now, an elaborate ritual, appealing to ear and eye and imagination, by all the accessories which art and music and historic association combined can confer; then, a brotherhood in Jerusalem, with all things in common, and a board of deacons to see that all were fed and none were surfeited, — now, a brotherly love making its way, in spite of selfishness, towards the realization of that brotherhood of humanity which is as yet only a dream of poets. And he will, expect to find that the Christianity of the nineteenth century, despite its failures and defects, is better, intellectually, organically, morally, and spiritually, than the Christianity of the first century.

The doctrine of evolution is not a doctrine of harmonious and uninterrupted progress. The most common, if not the most accurate formula of evolution is "struggle for existence, survival of the fittest." The doctrine of evolution assumes that there are forces in the world seemingly hostile to progress, that life is a perpetual battle and progress a perpetual victory. The Christian evolutionist will then expect to find

Christianity a warfare — in church, in society, in the individual. He will expect Christianity to be a Centaur, — half horse, half man; a Laocoon struggling with the serpents from the sea ; a seed fighting its way against frost and darkness towards the light and life. He will recur continually to his definition that evolution is a continuous progressive change by means of resident forces. He will remember that the divine life is resident in undivine humanity. He will not be surprised to find the waters of the stream disturbed; for he will reflect that the divine purity has come into a turbid stream, and that it can purify only by being itself indistinguishably combined with the impure. When he is told that modern Christianity is only a "civilized paganism," he will reply, "That is exactly what I supposed it to be ; and it will continue to be a civilized paganism until the civilization has entirely eliminated the paganism." He will not be surprised to find pagan ceremonies in the ritual, pagan superstitions in the creed, pagan selfishness in the life, ignorance and superstition in the church, and even errors and partialisms in the Bible. For he will remember that the divine life, which is bringing all life into harmony with itself, is a life resident in man. He will remember that the Bible does not claim to be the absolute Word of God; that, on the contrary, it declares that the Word of God was with God and was God, and existed before the world was ; that it claims to be the Word of God, as perceived and understood by holy men of old, the Word as spoken to men, and understood and interpreted by men, who saw it in part as we still see it, and reflected it as from a mirror in enigmas. He will remember that the Church is not yet the bride of Christ, but the plebeian daughter whom Christ is educating to be his bride. He will remember that Christianity is not the absolutely divine, but the divine in humanity, the divine force resident in man and transforming man into the likeness of the divine. Christianity is the light struggling with the darkness, life battling with death, the spiritual overcoming the animal. The end is not yet. We judge Christianity as the scientist judges the embryo, as the gardener the bud, as the teacher the pupil, — not by what it is, but by whaf it promises to be.

The doctrine of evolution is not inconsistent with the existence of types of arrested development, nor with deterioration and decay. The progress is continuous, but not unbroken. Nature halts. She shows specimens of unfinished work. Evolution is not all onward and upward. There are incomplete types, stereotyped and left unchanged and unchanging; there are nomovements, lateral movements, downward movements; there is inertia, death, decay. The Christian evolutionist is not therefore surprised to find all these phenomena in the evolution of Christianity. His finding them there does not shake his faith in the divine life which struggles toward victory against obstacles, and sometimes seems to suffer defeat. He expects to find faith hardened at certain epochs into cast-iron creeds ; thought arrested in its development; men struggling to prevent all growth, imagining that death is life and life is death, that evolution is dangerous and that arrested development alone is safe. He expects to find pagan superstitions sometimes triumphing over Christian faith, even in church creeds ; pagan ceremonies sometimes masquerading in Christian robes, even in church services ; and pagan selfishness poisoning the life blood of Christian love, even in communities which think themselves wholly Christian.

"A growing tree," says Professor Le Conte, " branches and again branches in all directions, some branches going upward, some sidewise, and some downward, — anywhere, everywhere, for light and air ; but the whole tree grows ever taller in its higher branches, larger in the circumference of its outstretching arms, and more diversified in structure. Even so the tree of life, by the law of differentiation, branches and rebranches continually in all directions, — some branches going upward to higher planes (progress) ; some pushing horizontally, neither rising nor sinking, but only going further from the generalized origin (specialization); some going downward (degeneration), — anywhere, everywhere, for an unoccupied place in the economy of Nature ; but the whole tree grows ever higher in its highest parts, grander in its proportions, and more complexly diversified in its structure." Consciously or unconsciously, Professor Le Conte has borrowed his figure from Christ. The mustard seed is growing to be the greatest of all herbs; but it grows in all directions; some branches pushing upward to higher planes ; some growing only further and further away from the original stock, different therefrom in apparent direction, yet the same in nature and in fruit; some growing downward and earthward; some with fresh wood and fresh leaves ; some halting in their growth and standing stunted and dwarfed, yet living; some dead, and only waiting the sharp pruning knife of the gardener, or nature's slower knife of decay; yet the whole "higher in its highest parts, grander in its proportions, and more complexly diversified in its structure" than when theNazarene cast the seed into the ground by the shores of Gennesaret. Then, a solitary physician, healing a few score of lame and halt and blind and lepers by a touch or a word, — now, throughout all lands which his presence has made holy, hospitals for every form of disease known among mankind; then, a single feeding of five thousand men, beside women and children, seated in serried ranks upon the ground, — now, an organized benefaction, which, through the consecrated channels of commerce, so distributes to the needs of man, that in a truly Christian community a famine is well-nigh impossible ; then, a single teacher speaking to a single congregation on the hillside and illustrating the simplest principles of the moral life, — now, unnumbered followers, so instructing men concerning God, duty, love, life, that not only does every nation hear the truth in a dialect which it can understand, but every temperament also in a language of intellect and emotion unconsciously adapted to its special need.

Does any Christian think that such a view is lacking in reverence for the Master? He may settle the question with the Master himself, who said, " Greater works than these shall ye do; because I go to my Father."

I may perhaps assume that the scientist, if he accepts religion in any sense, will not object to this view of Christianity. If he believes that man is a spiritual being and possesses a spiritual life, he will welcome the attempt to trace the development of this life according to the now generally accepted principles of evolution. But certain religious minds will at once interpose an objection. The religious life will seem to them to be an exception to the general law of evolution. They may hesitate to formulate an objection which their feeling really interposes. They may even be startled if they attempt to formulate such an objection, by discovering that, in so doing, they are denying the unity of life, and thus in fact, though not in form, throwing doubt upon the unity of God. But they will easily find this objection formulated for them. They will find it stated by Lord Macaulay in the interest of rationalism. "All divine truth," he says, u is, according to the doctrine of all Protestant churches, revealed in certain books. It is equally open to all who, in any age, can read those books ; nor can all the discoveries of all the philosophies of the world add a single verse to any of those books. It is plain, therefore, that in divinity there cannot be a progress analogous to that which is constantly taking place in pharmacy, geology, and navigation. A Christian of the fifth century with a Bible is neither better nor worse situated than a Christian of the nineteenth century with a Bible, candor and natural acuteness being of course supposed equal." 1 They will find the same objection to progress in religion stated with equal vigor by Dean Burgon, but in the interest of theological conservatism. "The essential difference between theology and every other science which can be named is this : that whereas the others are progressive, theology does not admit of progress, and that for the reason already assigned, viz., because it came to man, in the first instance, not as a partial discovery, but as a complete revelation. Whereas, therefore, in the investigation of natural phenomena, man's* business is to discover something new, theology bids its professors inquire for what is old." 2

This objection cannot be met by analogical arguments from other departments of thought and life, for its gist lies in a supposed contrast between theology, the science of the divine life, and all other sciences. The Bible is interpreted, alike by Lord Macaulay and by Dean Burgon, alike by the apostle of a cultivated agnosticism and by the representative of a conservative ecclesiasticism, as a bar to progress in theology. It would be vain to point out that the Christian-

1 Macaulay 's Essay on Ranke's "History of the Popes," Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii. p. 618.

2 Dean Burgon, in the Fortnightly Review for April, 1887, p. 606.

ity of the nineteenth century is not the same as the Christianity of the first century. The reply will be that it is not the same because of the decadence into which the church has fallen. We turn, then, to the Bible itself, since those who deny that progress may be predicated of religion claim to base this denial wholly upon the Bible, and ask whether it claims to prevent or to promote progress in religious thought ; whether its command is "halt" or "forward march;" whether, in Dean Burgon's phrase, it forbids men to discover aught that is new, and commands those who believe in it to inquire only for what is old.

To ask this question is to answer it. The most casual glance at the Bible discloses the fact that, from its opening to its closing utterance, it is the record of progress, a call to progress, an inspiration to progress. Its face is always set towards the future. The story of the Fall in Genesis is in some respects similar to that in other ancient legends; but Genesis alone contains a promise of restoration, "He shall bruise thy heel, but thou shalt bruise his head." Poisoned shalt thou be by the spirit of evil, but the spirit of evil shall be ground to powder beneath thy feet at last. The story of the Deluge is common to Genesis and other traditions as ancient or more ancient ; but it is in Genesis that the rainbow spans the retreating cloud, bidding man look forward with hope to a divinely ordered future. Abraham is led out of the land of his idolatry by a promise to be fulfilled, not in his time, but in that of his children's children. Israel is summoned out of Egypt by the expectation of a future prosperity for which the past and the present give no warrant. The Tabernacle in the Wilderness is a preparation for a Temple in the Holy Land. The Temple is destroyed forever, and with it the idolatrous idea that God's presence is confined to holy places, or his revelation of himself to particular forms ; in its place, seventy years of exile give to the Jewish people the Synagogue and the Holy Scriptures. From Genesis to Malachi the faces of patriarch, prophet, and priest are turned to the future : the religion of the Old Testament is a religion of expectancy ; the hope and faith of Israel are fixed upon a Coming One. The condition of the Jews is exactly the reverse of that which Dean Burgon recommends ; their theology makes it their business to look for something new, not to inquire for and be content with what is old.

Three or four centuries pass by. The now dispensation opens with a prophecy and a promise. Its first word turns all thoughts to the future. Prepare ye the way of the coming Lord is the burden of John the Baptist's message. Jesus takes up the cry. His preaching is also a summons to hope and expectancy : " The kingdom of God is at hand." The people dwell in their past ; he summons them continually to the future. They are content with Moses and the prophets ; he not only proclaims another and a better law, but he also declares in unmistakable terms his relation to the old : it is unfinished, he comes to complete ; it is undeveloped, he comes to ripen. The process will be gradual; the consummation requires time. His kingdom is not a completed kingdom : it is a seed cast in the ground; it is a wheat-field growing up for a future harvest. His teaching is new wine, it requires new bottles ; it is a new life, it requires a new garment. The institutions of Christianity must be elastic, because Christianity itself is a growing religion, with a life greater in the future than in the present. As the end draws near, Christ gathers with his disciples outside the walls of Jerusalem, and as the setting sun gilds the spires and domes of the Holy City, he foretells the destruction of Jerusalem, and bids his disciples take a long look forward, through the gloom of that dreadful day, to a redemption to be perfected and a Second Coming of the Redeemer. He meets them in the upper chamber, where he repeats the message in tenderer words :

he has many things to say to them which now they are not able to bear ; they must wait for the best; it lies in the future. As he ascends out of their sight, the angelic word to them is that they must look for his reappearing, and through patience, hope, and a blessed activity prepare for it. That which inspires the apostles, as they take up their work, is not the memory of a great past, but the hope of a great future. They are as those that seek a country. They are pilgrims and strangers, and their haven lies before them. They forget the things that are behind; they press forward for their prize. They count not themselves to have attained; they follow after, if they may apprehend that for which they are apprehended in Christ Jesus. They look for a new heaven and a new earth in which dwelleth righteousness. They exhort one another to grow in grace and in knowledge. And when at last the canon closes, the last vision which greets our eyes is not a completed city, but a city still descending out of heaven upon the earth; not a completed victory, but a Captain riding forth conquering and to conquer; not a kingdom accomplished, but an hour yet to come when the kingdoms of this earth shall have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. From the vague promises of redemption in the first chapter of Genesis to the clear vision of victory in the last chapter of Revelation, the cry of patriarch, prophet, martyr, apostle, and seer is the cry of the Lord to Moses by the shore of the Ked Sea: "Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward." If Lord Macaulay and Dean Burgon are right, if "theology does not admit of progress," Moses could not have added to Abraham's call the clearer words of the Ten Commandments, nor David supplanted the Tabernacle with preparations for a Temple, nor the prophets of exile have encouraged the organization of the synagogues, nor the Master substituted the Sermon on the Mount for the Mosaic Law, nor Paul have completed the wisdom of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes with the diviner and profounder wisdom of the Epistles to the Romans and to the Ephesians.