OCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 
 
 AND THE CHANGING THEOLOGY 
 
 GERALD BIRNEY SMITH 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . . i 
 
 !ii 
 
GIFT OF 
 
SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 AND THE CHANGING 
 
 THEOLOGY 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NBW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 AND THE CHANGING 
 
 THEOLOGY 
 
 A STUDY OF THE ETHICAL ASPECTS 
 OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 
 
 The Nathaniel William Taylor Lectures for 1912 
 Delivered before the Yale Divinity School 
 
 BY 
 
 GERALD BIRNEY SMITH 
 
 ASSOCIATE PBOFESSOB OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY IN THE DIVHSITY SCHOOL 
 OF THE DNIVEBBITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 J?eto gorfe 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1913 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1913 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published Mar. 19x3 
 
TO 
 
 Jfatfjer 
 
 THE MEMORY OF WHOSE INFLUENCE 
 WILL EVER GUIDE MY IDEALS 
 
 AND WHOSE LIFE 
 
 FIRST DISCLOSED TO ME 
 
 THE ETHICAL MEANING OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS volume contains the substance of the lec- 
 tures which were delivered on the Nathaniel 
 William Taylor foundation at the Spring con- 
 ference of alumni of Yale Divinity School and 
 ministers of Connecticut at New Haven in April, 
 1912. After they had been delivered, it seemed 
 best to profit by the comments of those who 
 heard them, and to gain the advantage of criti- 
 cisms on the part of two or three friends who 
 were good enough to read the manuscript. As 
 a result, some minor changes have been made so 
 as to avoid misinterpretation in one or two 
 points; but the substance of the discussion re- 
 mains practically unchanged. The final lecture 
 of the course, which was too long to be read 
 in its entirety, has here been divided and slightly 
 expanded in order to give space for a more de- 
 tailed exposition. 
 
 * 
 
 vn 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It has for some time seemed to the author 
 that the theological scholarship of our day is 
 in danger of pursuing a course which might end 
 in a somewhat exclusive intellectualism. As the 
 progress of biblical criticism has compelled us 
 to reconstruct our conception of the way in 
 which the Bible is to be used, the appeal to the 
 Bible, which to Luther seemed so simple and 
 democratic a matter, has become hedged in with 
 considerations of critical scholarship difficult 
 for those who are not specialists to comprehend. 
 While theologians have been giving attention to 
 the problems created by this phase of scholar- 
 ship, the movements of life in our day have 
 brought to the front aspects of the social 
 question sadly needing the guidance and the 
 control which can be supplied only by an 
 ethical religion. The utterances of theol- 
 ogy, in so far as it has followed traditional 
 paths, have been somewhat remote from 
 these pressing moral questions of social 
 justice. 
 
 Now the ethics underlying traditional the- 
 
PREFACE IX 
 
 ology is aristocratic. It has been assumed that 
 truth must be formulated by a higher wisdom, 
 to the authority of which men must submit. 
 This aristocratic conception of social guidance 
 was formerly characteristic of all realms of hu- 
 man enterprise. It still dominates much of our 
 thinking. But it is becoming increasingly evi- 
 dent that the ethical sympathies of our age are 
 with the immanent rights of man to discover 
 truth for himself and to try such experiments 
 as he wishes to make. In political life we have 
 frankly abandoned the ideal of government 
 from above, and are engaged in the task of edu- 
 cating men to an adequate appreciation of the 
 ethical principles of democracy. Our industrial 
 progress is taking us in the direction of in- 
 creased democratic rights in the daily toil of 
 men. In our religious life also it is proving 
 more and more difficult to enforce the ethical 
 tenets which belonged to the age of aristocratic 
 control. Dissent is today widespread and for 
 the most part goes undisciplined. The ethics of 
 modern democracy increasingly rule our prac- 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 tice in religion as well as in political and indus- 
 trial life. 
 
 Thus there is a discrepancy between the ethi- 
 cal principles which were embodied in the tra- 
 ditional theology and the principles underlying 
 our actual practice. There is a real danger lest 
 the practical disregard of the ecclesiastical ethics 
 which is still formally proclaimed may lead to 
 a weakened sense of moral loyalty, and may 
 thus prove disastrous to the cause of Christian- 
 ity. If theology is to have any part in the social 
 and ethical reconstruction which is before us, it 
 must learn to appreciate and to use the ethical 
 principles which are coming to be dominant in 
 our age. The purpose of these lectures is to 
 show how and why the change from aristo- 
 cratic to democratic ideals has taken place, and 
 to indicate wherein an understanding of the sig- 
 nificance of this ethical evolution may aid in 
 the reconstruction of theology. It is hoped that 
 when this is clearly apprehended by theologians 
 and ministers, the reconstruction of religious be- 
 liefs may be more closely related to the great 
 
PREFACE XI 
 
 problems of social ethics now looming so large, 
 and needing the help which a positive religious 
 faith can supply. 
 
 It is impossible to indicate in detail my in- 
 debtedness to others in working out the con- 
 siderations which have found a place in these 
 lectures. Mention should be made, however, 
 of the stimulus and the insight due to the 
 marked ethical and social emphasis of my col- 
 leagues in both the theological and the philo- 
 sophical faculties of the University of Chicago, 
 as they have helped me through published works 
 and through the more intimate means of per- 
 sonal conversation. 
 
 CHICAGO, October 12, 1912. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION ...*, xv 
 
 I. ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS AND AU- 
 THORITATIVE THEOLOGY ... i 
 II. THE DISCREDITING OF ECCLESIAS- 
 TICAL ETHICS 47 
 
 III. THE MORAL CHALLENGE OF THE 
 
 MODERN WORLD 99 
 
 IV. THE ETHICAL BASIS or RELIGIOUS 
 
 ASSURANCE 156 
 
 V. THE ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION OF 
 
 THEOLOGY .<. 205 
 
 Xlll 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 INTELLIGENT people are well aware of the 
 pressing necessity for a re-examination of the 
 principles and contents of Christian theology in 
 pur day. The task of reconstruction is being 
 undertaken by many gifted minds, and has been 
 making gratifying progress in recent years. 
 There is in existence today a considerable litera- 
 ture of power and insight dealing with various 
 aspects of the present theological situation. But 
 in spite of the positive contributions which are 
 being made in the direction of a more effective 
 and convincing presentation of our Christian 
 beliefs, there is still a widespread feeling that 
 a "new" theology is not as powerful an agent 
 for the promotion of the religious life as is the 
 traditional system of doctrine. 
 
 The principal reason for this popular distrust 
 is, it is true, the inherited feeling that loyalty 
 
 xv 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION 
 
 to the system of revealed truth is of superior 
 moral quality to the spirit of critical investiga- 
 tion which is so ready to engage in "destructive" 
 speculation. Thus there is a genuinely moral 
 motive back of the utterances of those who dis- 
 trust reforming movements in the realm of the- 
 ological beliefs. The critical scholars, on the 
 other hand, are too generally concerned with the 
 intellectual aspects of their problems to allow 
 the moral ideals of popular opinion to weigh 
 heavily. They feel that loyalty to the truth, 
 wherever that loyalty may lead, is the self-evi- 
 dent pathway to genuine and permanently con- 
 structive efforts. They are thus likely to be 
 impatient with the objections of the man who 
 believes in a perfect and finished system of re- 
 vealed truth. Thus because neither side com- 
 pletely understands the motives of the other, 
 there is likely to ensue a misunderstanding 
 which may have deplorable consequences. It 
 would be a calamity if the piety of the churches 
 and the learning of the schools were to become 
 so alienated from each other that the organ- 
 
INTRODUCTION XV11 
 
 ized institutions of religion were willing to 
 forego the scientific criticism and guid- 
 ance which scholarship can furnish, and if 
 the work of the scholars were to find no di- 
 rect outlet into the religious activities of our 
 day. 
 
 For the glory of Christianity is really in the 
 ethical character of its theology. Jesus appre- 
 hended and interpreted religion in the homely 
 and intimate realms of character and conduct 
 rather than in the field of abstract doctrine. 
 Such doctrinal reforms as he contemplated were 
 due to moral rather than to intellectual consid- 
 erations. The power of the religion which calls 
 itself by his name lies in its ethical supremacy. 
 The theology of the early Christians was not 
 the chief means of winning converts. There 
 were rival forms of religion with equally impres- 
 sive intellectual systems. But Christianity 
 brought the compelling force of great moral 
 ideals suffused with religious dynamic. As we 
 trace the history of our religion, we take most 
 pride in the splendid ethical reformations of the- 
 
XV111 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ology which enabled it to appeal with new power 
 to men. 
 
 A reformed theology which does no more 
 than satisfy intellectual interests must inevitably 
 prove itself unable to carry the great missionary 
 and evangelical enterprises so essential to Chris- 
 tianity. Perhaps one of the chief dangers which 
 lies before us today in our efforts to reconstruct 
 our theology is that we may forget that too ex- 
 clusive attention to the purely scientific or intel- 
 lectual aspects of the work of reconstruction 
 will mean a theology which becomes a mere 
 phase of general culture. As such, it will claim 
 the interest of only a cultured few, and will thus 
 become essentially aristocratic. Indeed, there 
 are not wanting signs of popular disregard for 
 a theology which takes visible pride in a superior 
 scientific equipment, if that superior equipment 
 unduly values matters of critical accuracy with- 
 out a corresponding sensitiveness to the great 
 universal spiritual needs of men. Is "higher 
 criticism" really succeeding in creating a more 
 vital, virile faith? Or is it putting to the front 
 
INTRODUCTION XIX 
 
 the necessity for cautious and careful accuracy 
 in matters of historical fact so as to induce a 
 feeling that it is not wise or possible to be dog- 
 matically certain of some of the truths by which 
 our fathers lived, and in the strength of which 
 they marched to victory ? There is a real danger 
 that the inherent moral strength of critical 
 scholarship may not be appreciated either by 
 those who are engaged in the work of scholar- 
 ship or by those who fear the introduction of 
 the critical method into the exposition of re- 
 ligious truth. The discussion which follows will 
 attempt an evaluation of the ethical aspects of 
 theological reconstruction, in the hope of dis- 
 closing a genuine moral dynamic in the methods 
 of critical scholarship which are being so gen- 
 erally adopted in our theological study. 
 
 A further word as to the particular moral 
 perplexity which confronts us will not be amiss 
 at this point. 
 
 It has for centuries been assumed that the 
 task of Christian theology consisted in the faith- 
 ful reproduction of the content of scripture. 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 Moral honor, therefore, would compel the the- 
 ologian to declare that any departure from the 
 teaching of the Bible is wrong. Today, how- 
 ever, we are in possession of a new method of 
 investigating the Bible. The more exact scholar- 
 ship which springs from this method compels us 
 to recognize that some of the interpretations held 
 by men of former generations are not tenable. 
 It has been a hard struggle for many a con- 
 scientious scholar to admit that a biblical writer 
 actually held a doctrine different from that 
 which had been attributed to him, especially 
 when the doctrine so attributed seems to be 
 morally and philosophically superior to the idea 
 which critical investigation shows to have been 
 actually entertained by the biblical writer. The 
 discovery of a discrepancy between ideas found 
 in the scriptures and one's own honest convic- 
 tions brings a moral paralysis so long as the tra- 
 ditional conception of authority is retained. On 
 the one hand is the inherited feeling of obli- 
 gation to accept as final truth whatever the Bible 
 teaches. On the other hand is the inner impera- 
 
INTRODUCTION XXI 
 
 tive of honesty to one's own real beliefs. If, as 
 is not infrequently the case, these two moral 
 imperatives work in different directions, there 
 can be no unified, strong theology. I think it is 
 no exaggeration to say that most of the the- 
 ologians who are engaged in the task of recon- 
 struction today are hampered more or less by 
 the presence of these conflicting motives. Is it 
 possible successfully to carry out a program 
 which in effect proclaims : "We will honestly 
 seek the facts and will build upon the facts; but 
 we will also conserve the traditional doctrines"? 
 Could the astronomer say: "We will honestly 
 seek the facts and build upon them; but we will 
 also conserve the Ptolemaic system"? Would 
 not such an announcement mean that the king- 
 dom of loyalty to truth was divided against it- 
 self? 
 
 What is needed is an understanding of the 
 moral values belonging to the older loyalty and 
 an equally accurate understanding of the moral 
 values inherent in the newer methods. Now 
 the traditional ideals cannot be appreciated 
 
XX11 INTRODUCTION 
 
 without a knowledge of the historical circum- 
 stances which occasioned the perfecting of the 
 authority ideal in religious thinking. Likewise, 
 the reasons for modifying the older ideal be- 
 come evident only as we understand the changes 
 in social life which have occasioned the rise of 
 newer ideals of thinking. If once these two 
 ideals can be measured against the background 
 of history, it ought to be possible to appraise 
 both of them truly, and consequently to allow 
 the latent ethical value of the modern ideal to 
 reveal itself more clearly. What is imperatively 
 needed is a moral valuation of scientific scholar- 
 ship so that we shall not feel that it somehow 
 needs an apology. The historical method of 
 studying religion must be pushed to its logical 
 conclusion. We must insist that the outcome of 
 critical scholarship shall be judged by its actual 
 moral quality, not by the superficial test of mere 
 conformity to a system. 
 
 In the following discussion we shall first at- 
 tempt to show how the exigencies of the Chris- 
 tian church during the first millennium of its 
 
INTRODUCTION XX111 
 
 existence made the adoption and the perfection 
 of the authority ideal in theology a source of 
 moral power. We shall then show how during 
 the past four or five centuries changes in our 
 social and intellectual life have taken place which 
 have gradually brought into existence a new 
 type of moral loyalty; and that the Christian 
 church, in so far as it retains the authority ideal, 
 has lost its hold on large sections of modern 
 life because of a failure to appreciate the real 
 moral problems involved. The moral challenge 
 due to these facts will then be stated. Finally 
 the ethical aspects of the work of theological 
 reconstruction will be considered in the light of 
 the preceding survey. 
 
SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 AND THE CHANGING 
 
 THEOLOGY 
 
1 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS AND AUTHORITA- 
 TIVE THEOLOGY 
 
 FOR centuries Christianity has been conceived 
 to be a closed system of doctrine, guaranteed by 
 the scriptures and the creeds which the church 
 pronounces authoritative. The Christian is edu- 
 cated to feel that his primary duty is loyalty to 
 this system, and that any departure from it is 
 a mark either of ignorance which must be cor- 
 rected or of delinquency which must be morally 
 overcome. Nevertheless, Christian activity today 
 is spreading into fields which have not been .or- 
 ganized by the church. But there is at the same 
 time a lack of clear consciousness as to the exact 
 relation between these good enterprises which 
 are conducted by secular agencies and the Chris- 
 tian spirit, which it is felt must be somehow 
 
2 SOOAL IDEALISM 
 
 identified with the church spirit. For example, 
 many ministers have been puzzled as to the atti- 
 tude which should be assumed toward such man- 
 ifestly moral enterprises as "secular" educa- 
 tional institutions like the state universities or 
 toward such evident agencies for human welfare 
 as the social settlements which refuse to wear a 
 religious label. There have not been wanting 
 instances of deliberate hostility to all enterprises 
 which are not formally connected with the 
 church. The splendid moral loyalty of men who 
 are devoted to the conception of ecclesiastical 
 control is undoubted; but most of us are aware 
 that there is serious moral confusion involved 
 in the maintenance of so exclusive an attitude. 
 In order to understand the precise nature of the 
 problem caused by this maladjustment of the 
 church's conscience to modern secular ideals, it 
 is necessary to know how the ecclesiastical ideal 
 arose, and what was its ethical significance in 
 the days of its supremacy. Was it or was it 
 not an expression of genuine Christian devo- 
 tion? Did it or did it not accomplish a moral 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 3 
 
 task? Why did it command the loyalty of men 
 for so many centuries? Why does it arouse so 
 much opposition today? These are questions 
 which must be asked if we are to estimate prop- 
 erly the moral problem involved in the recon- 
 struction of theology. 
 
 Nothing is easier than to point out the fact 
 that the ideal of Jesus was opposed to and dis- 
 trusted by the ecclesiastical temper of his day. 
 It is extremely doubtful whether Jesus ever used 
 the word "church." The New Testament writ- 
 ings do indeed reflect the consciousness of an 
 organized community in his name. But a care- 
 ful examination of the teachings of Jesus seems 
 to indicate that nothing was further from his 
 intention than to bring the moral and religious 
 life of his followers under the control of an 
 institution. He was too keenly sensitive to the 
 moral disadvantages which accrued to the 
 method of the scribes to feel any impulse to sub- 
 stitute for scribism a new ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment of the life of man. His one aim was to 
 arouse in the hearts of those who heard him 
 
4 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 the vivid conviction that all other considerations 
 were secondary to that of being fit for member- 
 ship in the Kingdom of God. The principles 
 of right living were to be derived from God's 
 Kingdom rather than from any earthly insti- 
 tution. In determining the characteristics of 
 the Kingdom life, Jesus was astonishingly free 
 from technical considerations. He always 
 looked the facts straight in the face, and drew 
 his conclusions from the exigencies of actual 
 experience rather than from any authoritative 
 system of morals. He thus repeatedly drew 
 upon himself criticisms for his laxity, when 
 judged from the point of view of the scribes. 
 The Sermon on the Mount embodies a defence 
 of his ideal against the accusations of those who 
 looked upon him as a destroyer of the law and 
 the prophets. His "better righteousness" was 
 due to his freedom from ecclesiastical trammels 
 in dealing with the needs of those whom he 
 sought to help. 
 
 Those of our own day who dislike the ecclesi- 
 astical conception of religion are accustomed to 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 5 
 
 point out the contrast between this free, open- 
 minded attitude of Jesus and the rigid authorita- 
 tive system which later came to prevail. It 
 has been common, since the days of the Reforma- 
 tion, for us Protestants to look upon the mediae- 
 val church with its institutional control of hu- 
 man life as an apostasy from the original ideal 
 of Jesus. This interpretation, however, has usu- 
 ally been accompanied by the presupposition that 
 Jesus authoritatively established the Protestant 
 system as over against the Roman Catholic sys- 
 tem. Such an attitude toward the development 
 of the church means a failure to appreciate the 
 real significance of the interesting historical 
 process by which the religion of the first disci- 
 ples of Jesus was transformed into the religion 
 of the authoritative Catholic church. It is only 
 as we shall abandon an apologetic attitude that 
 we shall be in a position to make clear to our- 
 selves the actual relation between ethical issues 
 and church discipline in the first centuries of 
 Christianity. Some aspects of this development 
 must now engage our attention. 
 
6 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 I. THE CATASTROPHIC VIEW OF HISTORY 
 
 One of the most important influences in the 
 thinking of the early church was the current be- 
 lief in the speedy end of the world and the im- 
 pending establishment of the Messianic King- 
 dom. There is not time here, even if the ques- 
 tion could be determined with certainty, to ask 
 how far the ideals of Jesus himself were shaped 
 by this current eschatological expectation. 1 Cer- 
 tain it is that the extant records of his teachings 
 reflect vividly that conception of history which 
 proclaims that the supreme interests of man are 
 to be found in another world-order. The early 
 disciples felt that Jesus had come to enable them 
 to prepare for a positive place in that Kingdom 
 which was not of this world. After his death 
 they felt themselves responsible for the perpetu- 
 ation and the promulgation of the gospel of the 
 
 1 On this point see Mathews : The Messianic Hope in the 
 New Testament (Chicago, 1905); Sharman: The Teach- 
 ing of Jesus Concerning the Future (Chicago, 1908) ; 
 Muirhead : The Eschatology of Jesus (New York, 1904); 
 E. F. Scott: The Kingdom and the Messiah (Edinburgh, 
 1911). 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 7 
 
 Kingdom which he had proclaimed. As differ- 
 ences of opinion arose concerning details of the 
 gospel message, the group of disciples inevitably 
 felt themselves called to protect those in their 
 care from the wrong teachings of men who did 
 not understand Jesus as they themselves did. In 
 short, the primary task of the early community 
 was to transmit faithfully to incoming members 
 of the community the essentials of the gospel of 
 Jesus, and to protest against any perversion of 
 that gospel. For the gospel provided the only 
 way by which men might become citizens of the 
 heavenly Kingdom. 
 
 The splendid moral tone preserved by this 
 eschatological point of view is evident to every 
 reader of the New Testament. To judge all 
 human conduct from the point of view of the 
 heavenly King, whose will had been set forth 
 in the precepts and life of Jesus, meant the most 
 elevated conception of life which has ever ruled 
 a generation of men. But the nobility of this 
 ideal must not blind us to the fact that there 
 lurked in it an element of artificiality. The 
 
8 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 ethics of the early Christian community is really 
 the ethics of a separatist group, with almost 
 none of the positive interest in culture which 
 seems to us today so normal and so right. The 
 mission of the early apostles was to enable men 
 to be "saved" as members of the Christian com- 
 munity. Men might thus become entitled to a 
 place in the Messianic Kingdom which was 
 shortly to supplant the present cosmic and social 
 order. 
 
 Thus there is no definite attempt to relate 
 Christian ideals to the institutions of this world. 
 These latter are to be endured; but it is not 
 worth while to consider means of reforming 
 and reconstructing them, for they will pass 
 away in the great consummation. The warm 
 personal interest which Jesus showed in all hu- 
 man enterprises was, of course, an essential ele- 
 ment of the religious attitude of his followers; 
 and this usually prevented the other-worldly 
 ideal of the early church from becoming perni- 
 ciously ascetic or anti-social. Nevertheless the 
 ethics of that early Christian community was 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 9 
 
 conceived as a fraternity ethics, confined in its 
 scope to the interests of the group. These 
 interests were, indeed, controlled by the splen- 
 did social ideals of the coming Kingdom, where 
 righteousness was to prevail; but so far as the 
 institutions of this world were concerned, there 
 was no hope of eliminating their essentially evil 
 nature. It is easy to see that this conception of 
 the ethical task of Christianity might readily 
 lead to an exclusive class consciousness, which 
 would glory in certain virtues which the group 
 had come to esteem highly because they denoted 
 loyalty to the heavenly Kingdom, but which 
 might at the same time be of doubtful value 
 when measured by current social welfare. For 
 example, martyrdom could come to assume a 
 foremost place in the estimation of the early 
 church because it was a conspicuous method of 
 upholding the essentially other-worldly emphasis 
 which was assumed to be fundamental to the 
 gospel. Thus the fact that the ethics of Chris- 
 tianity began its development under the sway 
 of the apocalyptic ideal meant that an opening 
 
IO SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 was made for the habit of judging beliefs and 
 conduct without regard to the practicability of 
 these ideals in relation to the continuance of the 
 institutions of this world. All this implied a won- 
 derfully heroic ability to defy worldly influence; 
 but it also involved difficulties if this attitude 
 were to be carried into an age which had come 
 to believe in the permanence of social evolution. 
 Indeed, it was perhaps only the genuinely human 
 sympathies aroused by discipleship to Jesus 
 which prevented this separatist attitude from 
 becoming even more conspicuous. 
 
 The ethical aim of primitive Christianity may 
 be defined as the purpose to keep the group of 
 men bearing the name of Christ pure so that at 
 his advent Christ might approve the character of 
 the members and admit them to full citizenship 
 in the Kingdom which he was to establish. This 
 meant that the disciples must take very seriously 
 the matter of moral discipline. Ideally, the 
 church should be composed only of those who 
 had the mind of Christ. It was of the utmost 
 importance that no lowering of the standards 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS II 
 
 should be allowed. For if the church counte- 
 nanced conduct of which Christ could not 
 approve, the entire membership would be liable 
 to his displeasure. Thus we find a strenuous 
 insistence on purity of life on the part of all 
 members of the community. We see the uncom- 
 promising severity exercised in the case of Ana- 
 nias and Sapphira, for example. We must re- 
 member this aspect of the matter in order to 
 understand how acute was the problem of Gen- 
 tile divergences from those customs which Jew- 
 ish Christians believed to have been ordained 
 by God himself. If one could be a good Chris- 
 tian without being circumcised, where could the 
 line be drawn? If the commands of the Old 
 Testament could be violated in this respect, why 
 not in others? In defending himself on this 
 point, Paul makes it perfectly clear that he is 
 loyal to the gospel of Christ, and that the 
 judaizers are engaged in an attempt to "pervert 
 the gospel of Christ." 2 All disputed questions 
 must be decided by asking what Christ approves. 
 2 See the argument in Gal. 1 : 6 ff. 
 
12 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 And because Christ is in the other world, ques- 
 tions as to right beliefs and right practices must 
 be determined by appeal to that other world 
 rather than to this. To ask concerning secular 
 expediency would be "striving to please men" 
 rather than attempting to be a "bond servant of 
 Christ." 
 
 There was thus laid upon the community 
 from the first the task of determining what was 
 involved in the attainment of a creed and an 
 ethics which should be pleasing to Christ. 
 Whenever any member held opinions or engaged 
 in conduct which did not seem in accordance 
 with the mind of Christ, some sort of discipline 
 would be necessary. Even Paul, with all his 
 emphasis on the doctrine of individual freedom, 
 could not entirely avoid this necessity. When 
 Jewish zealots were attempting to reproduce in 
 the Galatian communities the legalism which 
 Paul had left behind, it was easy for him to 
 exalt the ideal of freedom. Still, even here he 
 makes his appeal not as a free lance, but as the 
 "bond-servant of Christ." When he was con- 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 13 
 
 fronted with the continuance of pagan ideals in 
 the church at Corinth, he was compelled to en- 
 ter upon a detailed course of discipline. He 
 laid it upon the conscience of the church to be 
 active in conserving moral standards which 
 Christ could approve. To be sure, this disci- 
 pline is not ecclesiastical in the formal sense. 
 But it has behind it the belief that it is the pri- 
 mary duty of Christian people to conform to a 
 standard which is authoritatively given. 
 
 In short, the ethics of early Christianity was, 
 in spirit, church ethics. There was no thought 
 of engaging in political or social reform. The 
 separatist ideal was dominant. Let this world 
 go its way until the final judgment. Chris- 
 tianity is to manifest itself, not in the transfor- 
 mation of established institutions, but in the 
 formation of groups of redeemed men who are 
 citizens of the heavenly Kingdom, and whose 
 life is dominated by the principles of that 
 Kingdom. 
 
 From this point of view it is easy to see why 
 certain activities which we are not accustomed 
 
14 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 to regard as of primary moral importance 
 should seem to the early community supremely 
 significant. Since only those who were in the 
 church could expect to be saved in the day of 
 judgment, the church felt its importance as the 
 sole agency for the salvation of men. If any 
 rival organization claimed to provide such salva- 
 tion, we can realize the indignation which would 
 fill the hearts of the faithful. Even if the rival 
 community were actuated by what we might 
 regard as honorable motives, such as honesty of 
 opinion or desire for a greater purity of life, its 
 existence would be ascribed to pride or to wan- 
 ton wickedness. Anyone preaching a false or 
 perverted gospel deserved to be anathema. 
 Heresy and schism therefore assume tremendous 
 importance as ethical issues. It is only as the 
 church shall speak with a single voice that the 
 way of life may be proclaimed without danger 
 of misunderstanding. As Professor Thomas C. 
 Hall has suggested, the attitude of a trade union 
 today toward a "scab" or toward a rival organi- 
 zation throws valuable light upon the attitude 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 15 
 
 of the early church toward dissenters and 
 schismatics. 3 The very fact that the community 
 was a separatist group made it inevitable that 
 all disintegrating influences would be felt to be 
 so dangerous as to justify the severest condem- 
 nation. Says the author of I Timothy, "If any 
 man teach a different doctrine and consenteth 
 not 'to sound words, even the words of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is ac- 
 cording to godliness, he is puffed up, knowing 
 nothing, but doting about questionings and dis- 
 putes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, 
 railings, evil surmisings, wranglings of men 
 corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth, sup- 
 posing that godliness is a way of gain." 4 
 
 In the midst of differences of opinion as to 
 what the exact content of true Christian teach- 
 ing was, it would be necessary for the contend- 
 ing parties to appeal to the authority of Christ. 
 The "true" church must be able to prove that 
 
 "History of Ethics within Organized Christianity (New 
 York, 1910, p. 102). 
 4 1 Timothy vi : 3 ff. 
 
1 6 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 it was following the precepts of Jesus and faith- 
 fully transmitting to men its sacred inheritance. 
 It is impossible here to go into the story of 
 how this demand led to the elaboration of the 
 theory that Jesus commissioned the apostles to 
 be the authorized exponents and interpreters of 
 his will. It was believed that these apostles left 
 in their writings the doctrines which they had 
 received from Christ, and ordained their suc- 
 cessors with power to give correct interpreta- 
 tion to those writings. Thus arose the canonical 
 New Testament and the authoritative church of 
 the bishops as the only genuine channel through 
 which men might learn how to fit themselves 
 for the favorable judgment of Christ. 5 
 
 The practical necessity for such an authorita- 
 tive "rule of faith and practice" is evident to 
 any one familiar with the development of re- 
 ligious life in the second century of the Chris- 
 
 8 This development has been described in detail by Har- 
 nack in his History of Dogma (London, 1896). Other ex- 
 cellent accounts in briefer and more popular form are in 
 E. C. Moore's The New Testament in the Christian Church 
 (New York, 1904), and in G. H. Ferris' The Formation 
 of the New Testament (Philadelphia, 1907). 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 17 
 
 tian era. At that period the breakdown of the 
 older national and local cults was evident to all. 
 New forms of religion, or reinterpretations of 
 older cults, came into existence, proclaiming the 
 doctrine of individual redemption leading to 
 eternal life. Some of the more splendid and 
 imposing oriental cults took the name of Chris- 
 tianity and attempted to turn the ethical and 
 religious energy of the Christians into channels 
 of esoteric culture and ascetic philosophy. It 
 was the growing power of the intellectual and 
 mystical interpretation of Christianity known as 
 Gnosticism which compelled the conscious organi- 
 zation of the Catholic Church with its claim to 
 be the authorized guardian of the tradition which 
 Christ had committed to his apostles, and which 
 they had partially committed to writing and par- 
 tially transmitted to their successors, the bishops 
 of the apostolic churches. If one now wished 
 to know the mind of Christ, there was only one 
 sure way to find out. One must ask the apos- 
 tolic church, which would tell him the meaning 
 of the authoritative apostolic writings. 
 
1 8 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 This development, it should be remembered, 
 was due to the apocalyptic emphasis of the early 
 centuries. It grew out of the fact that religion 
 was not thought of as a force to transform this 
 world, but rather as a means of making one a 
 citizen of the heavenly Kingdom. The princi- 
 ples of religion, therefore, could not be discov- 
 ered by a study of the "natural" history of man, 
 but must be drawn from a supernatural order. 
 Thus the empirical attitude toward human prob- 
 lems suggested by the method of Jesus was sup- 
 planted by the belief that moral principles were 
 to be determined, not by observation and induc- 
 tion, but by exegesis of authoritative scriptures. 
 This ideal has persisted through the centuries, 
 and is still the fundamental presupposition of 
 religious education in most churches. The ad- 
 vantages in being thus compelled to come into an 
 accurate knowledge of the formulation of the 
 Christian ideals belonging to that classical age of 
 primitive enthusiasm is indisputable. But in an 
 age when a moral value is being more and more 
 attached to honest and thorough-going empirical 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 
 
 observation, the attitude of mind which is con- 
 tent with taking conclusions ready-made from 
 ancient literature comes into conflict with one of 
 the most precious and vigorous moral convic- 
 tions of the age. Every pastor and teacher con- 
 stantly meets spiritual tragedies growing out of 
 this conflict. 
 
 2. THE ECCLESIASTICAL DEFINITION OF THE 
 CONDITIONS OF SALVATION 
 
 As has been said, the task of primitive Chris- 
 tianity was to fit men to become citizens of the 
 coming Kingdom. But entrance into that King- 
 dom was by no means easy. The standards 
 which Jesus proclaimed made it evident that 
 only those who were willing to take upon them- 
 selves considerable sacrifices of worldly goods 
 could hope for his approval. Indeed, if these 
 standards were rigidly applied, men might well 
 ask, 'Who then can be saved?" It was, how- 
 ever, characteristic of the teaching of Jesus and 
 of the community calling itself by his name that 
 
2O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 the strictness of these moral requirements was 
 accompanied by a profound evangelical purpose 
 to make accessible to as many as possible the 
 blessings which God had provided for those who 
 should accept the way of salvation provided by 
 him. 
 
 Thus the proclamation of the forgiveness of 
 sins was essential to the gospel message. This 
 meant that if a man had committed wrongs 
 which would be disapproved by Christ, he might 
 still by repentance and change of heart find a 
 welcome, and be assured that his former sins 
 would not stand against him in the estimation 
 of the judge. 
 
 But the moment this evangelical ideal of for- 
 giveness was put into practice, it became neces- 
 sary to determine precisely the conditions under 
 which a penitent sinner might be assured of the 
 forgiving grace of Christ. Were there any sins 
 so serious that forgiveness was impossible? If 
 a man who had once been forgiven returned to 
 his former way of life, was there the possibility 
 of an efficacious second repentance? And if so, 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 21 
 
 was repentance to be granted this second time 
 on precisely the same terms as at first? How 
 far could the community go in the direction of 
 leniency without the danger of so lowering the 
 standards as to bring upon the entire church the 
 displeasure of the Lord? In the absence of 
 Jesus, the community must take upon itself the 
 responsibility for determining these important 
 issues. As a result of grappling with this prob- 
 lem there arose two important developments of 
 doctrine, both of which required for their com- 
 pletion the recognition of ecclesiastical authority. 
 These two developments were the doctrine of 
 supernatural regeneration, and the doctrine of 
 penance. 
 
 The doctrine of regeneration received its 
 most important impulse from the apostle Paul. 
 He had come into the Christian life through a 
 tremendous crisis, in which he saw a direct di- 
 vine interposition. He recalled the days in 
 which he had been persecuting the disciples of 
 Jesus, all in good conscience; he thus realized 
 that he could not trust the dictates of his un- 
 
22 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 christianized heart. This discovery he univer- 
 salized in the doctrine of the natural moral ina- 
 bility of every man. There is in human nature 
 an evil power which prevents man from doing 
 good so long as it is permitted to hold sway. 
 The first step in moral reformation, then, is to 
 seek divine deliverance from this power of sin. 
 Now exactly as Paul pictured the power of 
 evil as a mysterious force which does its work 
 essentially outside of consciousness, so he pic- 
 tures the divine redemptive power as a mystery 
 which lies beyond the reach of human compre- 
 hension. His own experience of conversion led 
 him to feel that he had been seized by a heavenly 
 power without planning or desire on his own 
 part. He had been changed from an enemy of 
 Jesus Christ to a devoted follower without any 
 moral intention of making the change at all. It 
 had come in spite of himself. Paul therefore 
 felt that there is a divine power which can 
 make a man good, even when the man's own 
 moral intentions are not strong enough to lead 
 him to forsake evil. He interpreted this mys- 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 23 
 
 terious power as the living presence of Christ 
 in the soul of the believer. The consequences of 
 this miraculous regeneration, therefore, are pre- 
 cisely what would occur if one's own control of 
 his life were supplanted by the inner control of 
 Christ. "It is no longer I that live, but Christ 
 liveth in me." 6 
 
 We are so accustomed to the profound re- 
 ligious and moral value of this Pauline doctrine 
 of the indwelling Christ that we often lose sight 
 of the fact that, if the mystical experience which 
 grows out of the doctrine is not kept in the fore- 
 ground, regeneration may be regarded as an 
 essentially magical thing. For in the Pauline 
 doctrine, moral character is bestowed upon one 
 by the grace of God. It is essentially a miracu- 
 lous donation. Any one who has not received 
 this gift of the righteousness of God inevitably 
 sins and falls short of the glory of God. Recent 
 investigations have brought this Pauline concep- 
 tion of redemption into close relationship to the 
 mystic doctrines of purification which had found 
 
 * Galatians ii :20. 
 
24 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 expression in the various rituals of Greek and 
 oriental mystery cults. Some interpreters of 
 Paul believe that he, too, shared this concep- 
 tion of magical initiation into possession of 
 occult divine power. 7 Be that as it may, it was 
 not unnatural for men familiar with the ideals 
 and rites of these mystery cults to see in baptism 
 and in the Lord's Supper means of partaking of 
 the divine life, so that one might think and act 
 in perfect purity in this world and inherit im- 
 mortality after death. 
 
 We should remember that this sacramental 
 doctrine of regeneration meant that a doorway 
 of hope was open to those who might other- 
 wise despair of being able to enter the kingdom 
 on the basis of actual moral desert. They might 
 now cease to trust their own righteousness, and 
 
 1 1t is only within the past few years that this been af- 
 firmed by Protestant scholars. The most thorough-going 
 investigation was made by Reitzenstein, in "Die hellen- 
 istischen Mysterienreligionen." (Leipsig and Berlin: Teub- 
 ner, 1910.) Other suggestive discussions are found in 
 Lake, "The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul" (London: Riv- 
 ingtons, 1911), pp. 40-46, 210-217, 433-435, and in Percy 
 Gardner, "The Religious Experience of St. Paul" (New 
 York: Putnam, 1911), Chapter IV. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 25 
 
 might rely on the righteousness of God which 
 was freely granted to them as a gift made pos- 
 sible by the work of atonement wrought by 
 Jesus Christ and made available in the sacra- 
 ments of baptism and of the eucharist. No 
 more striking testimony to the supreme ethical 
 power of the experience of vital contact with 
 Christ could be found than in the fact that the 
 representatives of this sacramental ideal actually 
 seem to us to have a truer and deeper apprehen- 
 sion of the spiritual power of Christianity than 
 did those who plodded on in the more prosaic 
 pathway of external moral discipline. Instinc- 
 tively we rate the ideal of Augustine higher than 
 that of Pelagius. 
 
 But it is characteristic of a sacramental ideal 
 of salvation that it demands ecclesiastical con- 
 trol. If the sacrament is the actual bearer of 
 divine grace it necessarily embodies a mysterious 
 power which must be properly administered. 
 For the amateur to attempt to make use of the 
 sacred rites would be as foolish as for an ig- 
 noramus to come into contact with a "live wire." 
 
26 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 Misuse of the mysteries could produce disaster. 
 Paul suggested to the Corinthians that cases of 
 disease and death in their community could be 
 traced to irregularities in the observation of the 
 Lord's Supper. 8 If through baptism we may 
 attain a morality otherwise inaccessible to us, it 
 is of the utmost importance that baptism be 
 rightly performed. If administered in the name 
 of John it did not bring with it the gift of the 
 Spirit, and must be repeated in the name of 
 Jesus. 9 
 
 The sacraments of salvation, therefore, must 
 be put into the hands of experts who were com- 
 petent to administer them in proper ways and 
 to proper persons. But this meant ecclesiastical 
 control of the means by which men were miracu- 
 lously enabled to transcend the spiritual weak- 
 ness of the natural life, so as to become fit can- 
 didates for the blessings of the Kingdom. The 
 inevitable corollary is the doctrine that there is 
 a difference between the life of a properly bap- 
 
 " I Cor. xi :3O. 
 *Act xix:i-6. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 27 
 
 tised man and one who is not baptised, even if 
 the moral activity of the unbaptised man be 
 seemingly of quite as high a grade as that of 
 his Christian brother. In short, mere member- 
 ship in the church makes a man good. Augus- 
 tine's famous verdict on the virtues of the 
 pagans is in point here. For him these virtues 
 were merely "splendid vices," because a pagan, 
 no matter how admirable his life might seem, 
 had not received the sacramental grace which 
 alone could purge away the original corruption 
 which is the innate possession of every child of 
 Adam. 
 
 Thus the admirable purpose of Christianity 
 to give to men the certainty that they could rely 
 on a divine power to rescue them from moral in- 
 ability opened the door for definitions of moral- 
 ity resting on ecclesiastical distinctions. These, 
 when pushed to logical conclusions, brought con- 
 fusion into the moral perceptions of men. For 
 if what seems to men to be morally admirable 
 is in God's sight really worthy of condemna- 
 tion; and if the ground of condemnation is sim- 
 
28 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 ply in the fact that the seemingly moral man has 
 not been baptised, the only way in which to be 
 sure of one's ground is to abandon personal 
 judgments and trust to the dictates of the 
 church, in whose hands lies the power to fur- 
 nish the necessary sacramental aid to morality. 
 So soon as this attitude of mind is assured, it 
 becomes natural for those activities which per- 
 tain to the institutional prosperity of the church 
 to be magnified, and moral emphasis becomes 
 decidedly artificial. How deeply ingrained this 
 ecclesiastical consciousness has become in our 
 moral ideals may be seen in the exaggerated 
 importance attached to denominational distinc- 
 tions resting on differences in ritual or creed. 
 The mythical visitor from Mars, whom it is 
 convenient to summon whenever we wish an un- 
 conventional judgment, would doubtless be puz- 
 zled to explain why certain churches should not 
 allow in the pulpit men whose power to speak 
 to edification is unquestioned, but who have not 
 been ordained in a specific way; or why certain 
 bodies of Christians feel that Christianity would 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 
 
 be endangered if a disciple of Christ noted for 
 purity of life, but who had not been baptised 
 in a particular way, were to be allowed to eat 
 at the table of the Lord with those who were 
 properly baptised. The themes which occupy the 
 attention of the editors of some denominational 
 papers are in large part survivals of the feeling 
 that a superior moral life is attained because of 
 ecclesiastical regularity. This attitude repre- 
 sents the continuation into modern times of Au- 
 gustine's judgment concerning the virtues of 
 the heathen. Sometimes this supposed moral 
 superiority of ecclesiastical conformity begets a 
 self-satisfaction on the part of church members 
 which engenders a deplorable lack of sensitive- 
 ness to some moral delinquencies which seem 
 self-evident to the secular mind. But while rec- 
 ognizing these defects, we shall fail to do jus- 
 tice to this ecclesiastical aspect of the spiritual 
 life unless we bear in mind the fact that its evil 
 aspects are due simply to a distortion of the 
 evangelical affirmation that the individual who 
 avails himself of what the gospel offers may 
 
30 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 expect his moral capacity to be enlarged through 
 the grace of God. It is only when this ideal is 
 disassociated from the self-evident moral duties 
 of the social situation that it becomes morally 
 reprehensible. The actual transformation of 
 life which has taken place in the case of thou- 
 sands of Christians because of belief in this su- 
 pernatural help is perhaps the most characteristic 
 and permanent contribution of Christianity. 
 
 Another aspect of this evangelical desire of 
 Christianity to make available for as many as 
 possible the resources of divine help found ex- 
 pression in the doctrine of penance. We Protes- 
 tants are so imbued with the Lutheran polemic 
 against the abuse of this doctrine that it is diffi- 
 cult for us to do justice to it. Really, it, like 
 the sacramentalism which we have just dis- 
 cussed, was due to the evangelical motive. 
 Jesus came not only to proclaim a better right- 
 eousness, but also we may perhaps say pri- 
 marily to seek and to save those who, judged 
 by strict standards of morality, had no right to 
 hope for admission to the Kingdom. In later 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 31 
 
 days there were always those who wished the 
 church to stand for so rigid an interpretation 
 of righteousness that the primary activity of the 
 community would have been directed to the dis- 
 cipline and exclusion of deficient members. But 
 these puritans were usually in the minority. 
 Something of the mercy revealed in the life and 
 teachings of Jesus characterized those who were 
 most worthy to take the leadership of the 
 church. While there were not wanting bitter 
 controversies over this question, it became in- 
 creasingly the policy of the church to provide 
 every possible help to those who had lapsed, but 
 who might again become true disciples. The 
 form which this help took was the practice of 
 suggesting ways in which genuine sorrow for 
 sin might be expressed and the soul be disci- 
 plined into greater loyalty to the will of God. 
 Since sin is usually due to yielding to the blan- 
 dishments of this world, the evident way in 
 which to cure the soul is by abstinence from the 
 pleasant things of this life. Tertullian, in his 
 treatise "On Repentance," suggests certain very 
 
32 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 practical exercises as a "discipline for man's 
 prostration and humiliation, enjoining a de- 
 meanor calculated to move to mercy." The pen- 
 itent one is to "lie in sackcloth and ashes, to 
 cover his body in mourning, to lay low the spirit 
 in sorrows, to exchange for severe treatment the 
 sins which he has committed; moreover, to 
 know no food and drink but such as is plain 
 not for the stomach's sake, to wit but for the 
 soul's." Tertullian goes on to say that the pur- 
 pose of this is by a self-inflicted punishment to 
 avert the penalty which God would rightly in- 
 flict upon the sinner. "All this may, by itself 
 pronouncing against the sinner, stand in the 
 place of God's indignation, and by temporal 
 mortification (I will not say frustrate, but) ex- 
 punge eternal punishment. Believe me, the less 
 quarter you give yourself, the more will God 
 give you." 10 
 
 Such counsels are evidence of the earnest 
 spirit which prevailed. It was no light thing 
 to be restored to full membership in the com- 
 
 10 De Pcenitentia, IX. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 33 
 
 munity which one had disgraced by his conduct. 
 There must be outer evidence of penitence, and 
 definite discipline of the soul as well as inner 
 sorrow. 
 
 But just how much of this outer discipline 
 was necessary? Could it be left to the judg- 
 ment of the individual? The necessity of 
 standardizing the practices of penance became 
 acute after the Decian persecution. Under the 
 pressure of that terrible inquisition, hundreds 
 of Christians forswore their faith either by di- 
 rectly offering the sacrifices required by the gov- 
 ernment, or by the scarcely less reprehensible 
 means of bribing inspectors to give a certificate 
 of immunity. After the persecution was over, 
 these Christians were generally stricken with re- 
 morse, and desired to be restored to membership 
 in the church. Differences of opinion on this 
 matter proved to be serious, and led to many a 
 bitter controversy. It was evident that moral 
 confusion must prevail so long as different meas- 
 ures of the guilt of apostasy were in use. The 
 Catholic Church must speak with one voice on 
 
34 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 so important a question. Thus penance was 
 brought under ecclesiastical regulation. All this 
 was in the interests of genuine moral discipline. 
 It represented the evangelical purpose to make 
 clear and definite the way in which a penitent 
 sinner might be restored to the joy of salva- 
 tion. The abuses of the system of penance 
 should not blind us to its good qualities. If 
 there were those who treated the entire matter 
 on a commercial basis, and shrewdly calculated 
 the cost of various forms of self-indulgence, 
 there were also those who were able, by follow- 
 ing the pathway of penitential discipline, to re- 
 gain the moral poise and positiveness which 
 they had lost. 
 
 Moreover, in the period of moral confusion 
 resulting from the breakdown of the classic 
 ideals and the shifting of men from one re- 
 ligious belief to another, the action of the church 
 in seeking to standardize morality was of im- 
 mense social importance, even if it was not un- 
 dertaken on the basis of so broad a social 
 philosophy as we should today demand. As the 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 35 
 
 system of penance has been perfected, it gives 
 to a father confessor who really believes in so- 
 cial ethics an admirable opportunity to influence 
 the lives of his people in right directions. More- 
 over, we should not forget the breadth of schol- 
 arship which made a place in the Christian sys- 
 tem for the cardinal virtues of the Greeks. On 
 the whole, the fair-minded student of church 
 history can have only admiration for the zeal 
 and the wisdom displayed by the great leaders 
 of the mediaeval church. 
 
 So long as society remained content to follow 
 the lead of the church in all respects, this ec- 
 clesiastical control of belief and of activity was 
 wholesome. But there was always the tendency 
 to forget the importance of any moral duties 
 which did not bear the approval of the church. 
 In particular, lack of obedience to the voice of 
 the church was counted the supreme sin. Thus 
 a ban was put upon any investigations or experi- 
 ments which did not promise conformity to the 
 ecclesiastical standards. Still, during the Middle 
 Ages, the scholarship of the church was broad 
 
36 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 enough, and the aspirations of men convention- 
 alized enough to make the control of life by the 
 church a positive power for good. The specific 
 reasons for this valuation of the authority ideal 
 must now occupy our attention. 
 
 3- THE AUTHORITY IDEAL AS THE MORAL EX- 
 PRESSION OF SOCIAL NEEDS 
 
 In the year 410, Alaric, with his army of 
 Goths having invaded as far as Rome, found 
 the imperial power unable to prevent the cap- 
 ture of the city. This conquest was of profound 
 significance. It meant the visible proof of that 
 which is now apparent to every student of his- 
 tory, viz., that imperial Rome had lost its real 
 power over men. Tradition tells us that the 
 conqueror, in sacking the city, left untouched the 
 treasures of the church, so great was his rev- 
 erence for that institution of God. Possibly 
 under the influence of this event, Augustine 
 wrote his famous "City of God," in which he 
 set forth a philosophy of history, which subor- 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 37 
 
 dinates all human organizations to the rule of 
 God. With the downfall of pagan institutions, 
 the church as the visible organ of God's will 
 assumed a new importance. Circumstances soon 
 forced upon the church the assumption of politi- 
 cal undertakings on an ever increasing scale. 
 More and more as Italy was left to herself by 
 the Eastern emperors did it become necessary 
 for the bishops to take up responsibilities which 
 normally would have rested on the civil govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Now the barbarians who conquered Rome 
 were well aware that their victory was one of 
 brute force only. They could not forget the 
 centuries during which that ancient civilization 
 had held them in check and had introduced 
 among them new ways of living. Everywhere 
 in Europe they could see the roads which bar- 
 barian skill could never have constructed, the 
 scientific agriculture which made possible the 
 abandonment of nomadic habits and the growth 
 of wealth, the architecture which was utterly be- 
 yond the reach of the rude builders of the north, 
 
38 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 the engineering which could so easily transform 
 a wilderness into a habitation for man, and the 
 law by which the nations of the earth could be 
 held in check. All these signs of greatness were 
 Rome's possession; and the conquerors knew 
 that although they might gain a physical victory, 
 they nevertheless did not possess the spiritual 
 prowess which had made Rome great. Natu- 
 rally, therefore, they longed to acquire for them- 
 selves the qualities which had contributed to the 
 greatness of the ancient empire. 
 
 This meant that Europe was eager to go to 
 school and to learn from antiquity. But the 
 only institution either able or willing to give 
 instruction in the secrets of ancient civilization 
 was the church. Thus on the one hand was the 
 eager, acquisitive spirit of the barbarian, and on 
 the other hand the missionary spirit of the 
 church. The times were prepared for a system 
 of authoritative education in the principles of 
 living. In all realms of life it was felt that the 
 highest ideals must be sought in the past. These 
 had already been formulated in perfect theories 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 39 
 
 and doctrines. The natural progress of civiliza- 
 tion was felt to consist in accepting these ideals 
 from that greater antiquity, and, by trying to put 
 them into practice, to raise the level of existing 
 customs. 
 
 This attitude of mind is reflected in the philo- 
 sophical ideals of the early Middle Ages, when 
 the question as to whether the universal was 
 ante rem or not was decided in the affirmative. 
 Since men were not able to develop out of their 
 own resources satisfactory generalizations for 
 the guidance of life, since, moreover, it was evi- 
 dent that there existed ready-made, coming 
 down from olden times, principles of thought 
 and action which could be first learned and then 
 put into practice, the habit grew of thinking of 
 all particular ideas and all particular practices 
 as merely single expressions of a universal rule 
 which antedated the particular attempts to real- 
 ize the truth in practice. Truth first exists in 
 universal form. It must be "given" to the hu- 
 man mind, and then expressed in life and action. 
 It was easy for men who held such presupposi- 
 
4O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 tions to think of the church as the divinely au- 
 thorized custodian of infallible and perfect doc- 
 trines which the world must learn, and by which 
 all men must live. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the authority ideal 
 was the most natural and efficient means of pro- 
 moting the higher life of the early middle ages. 
 But natural as it was for that age, it resulted 
 in an ethical attitude quite different from the 
 open-minded freedom characteristic of Jesus 
 and of Paul. It is easy to point out the formal 
 difference between the closed system of ecclesi- 
 astical doctrine which came to prevail and the 
 vital, sympathetic insight which characterizes 
 the New Testament. But as we have seen, this 
 later ecclesiastical system was the inevitable re- 
 sult of facing the facts of a decadent world un- 
 der the sway of an apocalyptic view of history. 
 
 The positive achievements of the church dur- 
 ing the middle ages may well arouse our admira- 
 tion. The complete way in which Christianity 
 was able to adapt itself to the actual situation 
 argues the persistence even in this ecclesiastical 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 4! 
 
 form of that spirit of truthful recognition of the 
 facts which is essential to any permanent tri- 
 umph. The method of authority is always ethi- 
 cally wholesome whenever a people is not able 
 to develop out of its own resources so successful 
 a philosophy of life as can be derived from a 
 study of other times or other peoples. Witness 
 the way in which the nations of the Orient today 
 are accepting on authority the science of the 
 western world, learning first as ready-made the- 
 ories the doctrines which they later try to put 
 into practice, much as the mediaeval leaders 
 brought the treasures of the church to their own 
 people for the enrichment of their life. So long 
 as men know their own relative inability to 
 achieve for themselves the best things of life, the 
 attitude of docile learning from authority is 
 natural and ethical. It is only when the insti- 
 tution which possesses the authority proceeds to 
 exercise it in a way which contradicts the ideals 
 of men that its method becomes ethically repre- 
 hensible. If our present culture should decay as 
 did the culture of Rome, if some time in the 
 
42 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 future men should have no original power to 
 create satisfactory ideals by which to govern life, 
 there would probably again come an attitude of 
 reverence for the past. The best ethics would 
 then consist in learning and putting into practice 
 the principles which were derived from a study 
 of some bygone golden age. But whenever the 
 present is vigorous enough to understand its 
 problems and to create its ideals directly from an 
 adequate insight into these problems, any insist- 
 ence on the past merely because of its traditional 
 sacredness is sure to discredit the moral control 
 of the institution which thus preserves the ideal 
 of authoritative control after it has ceased to be 
 the natural expression of the moral conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 This brief sketch of the progress of the Chris- 
 tian ideal will serve to make clear to us the rea- 
 sons for the moral power of the conception of 
 an authoritative theology. Christianity took 
 shape in a decadent age, when the traditional 
 standards of morality and religious devotion 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 43 
 
 were being dissolved by the new cosmopolitan- 
 ism. Moreover, among men of Jewish descent, 
 the existence of an alien political authority with 
 apparently invulnerable power led to a despair 
 of any human efforts which might be directed 
 toward the bringing in of the Kingdom of God. 
 The obvious way of escape from despair was 
 by trust in the power of God to overthrow the 
 Kingdoms of this world and to establish his sole 
 rule through the Messiah. The early Christians 
 looked for the return of Christ to establish this 
 Kingdom. Thus the primary ethical and re- 
 ligious duty was to develop a citizenship worthy 
 of that heavenly Kingdom. Accordingly Chris- 
 tian ethics was detached from the social inter- 
 ests of this world. The necessity for maintain- 
 ing in their purity the standards of that other- 
 worldly Kingdom led to dependence on the 
 supreme authority of the scriptures which em- 
 body the divine revelation of the will of God. 
 The necessity for discipline and instruction in 
 the principles of the Kingdom led to the or- 
 ganization of the church as the authoritative 
 
44 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 guardian of doctrine and of morals. The dis- 
 solution of the Roman empire thrust upon the 
 church the large task of civilizing the barbarians 
 of Europe, and led to the extension of its sphere 
 of authority. At the same time these barbarians 
 were morally disposed to accept the authorita- 
 tive attitude of the church as one which was 
 proper and desirable. The Middle Ages there- 
 fore established in the minds of men the con- 
 ception of an authoritative divine control ex- 
 pressed in divinely given scriptures and inter- 
 preted by the divinely commissioned church. 
 
 During the long centuries of life under this 
 regime it was taken for granted that this ideal 
 of authoritative, institutional control was the 
 perpetually right way of human progress. It 
 was forgotten or rather it was never realized 
 at all that this very system of authority had 
 a historical origin, and that its details were em- 
 pirically worked out to meet the demands of 
 definite historical exigencies. Thus as theology 
 was perfected, it set forth the mediaeval doc- 
 trines as "infallibly" true and as "absolutely" 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 45 
 
 binding on the conscience. The alleged super- 
 natural origin of these doctrines gave to them 
 a divine prestige which made it necessary to 
 subordinate all merely "natural" theories to the 
 jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical system. The 
 primary moral duty of man in Catholicism was 
 then, and continues to be today, an absolute sub- 
 mission to the divine authority of the church. 
 
 But the time came when the growing intel- 
 lectual powers of men reached out in new ex- 
 periments; and some of these experiments met 
 with surprising success in enlarging the borders 
 of human knowledge and in improving the con- 
 ditions of life. Little by little the moral claims 
 of these new "natural" doctrines began to make 
 themselves felt. The church has nevertheless 
 held to the splendid moral imperative of sub- 
 mission to supernatural guidance. The magnifi- 
 cent ethical tone involved in this demand cannot 
 be doubted. But when it becomes so exclusive 
 as to enter into warfare with the moral claims 
 laid upon the modern conscience by scientific 
 truthfulness, it induces a moral confusion which 
 
46 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 cannot fail to be disastrous. For a time, the be- 
 ginnings of the new secularism could be ignored 
 by theology. But in our day the extent of 
 these secular interests has become so enormous 
 that ecclesiastical minds are becoming panic- 
 stricken, and are adopting extraordinary meas- 
 ures to sweep back the rising tide of Modern- 
 ism. It will help us to appreciate the grav- 
 ity of the situation if we remind ourselves 
 of some of the familiar occurrences of the past 
 few centuries, so as to see how the despairing 
 attitude toward this world, which gave the moral 
 impetus to the ideal of authority, has gradually 
 disappeared as men have found the means of 
 making this world contribute directly to their 
 highest welfare. We must therefore next turn 
 our attention to the story of the discrediting of 
 ecclesiastical ethics. 
 
II 
 
 THE DISCREDITING OF ECCLESIASTICAL 
 
 ETHICS 
 
 IN the preceding brief sketch of the rise of the 
 ecclesiastical control of moral and religious 
 thinking, we attempted to show how natural and 
 wholesome was the development of the concep- 
 tion of a world so organized as to bring all 
 realms of human activity under the dominion of 
 God's will as that will was interpreted by the 
 church. During the centuries when men felt 
 the futility of trusting to their own imperfect 
 powers, it was a source of inestimable inspira- 
 tion to be able to draw upon the resources of 
 divine wisdom and power as these had been re- 
 vealed in the scriptures and interpreted by the 
 church. The strength of the mediaeval program 
 lay in the fact that it had correlated the Chris- 
 tian spirit to the actual problems of the mediae- 
 
 47 
 
48 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 val world, and had thus produced a system self- 
 consistent with the conscious needs of men. As 
 we now proceed to trace some of the causes 
 which have led to the distrust of the ecclesiasti- 
 cal ideal of goodness, we ought not to forget 
 the positive service which it rendered in those 
 centuries of difficult striving for the light when 
 darkness encompassed social and political activi- 
 ties. 
 
 The discrediting of ecclesiastical ethics is due 
 to the fact that when once the mediaeval system 
 of control had become perfected, it was identi- 
 fied with the unchanging will of God in such a 
 way that the significance of new facts in the 
 changing evolution of human history could not 
 be recognized. Knowledge of a doctrinal sys- 
 tem took the place of direct observation of the 
 facts. Education consisted in the mastery of 
 this system, and made no place for the training 
 of leaders in the inductive study of historical 
 processes. Thus when the conditions which had 
 made for the success of the ecclesiastical ideal 
 changed, the habit of loyalty to the system pre- 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 49 
 
 vented men from recognizing that new occa- 
 sions should teach new duties. As the changes 
 became more pronounced, what was once directly 
 contributory to the moral development of the 
 western world became artificial and in some in- 
 stances actually harmful. But of this changed 
 moral challenge the devotee of the closed sys- 
 tem knows nothing. Under the domination of 
 the belief in an authoritatively revealed expres- 
 sion of the divine will, the Roman Catholic 
 church, and to only a lesser extent the Protes- 
 tant bodies, have witnessed tremendous altera- 
 tions as the mediaeval world has been trans- 
 formed into the modern, without feeling any 
 eager desire to be active in producing a future 
 essentially different from the ecclesiastical order 
 which had been established in creeds and poli- 
 cies. The authorized form of Roman theology 
 today is the system of Thomas Aquinas, who 
 died in 1274. Protestant thought is for the most 
 part still formulated in terms of the Lutheran 
 or Calvinistic systems, which were shaped be- 
 fore modern science and modern enterprises had 
 
5O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 made us acquainted with a world so immense 
 that the traditional creeds are being stretched 
 to the bursting point in the endeavor to make 
 even a pretense of covering it. The significance 
 of this modern crisis in the realm of theological 
 thought will best be seen if we glance briefly 
 at the development of the modern world so as 
 to see how its interests found no adequate guid- 
 ance from ecclesiastical Christianity. 
 
 I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SECULAR THEORY 
 
 OF INDUSTRY 
 
 
 
 One of the greatest differences between the 
 ancient and the modern world lies in the fact of 
 our immensely increased ability to control the 
 forces of nature and to make them minister to 
 our comfort and well-being. When we think of 
 the easy access which we have to the products 
 of all lands, when we realize how travel, librar- 
 ies and laboratories bring to us that enlargement 
 of outlook and aspiration which we rightly 
 value, when we think of the immense enter- 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 5! 
 
 prises of humanitarian purpose which are being 
 multiplied, we ought not to forget that these 
 things are possible only because of the splendid 
 story of industrial development which consti- 
 tutes the source of pride in the experience of 
 the business man, and which is accepted as the 
 true measure of greatness by most popular 
 expositors of our modern life. The ethical 
 sense of today feels that industry, com- 
 merce and wealth may contribute an im- 
 portant part in the establishment of the King- 
 dom of God. 
 
 What, then, has been the attitude of the 
 church toward this supremely important aspect 
 of our modern life? Do the ethical standards 
 of modern business embody the Christian spirit? 
 Or have they been formulated in defiance of the 
 ideals of the church? 
 
 When we recall the eschatological expecta- 
 tions of the primitive church, it is evident that 
 there was little place for a positive valuation of 
 industry in a world which was believed to be 
 near its end. We may see from the epistles to 
 
52 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 the Thessalonians how the emphasis on the 
 speedy coming of the Lord led some men to 
 neglect their ordinary vocations. In any case, 
 since the Christian could not carry with him 
 into the Kingdom of God the riches which he 
 might have amassed here, and since Jesus had 
 declared that earthly possessions constituted a 
 serious obstacle to discipleship, the church was 
 naturally opposed to enterprises which aroused 
 the cupidity of men. Of course one must labor 
 in order to provide food for himself and those 
 dependent on him. But beyond the indisputable 
 necessities of life, any acquirement of wealth 
 was to be condemned. There was a strong 
 tendency in the early centuries of the church to 
 regard private property as contrary to both 
 natural law and to the express will of God. To 
 reserve for oneself the comforts and luxuries 
 of life was not only dangerous to one's spiritual 
 welfare; it was also taken to mean a deliberate 
 defrauding of less fortunate men of their right- 
 ful share in the blessings of God. Said St. Am- 
 brose: "Thou, then, who hast received the gift 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 53 
 
 of God, thinkest thou that thou committest no 
 injustice by keeping to thyself alone what would 
 be the means of life to many? It is the bread 
 of the hungry that thou keepest, it is the cloth- 
 ing of the naked that thou lockest up; the money 
 that thou buriest is the redemption of the 
 wretched." 1 
 
 The interest which the church took in indus- 
 trial life, therefore, was dominated by the desire 
 to prevent Christians from succumbing to the 
 lust for gain, and the purpose to prevent men 
 from defrauding one another of the rightful 
 goods of life. There was almost no apprecia- 
 tion of the positive place which industry as 
 such might play in the promotion of human wel- 
 fare. Business was looked upon as a dangerous 
 employment for the Christian, because it was so 
 certain to beget the sin of avarice. Indeed, the 
 most rigid teachers of the church were quite 
 willing to see all gainful occupation abolished. 
 A pungent quotation will show the uncompro- 
 
 1 Quoted by W. J. Ashley, English Economic History, 
 I, p. 127. 
 
54 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 mising point of view which was sometimes 
 urged : 
 
 "Is trade adapted for a servant of God? But, cov- 
 etousness apart, what is the motive for acquiring? 
 When the motive for acquiring ceases, there will be no 
 necessity for trading. . . Do you hesitate about arts 
 and trades, and about professions likewise for the 
 sake of children and parents? Even there (in the 
 gospels) was it demonstrated to us that both dear 
 relations and handicrafts and trades are to be left 
 behind for the Lord's sake; while James and John, 
 called by the Lord, do leave quite behind both father 
 and ship; while Matthew is roused up from the toll- 
 booth ; while even burying a father was too tardy a 
 business for faith. None of those whom the Lord 
 chose to him said, 'I have no means to live/ Faith 
 fears no famine." 3 
 
 Thus, in principle, the devotion of one's time 
 to gainful industry was discouraged by the 
 church. If one wished to be a consistent fol- 
 lower of Christ, he was expected to forswear 
 wealth. The reforming movements in Catholi- 
 cism have usually looked upon the vow of pov- 
 erty as essential to any thorough-going espousal 
 of Christian principles. 
 
 In the case of those who were not ready to 
 'Tertullian, De Idol., n and 12. 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 55 
 
 take the vow of poverty, the church attempted 
 to exercise control over the way in which trade 
 was carried on. The principle of the golden 
 rule was embodied in the prohibition against 
 lending money for interest and in the economic 
 doctrine of a "fair price" as the ideal to guide 
 any one in a business transaction with others. 
 There was here, as in the case of the more rigid 
 judgment as to the superior virtue of poverty, 
 no thought of estimating the social value of 
 trade. The individuals engaged in business were 
 to be saved from the danger of losing their souls 
 through indulgence in the sin of covetousness. 
 Thus the doctrine of a "fair price" was inter- 
 preted in an individualistic fashion which seems 
 strange to us. Regard must always be had to the 
 rank of the person engaged in the transaction. It 
 was believed that every man was ordained by 
 God to a certain rank or class in society. Kings 
 and princes, of course, were expected to live in 
 greater grandeur than common people. A no- 
 bleman would naturally need a larger income 
 than one of common blood. The exhortations 
 
56 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 of the church were based on this assumption of 
 divinely appointed differences of rank. One 
 must so regulate his business as to receive from 
 it only so much as was required to provide the 
 necessities of his rank. Anything more than 
 this would be due to avarice. 3 
 
 During the early middle ages, this personal 
 and religious view of industrial relationships 
 worked on the whole for the welfare of society. 
 During the disintegration of political life due 
 to the supplanting of the older order by the 
 feudal system, the^e ideals tended to prevent 
 those who had the power to do so from exploit- 
 ing the poor without scruple. When there were 
 few opportunities for the investment of money 
 in safe ways, the temptation to hoard it or to 
 use it for selfish gratification was great. To 
 lend to a friend or neighbor in need without 
 demanding interest on the capital was an act of 
 
 8 Thomas Aquinas, for example, defines the sin of avarice 
 as follows : Avaritia peccatum est, quo quis supra debitum 
 modum cupit acquirere vel retinere divitias. He argues 
 that a man may rightly seek external goods "prout sunt 
 necessariae ad vitam ejus secundum suam conditionem. 
 Summa Theol., II, 2: Quaest cxviii, Art. I. 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 57 
 
 Christian love and involved no serious loss to 
 the lender. To insist on a "fair price" was 
 practicable so long as goods were produced in 
 the locality where they were exchanged, so that 
 it was easy to know approximately the cost of 
 the materials and the time necessary to produce 
 them. 
 
 But the time came when the mediaeval world 
 had so far mastered the processes of agriculture 
 that localities began to produce a surplus which 
 might be exchanged for goods produced else- 
 where. Little by little men became aware of 
 the enrichment of life which might come from 
 this new trade. Thus arose the stimulus to spe- 
 cialization in manufacture, so as to have more 
 goods to exchange for something else. Now 
 money could be profitably invested in enter- 
 prises which were of social value. The ecclesi- 
 astical estimate of capital was inadequate under 
 the new conditions. Lending for interest be- 
 came more and more common in spite of the 
 efforts of the church to prevent it. Indeed, in 
 the attempt to save the form of the prohibition 
 
58 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 the church was led to countenance certain palpa- 
 ble evasions of the letter of the law which de- 
 stroyed its moral influence. Thus men were led 
 gradually to assume an attitude toward industry 
 and trade which took its start from the actual 
 social needs of the day rather than from the 
 traditional doctrines of the church. The entire 
 structure of our modern industry is built on the 
 fundamental assumption that it is right and 
 wholesome for those who have capital to lend 
 it to corporations for the purpose of developing 
 business enterprises. Today no Christian so 
 much as asks concerning the legitimacy of in- 
 terest-bearing investments, or is usually aware 
 that the church ever objected to them. 
 
 The fact that the church was not able to give 
 any positive valuation to the growing industrial 
 interests of the modern world made it inevitable 
 that those interests should look elsewhere for 
 the principles which should guide them. At first 
 the guilds, and later the national governments, 
 undertook the task of organizing trade and in- 
 dustry. That characteristically industrial insti- 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 59 
 
 tution, the modern city, owes its existence to 
 the exigencies of industry and trade. It is evi- 
 dent to us all today that these immense centers 
 of human life have grown practically without 
 reference to the ideals which Christianity repre- 
 sents. The modern city is built purely and sim- 
 ply to foster business enterprise, and, as we 
 are becoming painfully aware, is responsible 
 for some of the most formidable problems 
 which confront the church of the immediate 
 future. 
 
 We cannot here enter into the history of the 
 development of industry and trade on a purely 
 secular basis. We may only point to the 
 classical expression of this new secularism 
 in Adam Smith's economic theories, which de- 
 veloped into what is known as the laissez-faire 
 philosophy. The principles of business today 
 are largely shaped by this famous doctrine of 
 non-restraint. Adam Smith held that the best 
 results will be attained by allowing the most free 
 competition, unhampered by either ecclesiastical 
 or political control. Out of this unrestrained 
 
60 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 striving of men with one another will come 
 economic justice and general welfare. 4 
 
 The immediate results of the adoption of this 
 purely secular doctrine of industry have been 
 such as to give us reason to pause and reflect. 
 The sorry story of the exploitation of child 
 labor and of the resulting depleted wages, not 
 to speak of the moral disintegration due to the 
 elimination of men from their customary places 
 as wage-earners for the family, is already well 
 known and almost universally condemned. In- 
 deed, it may be said that the world has already 
 rejected this individualistic theory of labor and 
 is seeking for some restraints which shall 
 make for greater justice. But the significant 
 thing about the industrial ferment of our day 
 is its entire ignoring of established Christianity 
 
 4 "All systems either of preference or restraint being 
 taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural lib- 
 erty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as 
 long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left per- 
 fectly free to pursue his own interest in his own way, and 
 to bring both his industry and his capital into competition 
 with those of any other man. "The Wealth of Nations," 
 Book IV, Chapter 9. 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 6 1 
 
 as a factor in the reconstruction. It is felt 
 that the ecclesiastical consciousness is too re- 
 mote from the actual wrongs which men are 
 suffering to render valuable aid in the crisis. 
 Out of the turmoil of the industrial conflict is 
 arising an immanent democratic social move- 
 ment, which is creating new valuations, and is 
 seeking to inaugurate new economic policies. 
 Indeed, in the extraordinary awakening of the 
 social conscience which is today in progress, 
 the church has been quite generally taken by 
 surprise. The religious possibilities latent in 
 modern social movements are seldom appre- 
 ciated by men educated in the traditional way. 
 Clinging as they have been to the mediaeval con- 
 ception of ethics, they have not imagined the 
 possibility of a revival of religion which did 
 not come in the conventional ecclesiastical fash- 
 ion. Yet the essentially moral character of 
 many movements of industrial reform is easily 
 evident, and there are not wanting signs of a 
 dawning consciousness that in the spirit of Jesus 
 is a dynamic which is indispensable to the full 
 
62 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 success of the movements for social reconstruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Indeed, it would not be difficult to show 
 certain parallels between the modern situation 
 and the ideal of mediaeval control. Is not the 
 demand for a "living wage" today similar in 
 ethical import to the mediaeval doctrine of a 
 "fair price"? Are not movements to protect 
 the poor from loan sharks dominated by the 
 same Christian spirit which forbade the loan- 
 ing of money for interest? There is a distinct 
 recognition of the moral bankruptcy of the 
 purely secular conception of business enterprise. 
 But the regeneration of industry cannot come 
 by the application of formal ecclesiastical 
 standards. If Christianity can suggest no other 
 remedy, the world will turn, for weal or for 
 woe, to secularism. 
 
 2. THE SECULARIZATION OF POLITICS 
 
 The second realm where we may trace the 
 progressive elimination of ecclesiastical control 
 is in the field of politics. The Catholic Church, 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 63 
 
 to this day, holds to the right of the ecclesiastical 
 power to control the state, so as to compel the 
 retention of Christian principles. Indeed, Prot- 
 estantism, in its revolt from the ecclesiastical 
 power of Rome, did not conceive the possibility 
 of a purely secular state. In the endeavors to 
 establish the rights of national princes over 
 against the pope, it was always taken for granted 
 that the state should be "Christian" in character. 
 We need only recall the committal of the religion 
 of a German state to the decision of the ruler 
 to see how completely religion and politics were 
 believed to be interrelated. Calvin attempted on 
 a small scale in Geneva exactly what Hilde- 
 brand had attempted on a world-wide scale. 
 Even in the beginnings of our own country's 
 history the Puritans sought to establish an ex- 
 clusive theocracy, in which political rights should 
 be restricted to those who were true orthodox 
 Christians, embodying the precepts of the Bible 
 in all their thinking and action. The Oxford 
 Movement in England in the middle of the last 
 century was provoked partly by the conviction of 
 
64 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 earnest Christians that a secular basis of suffrage 
 by which Catholics, Dissenters, Jews and even 
 atheists might be admitted to a share in the con- 
 duct of government meant the end of righteous- 
 ness. To this day the majority of men in the 
 western world continue to think in terms of a 
 state church. 
 
 But as political interests developed, it became 
 more and more evident that ecclesiastical con- 
 trol was incompatible with the welfare of mod- 
 ern nations. This was strikingly illustrated in 
 the attempts which Grotius made early in the 
 seventeenth century to eliminate the horrors of 
 war. The immediate result of the Protestant 
 movement had been to arouse hostilities which 
 appealed to religious motives, and which be- 
 cause of this religious appeal assumed especially 
 terrible form. We need only recall the terrors 
 of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, or the 
 military measures of Spain in the Netherlands 
 to realize that differences of religious faith pro- 
 voked conflicts of the most dreadful sort, where 
 factions of the same race might be pitted against 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 65 
 
 each other in a contest in which conscience lent 
 peculiar tenacity to the efforts of the contest- 
 ants. Grotius, that great apostle of humani- 
 tarian philosophy, saw that international peace 
 could not be promoted by appeal to the ecclesi- 
 astical conscience, for here lay the main reason 
 for warfare. He therefore laid the foundations 
 of modern international polity by an appeal to 
 the dictates of "natural law." It is true that 
 Grotius referred the principles of this natural 
 law to God, who was believed to have implanted 
 certain ethical principles in human nature; but 
 the significant thing was that this God-given 
 knowledge was accessible to all men without 
 the mediation of the church. Indeed, so certain 
 was Grotius of this secular appeal, that he de- 
 clared that natural law would constitute a valid 
 basis for ethics even if God did not exist at all. 
 As a result of such an appeal, there arises 
 a conception of the state very different from 
 that held by the ecclesiastical conscience. In- 
 stead of deriving its authority from God 
 through the church, it rests upon the sanction 
 
66 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 of the natural desires of the citizens. The the- 
 ory of a "social contract" arises. It is held 
 that the proper way in which to constitute a 
 government is for men mutually to agree con- 
 cerning the modes of corporate activity which 
 will best promote the rights of all to the pur- 
 suit of life, liberty and happiness. If any ex- 
 isting government is found to be disregarding 
 these fundamental rights of men, it can be justly 
 criticised. Even ecclesiastical traditions must 
 give way before this fundamental recognition 
 of the natural rights of men. 
 
 It is, of course, evident that this secular 
 philosophy of government has not yet com- 
 pletely won the field. The transition from 
 mediaevalism to modernism was made through 
 the doctrines of the Independents, who at- 
 tempted to substitute for an ecclesiastical state 
 a genuine democracy in which the Bible should 
 rule the thoughts and actions of citizens, and 
 thus indirectly constitute a divine basis for gov- 
 ernment. But the moment democracy is in fact 
 introduced, it becomes necessary to grant free- 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 67 
 
 dom of interpretation of scripture; and this is 
 likely to lead to controversies of such warmth 
 that religion again seems to fail to produce po- 
 litical peace. It has thus proved actually more 
 practicable to found modern democracies on a 
 purely secular basis, so that there can be no pre- 
 tence of compulsion on the authority of a non- 
 human power. This ideal has been expressed 
 in the constitution of our own country, which 
 distinctly excludes the exercise of formal ecclesi- 
 astical control over politics. Other nations of the 
 modern world are following in our footsteps, 
 and the time seems not far distant when the 
 countries of Europe will either renounce formal 
 connection between church and state, or will so 
 distinctly guarantee to different religious bodies 
 their full rights that the state becomes in fact, 
 if not in name, neutral toward any particular 
 ecclesiastical polity, and thus is practically secu- 
 larized. 
 
 The functions of the modern state, therefore, 
 are really denned in terms of the social and 
 economic welfare of the citizens, and not in the 
 
68 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 interests of any ecclesiastical ideal. This is 
 true of Catholic countries as well as of Protes- 
 tant, however the Catholic church may attempt 
 to conceal the fact. Modern Italy is a conspicu- 
 ous example of the triumph of the secular the- 
 ory of government under the very shadow of 
 the Vatican with its futile claim of temporal 
 authority. Every modern state has found itself 
 compelled to cease to be the organ of any 
 ecclesiastical polity. It must grant equal tolera- 
 tion to all forms of religious belief and practice. 
 This is equivalent to a confession that, so far 
 as the policy of the state is concerned, Chris- 
 tianity is no longer the sole rightful religion. 
 But if this position be once granted, the mediae- 
 val basis of politics is overthrown, no matter 
 how constantly members of the church may talk 
 about "Christian" nations. Our own national 
 constitution, which does not mention the name 
 of God, but which derives its sanctions from 
 the fact that "we, the people/' have decided to 
 adopt this and no other form of government, is 
 typical of the modern situation. 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 69 
 
 Out of this new sense of secular freedom 
 arises a typical form of political ethics. So 
 long as the state was conceived as deriving its 
 authority from a higher source, the govern- 
 ment was naturally left in the hands of an aris- 
 tocracy, who were presumably fitted both by na- 
 ture and by education for the task of wisely 
 administering the affairs of the state. As is well 
 known, in the inception of our own national ex- 
 istence, there was a widespread distrust of a 
 thorough-going democracy. Our constitution 
 was devised to keep the election of national sen- 
 ators and of the President out of the hands of 
 the people generally, committing the selection of 
 these officials to a more aristocratic body. Thus 
 the ethics of politics, like the ethics of the 
 mediaeval church, was essentially aristocratic. 
 
 But democracy has progressively claimed an 
 increasing share in our government, until today 
 it is almost an axiom that final authority rests 
 in the voice of the people themselves. Moreover, 
 the direction of democratic progress is easily 
 discerned in the growing demand for certain 
 
7O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 fundamental reconstructions of society which 
 will involve the modification or even the aboli- 
 tion of some of the time-honored "rights" of 
 property and of position. The political ques- 
 tions which must be faced in the near future 
 grow out of our modern social and industrial 
 development in so direct a fashion that there 
 arises a sense of impatience and even a spirit of 
 revolution whenever the older methods of aris- 
 tocratic control are attempted. Men are insist- 
 ing that they know what they want and what 
 they ought to do because of the fact that they 
 are living in the midst of the problem, and are 
 able to discern certain immanent principles of 
 justice. So alien to this modern moral belief 
 is the conception of church control that modern 
 movements are steadily but surely pushing the 
 church as an institution out of the circle of po- 
 litical forces. Changes in the observance of the 
 Sabbath, in the privileges of the clergy, in the 
 legal status of the church, and in the place of 
 religious education in public instruction, are 
 common enough to show the strength of the new 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 7! 
 
 secularism. Its ethical power should be better 
 understood than is usually the case. 
 
 3. THE CHANGED POSITION OF THE CHURCH IN 
 
 A SECULAR STATE 
 
 In connection with the secularization of poli- 
 tics, it is important to notice certain inevitable 
 consequences in our attitude toward the church 
 itself. The mediaeval church was regarded as 
 a supernatural institution, existing by virtue of 
 its divine establishment. Individuals were ut- 
 terly dependent upon the church for the sacra- 
 mental grace which took them out of the secular 
 world and constituted them members of the 
 heavenly group which was to enjoy and to ex- 
 hibit the favor of God. 
 
 But when the church becomes disestablished, 
 it is in the eyes of the law an association of 
 men who have voluntarily agreed to unite in 
 order to promote the objects of religion. 
 Legally, therefore, the church has a human 
 origin. It can formulate its own articles of in- 
 
72 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 corporation, like any other legal society. It can 
 determine its own ritual, creed and practices. 
 So far as the civil authorities are concerned, 
 there is no one exclusively right form of church 
 polity, no one divinely authorized form of be- 
 lief, no one definite list of sacraments. Exactly 
 what shall be the nature of a given ecclesiastical 
 organization rests with the constituent members. 
 Now this legal theory concerning the nature 
 of the church inevitably reacts upon the concep- 
 tion of the church as a religious institution. If 
 the members of the church formally declare its 
 purpose, its creed, its practices, do they not as a 
 matter of fact determine its theology and its 
 ethics? They may indeed declare that the the- 
 ology and the ethics must be drawn from an al- 
 leged divine source ; but the fact that it is legally 
 optional whether they assign this origin to their 
 theology inevitably evokes a consciousness of 
 human participation in the formulation of the 
 standards by which church members are to be 
 guided. Thus there is induced a changed type 
 of religious consciousness. It becomes possible 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 73 
 
 for men to deliberate and to decide for them- 
 selves matters which in the mediaeval church 
 were decided by divine authority. But the mo- 
 ment such deliberation is allowed, it involves a 
 complete transformation of the ethical standards 
 by which religious problems are decided. Mere 
 authority can no longer rule supreme. The 
 rights of conscience are recognized, even to the 
 extent of defying ecclesiastical authority. 
 
 Look, for example, at the modern estimate 
 of the significance of excommunication. In for- 
 mer centuries the most terrible fate which 
 could befall the individual was exclusion from 
 the church. Today, since the church consists 
 of a voluntarily associated body of believers, 
 any one has the privilege of withdrawing from 
 its membership without thereby discrediting him- 
 self in the eyes of his fellow men. This really 
 means that, in so far as one's life as a citizen is 
 concerned, one's morality can be complete with- 
 out reference to specifically ecclesiastical de- 
 mands. From this point of view, the older dis- 
 tinction between the unregenerate and the regen- 
 
74 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 erate either vanishes or is practically disregarded. 
 The church is valued by its members as an insti- 
 tution for promoting certain traits of character 
 and belief; but it is no longer believed that all 
 the virtues are within the church and that the 
 seeming good deeds of those without its pale 
 are only "splendid vices." 
 
 One of the most significant aspects of the 
 modern conscience is to be found in the popular 
 attitude today toward attempts on the part of 
 the churches to discipline members of the clergy 
 for heresy. From the mediaeval point of view 
 this was a most natural and praiseworthy func- 
 tion. But in our day, so convinced have we be- 
 come of the moral privilege of men to formulate 
 their own beliefs that it seems like an attempt to 
 infringe personal rights when a church under- 
 takes to dictate to an honest-minded man what 
 conclusions he shall reach in his theological 
 thinking. If, however, the church shall re- 
 nounce its claims to be the proper arbiter of the 
 religious thoughts of men, just what is left of 
 the authority ideal? The extent to which this 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 75 
 
 actual abdication of ecclesiastical control has 
 gone is scarcely realized among us. The moral 
 pronunciamentos of the modern church are 
 really simply the expression of the social sense 
 of the collective membership, formulated in 
 ecclesiastical gatherings. Less and less is there 
 any thorough-going attempt to regard them as 
 disciplinary laws. Dissent by individuals from 
 such general resolutions as are passed is not un- 
 common, and, when expressed, carries with it 
 little or no moral obloquy. So completely is the 
 right of private judgment recognized in modern 
 Protestant bodies. Thus there has come to pre- 
 vail in our actual practice an ideal which is ut- 
 terly incompatible with that sort of ecclesiastical 
 control which found expression in the traditional 
 theology. The ethics of belief today involves 
 an appeal to standards strikingly different from 
 those which were embodied in the systems of 
 theology which prevailed in the days of ecclesi- 
 astical supremacy. 
 
76 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 4. THE SECULARIZATION OF MODERN SCHOLAR- 
 SHIP 
 
 During the middle ages the preservation and 
 promotion of scholarship were entirely in the 
 hands of the church. Only the clergy had either 
 the leisure or the ability to master the traditions 
 of antiquity. As we have already seen, the so- 
 cial needs of the mediaeval period demanded the 
 mastery of the principles of learning which had 
 been formulated in the classic age. The 
 technique for the discovery of new truth had 
 not been developed. Consequently scholars nat- 
 urally became advocates of a predetermined sys- 
 tem, which was to be imparted to the coming 
 generation in order to keep alive the light of 
 learning. Since the only material for education 
 was derived from the theology of the church 
 fathers and from the fragments of the classics 
 which had escaped destruction, the task of schol- 
 arship consisted in mastering these treasures of 
 wisdom so as to transmit to coming generations 
 the culture contained in them. Moreover, even 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 77 
 
 the pagan culture which remained had been so 
 worked over by theological scholars that it fitted 
 into the ecclesiastical system in such a way that 
 reason and revelation seemed admirably to cor- 
 roborate each other. 5 
 
 The fundamentally theological interest re- 
 flected in the ideals of the time led to the valua- 
 tion of scholarship solely because of the aid 
 which it could give to men in their primary task 
 of preparing for heaven. Said St. Ambrose: 
 'To discuss the nature and position of the earth 
 does not help us in our hope of the life to come. 
 It is enough to know that scripture states that 
 'He hung up the earth upon nothing' (Job 
 26:7). Why then argue whether He hung it up 
 in air or upon the water, and raise a contro- 
 versy as to how the thin air could sustain the 
 earth ; or why, if upon the waters, the earth does 
 not go crashing down to the bottom?" 6 Now 
 if the inquiries of those of curious mind led not 
 
 B For an admirable account of this attitude of mind, see 
 Taylor: The Mediaeval Mind, New York, Macmillan, 1911. 
 "Hexsemeron, I, Chapter 6. 
 
78 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 simply to useless themes, so far as the salvation 
 of one's soul was concerned, but went so far as 
 to inspire doubt or hesitation concerning some 
 of the revealed doctrines on which our salvation 
 depends, such secular inquiry was, of course, re- 
 garded as sin. The story of the agonies endured 
 by honest souls who were thus led into doubt 
 would fill volumes. It is still a very real spir- 
 itual tragedy in the case of hundreds of men 
 today. 
 
 The consequence of this attitude on the part 
 of the church was to give a supreme moral value 
 to conformity. We have already had occasion 
 to notice the way in which the exigencies of 
 ecclesiastical discipline led to the doctrine that 
 heresy or schism was a deadly sin, because the 
 author of wrong teaching was defeating the 
 eternal salvation of precious souls. The moral 
 hatred of distinctly theological errors was easily 
 transferred to all intellectual movements which 
 did not profess to serve the interests which the 
 church held dear. It is difficult for us in this 
 age of toleration to realize the intensity of this 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 7Q 
 
 moral indignation unless we turn to the pages 
 of some patristic or mediaeval treatise, and ob- 
 serve the awful anathemas and the blood- 
 curdling epithets applied to the erring one. 
 
 The control of the church over intellectual 
 ideas was more complete than it was over indus- 
 try or politics, because all learning was neces- 
 sarily in the hands of the church; manuscripts 
 were usually copied by monks and put into cir- 
 culation through the priests ; churchmen were 
 for a long time the only persons who were sup- 
 posed to concern themselves with learning. The 
 result was that by the end of the middle ages 
 scholarship was completely under the domina- 
 tion of the ecclesiastical standards of right 
 thinking, and was so organized as to exclude 
 any ideas prejudicial to the church. 
 
 Consequently, when the stirrings of modern 
 scientific endeavor began to make themselves 
 felt, there was no scholarly preparation for the 
 appreciation of the real moral significance of 
 this new and fruitful method of ascertaining the 
 truth. The story of the conflict which science 
 
8O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 has had to wage with the ecclesiastical tempera- 
 ment is well known, and need not be rehearsed 
 here. 7 We now recall with a sense of shame 
 the fact that the church did its best to suppress 
 the new astronomy and the new cosmology made 
 possible by the discoveries of Copernicus and 
 his successors; and that it is in many places still 
 waging a bitter warfare against the doctrine of 
 evolution, which has proved to be so fruitful a 
 means of investigation in our modern world. 
 Especially intense has been the opposition to the 
 application of scientific methods in the study of 
 church history or to the Bible. There are still 
 living in our country men who were deposed 
 from their chairs as teachers because they felt 
 it to be their duty to teach what they had 
 learned from a more thorough study of the 
 facts rather than to conform to the traditional 
 doctrines. 
 
 The development of modern science, then, has 
 
 T It was set forth in striking form by Andrew Dickson 
 White in his "History of the Warfare Between Science 
 and Theology." (New York, 1897.) 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 8 1 
 
 been accompanied by a prolonged and bitter con- 
 test against the ecclesiastical conception of the 
 ethics of scholarship. When dissent from the 
 opinions approved by the church is defined as 
 sin, there is sure to be serious confusion in the 
 realm of religious education. 
 
 But in our day, the victory has been prac- 
 tically won for the newer type of scholarship. 
 We are coming to adopt the scientific rather 
 than the ecclesiastical ideal for the guidance of 
 life. Modern colleges and universities frankly 
 advocate the spirit of unbiased and free investi- 
 gation. Indeed, we are even beginning to talk 
 about scientific investigation as the necessary 
 preliminary to any real church efficiency. But 
 there is one unfortunate result of the struggle 
 of the past four or five centuries which is a 
 source of regret to all lovers of truth. That is 
 the inheritance by scientific literature of a hos- 
 tility to theology, engendered by the opposition 
 of the church to investigations which are now 
 recognized to be of positive value to humanity. 
 It is, perhaps, a matter of surprise that this 
 
82 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 hostility to the church is not more pronounced 
 than it actually is. When we recall the way in 
 which honest-minded men have been made to 
 suffer for their honesty, when we remember that 
 many of the blessings which we now enjoy were 
 gained only after the determined opposition of 
 the church was overcome, it is easily compre- 
 hensible that the victors in the battle should 
 speak of their defeated opponents in terms of 
 hatred and contempt. The restraint of most 
 scientific literature in this respect is morally 
 commendable. None the less, in the modern 
 college and university there is often present an 
 undertone of patronizing contempt for the ideas 
 of the church, which easily runs into a similar 
 attitude toward the religion which the church 
 propagates. Frequently a teacher or writer in- 
 dulges frankly in adverse criticism of the ideas 
 which in the case of most men are indissolubly 
 connected with Christian faith. Even where 
 there is no expressed disapproval of the church's 
 attitude, the mere history of a science may serve 
 to bring out the fact that in certain realms the 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 83 
 
 doctrine of the church has been hopelessly dis- 
 credited. 
 
 Thus there is rapidly coming into dominance 
 among us a type of mind which sees more moral 
 heroism in opposition to the church than in con- 
 forming to its ideas; which looks for the truth 
 in ways which the church has formally disap- 
 proved; and which is keenly conscious that the 
 ecclesiastical ideal has been discredited by those 
 who are the real leaders of the world's thought. 
 It cannot be said that the canons of morality 
 have been carefully worked out from the new 
 point of view. But there exists a genuine en- 
 thusiasm for freedom of thought; and this en- 
 thusiasm is not always too critical of the scien- 
 tific correctness of the position of the man who 
 attacks the church. Let any one propound a 
 theory today in such a form that it is clearly 
 seen to contradict the traditional theological doc- 
 trines, and the author of the theory immediately 
 becomes a newspaper hero, a modern David 
 defying the ecclesiastical Goliath. Such cheap 
 and superficial judgments augur ill for the 
 
84 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 moral seriousness of the anti-ecclesiastical 
 spirit. 
 
 Every one at all acquainted with the facts 
 knows that the leaders in the church today are 
 actually welcoming the scientific spirit to a far 
 greater degree than would appear from a read- 
 ing of the unrevised creeds and disciplines which 
 survive from former days. There is good rea- 
 son to believe that the church does not deserve 
 so severe a reproof for her spirit as is currently 
 assumed by advocates of the ideal of freedom 
 of investigation. Still, it ought to be recognized 
 that the moral demand for untrammelled inquiry 
 is uncompromisingly opposed to any program 
 which prescribes beforehand the limits within 
 which conclusions may be formed. The scien- 
 tific spirit is so completely given over to the ideal 
 of letting future investigations determine the 
 future ideas of men, that it feels an irksome re- 
 straint even in the suggestion that one ought to 
 pledge himself to hold fast doctrines which have 
 been regarded as absolutely essential to Chris- 
 tianity. It is a far cry from the days when the 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 85 
 
 mediaeval church was in proud control of all 
 the activities of life to the present calm assump- 
 tion that Christianity must, without claiming or 
 asking any superior authority, enter into com- 
 petition with other ideals in the struggle which 
 will ultimately determine the fittest to survive. 
 Morally it makes all the difference in the world. 
 Mediaeval Christianity was a privileged institu- 
 tion. It could appeal to divine authority for its 
 rights. The modern church must meet the com- 
 petition involved in a democratic opportunity 
 for all rivals with equal opportunities. Obvi- 
 ously, when the rules of the game are defined 
 as they are in our modern world of democratic 
 scholarship, any appeal to authority is regarded 
 as a confession of weakness rather than of 
 strength. Thus the very thing which constituted 
 the moral power of Christianity in former cen- 
 turies is today discredited. The ethics of schol- 
 arship is opposed to the ethics of ecclesiasticism ; 
 and the modern world is more and more coming 
 to the side of scholarship. That a serious crisis 
 is thus created is evident. 
 
86 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 5. THE RISE OF A SECULAR ETHICS 
 
 We have seen how business, politics and schol- 
 arship have become completely emancipated 
 from ecclesiastic control. Each has developed 
 ideals of its own, which are actually constituting 
 the basis of social activity in the modern world. 
 It was characteristic of the earlier development 
 of these secular movements that great enthusi- 
 asm and optimism were engendered. It was felt 
 that when the power of the church was once 
 broken, the exercise of freedom in thought and 
 in action would soon so adjust matters that fric- 
 tion would be removed and the spirit of man be 
 emancipated to enter upon unlimited progress* 
 The eighteenth century was especially marked 
 by this youthful optimism. In the place of the 
 older religion of authority, the Deists proposed 
 a universal religion of reason, which all men 
 would voluntarily adopt, just because it was rea- 
 sonable. In the place of the older control of 
 industry, the Manchester school of economists 
 predicted the abolition of tyranny and oppres- 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 87 
 
 sion by the simple and apparently reasonable 
 plan of unrestricted freedom of contract. In 
 the realm of scholarship and education, the elim- 
 ination of religious control was believed to open 
 the way for a broader and finer culture. 
 
 It must be confessed that the earlier optimism 
 has not been entirely justified. As the new 
 ideals have developed without adequate organi- 
 zation around a central religious ideal, they have 
 often come into conflict. The result is a very 
 general confusion in the minds of men who are 
 discovering that the fragmentary customs and 
 aims of the various walks of life do not always 
 fit into a unified whole. "Business is business," 
 says the man of affairs, when he is reproached 
 for pressing his industrial advantage to the in- 
 jury of others. The ethics of modern industry, 
 admirable as they are in certain respects, are 
 nevertheless at many points sorely in conflict 
 with the moral demands of humanitarian inter- 
 ests. "Politics is not a Sunday School affair," 
 declares the man who is confronted with the 
 opportunity of securing certain desirable politi- 
 
SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 cal ends by means which cannot be made public. 
 Democracy brings its temptations as surely as 
 any other form of government. "The standards 
 of scholarship must be maintained/' says the 
 schoolmaster, when he is urged to alter the cur- 
 riculum so as to fit boys and girls more ade- 
 quately for the life before them. Everywhere 
 are the signs of maladjustment as the different 
 realms of human activity have been experiment- 
 ing without adequate guidance from any great 
 central interpretation of the meaning of life. 
 
 Out of this process of experimentation has 
 grown a new conception of the task of ethics. 
 Until recently, even the alleged secular systems 
 were not really different in principle from the 
 ecclesiastical theories which they were seeking 
 to supplant. In the place of the canonical scrip- 
 ture or the authoritative church they simply set 
 the authority of certain a priori principles of 
 reason. Specific duties were ascertained by a 
 process of deduction from these principles. But 
 we are seeing today the rise of a new method of 
 valuing human action. This newer method 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 89 
 
 abandons appeal to a priori principles, and seeks 
 instead to gain an adequate understanding of 
 the rise of ethical needs in the evolution of the 
 race, and to discover by an accurate analysis of 
 that evolution the sort of conduct which fur- 
 thers the normal and wholesome progress of so- 
 cial and individual life. Ethical precepts thus 
 are made relative to human needs instead of be- 
 ing referred to any superhuman or pre-human 
 source. 
 
 The consequence of this historical and em- 
 pirical approach to the subject is the elimination 
 of the last vestige of the mediaeval attitude. It 
 was fundamental to that attitude to think of the 
 principles of morality as having been revealed 
 and promulgated in permanent form. Conse- 
 quently a true ethics was believed to be univer- 
 sally valid for all ages and races and conditions 
 of mankind. Any divergence from this eternal 
 code would be considered as positively wrong. 
 From this point of view, it was natural to as- 
 sume that the ecclesiastical system represented 
 the unchanging truth. But the adoption of the 
 
9<D SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 historical method of studying morality means 
 that all ideals, including the ecclesiastical system, 
 are seen to be historically conditioned. Of none 
 can we say that it is "absolutely" good in any 
 timeless sense. Of all we may truthfully say 
 that they arose under the pressure of definite 
 interests in connection with specific circum- 
 stances. Ethics, therefore, becomes a science of 
 relative values rather than an exposition of 
 "absolute" truths. Of course, there are certain 
 abiding human traits and needs, as there are 
 certain abiding conditions of human life; and 
 these will continue to require certain funda- 
 mental moral principles. But the validity of 
 such principles is referred to the needs of hu- 
 manity in its present relations to the world and 
 to society rather than to superhuman sanctions. 
 It is true that this view of ethics is not yet 
 universally apprehended. Probably popular 
 thinking, and to some extent professional writ- 
 ing on the subject, will for some time to come 
 be dominated by the older conception of eter- 
 nally valid a priori principles. But the fruitful 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS QI 
 
 work of those who in recent years have been 
 employing the empirical and historical method, 
 and who are slowly but surely revealing the in- 
 timate relations between moral precepts and con- 
 crete human needs set in certain definite eco- 
 nomic and social situations, is beginning to make 
 itself felt in all realms of the spiritual life. 
 Little by little men, even in the churches, are 
 accustoming themselves to the notion that a 
 more accurate understanding of the duties of 
 the day can be ascertained by an empirical study 
 of the facts than by the exegesis of any ancient 
 literature. So important does this first-hand 
 study of social life seem to many of the leaders 
 of modern enterprises, that institutions which 
 are addressing themselves to our most pressing 
 modern social problems are likely to feel con- 
 siderable impatience with the ecclesiastical con- 
 science, which can so easily reason from a priori 
 principles to conclusions which often fail to re- 
 late themselves practically to the definite prob- 
 lems in hand. Our settlements, our charity or- 
 ganizations, our civic welfare movements and 
 
92 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 other enterprises of undoubted moral signifi- 
 cance are employing the methods of the em- 
 pirical investigator rather than the methods of 
 the churchman. It seems likely that this spirit 
 of inductive study of the conditions of human 
 conduct and welfare will more and more domi- 
 nate the progress of morals; and the church, in 
 so far as it preserves the mediaeval attitude, will 
 find itself discredited by modern organizations 
 with an ethical purpose. 
 
 6. THE HISTORICAL EXPLANATION OF RELIGION 
 
 Finally, attention should be called to the fact 
 that even the study of religion itself, which is 
 naturally a realm in which the church should feel 
 itself secure, is being secularized. Theological 
 scholarship in Protestant seminaries is rapidly 
 committing itself without reserve to the scien- 
 tific method, which means the ideal of searching 
 for the truth without pledging oneself before- 
 hand to uphold the doctrines approved by the 
 church. Those who are engaged in the tasks of 
 theological scholarship today are keenly aware 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 93 
 
 of the crisis through which we have been pass- 
 ing in recent years. It is only within the past 
 two decades that Old Testament scholars have 
 felt generally free to give to the facts of He- 
 brew history an interpretation radically different 
 from that which the church had held. Even to- 
 day the espousal of critical scholarship is apt to 
 involve the theologian in the necessity of apolo- 
 gising for his work whenever he encounters the 
 ecclesiastical type of conscience. In the New 
 Testament, the break with tradition involves a 
 new attitude toward certain doctrines which 
 have been regarded as central in Christian faith, 
 and it will be some time before complete free- 
 dom will be acknowledged there. But the signifi- 
 cant aspect of the situation is the steady progress 
 of the scientific and critical method as over 
 against the method of authoritative exegesis. 
 Even when critical scholarship affirms traditional 
 doctrines, the method by which the conclusions 
 are reached involves as complete an emancipa- 
 tion from ecclesiastical control as would be em- 
 bodied in conclusions which diverged from those 
 
94 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 approved by the church. The modern theologi- 
 cal scholar holds the convictions which he does, 
 not because they are dictated to him by divine 
 authority, but because, after using the best means 
 of inquiry available, these conclusions seem to be 
 justified. 
 
 It is true that this outcome is not clearly seen 
 by all those who profess to employ the critical 
 method. The results of the historical method of 
 study yield such fruitful insights into the na- 
 ture of religion and ethics that, in estimating the 
 gains, w r e are often led to overlook the fact that 
 these same gains are accompanied by the loss 
 of the older principle of authority. Little by 
 little, however, it will become clear to all that 
 in so far as theological scholarship actually fol- 
 lows critical methods it has abandoned the pos- 
 sibility of following the voice of ecclesiastical 
 dictation. It refuses to allow the church to have 
 the final word as to the meaning of religion. It 
 insists on the historical relativity of biblical doc- 
 trines, thereby contradicting the theory that 
 these doctrines have a super-historical origin. 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS 95 
 
 It is progressively recognizing that Christianity 
 did not come into existence and grow up in quar- 
 antine from all pagan influences ; but that, on the 
 contrary, it felt and responded to the same his- 
 torical exigencies which contributed to the mak- 
 ing of pagan religions. Little by little it is com- 
 ing to be seen that there is not so wide a gulf 
 between the religion of the Bible and the kindred 
 religions of biblical times as was presupposed in 
 the traditional interpretation of scripture; and 
 that there is not so absolute a difference as has 
 been commonly assumed between the way in 
 which the men of the Bible arrived at their con- 
 victions and the way in which men in later times 
 achieved their faith. In short, a secular rather 
 than an ecclesiastical explanation of the origin 
 of Christianity is coming to be a commonplace 
 in theological literature. This, it scarcely needs 
 to be said, does not mean the denial of the great- 
 ness of Christianity; but it does mean an ex- 
 planation of that greatness which is strikingly 
 different from the interpretation which the 
 church has given. 
 
96 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 Moreover, the application of the scientific 
 spirit to the study of the non-Christian religions 
 of today is leading to a new valuation of these. 
 They, like Christianity, are seen to be histori- 
 cally conditioned, and to have received the form 
 which characterizes them because of the exigen- 
 cies which they had to meet. Traits which 
 would be decidedly immoral for men educated 
 in western traditions may be of quite different 
 import for the oriental. We cannot judge by 
 any absolute standard. Indeed, we are coming 
 to see that the oriental may have developed cer- 
 tain virtues which the different round of western 
 influences has failed to evoke. At any rate, it 
 is no longer respectable among scholars to seek 
 to show the utter depravity of pagan nations as 
 a step in the process of proving the perfection 
 of Christianity. Every religion must receive a 
 historical explanation. 
 
 Thus the new spirit has entered into the very 
 citadel of our religious thinking. We are rap- 
 idly becoming accustomed to the idea of form- 
 ing our opinions concerning Christianity with- 
 
DISCREDITING ECCLESIASTICAL ETHICS Q7 
 
 out feeling bound to accept the guidance of the 
 church. We have secularized the methods by 
 which we apprehend Christianity itself. The 
 consequences of this new scholarship will be pro- 
 found and far-reaching when they are allowed 
 freely to operate. The Roman Catholic church, 
 with its sensitiveness to all that threatens the 
 supremacy of ecclesiastical standards, has entered 
 upon a war of extermination. Protestantism is 
 divided into two camps over this very question, 
 but in the absence of an adequate ecclesiastical 
 organization is unable to preserve the temper of 
 mind which is essential to a vigorous warfare 
 against modernism. Steadily in the schools of 
 theology the scientific spirit is growing, and min- 
 isters are learning to discharge their duties with 
 an ever-increasing confidence in the empirical as 
 opposed to the authority method. 
 
 Thus the question becomes acute whether the 
 introduction of the newer methods is accom- 
 panied by a clear apprehension of the ethical 
 aspects of their use. If the sense of moral obli- 
 gation to the church be eliminated, is the change 
 
98 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 accompanied by a new moral enthusiasm? Or 
 does it mean a privileged laxity on the part of 
 scholars? The challenge involved in this transi- 
 tion from the mediaeval to the modern type of 
 thinking is one that should engage our serious 
 attention. To this challenge we must now turn, 
 in order to feel the force of the moral issue in 
 present-day religious thinking. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MORAL CHALLENGE OF THE MODERN 
 
 WORLD 
 
 IN the survey of Christian history which we 
 have made, we have seen how the moral exigen- 
 cies of the early centuries of our era made neces- 
 sary the development of a system of authoritative 
 control of ideals in order to preserve the stand- 
 ards of the higher life and to educate the bar- 
 barians into a condition of political and social 
 self-sufficiency. But the very success of the 
 church in organizing the life of the Middle Ages 
 under the direction of her institutional and doc- 
 trinal control brought into Christian conscious- 
 ness the conception of a closed and final system 
 of morals and religion. So fixed did this belief 
 in the infallibility of the established system be- 
 come that it has cost a hard and long struggle 
 to transcend it. Consequently, as we have al- 
 
 99 
 
IOO SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 ready seen, when the new movements which 
 have produced what we know as the modern 
 world began to make themselves felt, the church 
 was unable to make a place for them within her 
 system. These interests, therefore, proceeded 
 to organize themselves without consulting the 
 larger spiritual ideals which might have been 
 supplied by the church. Thus there has come 
 into existence our modern society, with its secu- 
 larized business, its secularized politics, it secu- 
 larized education, its secularized science, and its 
 increasing disregard for the somewhat uncer- 
 tain attempts of the church to grapple with the 
 situation. 
 
 We thus stand today more nearly in the posi- 
 tion of the Christians of the first three centuries 
 than has, perhaps, ever been the case since those 
 early days. We can no longer speak of a 
 "Christian" civilization, however we may be 
 tempted to do so. Some of the greatest achieve- 
 ments of which our age boasts are due to secular 
 enterprise which has won its right to freedom 
 only after a bitter warfare with the ecclesiastical 
 
THE MORAL CHALLEtfQE ; iOT 
 
 conscience. This conflict, as we have already 
 noted, has left a hostility toward theology which 
 in subtle or in unconcealed ways finds expres- 
 sion in the text-books and treatises which stu- 
 dents and intelligent citizens read for informa- 
 tion. The culture of our day, more generally 
 than we like to admit, assumes a half -pity ing, 
 half-contemptuous attitude toward the tradi- 
 tional forms and efforts of Christianity. The 
 church thus finds itself, as did the church of the 
 early days, surrounded by a culture which is 
 really not in sympathy with its aims. Editors 
 of newspapers know that they can count upon 
 plenty of delighted readers who enjoy the dis- 
 comfiture of the church or of the theologians. 
 
 If Christianity is to dominate this new situa- 
 tion, the first duty is to look the facts squarely 
 in the face, in order to determine precisely the 
 nature of the task before it. The moral chal- 
 lenge of the modern world must be considered, 
 in order that the duty of a moral theology may 
 be made plain. One of the heartening symp- 
 toms of our day is the large amount of attention 
 
ID2 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 which is being paid to this phase of philosophi- 
 cal, ethical and religious reconstruction. 1 There 
 is danger that if the church does not awake to 
 the seriousness of the situation she may seem 
 to be expending all her energies in simply keep- 
 ing alive. The great desideratum of today is 
 an aggressive program for Christianity which 
 shall command the moral enthusiasm of men. 
 
 I. THE CHALLENGE DUE TO THE CONCEPTION 
 OF EVOLUTION AS THE FUNDAMENTAL 
 PRINCIPLE OF HISTORY 
 
 If our situation is like that of the early Chris- 
 tians in one respect, viz., in so far as we are 
 surrounded, as they were, by a culture which is 
 either indifferent or hostile to Christian ideals 
 in another way it is strikingly different. They 
 expected the great catastrophe from heaven at 
 any time, which would speedily bring to an end 
 the kingdoms of this world and leave Christ 
 
 1 While the discussion in these pages was being written, 
 President King published his book with the suggestive title, 
 "The Moral and Religious Challenge of Our Times." (New 
 York, Macmillan, 1912.) 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 103 
 
 supreme in the Messianic kingdom. It was pos- 
 sible, therefore, for them to devote themselves 
 entirely to the prerequisites of that other-worldly 
 kingdom. No provision need be made for future 
 generations on this earth. In spite of the fact 
 that the mediaeval church undertook the organi- 
 zation of society her ideals were dominated by 
 this primitive eschatology. The church was to 
 rule the world, indeed, but it was not for the 
 purpose of making this world the ultimate scene 
 of her triumph. Her glory was to be found in 
 the number of redeemed souls in heaven. The 
 miracles which were wrought through her were 
 believed to be more significant than were social 
 achievements in the realm of industry or poli- 
 tics. 
 
 Protestantism also preserved this funda- 
 mental other-worldly emphasis. The miracle 
 was, indeed, transferred from the external sacra- 
 ments to the inner workings of the Spirit in the 
 life of the individual; but the emphasis was 
 none the less laid on rescue from this world and 
 preparation for heaven. To be able to testify 
 
IO4 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 to redemption from sin through the miraculous 
 provisions of the plan of atonement was re- 
 garded as the supreme test of Christian life. It 
 is true that Protestantism, especially under the 
 influence of Luther, did assume a direct ethical 
 interest in non-ecclesiastical enterprises; yet the 
 motive underlying good works was essentially 
 tHe eschatological one of the primitive church. 
 To hear the approving voice of God at the final 
 judgment rather than to rejoice in the possibility 
 of better moral conditions on this earth has been 
 the supreme motive for right living proclaimed 
 by the church. 
 
 If one wishes to realize what a difference 
 there is between this traditional evangelical em- 
 phasis and the modern social ideal, it would be 
 interesting to try the experiment of first read- 
 ing some modern discussion of a moral pro- 
 gram which gains its power from the vision of 
 a better social order which we may help bring 
 into existence, and then to turn to a hymn book 
 for poetic inspiration. One realizes thus, with 
 something of a shock, how largely our Chris- 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE IO5 
 
 tian devotion has been stimulated by visions of 
 the heavenly Jerusalem, the glories of which we 
 may enjoy only after death has removed us 
 from this earth. "I'm but a stranger here; 
 heaven is my home." "This consecrated cross 
 I'll bear till death shall set me free; and then 
 go home a crown to wear; for there's a crown 
 for me." "A charge to keep I have, a God to 
 glorify, a never-dying soul to save, and fit it 
 for the sky." "My soul, be on thy guard; ten 
 thousand foes arise; the hosts of sin are press- 
 ing hard, to draw thee from the skies." Such 
 are the hymns on which our spiritual aspirations 
 have been fed. The constantly repeated empha- 
 sis on the sky as the truest source of re- 
 ligious experience is significant. So accustomed 
 are we to this point of view that we see nothing 
 ludicrous in the sight of a procession of innocent 
 children marching and singing, "Jerusalem, my 
 happy home, would God I were in thee; would 
 God my woes were at an end, Thy joys that I 
 might see." Such expressions of religious 
 fervor assume that the present world is in a 
 
IO6 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 hopeless state. Like the Pilgrim in Bunyan's 
 famous allegory, we are to leave it behind and 
 seek the celestial city. 
 
 But for the past four centuries a totally differ- 
 ent conception of our world has been domesti- 
 cating itself in our thought; and when we are 
 not under the domination of the eschatological 
 inheritance from the church, we instinctively act 
 on the supposition that the newer scientific view 
 is the correct one. We become spectators of an 
 age-long cosmic history, the immensity of which 
 fairly bewilders us, while it gives to us tre- 
 mendous inspiration. Our world is not hope- 
 lessly decadent, doomed to utter destruction in 
 the course of a few days or years. It is vigorous 
 with the splendid strength of youth. Back of 
 us stretch the uncounted ages during which star 
 dust was gathered together and organized into 
 the marvelous symphony of form and motion. 
 Little by little our planet was prepared for the 
 life which began its wonderful course of evolu- 
 tion. Today we see man just emerging from 
 helpless infancy into a real consciousness of his 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 
 
 power; and before the human race stretch mil- 
 lions and millions of years in which progress 
 may be made. 
 
 The consequences of this new view of the 
 place of man in the universe are only beginning 
 to be apprehended. The effect of the eschato- 
 logical conception was to limit the aspirations of 
 men to the immediate generation in which they 
 lived. Today we are seeing new ideals of duty 
 arise as a consequence of the recognition of the 
 enormous future of humanity. We are begin- 
 ning to set a valuation upon the natural re- 
 sources of this earth and to make far-reaching 
 plans so that future generations may not be 
 bankrupt because of our short-sighted policies. 
 When we see how in the past precious resources 
 have been wasted or have not been used to 
 advantage, just because of the narrow out- 
 look belonging to a smaller world view, we 
 begin to appreciate what a tremendous difference 
 it is going to make when men actually come to 
 think of this earth as the place where their de- 
 scendants for countless generations are to live, 
 
IO8 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 rather than as a transient locality doomed to 
 speedy destruction. As President King has re- 
 marked: "Think, for example, of President 
 Roosevelt's plan for conserving the resources of 
 the entire earth. One may be pardoned for 
 doubting whether there was a man of the last 
 generation with imagination enough even to set 
 the problem." 2 
 
 It is immediately evident that the presence of 
 such a far-sighted planning for an indefinite 
 future constitutes a challenge to a Christian 
 ideal which limits its plans to cover simply the 
 eternal welfare of those who are now alive. The 
 spirit of our age is no longer contented with a 
 policy which formulates itself in terms of res- 
 cue work. Preventive measures are more and 
 more coming to the front. The traditional "mis- 
 sion" in the poverty-stricken portion of a great 
 city seems to the modern social worker to be 
 blind to some of the obvious undertakings which 
 demand active aggressive labor. Can we be 
 
 a The Moral and Religious Challenge of Our Times, p. 
 103. 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 1 09 
 
 content to "save" a few souls in this generation, 
 if the children of these same "souls" are to be 
 overwhelmed by the same physical and social 
 forces which occasioned the downfall of their 
 parents? Noble as is the service which Chris- 
 tian charity renders to those who are in want, 
 can we be content with the perpetuation of 
 economic conditions which make such charity 
 the inevitable, but undeserved, lot of thousands? 
 The immensely lengthened perspective which 
 has been introduced by the doctrine of evolution 
 has brought into discredit a type of religious 
 ethics which is satisfied with the mere regenera- 
 tion of individuals here and now, without also 
 definitely planning to make less necessary such 
 rescue for the coming generations. 
 
 It will help toward a reconstruction of our 
 attitude in this matter, if we remember that the 
 eschatological hope, which is now being aban- 
 doned in our modern thought, had a distinctly 
 social and political origin. The better future of 
 Israel was pictured as a kingdom on this earth 
 full of joy and blessedness and righteousness, 
 
11(3 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 It was only when the hopelessness of any agita- 
 tion for political reform so long as the nation 
 remained under foreign rulership was realized, 
 that the appeal of faith was made to the miracle 
 of the heavenly Jerusalem. With a better un- 
 derstanding of the Old Testament comes the in- 
 spiration which leads naturally to a new appre- 
 ciation of the Israelitish hope for a nation of 
 righteousness where future generations on this 
 earth may enjoy the blessings of God's righteous 
 dominion. 
 
 Indeed, as the church has been pursuing with 
 vigor her task of evangelization, she has come 
 to realize more and more the importance of this 
 larger outlook. Today the missionary enterprise 
 is being shifted from a program of rescuing a 
 few souls from eternal disaster to the ideal of a 
 long campaign of education and social recon- 
 struction in the non-Christian nations. A signifi- 
 cant change may be observed in the motives to 
 which those soliciting men and money for mis- 
 sions appeal. Increasing emphasis is being laid 
 on the claims of the social and political future 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE III 
 
 of the non-Christian peoples on this earth. 
 With gratifying in frequency do we hear echoes 
 of the argument once so much in vogue, which 
 harrowed men's feelings by appalling arithmeti- 
 cal calculations concerning the numbers of 
 heathen who were being eternally lost every mo- 
 ment. In general, it may be said that where 
 the church is taking her duty most seriously 
 she is most sensitive to the demands which 
 grow out of the long look ahead. 
 
 But when all has been said, it remains evi- 
 dent that the current theological and ethical 
 treatises too often embody a sense of perplexity 
 due to the two different world views. There is 
 on the one hand the inherited feeling that the 
 interests of this world are somehow "secular/' 
 and are therefore to be excluded from a pro- 
 gram which is concerned to fit men for heaven. 
 On the other hand, there is the recognition that 
 these same worldly interests are actually too ab- 
 sorbing to be ignored. The consequence is a 
 paralysis of moral vigor in dealing with some of 
 the great social problems. For example, an ade- 
 
112 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 quate understanding of the biological, social and 
 moral facts of human life brings clearly before 
 us the imperative need for wholesome recreation 
 in order to prevent city dwellers from succumb- 
 ing to the pessimism engendered by modern con- 
 ditions of toil and of home life. But the ethical 
 traditions of our churches and the preaching of 
 evangelists portray amusement as a distinctly 
 worldly thing, unworthy the attention of a con- 
 sistent Christian. As a result, the church is evi- 
 dently embarrassed in dealing with this problem 
 of primary importance for the welfare of the 
 young. This hesitancy on the part of those 
 whose business it is to conserve spiritual ideals 
 has allowed the means of amusement to be pro- 
 vided in the main by those who have no high 
 ethical motives, but who recognize a tremendous 
 opportunity for financial gain in exploiting hu- 
 manity in its inevitable search for relaxation. 
 There are not wanting men shrewd enough to 
 see that, if once the standards of the church can 
 be transgressed in matters of slight importance, 
 the moral sense of boys and girls will be so con- 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 113 
 
 fused that it becomes possible to introduce the 
 attractions of actual viciousness without any 
 adequate perception of the difference between 
 wholesome fun and harmful excitement on the 
 part of those who have been trained to consider 
 all pleasure sinful. The moral disintegration 
 which is being wrought in our youth by the 
 actual habitual indulgence in forms of amuse- 
 ment which are technically adjudged sinful by 
 the traditional ecclesiastical conscience is a seri- 
 ous menace. Only the abandonment on the part 
 of the church of the ascetic attitude which natu- 
 rally accompanies the other-worldly conception 
 of the religious life, and the frank recognition 
 of the positive value of the natural instincts and 
 aspirations belonging to the so-called "secular" 
 life, can put Christianity in a position to deal 
 vigorously with some of the primary moral 
 problems of our day. 
 
 Important as is the task of rescuing individu- 
 als from the evils of their environment, it is 
 equally imperative to assume responsibility for 
 the environment itself which exercises so potent 
 
114 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 an influence in the shaping of character. Such 
 a conception of the moral task of humanity is 
 overwhelming in its scope and its intricacy. It 
 challenges Christianity to an undertaking which, 
 if it be once recognized, will absorb all the en- 
 thusiasm and all the activity which can be in- 
 spired by the Christian spirit for countless gen- 
 erations. In a day when the imagination is 
 stirred by the possibilities of creating a new 
 earth in which prosperity and righteousness shall 
 prevail, a Christianity which doctrinally pro- 
 claims this world to be a "city of destruction" 
 from which to flee to the "celestial city" will find 
 its influence steadily lessening. 
 
 2. THE CHALLENGE INVOLVED IN THE DEVELOP- 
 MENT OF SCIENTIFIC CONTROL OF THE 
 CONDITIONS OF LIFE 
 
 A natural concomitant of the eschatological 
 point of view which entered into historical 
 Christianity was the appeal to miracle as the 
 supreme means of salvation. So long as the 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 115 
 
 destinies of life were pictured in another world, 
 while this earth was believed to be doomed to 
 destruction, it would naturally be futile to de- 
 pend on secular resources for the ends to be 
 attained by religion. Even more important was 
 the fact that the ancient world knew little of 
 the methods of scientific control. The attention 
 of philosophers was directed to the considera- 
 tion of metaphysical problems or to the analysis 
 of the inner life of the soul. The exact methods 
 of experiment and of verification which are es- 
 sential to the perfection of scientific control 
 were not employed sufficiently to make their 
 value evident. Moreover, during the dark ages, 
 even the science which had been worked out in 
 the classical period was largely lost. 
 
 The psychological effect of this lack of scien- 
 tific control is reflected in the religious beliefs 
 and practices of unscientific peoples. If one 
 does not know exactly the cause of disaster, the 
 attempt to remove or to avert it naturally takes 
 the form of appeal to occult and mysterious 
 powers. Fetichism, magic, mysterious incanta- 
 
Il6 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 tions, elaborate rituals, sacrifices and the like are 
 employed in the hope of inducing some unseen 
 power to intervene to the advantage of the in- 
 dividual engaging in the prescribed practices. 
 Where there is ignorance of scientific principles, 
 the exigencies of life lead to bizarre and erratic 
 attempts to secure the goods which men desire. 
 In so far as morality is connected with re- 
 ligion, it shares this erratic character. Moral 
 values are attached to conformity to supersti- 
 tious customs. 
 
 In the case of Christianity, the splendid moral 
 traditions of Israel and of the New Testament 
 prevented the close alliance of morality with the 
 superstitions which characterize many religions. 
 But the eschatological emphasis combined with 
 ignorance of scientific technique tended to make 
 Christianity unappreciative of scientific endeavor 
 when it actually began to make itself felt as a 
 means of control. Indeed, the pessimistic view 
 of human achievements which was inwrought 
 into theology in the doctrine of the natural in- 
 ability of human nature served to make religious 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE II? 
 
 people suspicious of the self-confidence which led 
 men to announce methods of action which did 
 not minister to that absolute dependence on di- 
 vine grace which was esteemed as the highest 
 mark of a religious faith. Any efforts to 
 ameliorate the condition of human life which 
 did not flow from the experience of divine grace 
 were regarded as schemes for diverting attention 
 from the supreme duty of seeking divine aid. 
 The evils of this life were believed to have been 
 ordained of God for some mysterious purpose of 
 discipline. They could be endured because of 
 the certainty that in the next world all would be 
 made plain; and those who had borne sorrow 
 and pain in a proper attitude of religious sub- 
 mission might trust that somehow it all worked 
 out to their spiritual welfare. The self-denial of 
 the monastic ideal helped to induce the notion 
 that the sinful desire for pleasure was being re- 
 buked by God in his providence when he com- 
 pelled those who were inclined to be worldly to 
 remember that the joys of self-indulgence were 
 really transient and unsatisfying. 
 
Il8 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 It is evident that when this view of the minis- 
 try of suffering is held, when one's theodicy de- 
 pends on being able to show that God is pre- 
 venting us from becoming too fond of this 
 world by the providential plan of ensuring pain 
 and disappointment to all merely earthly appe- 
 tites, any attempt to relieve human suffering by 
 secular means would be judged as an attempt to 
 frustrate the providential discipline which God 
 had provided. To alleviate the sufferings of 
 childbirth by the use of anaesthetics was for a 
 time vigorously denounced as a sacrilegious 
 scheme to remove the providentially appointed 
 consequences of Eve's share in the primal sin 
 of mankind. If relief from suffering were pro- 
 vided in such a way as to bear testimony to the 
 manifest intervention of God, well and good. 
 Miraculous healings through saints and relics 
 might furnish this evidence, and to this day are 
 encouraged by those who share the mediaeval 
 ideals of religion. But mere secular experimen- 
 tation with remedies seemed to be inspired by a 
 diabolical curiosity. 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 
 
 Thus so far as the physical and social aspects 
 of life were concerned, the belief that this world 
 was destined to speedy destruction made it seem 
 futile to plan for improvements which might 
 at any moment be swept away. The broad out- 
 look which makes it seem to us worth while to 
 begin experiments because, through scientific 
 publications and mutual criticism, men may co- 
 operate in furthering human knowledge, and 
 future generations may build on the foundations 
 which the past has laid, was not present in con- 
 nection with the mediaeval valuation of this 
 world. To believe that God had appointed the 
 evils of life for purposes of good, which might 
 be partially discerned; to try to trace a connec- 
 tion, real or imagined, between misfortune and 
 sin, so that the sufferings of the individual 
 could be interpreted as a " judgment" of God on 
 evil-doing; to exercise a submissive faith amid 
 sorrows these were the virtues which naturally 
 accompanied the older consciousness of man's 
 helplessness in the presence of adversities. 
 
 I was recently impressed by this point of view 
 
I2O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 as I had occasion to look over some old family 
 letters, dating from the first third of the last cen- 
 tury. They were written by intensely religious 
 people whose intelligence was quite above the 
 ordinary. But even the best intelligence of that 
 age was keenly conscious of the many foes to 
 human welfare which could not be overcome by 
 any means known to man. The miseries and 
 privations of life occupied a prominent place in 
 the thinking of two generations ago. There was 
 an eager desire to find some rational explanation 
 for the many untoward events which entered into 
 experience ; but there was no thought that human 
 science could do much to relieve the situation. 
 The issue must be left in the hands of the Lord. 
 The moral duty of the Christian was to submit 
 rather than to protest. A high death rate was 
 regarded as an inevitable provision of an all- 
 wise Providence, and was to be accepted as one 
 of the unchangeable facts of life. 
 
 How utterly different is our attitude today! 
 The presence of evil arouses our protest. No 
 longer do we submit in pious resignation when 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 121 
 
 tuberculosis reaps its dreadful harvest. We are 
 conscious that we have a means of scientific 
 control, and our plain duty is to make that con- 
 trol effective. When cancer claims as its victim 
 some loved member of our circle, we pray that 
 God may hasten the day when the researches of 
 medical experts shall have put into our hands 
 the means of eliminating this terrible foe. If 
 we have money, we perhaps endow an institu- 
 tion for medical research. Within a generation 
 a revolution of striking significance has been 
 wrought in our attitude toward disease. The 
 older equipment of pious philosophy and humble 
 submission is antiquated, or is resorted to only 
 in cases where there is no prospect of scientific 
 control in sight. 
 
 One of the most suggestive illustrations of 
 this changed attitude was to be seen in the pro- 
 gram adopted by the churches in New Orleans 
 at the time of the last epidemic of yellow fever 
 in that place. It had then recently been de- 
 monstrated that this disease was due to the bite 
 of a certain species of mosquito. The problem 
 
122 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 was to keep the mosquitoes away from those 
 who were sick, and to destroy as rapidly as pos- 
 sible these carriers of infection. Churches were 
 for the time being transformed into instruction 
 stations, giving information in order that all 
 citizens might cooperate with the scientific ef- 
 forts of the board of health. Sermons were 
 devoted to this practical task. People were 
 taught that God had put into their hands the 
 means of combatting the unseen sources of pesti- 
 lence. Religious fervor was turned into chan- 
 nels of scientific activity, and such common- 
 place enterprises as screening water barrels and 
 windows took on a new significance. As a result 
 of this new type of Christian activity, the epi- 
 demic was stamped out before the advent of 
 frost. 
 
 The revolutionary consequences of this new 
 attitude are easily apparent. Formerly the re- 
 ligious consciousness would have tried to ex- 
 plain the presence of the pestilence as an act of 
 God. Now it is seen to be due to a lack of cer- 
 tain sanitary precautions. Formerly men would 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 123 
 
 pray for an early autumn with its beneficent 
 frosts; but they could only wait passively for 
 the fulfillment of their hopes. Now prayer is 
 directed toward the establishment of personal 
 devotion to the cause of sanitary prevention, 
 and issues in active service. Formerly the con- 
 stant presence of deaths would serve to remind 
 all men to prepare for the judgment. Now 
 thoughts are directed to the problem of prevent- 
 ing death by destroying the cause of the disease. 
 When once a successful means of scientific con- 
 trol of evil is known, the older attitude of pas- 
 sive submission becomes intolerable. The plain 
 duty of the hour is to stir men to make use of 
 the means of salvation which God has provided 
 by natural means. To distract attention from 
 this duty by exhortations based on a pre- 
 scientific religious philosophy would be rightly 
 condemned. 
 
 Now the religious consciousness trained in the 
 older fashion does not easily discover in this 
 manipulation of "secular" and "materialistic" 
 resources the spiritual significance which it 
 
124 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 ought to possess. The means of grace have 
 been conceived essentially as miraculous provi- 
 sions for our eternal welfare. But the processes 
 of scientific control are not miraculous. Conse- 
 quently they are not evaluated in exactly the 
 same way as the traditional religious aids. There 
 is a real danger that the influence of this tradi- 
 tional emphasis shall lead men to overlook the 
 possibility of a religious inspiration which may 
 reveal in the new gospel of sanitary and social 
 science genuinely Christian motives, and lead 
 to an immense enlargement of the realm of re- 
 ligion. That there is here a distinct challenge 
 to our generation cannot be denied. For the 
 benefits of the modern campaign of scientific 
 sanitation are so evidently greater than those of 
 a non-scientific religious philosophy, that man- 
 kind will eventually espouse the former. If no 
 religious interpretation is given to the scientific 
 ideal, it will come to constitute a formidable 
 rival to the church; but if the latent religious 
 significance of scientifically directed effort be 
 clearly brought out by Christianity, the territory 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 125 
 
 of Christian aspiration and activity will be so 
 expanded as to create boundless enthusiasm. 
 Which of these alternatives shall come to prevail 
 depends largely on the attitude of Christian the- 
 ology toward the scientific ideal. 
 
 What has been said concerning sanitary and 
 medical enterprises is equally true of social sci- 
 ence. We are coming to realize, as our fathers 
 did not, that the spiritual life of men is condi- 
 tioned by such materialistic items as the housing 
 which they can secure, the number of hours 
 which they sleep, the character of the tasks at 
 which they must work, the presence or absence 
 of means of recreation, the amount and quality 
 of their food, the nature of the contract between 
 employer and employed, and countless other sit- 
 uations which need investigation by social ex- 
 perts. We are discovering that the ideal which 
 once seemed to open a royal road for every boy 
 and girl to attain a college education through the 
 preliminary ministrations of the public high 
 school is, under modern conditions, actually in- 
 ducing a formality and an artificiality into edu- 
 
126 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 cation which constitute a serious menace to the 
 moral earnestness of our youth. To adjust the 
 public schools to the actual needs of our day is 
 a moral task of supreme importance. To secure 
 legislation, so that the burden of industrial acci- 
 dents shall not fall like a blight on those who 
 are least able to bear them, is an undertaking 
 which is arousing as genuine religious enthusi- 
 asm as is the foreign missionary enterprise 
 among the churches. To secure an equitable sys- 
 tem of taxation and a morally defensible plan 
 for the just distribution of wealth are problems 
 which cannot be evaded if we are to preserve 
 our moral self-respect. 
 
 Now these social problems are to be solved 
 by the application of scientific control to the con- 
 ditions of life. Moral cooperation of men in 
 these enterprises is possible only as the moral 
 significance of scientific method is made plain. 
 The traditional ethics of the church, however, 
 embodies the ideals of a prescientific age, in 
 which the dominant motives are the prominence 
 of other-worldly considerations and the expecta- 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 127 
 
 tion that relief may be secured by miracle. Both 
 of these elements of ecclesiastical belief are flatly 
 in contradiction to the principles of scientific con- 
 trol. The moral sense of the modern intelligent 
 Christian is therefore likely to be distracted be- 
 tween the unscientific presuppositions of the the- 
 ology which he learns in the churches and the 
 stirring call of modern life to engage in scientific 
 warfare against the foes of social welfare. 
 
 Indeed, the larger social implications of mod- 
 ern industrial disturbances are not likely to be 
 observed by one whose training has been lim- 
 ited to the round of ecclesiastical duties. Said 
 an excellent and conscientious clergyman to me 
 once when there was in progress a strike in the 
 Chicago stockyards, in which a singularly un- 
 selfish ideal of social solidarity was being pro- 
 claimed by the strikers, "How much better it 
 would be if the working people there would just 
 quietly accept the little reduction of ten cents 
 a day in their wages rather than arouse such un- 
 christian feelings and stimulate such unchris- 
 tian actions." He could not see that in this 
 
128 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 strike the strong were attempting to bear the 
 burden of the weak, and to enable the poorest 
 paid workers to enjoy a fairer share of the 
 profits of the industry. He was unaware that 
 the issue of ten cents a day was as full of moral 
 significance for the strikers as was the matter 
 of a duty on tea to our rebellious forefathers in 
 Boston. He would not have counselled quiet 
 submission to that tea tax in order to avoid un- 
 christian feelings and actions. But in the case 
 of this modern instance of economic maladjust- 
 ment, his ethical training was insufficient to en- 
 able him to sympathize with the real motives 
 of the strikers. They were thinking, not of sav- 
 ing individual souls for another world, but of 
 saving standards of living here and now. They 
 were engaged in the attempt to make possible 
 for themselves and for their fellow workers 
 some of the personal virtues which were eco- 
 nomically impossible under existing circum- 
 stances. 
 
 This new moral enthusiasm for the human at- 
 tempt to devise an efficient way in which the 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 129 
 
 circumstances of life may be so controlled as to 
 make possible higher standards is likely to en- 
 gender impatience with the non-resisting type 
 of conscience represented by the above-men- 
 tioned clergyman. Professor James, in his little 
 volume on Pragmatism, cites an extreme ex- 
 ample of this impatience in a violent attack on 
 religion uttered by Morrison I. Swift. After re- 
 lating the circumstances of several distressing 
 instances of tragedy because workingmen could 
 not cope with the social and industrial hin- 
 drances to wholesome living for themselves and 
 their families, Swift comments on a peculiarly 
 dreadful incident as follows : 
 
 "This Cleveland workingman, killing his children 
 and himself, is one of the elemental stupendous facts 
 of the modern world, and of this universe. It cannot 
 be glozed over or minimized away by all the treatises 
 on God, and Love, and Being, helplessly existing in 
 their monumental vacuity. This is one of the simple 
 irreducible elements of this world's life after millions 
 of years of opportunity and twenty centuries of Christ. 
 It is in the mental world what atoms or sub-atoms are 
 in the physical primary, indestructible. And what it 
 blazons to man is the imposture of all philosophy 
 which does not see in such events the consummate 
 
130 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 factor of all conscious experience. These facts in- 
 vincibly prove religion a nullity. Man will not give 
 religion two thousand centuries or twenty centuries 
 more to try itself and waste human life. Its time is 
 up; its probation is ended; its own record ends it. 
 Mankind has not aeons and eternities to spare for try- 
 ing out discredited systems." 
 
 However exaggerated the menace in such an 
 arraignment may be, it cannot be overlooked. 
 Is it not true that for twenty centuries Chris- 
 tian faith has inculcated so exclusive a depend- 
 ence on divine favor, and has been so completely 
 interested in the fate of man in the other world 
 that it has failed to give due religious value to 
 the part which man may take in the improvement 
 of conditions of life in this world? Is it pre- 
 pared to appreciate the program of men who 
 cease to pray for miracles, and who rather pray 
 for the patience and the courage and the wisdom 
 to learn how the evils of this world may be at- 
 tacked and overcome by weapons forged by hu- 
 man hands? One who has caught a vision of 
 humanity engaged in the cooperative task of 
 
 8 Human Submission, Part II, p. 190 ff., quoted in James' 
 Pragmatism, p. 31. 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 13! 
 
 eradicating evils by the adoption of the best aid 
 which science can afford feels toward the pious 
 program of the traditional ethics very much as a 
 man would feel if he had left his house in charge 
 of some good saint who, when a fire broke out, 
 fell on her knees and prayed to God for rescue 
 instead of turning in the fire alarm. When the 
 house is on fire, morality demands something 
 not mentioned in the prayer books. When so- 
 ciety is threatened with disintegration, the situa- 
 tion demands measures not outlined in the 
 evangelistic "plan of salvation." 
 
 The importance of this modern ideal of sci- 
 entific control is beginning to make itself felt 
 in many plans for religious education. It is a 
 hopeful symptom that so many churches are un- 
 dertaking the task of an adequate education of 
 church members in the scientific aspects of the 
 moral problems with which Christian men in 
 our age are concerned. But the traditional dis- 
 trust of human ability, and the inherited feeling 
 that what comes by the pathway of miracle is 
 for that reason more valuable than that which 
 
132 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 comes by processes which can be mastered and 
 controlled by man, tend to prevent a full recog- 
 nition of the religious and moral values inherent 
 in the employment of "secular" means for the 
 establishment of the Kingdom. If Christianity 
 is not to be left behind in the development of 
 this distinctively modern type of moral aspira- 
 tion, it must learn to feel a genuine moral en- 
 thusiasm for scientific research and achieve- 
 ment If the fruits of a purely secular adminis- 
 tration of forces for social amelioration shall 
 be greater than the fruits of ecclesiastical ef- 
 fort, the words of Jesus himself would justify 
 the secular program. The extent and the 
 strength of the challenge coming from this mod- 
 ern ideal of scientific control are, I fear, greatly 
 underestimated by our Christian consciousness. 
 
 3. THE CHALLENGE DUE TO THE NEW VALUA- 
 TION OF THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 It is only in modern times that Christianity 
 has begun to appreciate the intimate connection 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 133 
 
 between physical conditions and spiritual health. 
 The note of asceticism which accompanied the 
 other-worldly ideal of salvation often led men 
 to feel that the emaciated hermit was in a bet- 
 ter position to achieve righteousness than was 
 one who indulged in the comforts of the flesh. 
 Moreover, the conception of a "soul" existing 
 independently of bodily relations had been in- 
 herited from the Greek psychology, and colored 
 all interpretations of the spiritual life. 
 
 Now if the welfare of the soul depends on 
 getting free from the entanglements of the flesh, 
 it is evident that no positive moral value will 
 be placed on the physical aspects of human ex- 
 perience. The products of secular industry must 
 not be used to promote luxury. Indeed, as a 
 German scholar has suggested, 4 the severe 
 standards of ascetic piety inculcated by Calvin- 
 ism led men to feel that wealth could not be 
 righteously used merely to promote physical 
 
 4 Max Weber: Die protestantische Ethik und der "Geist" 
 des Kapitalismus. Archiv fur Socialwissenschaft und 
 Socialpolitik, Vols. 20 and 21. 
 
134 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 comfort. Consequently the savings accumulated 
 by thrift were naturally invested in industry; 
 and capitalism was indirectly furthered by the 
 ascetic ideals of Christianity. 
 
 Nowhere is modern science bringing greater 
 innovations than in the discovery of intimate re- 
 lations between physical and spiritual health. 
 The moral care of school children demands the 
 supervision of their physical condition. Poor 
 eyesight may be accountable for apparent indif- 
 ference and rebellion. The wearing of glasses 
 may be more efficacious in improving the morals 
 of a child than all the ethical exhortation in the 
 world. The presence of adenoids in the breath- 
 ing passages may occasion traits which would 
 formerly have been attributed to evil character. 
 Social workers are discovering that mal-nutri- 
 tion causes many instances of delinquency, that 
 housing conditions are responsible for the lapse 
 into sin of many a boy and girl, that the lack 
 of playgrounds for children in crowded sections 
 of our cities puts those of tender years into the 
 school of crime which carries on its sessions in 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 135 
 
 the streets. In olden times, parents used to ex- 
 pect that great good would come if children at- 
 tended protracted meetings night after night, 
 that their "souls" might be saved. Would intel- 
 ligent Christian parents today countenance any 
 such loss of quiet sleep as is involved in such a 
 program? More and more keenly are we com- 
 ing to realize that it is futile to attempt any cul- 
 ture of the soul which does not take account of 
 bodily conditions. 5 
 
 Modern secular ethics from the days of 
 Hobbes has been insisting on this very thing. 
 To be sure the earlier attempts to formulate a 
 secular theory of life were marked by crude 
 psychology. But in selecting happiness as the 
 criterion by which to judge a thing good or bad, 
 the appeal was made to the physical apparatus 
 by which sensation is generated. The individu- 
 alism which marked the utilitarian ethics pre- 
 vented a complete appreciation of the point of 
 
 5 This aspect of the spiritual life has been admirably ex- 
 pounded by President King in his "Rational Living." (New 
 York, 1905.) 
 
136 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 view involved. But the doctrine of evolution 
 has led us to see how the physical organization 
 has come to be what it is through a process of 
 growth involving at every stage a relation be- 
 tween the inner life and its environment. Thus 
 the physical universe has been laid under tribute 
 for countless aeons in the production of the 
 vehicle of human life. The proper use of our 
 inherited powers must involve an appreciation 
 of this biological basis of our ideals and achieve- 
 ments. 
 
 Now so long as the problem of creating a 
 good life was conceived in terms of a "soul" 
 which could by the exercise of will and by the 
 miracle of divine grace be transformed into an 
 independent center of righteous activity, with- 
 out regard to physical or social surroundings, 
 the task of Christianity was comparatively sim- 
 ple. To bring the soul face to face with cer- 
 tain doctrines of salvation, and to urge the spir- 
 itual self-surrender which would secure the 
 grace of God, constituted the main duty of those 
 who felt responsible for the welfare of others. 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 137 
 
 It is still the underlying philosophy of great pub- 
 lic revivals which bring people together regard- 
 less of their physical and social environment, 
 and preach a gospel largely dissociated from any 
 specific physical conditions of life. 
 
 If, however, we realize the intimate connec- 
 tion between the soul and the body, we shall not 
 be content with the "purely spiritual" efforts 
 which Christianity has made in the past. Ex- 
 actly as the schools have been compelled to em- 
 ploy medical examination of children and to in- 
 troduce regular inspection of buildings and occu- 
 pants in order to secure the best mental life of 
 the pupils, so the church cannot hope to help any 
 man adequately unless to the spiritual appeal is 
 coupled the purpose to make environment con- 
 tribute helpfully and not disastrously. The im- 
 portance of environment is recognized by the 
 Catholic church when it insists on removing the 
 members of monasteries and convents from the 
 "world." It is informally recognized by every 
 wise pastor, who is compelled to deal with the 
 evil-producing elements in the community where 
 
138 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 his people live. But the inherited conception of 
 salvation as an escape from the "flesh" and the 
 "world" has meant a failure to include an ade- 
 quate estimate of the importance of these in the 
 formation of character. There is rapidly 
 spreading in our day a philosophy which is in 
 part a revolt from this one-sided emphasis. A 
 widely accepted popular movement is organized 
 frankly on the theory that morality is only the 
 natural consequence of economic conditions. 
 The gospel of this modern economic-social re- 
 ligion proclaims that entire attention shall be 
 given to physical problems. Improve the eco- 
 nomic status of men, it is declared, and you will 
 automatically eliminate the ills and the sins of 
 men. There is just enough truth in such a 
 philosophy to give it a plausible standing. 
 
 When we have recognized that physical ele- 
 ments enter positively into the making of spir- 
 itual life, we have greatly enlarged the realm 
 of ethical and religious endeavor. The "purely 
 spiritual" conversion of a soul without regard 
 to bodily conditions may be accomplished with- 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 139 
 
 out much expenditure of money. But a plenti- 
 ful food supply makes financial demands. Cor- 
 rection of physical defects may require surgical 
 operations which are expensive. Oculists and 
 throat specialists and experts in nervous disor- 
 ders cannot be provided without money. To 
 give to every person in a great city proper hous- 
 ing and recreation and education and sanitation 
 would cost enormously. In short, the financial 
 resources of our day, staggering as they are 
 when counted up, are none too great for the 
 problems before us which a modern religion 
 must solve if it is to be true to its mission. 
 
 This means a new attitude toward the ac- 
 quirement of wealth. Instead of regarding it as 
 a snare to the soul, the modern spirit regards it 
 as the indispensable means of securing the high- 
 est life. We cannot have too much wealth for 
 our welfare, provided it is used with a Chris- 
 tian spirit. Saint Francis, with his vow of pov- 
 erty, is a wholesome rebuke to self-indulgence, 
 it is true; and such rebukes will always be 
 needed. But the modern mind would prefer to 
 
I4O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 do homage to a Jane Addams directing the ex- 
 penditure of a few billion dollars with which to 
 reconstruct our slums and to provide medical 
 ministry and recreational opportunities for the 
 children who now are aged before their youth 
 is over. 
 
 Even more than the benevolent expenditure of 
 money is essential. The disposal of wealth can- 
 not be detached from the way in which it is 
 accumulated. To defraud men and women of 
 their rightful opportunities to achieve for them- 
 selves the things needful for a wholesome life, 
 and then to attempt to supply these needs by 
 some form of charity or benevolence, is a dis- 
 tinctly immoral proceeding. The traditional 
 ethical precepts of Christianity have had to do 
 mainly with the charitable and patronizing uses 
 of money. To become rich was a suspicious 
 matter anyway; and the rich man was urged to 
 satisfy his conscience by conferring unearned 
 benefits upon the unfortunate. The classic pre- 
 cepts of Christianity were formulated purely 
 from the point of view of the individual who 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 14! 
 
 was tempted by the possession of wealth to in- 
 dulge in the sin of avarice. The objective as- 
 pects of the industrial life as a normal and 
 necessary expression of moral activity were not 
 adequately apprehended. If a man had op- 
 pressed others in the acquiring of his property, 
 the church provided a way in which the indi- 
 vidual might make his peace with God; but it 
 did not feel called upon to do more than to 
 warn against the dangers to the individual soul 
 in the pursuit of riches. 
 
 We are today seeing the dawn of a new con- 
 ception of the significance of the industrial en- 
 terprises of mankind. No longer do we exclude 
 from the list of positively valuable undertak- 
 ings the manifold forms of business so essential 
 to our welfare. Our modern ideals are too in- 
 timately bound up with the success of these un- 
 dertakings to allow us to take consistently the 
 mediaeval attitude, unless we were to have the 
 courage to return to the mediaeval economic 
 status. Increasingly we are seeing that a man's 
 activities are the most important means of de- 
 
142 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 veloping his moral attitude. If, in the process 
 of producing the material goods which we need, 
 those who contribute to the production of any 
 commodity are compelled to labor under condi- 
 tions which blight the soul, and leave the moral 
 and spiritual impulses deadened, the modern 
 spirit calls loudly for reform. If to the blight- 
 ing influence of the work itself there is added 
 the sense of injustice on the part of those who 
 are employed in the industry, we have a situa- 
 tion full of moral menace. 
 
 It is a matter of common observation that it 
 is quite possible for a business layman whose 
 vision has not been enlarged by the social point 
 of view to be a devoted church member, and 
 conscientiously endeavor to follow the precepts 
 of Jesus without developing that moral sensi- 
 tiveness to the social problem which is impera- 
 tive. For Jesus lived in a world where there 
 were no such industrial enterprises as those 
 which cause us such serious concern. The 
 working people to whom he addressed himself 
 were not factory employees; nor were the cap- 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 143 
 
 italists of his day confronted with the complex- 
 ity of our modern commercial world. The 
 "master and servant" relation was taken for 
 granted as the normal and right basis of employ- 
 ment. Paul even sent a runaway slave back to 
 his master. The employer who reads his New 
 Testament in a literalistic way will inevitably 
 define his Christian duty in terms of the class 
 spirit which underlay the industrial system in the 
 time of Jesus. His righteousness will be likely 
 to express itself in benevolent schemes of wel- 
 fare work and charity which he plans and as a 
 patron administers for the benefit of his em- 
 ployees, without engaging their moral coopera- 
 tion at all. Meanwhile, fundamental questions 
 like the rights of laboring men to organize for 
 their interests, or the moral supervision of the 
 conditions under which men are asked to labor 
 just because such questions lie outside of the 
 more primitive realm of industrial conditions 
 reflected in the Bible may not be brought defi- 
 nitely to the conscience of the Christian manu- 
 facturer by any distinctly religious reading or 
 
144 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 reflection. Perhaps nowhere is the influence of 
 traditionalism more harmful than here. To 
 hark back to times of primitive industry for our 
 models of social duty in an age of steam and of 
 highly organized business can bring only ca- 
 lamity. 
 
 The challenge of the modern world in this 
 realm is reflected in the industrial unrest which 
 finds expression among the toilers and which 
 leads them increasingly to put their trust in 
 purely secular means for improving their situa- 
 tion. It is clear to all who intelligently ob- 
 serve the course of events that the coming gen- 
 eration is going to insist on radical changes in 
 the ethics of industry. The era of laissez-faire 
 is over in the minds of all except those who are 
 hopelessly ignorant of the plain facts of recent 
 history. The great question of the future is as 
 to how the new ethics shall be put into practice. 
 The tremendous agitation now going on in the 
 direction of an appeal to external and non- 
 religious reconstructive efforts is ominous. Does 
 it mean that mankind has become so convinced 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 145 
 
 of the impotence of inner spiritual forces that 
 it is willing to trust its case to external reorgani- 
 zation? Are legislative changes the only means 
 to be employed to bring in the new era? Are 
 men to acquiesce in a program which encour- 
 ages individuals to be passive under the benevo- 
 lence of government as they have formerly been 
 passive under the aristocratic patronage of the 
 rich ? Or is there to be developed an inner spirit 
 of moral heroism which shall make of legisla- 
 tion only the expression of great ethical convic- 
 tions in the hearts of men? And if this inner 
 spirit of independent heroism is developed, shall 
 the churches have a prominent part in the re- 
 ligious renaissance? Or is it to be the flowering 
 of a religion born purely out of the immediate 
 demands of modern life, and losing all contact 
 with the rich spiritual inheritance which Chris- 
 tianity has preserved for us? 
 
 Such a survey of the great movements of 
 thought and enterprise in our day should con- 
 vince us that a spiritual opportunity of excep- 
 
146 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 tional magnitude lies before the present genera- 
 tion. We are just awaking to the full signifi- 
 cance of the interpretations of the world which 
 have been worked out during the past three or 
 four centuries. We are ceasing to feel that we 
 are aliens and pilgrims on this earth. We are 
 rather planning definitely to shape and alter it 
 so as to constitute it the permanent home for 
 mankind. We are sure that for countless gen- 
 erations this world is to be the place where hu- 
 man lives are to encounter their spiritual fate. 
 We have just become aware of the tremendous 
 resources put into our hands for controlling the 
 conditions of life by the use of scientific 
 methods. We are beginning to realize that 
 those physical elements which the mediaeval 
 mind distrusted as detrimental to the spiritual 
 life may as a matter of fact be made to serve 
 and to strengthen religious and moral aspira- 
 tions and achievements. We are rapidly com- 
 ing to see that wealth, which is indeed a snare 
 to the soul so long as one has only an individu- 
 alistic philosophy of life, is nevertheless an in- 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 147 
 
 dispensable means for compelling nature to yield 
 her resources to the upbuilding of social and per- 
 sonal health. 
 
 One who comes to realize the import of all 
 this will feel the imperative necessity for incor- 
 porating into the Christianity of the future these 
 very ideals which are proving themselves so in- 
 evitable and so beneficial. There is a latent 
 moral and religious power in this secular-social 
 conception of a better future for men on this 
 earth which has yet to be revealed to our think- 
 ing. Something of the enthusiasm which ac- 
 companied the eschatological dream of the 
 miraculous coming of the Kingdom may be 
 aroused as we become acquainted with the mar- 
 vels within our reach if we engage Nature to 
 work for spiritual ends. 
 
 Now the theology which has been transmitted 
 to us, and which has entered into our rituals, 
 our religious education, and our evangelistic ef- 
 forts was framed in a decadent age, when no 
 moral enthusiasm could be derived from the 
 actual outlook. Augustinianism took shape in 
 
148 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 the days of the decline of ancient culture. If 
 men were to rise to the heights of religious 
 achievement, they were compelled to leave behind 
 the world, which furnished too little opportunity 
 for the abounding spiritual life engendered by 
 Christianity. Nothing less than the glories of 
 the heavenly realm could satisfy the lofty ideals 
 of those who had been transformed by the grace 
 of God. 
 
 But lo! this world has taken on a different 
 aspect since men have become accustomed to 
 the use of exact methods of observation and 
 have become acquainted with the possibilities 
 open before us in the coming centuries. The 
 early Christians kept their hope and loyalty 
 alive by "looking for a new heaven and a new 
 earth, in which dwelleth righteousness." For 
 centuries men looked and prayed that this new 
 earth might descend by miracle from the heav- 
 ens. But the promise was fulfilled in a way 
 which no one foresaw. Quietly and without ob- 
 servation the new heavens took shape in the 
 thoughts of men. When Copernicus discovered 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 149 
 
 that the earth on which we dwell is actually 
 floating in the heavens, as truly as are the stars 
 which men had formerly regarded as the abode 
 of angels, he opened a new vista before our 
 eyes. For if each day we are in the heavens 
 from which was expected the revelation of God's 
 truth and God's righteousness, we need not wait 
 for the miracle of the great final catastrophe be- 
 fore we can enjoy the heavenly blessings. If 
 we are here and now in God's heavens, we may 
 at once discover what eye hath not seen nor 
 ear heard. Humble, honest observation of the 
 facts close at hand will disclose the secrets of 
 the Almighty. 
 
 It has taken a long time to realize the positive 
 significance of this "Copernican Revolution." 
 But little by little, as men have employed the 
 same scientific spirit which led Copernicus to 
 his epoch-making discovery, the gates leading to 
 the divine mysteries have one by one been un- 
 locked. Today we take for granted marvels 
 which would have seemed incredible to those 
 who lived in the age of miracles. In former 
 
I5O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 days it was counted a notable wonder that a 
 few thousand Israelites should be enabled to 
 cross the Red Sea and the Jordan River. To- 
 day in New York, bridges and tunnels carry 
 hundreds of thousands every day from one 
 shore to another. The story of the swimming 
 of an iron axe head upon the water was re- 
 corded as a special dispensation of Providence. 
 But what shall we say of the great floating pal- 
 aces of steel which now carry thousands of hu- 
 man beings in comfort and in safety from one 
 continent to another! The scientific achieve- 
 ments of our day which we enjoy as a matter 
 of course are marvels so tremendous that they 
 make the petty miracles of olden times seem like 
 child's play. Indeed, one of our favorite 
 themes is to rehearse the "miracles of modern 
 science." When a few years ago the steamship 
 "Republic" was rammed in a dense fog, and all 
 on board were in peril, the wireless telegraph 
 summoned help, and the submarine telephone en- 
 abled the rescuing ships to steer in the right di- 
 rection. Preachers everywhere pointed to that 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 151 
 
 achievement as a "modern miracle." But it was 
 really better than a miracle. If it had been 
 such a unique provision as is implied in a mira- 
 cle, men could indeed marvel; but when the 
 next emergency arose they could only wait pas- 
 sively, hoping and praying for another inter- 
 vention. As it is, every ship may have at its 
 disposal the same means for summoning aid in 
 time of distress. The "Titanic" no less than the 
 "Republic" made known her troubles to sur- 
 rounding vessels. We can count upon the serv- 
 ice of the marvels of modern science as men 
 never could count upon miracles of old. And 
 yet, greater and more regular as is the aid of 
 scientific invention, we do not account for it by 
 assuming any contravention of the processes of 
 nature. The God who must be worshipped by 
 the believer in modern science does not dis- 
 tribute his favors in arbitrary ways, but gives 
 freely to all who will avail themselves of 
 the blessings of the resources of the universe 
 which is so full of wonders. 
 
 But the traditional theology has anchored 
 
152 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 our faith and our ethical motives to the philoso- 
 phy underlying that ancient world which was 
 so poor in "natural" resources that it was com- 
 pelled to seek special wonders in order to sat- 
 isfy its needs. The revelation of God and the 
 power of God to help were located primarily 
 in unique interventions. The Bible was valued 
 because it was believed to have come into ex- 
 istence by a method of inspiration which no 
 other literature could claim. The salvation of 
 one's soul was believed to be possible only as 
 divine grace was imparted in the unique super- 
 natural efficacy of the sacraments. The out- 
 come of salvation could not find worthy expres- 
 sion in this wretched world, but must demand 
 the withdrawal of man from attachment to the 
 things of sense. The God defined in the mediae- 
 val theology, in spite of the high-sounding at- 
 tributes attached to his name, was a being the 
 exercise of whose power was, with the excep- 
 tion of a few miracles, limited to the meagre 
 possibilities which a pre-scientific age discovered. 
 Christian sentiment has been slow to realize that 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 153 
 
 our modern "natural" world is actually richer 
 in possibilities than was the "supernatural" 
 world of traditional religious thinking. What 
 is supremely demanded is such an interpretation 
 of the wonderful universe in which we live as 
 shall enable religious faith to make positive use 
 of the resources which are at hand in such 
 abundance. 
 
 Modern science has unbound the sleeping 
 giant of physical power. We have in our hands 
 incalculable energy. We are attaining the sci- 
 entific capacity to turn this energy into channels 
 which shall achieve our ends. What shall those 
 ends be? Shall the immense wealth of our cit- 
 ies be so organized that a race of men shall 
 result physically and spiritually weaker than 
 their fathers? Shall the splendid virtues of a 
 sterner age give way to self-indulgence and 
 luxury? Nothing can prevent mankind from 
 sinking beneath the tremendous temptations due 
 to modern wealth and power save the creation 
 of a strong religious life which shall lead us 
 to consecrate our control over nature to the 
 
154 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 process of bringing in the Kingdom of God. 
 But such a religious life is possible only as a 
 religious interpretation shall be given to this 
 new world of our modern life and thought. To 
 restrict our contact with God to a few isolated 
 points of history means to perpetuate a religion 
 far too small to give triumphant power over 
 our richer and larger relations to the infinite 
 possibilities open to us. It is imperative that 
 we should correlate our religious thinking with 
 the immensity of the issue before us. 
 
 Beneath the stirrings and seethings of modern 
 unrest, one discerns dimly the outlines of a re- 
 ligion which shall trust in the larger future in- 
 stead of being bound literally to the past; which 
 shall glory in the capacity of man to use God's 
 resources to remake this world instead of in- 
 culcating a passive dependence on supernatural 
 forces which lie out of man's reach; which shall 
 develop scientific control into a mighty instru- 
 ment for the welfare of man instead of utter- 
 ing warnings against the ''dangers" of scientific 
 theories. Shall that religion of the future be 
 
THE MORAL CHALLENGE 155 
 
 Christianity? Or shall we who believe in the 
 transforming power of the religion of Jesus 
 allow the leadership to pass out of our hands? 
 One who really understands the inner nature of 
 our religion, which owes its moral strength to 
 the forward-looking eagerness of the Hebrew 
 prophets and the early Christian missionaries, 
 which has shown itself capable of so many 
 changes in form in order to maintain its spir- 
 itual supremacy, and which finds its supreme 
 justification in the Master's call to the great- 
 ness of ministry, can but feel confident that 
 when the modern situation once becomes plain 
 there will arise a moral passion which will not 
 be stilled until there shall be formulated a the- 
 ology which will lend stability and power to 
 the moral forces engendered by the new age. 
 The moral vision is already becoming clear. 
 The intellectual understanding of the new age is 
 being completed. The religious interpretation 
 of the new insight must speedily follow if 
 Christianity is to fulfil its destiny. 
 
IV 
 
 THE ETHICAL BASIS OF RELIGIOUS 
 ASSURANCE 
 
 RELIGION lives not by the splendor of its or- 
 ganization or the logical perfection of its doc- 
 trinal system, but rather by its power to con- 
 vince the heart. Without the assurance that 
 religion actually brings men into vital contact 
 with divine help, the most perfect system would 
 die. A theology which does not evoke this 
 sense of confidence is at best a mere scholastic 
 bit of formalism. No theologian has any de- 
 sire to continue to work over the details of a 
 system which has lost its power to convince. 
 
 We have seen that the theology which was 
 developed by the exigencies of the growing 
 church in the first centuries of our era sought 
 to bring assurance to men by affirming the su- 
 pernatural source and the supernatural author- 
 
 156 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 157 
 
 ity of the doctrines which were ecclesiastically 
 approved. The resources of this present world 
 did not seem adequate to secure the blessings 
 which it was believed God was ready to bestow 
 on his children. Therefore, religious hopes were 
 anchored in that other world out of which was 
 to come deliverance. The precious items of re- 
 ligious belief and practice were valued on the 
 ground that they originated through a special 
 providential dispensation. It was held that all 
 the knowledge which we need for our salvation 
 had been furnished to us in an exactly located 
 and defined revelation. The divine help which we 
 crave had been provided in the specific redemp- 
 tive plan of God, which is made effective by the 
 divinely authorized sacraments. The fears of 
 men were stilled and their confidence estab- 
 lished by the affirmation of the divine authority 
 of the doctrines and the means of grace in which 
 they put their trust. Thus ecclesiastical Chris- 
 tianity worked out a strong, consistent, easily 
 understood and eminently practicable way of en- 
 abling men to realize the presence of God. 
 
158 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 But our previous discussion has served to 
 make it clear that, strong and splendid as is this 
 ecclesiastical system, it nevertheless has not 
 been able to retain its dominion over the vigor- 
 ous movements of our distinctively modern life. 
 As increasing knowledge of the world in which 
 we live has revealed larger resources than were 
 suspected in earlier ages, there has grown up 
 an increasing confidence in the moral value 
 of the truth disclosed by scientific research. But 
 the ecclesiastical temper, accustomed to think of 
 all virtue as included in the church, was naturally 
 distrustful of any movement which subtracted 
 from the total influence of the church. Thus 
 there came into existence that prolonged war- 
 fare between the new science and the old theol- 
 ogy which has caused such perplexity and has 
 wrought such moral confusion. 
 
 In our analysis of some of the prominent 
 traits of our modern life, we tried to show that 
 there is in these modern movements a latent 
 ethical and religious significance which is not 
 clearly recognized because of our somewhat ex- 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 159 
 
 elusive standards inherited from the church. In- 
 deed, such strength have the modern ideals de- 
 veloped that they may become formidable foes 
 if they are allowed to develop under the influ- 
 ence of a spirit of hostility to Christianity. Yet 
 such hostility has been deliberately evoked by 
 the attitude of the church in the past. A the- 
 ological task of incalculable importance is that 
 of bringing to light the latent religious values 
 of those aspects of modern life which hold us 
 so strongly in their grasp, but which we have 
 not been accustomed to interpret in a religious 
 fashion. If this task is to be prosecuted in 
 such a way as to construct a vital theology, pri- 
 mary attention must be given to the basis of 
 religious assurance. For, as has been said, a 
 theology which does not embody an appeal to 
 the moral conscience of men is impotent. The 
 fundamental theme to engage our attention must 
 therefore be that of religious assurance. Only 
 as confidence shall be felt in the elements which 
 modern history has made potent in our life 
 can a theology be constructed which shall do 
 
l6o SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 justice to the situation. We must come to feel 
 the value of an item of religion just because of 
 its inherent moral and spiritual character. 
 Whatever is worthy of our reverence should 
 be revered, no matter whether it originates 
 in an ancient literature or in a modern ex- 
 periment. 
 
 Now the attempt to exalt the so-called secular 
 movements of human history is likely to be con- 
 strued as a relative depreciation of what has 
 been held to be exclusively sacred. To suggest 
 that there are utterances outside the Bible quite 
 as lofty and significant as some of the ideas con- 
 tained in the Bible is frequently interpreted to 
 mean that the Bible is no better than any other 
 literature; and since in the mind of the objector 
 .ill non-biblical literature is uninspired, it is easy 
 to jump to the unwarranted conclusion that one 
 who finds a revelation of God in so-called "pro- 
 fane" utterances is "ruling out" the Bible. If, 
 as is frequently the case today, the supremacy 
 of Jesus is located in the wonderful moral and 
 religious triumph achieved in his personal ex- 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE l6l 
 
 perience rather than in a theory of heavenly 
 origin, the man who is trained in the ecclesi- 
 astical method of reasoning will miss the very 
 items upon which he lays most stress, and will 
 conclude that the divinity of Christ is denied, 
 because it is not explained by reference to a dis- 
 tinctly supernatural origin. Thus one who at- 
 tempts to emphasize the religious significance of 
 "natural" and "secular" aspects of life and 
 thought is compelled to guard himself against 
 the suspicion of the traditionalist that such an 
 emphasis is equivalent to a denial of the funda- 
 mentals of Christianity. To put this aspect of 
 the theologian's task into positive form is im- 
 possible unless there shall be engendered a 
 broader type of religious assurance, which is 
 prepared to give a positive estimate to elements 
 of experience which have not received ecclesi- 
 astical sanction, whenever such elements are in- 
 trinsically worthy of moral homage. It is only 
 as men shall be ready to recognize the supreme 
 right of what is ethically good to command their 
 reverence just because it is good that we shall 
 
1 62 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 be freed from the narrowing effects of formal- 
 ism. 
 
 In the following discussion, therefore, it 
 should be remembered that there is no intention 
 of disparaging the splendid achievements of the 
 traditional theology. In suggesting modifica- 
 tions in method and in emphasis, the purpose is 
 constructive. Any adverse criticism is inspired 
 by the hope that the criticism may serve to re- 
 veal more clearly the great religious funda- 
 mentals upon which our confidence may rest. 
 It is only as confidence shall be seen to have 
 been founded on what is not today ethically de- 
 fensible that destructive criticism will be neces- 
 sary. That there have been fear and distress and 
 weakening certainty in religious thinking during 
 recent years is, I think, indisputable. The fol- 
 lowing pages will seek to suggest such an un- 
 derstanding of the causes of this weakening as- 
 surance and such a comprehension of the 
 moral nature of an abiding confidence as shall 
 enable us to see more clearly what the 
 task of the theologian is if he is to lead the 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 163 
 
 thoughts and aspirations of men in our modern 
 world. 
 
 One more preliminary word may not be 
 amiss. A remarkable transformation of the- 
 ology is already taking place in response to the 
 moral demands of our age. Apparently, the 
 changes which are being wrought are coming to 
 pass in a wholesome and gradual fashion so that 
 readjustments may be made without serious in- 
 terruption of the activities of organized Chris- 
 tianity. The purpose of the exposition which 
 follows is not to impose a new dogmatics in the 
 place of the old. Indeed, such a new dogmatism, 
 appealing to the authority of "reason" or of 
 "advanced scholarship" would be ethically more 
 intolerable than a theology appealing to the more 
 humanly universal authority of the church. 
 What is attempted is to point out certain ethical 
 implications of the transition which is in prog- 
 ress, so that in our attitude toward changing 
 doctrine we shall not be applying criteria which 
 can bring only perplexity and confusion. The 
 scientific movements of our day keep theories 
 
164 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 purified from error by looking carefully to the 
 methods by which these theories are constructed. 
 Results are always subject to revision; but the 
 revision must be undertaken by the use of an 
 accurate method if it is to be of any value. Ex- 
 actly so, the changes in theology which the 
 theologian is to influence must be controlled by 
 a clear apprehension of the methods of revision 
 which are adequate. 
 
 I. THE DOGMATIC VS. THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF 
 
 ASSURANCE 
 
 Primitive Christian faith was formulated in a 
 non-scientific atmosphere. Not only was it true 
 that Jesus and most of the early missionaries 
 were not influenced by the science of the age; 
 not only did practical rather than theoretical in- 
 terests have first place in their religious think- 
 ing; as we have seen, a more important aspect 
 of the matter is the fact that the early Chris- 
 tians did not expect this world to continue. The 
 ultimate values were to be found in the heavenly 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 165 
 
 Kingdom. Under these circumstances, the facts 
 and the principles of a world which was destined 
 to speedy destruction naturally would not fur- 
 nish material for religious assurance. That cer- 
 tainty must come primarily from an unseen 
 world which was so far in contradiction to this 
 present world that, when the fulness of time 
 should arrive, warfare to the death was the only 
 possible issue. In the course of time the princi- 
 ples derived from this heavenly source were or- 
 ganized into a theology appealing to revelation 
 for its support. Indeed, Tertullian could tri- 
 umphantly declare that a rational absurdity was 
 really a positive reason for believing a doctrine 
 to be true, if only it rested on revelation. Au- 
 gustine was able on the basis of this heavenly 
 authority to convince himself of propositions 
 which before his conversion had seemed unrea- 
 sonable. Gregory the Great declared that there 
 is no merit in believing what can be rationally 
 proved; only when, on the basis of authority, 
 one holds to be true something which his natural 
 reason does not validate, is there any moral 
 
1 66 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 value in the belief. We need only recall how 
 Luther was constantly heaping scorn on the 
 rationalizing efforts of the schoolmen, and how 
 generally evangelical preaching even in our own 
 day is suspicious of science, if not hostile to it, to 
 see that for centuries Christian assurance has 
 been formally based on a non-scientific, if not 
 an anti-scientific foundation. 
 
 But coincidently with the growth of the secu- 
 lar interests of the modern world there has 
 grown up a secular science, with a method of 
 discovering facts which has increasingly com- 
 manded the confidence of mankind. We have 
 already indicated something of the scope of this 
 scientific movement, and have alluded briefly to 
 the attitude of hostility which has been engen- 
 dered between it and the appeal of theology to 
 authority. 
 
 If we analyze this conflict, we find that it has 
 its source in two fundamentally different concep- 
 tions of the basis of assurance. Theology has 
 insisted that its right to a hearing lay in the fact 
 that it proclaimed truths from a higher realm, 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 1 67 
 
 inaccessible to human reason. The confidence 
 of the theologian has rested on the belief that 
 there have been given to man, without the medi- 
 ation of inexact and tiresome processes of ex- 
 ploration, certain absolutely true principles which 
 may eternally serve without change as the means 
 of guiding life to its supreme goal. Morally 
 one is bound to believe these principles because 
 they are alleged to have been declared true by 
 divine authority. Confidence is located in the in- 
 fallibility and unchangeability of certain doc- 
 trinal theories, rather than in a human method 
 of discovery. Modern science, on the other 
 hand, proceeds on the hypothesis that the doc- 
 trinal results will take care of themselves, pro- 
 vided only the method of investigating problems 
 is made exact. The assurance of the theologian 
 has thus rested on the possibility of affirming 
 the unchangeable truth of certain doctrines. The 
 assurance of the scientist rests on the possibility 
 of verifying or of revising all doctrines by the 
 use of exact methods of research. 
 
 It is evident that, so long as the traditional 
 
l68 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 conception of the nature of assurance is held, 
 there can be no real appreciation of the moral 
 significance of scientific method. For the the- 
 ologian is trained to estimate the value of a 
 man's work by asking what conclusions he has 
 reached. For him the supreme moral duty is to 
 hold as true certain doctrines. Even if the pre- 
 scribed conclusions are reached by processes of 
 doubtful scientific validity, the fact that the 
 proper opinions are somehow held justifies the 
 means by which they are attained. From this 
 point of view, the only question which is asked 
 concerning the work of a scholar is whether the 
 conclusions which he reaches are in accordance 
 with the revealed truth of the system. Any sug- 
 gested alteration of doctrine is looked upon as 
 a proposal to weaken confidence in the system, 
 and therefore to leave religion less confident 
 than before. Thus critical scientific procedure 
 is described as "destructive" scholarship; and 
 any findings which contradict the established 
 theological system are lightly dismissed as the 
 products of "science, falsely so-called." 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 169 
 
 The scientific attitude, on the other hand, is 
 less concerned with results than with the method 
 by which results have been reached. A man of 
 scientific spirit would have his confidence seri- 
 ously shaken if he noted that a given doctrine 
 was supported by a method of investigation 
 which could not be depended on for accurate re- 
 sults. If, for example, the doctrine of trans- 
 substantiation can be affirmed only by the use of 
 clearly artificial distinctions between "substance" 
 and "accidents," the ultimate affirmation of the 
 doctrine does not in the least reassure him. On 
 the contrary, he is apt to ask himself whether the 
 discovery of so vulnerable a type of reasoning 
 in this case may not be symptomatic of danger- 
 ous superficiality throughout the entire the- 
 ological structure. Thus an argument which 
 might greatly encourage and reassure a man of 
 the traditional theological way of thinking might 
 have indeed would be likely to have precisely 
 the opposite effect on a man of scientific tem- 
 per. It is startling to think how easily unbelief 
 may be engendered by some of the apologetics 
 
I7O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 of our day which are intended to rescue ques- 
 tioning souls from doubt, but which by the 
 superficiality of the method of defence serve 
 actually to deepen the misgivings of keen in- 
 quirers. 
 
 Now, while it would be rash for any one to 
 assert that the scientific attitude has taken com- 
 plete possession of our age, it is nevertheless 
 true that the definite purpose of our modern edu- 
 cation is to instil this scientific spirit into our 
 social consciousness. Indeed, it may almost be 
 said that the scientific attitude is an inevitable 
 accompaniment of democracy. For if we are to 
 set rules for our own guidance, we must culti- 
 vate the most exact possible methods of discov- 
 ering the truth. At any rate, as our modern 
 enterprises develop, it is coming to be more and 
 more apparent that success depends on the mas- 
 tery of exact scientific principles of manage- 
 ment. It has been discovered that even the tra- 
 ditional ways of laboring, which have been 
 evolved through the supposedly superior process 
 of actual practice, are not as efficient as those 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 171 
 
 directed by carefully tabulated rules made up by 
 minute and painstaking investigation. In order 
 to obtain the best results, modern industry must 
 adopt scientific principles. The farmer cannot 
 raise the largest crops merely by stoutly assert- 
 ing that American agriculture is the most pro- 
 ductive in the world. Whether it shall be or 
 not depends on his ceasing to seek arguments to 
 uphold a predetermined conclusion. He must 
 rather concern himself with the fruits of actual 
 experiments. If his methods be correct, he need 
 not fear for the results. If he has not acquired 
 a moral respect for experimental science, his 
 results will be largely a matter of luck. 
 
 Now it does not require a very violent shift 
 of thinking to see that what holds true of agri- 
 culture holds equally true of theology. If sci- 
 entific exactness of method rather than rhetorical 
 and logical skill is essential to the best results 
 in one realm, it is inevitable that the same atten- 
 tion to method shall be seen to be indispensable 
 in other realms. It is likely that the increasing 
 competition of business and industrial life will 
 
172 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 in the near future compel a very general appre- 
 ciation of the importance of scientific research. 
 Attention will be universally directed to the im- 
 portance of learning from careful experimenta- 
 tion. Increasing trust will be felt in the use of 
 scientific rather than rhetorical means of produc- 
 ing evidence. When this spirit of scientific dis- 
 crimination shall have come to be more wide- 
 spread, the way will be prepared for a general 
 realization of the lack of convincing power of 
 the arguments drawn from non-scientific presup- 
 positions. 
 
 2. THE NEED FOR A MORAL VALUATION OF THE 
 
 SCIENTIFIC IDEAL 
 
 The scientific spirit is now coming to be felt 
 as a dominating force in the work of theological 
 scholarship. Men who are the leaders of 
 thought are actually working with the tools of 
 modern science rather than with the tools of 
 traditional dialectic. Biblical scholars are 
 frankly engaged in the task of correcting tradi- 
 tional interpretations of the Bible, and are basing 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 173 
 
 their corrections on the principles of scientific in- 
 quiry. Church historians are ceasing to view 
 the course of history as a predetermined provi- 
 dential plan for the vindication of a given sys- 
 tem of thought or a given church polity. Sys- 
 tematic theologians are making concessions and 
 innovations in the realm of doctrine which 
 would have appalled our fathers. The depart- 
 ments of practical theology are elaborating 
 methods of scientific survey and theories of sci- 
 entific control which make impossible the sim- 
 ple device of copying the New Testament 
 church. The scientific ideal is gaining such con- 
 trol that it must be reckoned with as the ap- 
 proved method of formulating conclusions in the 
 realm of religious belief. 
 
 But while this scientific ideal has been quietly 
 taking possession of our best theological schools, 
 there has been little consideration of the all- 
 important question as to the effect of the adop- 
 tion of this ideal on religious assurance. It is 
 a well-known fact that men are staunchly hold- 
 ing to the older conception of authority in the- 
 
174 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 ology because they are honestly convinced that 
 the adoption of the scientific method must in- 
 evitably mean a loss of religious fervor. It 
 seems to them that modern inquiries are turn- 
 ing all the older certainties into question marks. 
 Indeed, the number and the crucial importance 
 of some of the questions which are thrust in 
 the face of a theological student today are some- 
 what appalling, even to one who has adopted 
 the scientific spirit and who is therefore willing 
 to wait for the final answer until investigation 
 shall have been more thoroughly made. To the 
 man with the traditional type of religious assur- 
 ance, however, who has been trained to feel that 
 the eternal stability of the doctrinal content of 
 Christianity is fundamental to its claim of su- 
 premacy, the problems which are being opened 
 can but bring dismay and dreadful forebodings. 
 It is indeed a serious thing to be compelled to 
 ask whether the doctrinal formulations which 
 we find in the New Testament are set in a world 
 view which is discredited by modern science; 
 whether Paul radically transformed the gospel 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 175 
 
 of Jesus into a sacramentalism which we today 
 cannot accept; whether there is any historical 
 credibility to be attached to the fourth Gospel; 
 whether the synoptic gospels misrepresent the 
 life and the character of Jesus; indeed, whether 
 any such person as the Jesus of the New Testa- 
 ment ever lived at all. These are surely ques- 
 tions the very asking of which seriously impairs 
 the older type of religious confidence. We can- 
 not wonder at the misgivings of many worthy 
 men as they observe this dissipation of energy 
 in the process of inquiry when they would like 
 to see firm confidence established in the truths of 
 Christianity. 
 
 The apparently "destructive" character of the 
 inquiring science of today is due largely to the 
 fact that often there does not appear in the 
 patient and tentative work of the scientist any 
 such religious loyalty as appears in the utter- 
 ances of the man who is conscious that he is 
 commissioned from on high to defend eternal 
 truth. For example, why should it be thought 
 to be religiously any better to believe that the 
 
176 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 Pentateuch was written by Moses than to hold 
 that it came into existence through an evolution 
 stretching into post-exilic times? The conserva- 
 tive theologian is ready with his answer. He 
 declares that there has been committed to him 
 a sacred tradition to which it is a religious duty 
 to be true. In this loyalty to what he regards 
 as "God's Word" he is appealing to a profound 
 moral motive. It is this which gives to con- 
 servative theological scholarship its hold on the 
 affections of men. Scientific scholarship will 
 battle in vain for the recognition of its conclu- 
 sions in the church so long as it is not able to 
 oppose to this spirit of religious loyalty an 
 equally admirable incarnation of moral fidelity. 
 Now is it not true that the rights of scientific 
 inquiry have too generally been defended on the 
 secular and really irreligious basis of a theory 
 of individual rights? The principles of u free- 
 dom of research" and of "freedom of speech," 
 however important they may seem to the iso- 
 lated scholar, do not make a large enough social 
 appeal to constitute the basis of a widespread 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 177 
 
 popular moral enthusiasm. Why, indeed, should 
 we grant to the theologian freedom to destroy 
 the foundations of the Christian faith any more 
 than we grant to the anarchist freedom to de- 
 stroy the foundations of patriotism? The real 
 moral value of scientific method does not ap- 
 pear in the customary formulae by which aca- 
 demic freedom is guarded. What Christian peo- 
 ple generally demand, and rightly demand, is 
 that theology shall be a vehicle for religious edi- 
 fication. It cannot thus be employed if it repre- 
 sent merely the spirit of individual freedom : for 
 there may be lacking in such a spirit the funda- 
 mental social purpose which is indispensable 
 to religious power. There are too many in- 
 stances where the scientist is more eager to attain 
 a reputation for daring innovations than to ren- 
 der social ministry. It is true that it is the op- 
 position of ecclesiasticism and of other estab- 
 lished interests to freedom of research which has 
 forced scientists to magnify the importance of 
 such freedom. But it has not always been mag- 
 nified in such a way as to disclose the larger so- 
 
178 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 cial purpose which alone can constitute a valid 
 basis for a public approval. 
 
 Indeed, the very polemic into which a free 
 science is thrust by ecclesiastical opposition has 
 led to a confusion of the issue. Unconsciously 
 the advocates of newer ideals have allowed their 
 opponents to define the nature of the test of so- 
 cial efficiency which is to justify the existence 
 of any movement. It has for centuries been 
 assumed that the highest efficiency will be at- 
 tained by the use of the doctrines which have 
 been ecclesiastically approved. As has been 
 shown, assurance has traditionally rested on the 
 content of doctrine rather than on the method 
 of deriving conclusions. Thus the natural chal- 
 lenge of traditional faith to newer thought is 
 whether the outcome of criticism serves to con- 
 firm certain predetermined conclusions. For 
 example, a theologian is allowed to use the doc- 
 trine of evolution, provided he can show that 
 the evolutionary hypothesis is in accord with 
 the teachings of the first chapter of Genesis. The 
 critical theological scholar is thus expected to 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 179 
 
 justify his work, not by showing its truthful 
 character from the point of view of method, but 
 rather by showing the conformity of his conclu- 
 sions with Biblical doctrine. The very nature 
 of this test prevents the modern scholar from 
 bringing to the front the fundamental moral 
 properties of his procedure. 
 
 Indeed, in so far as scientific scholarship 
 yields to the test demanded by traditionalism, it 
 is likely to be tempted into paths of doubtful 
 probity. For in attempting to show that the re- 
 sults reached are "not essentially different" 
 from those reached by the method of ecclesiasti- 
 cal control, the scholar is apt to give to his con- 
 clusions a form which shall resemble as closely 
 as possible the doctrines which the traditionalist 
 wishes to retain. But critical scholarship in- 
 evitably makes definite modifications in the realm 
 of doctrine. In so far as these modifications are 
 seen to be offensive, the exposition of them by 
 one who accepts the ecclesiastical challenge is 
 practically certain to abound in skillfully devised 
 ambiguities which obscure rather than reveal 
 
l8o SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 the actual content of the theologian's thought. 
 But if once the spirit of intellectual juggling be 
 admitted into any procedure, it is no longer pos- 
 sible to claim a moral superiority for it. The 
 New Testament itself reminds us that the 
 double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. 
 The scholar who attempts at the same time to 
 serve ecclesiastical demands and to maintain sci- 
 entific truthfulness needs to beware lest the de- 
 mands of the two masters conflict and leave the 
 servant in a situation where his loyalty to both 
 may be seriously tested. 
 
 Thus it is doubtless true that the pursuit of 
 scientific inquiry under the motives of academic 
 freedom is actually a source of moral disin- 
 tegration so long as the right of the ecclesiastical 
 ideal is admitted as the final test. Any modifica- 
 tions of the authorized system will from the 
 point of view of the ecclesiastic be judged as 
 examples of a privileged laxity. And this laxity 
 is accepted by the scholar as an academic "right" 
 which he enjoys under the charter of freedom of 
 research. If in addition there be allowed a spirit 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE l8l 
 
 of ingenious juggling by which the newer sci- 
 ence is made to yield something resembling the 
 older conclusions, the sense of honor is inevita- 
 bly dulled, and a prudent program of "policy" 
 may come to control the movements of the 
 scholar. Even if he succeed in asserting his 
 freedom in such a way as to be scientifically hon- 
 'est, he is likely to be dismayed by would-be anar- 
 chists who hail him as the prophet of a new era 
 of unbounded license. The very rigidity of the 
 old-fashioned loyalty in the realm of doctrine in- 
 volved a like rigidity in the realm of morals. If 
 dissent from doctrine is admitted as a "right," 
 why is not dissent from moral principles equally 
 a "right"? Thus, by implication, the critical 
 spirit may carry with it the conception of an 
 easy-going individualistic laxity which would 
 tend to actual moral disintegration. These dan- 
 gers which confront critical scholarship we ought 
 not to overlook. 
 
 Nevertheless, the time has come when we 
 must recognize that, as a matter of fact, the sci- 
 entific ideal is coming to prevail in theological 
 
l82 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 schools. Intelligent people know that "criti- 
 cism" is very generally taught in our seminaries, 
 and that churches are admitting to their pulpits 
 ministers who stand for the "new" views. If, 
 in view of this fact, we still retain the notion 
 that Christian loyalty means fundamentally the 
 defense of certain doctrines, the inevitable con- 
 clusion in the minds of men will be that these 
 seminaries and these ministers really do not care 
 very much about loyalty; that they are indulg- 
 ing themselves in the pleasant occupation of 
 making whatever experiments they choose in the 
 field of religion without very much concern over 
 the outcome; that they evolve new theories just 
 for the fun of startling people and for the joy 
 of indulging in academic debate. The papal 
 encyclical against Modernism characteristically 
 ascribes the work of the Modernists to two mo- 
 tives, curiosity and pride. Many orthodox 
 Protestants likewise feel that liberalism is domi- 
 nated by a shallow joy at stirring up things, re- 
 gardless of whether they can be settled again or 
 not. It is evident that, so long as such opinions 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 183 
 
 can be honestly held and expressed, modern 
 scholarship has not revealed the essentially moral 
 principles of its procedure. If, at the same time, 
 men know that our seminaries are dominated by 
 the scientific ideal, there is grave danger lest a 
 scholarly interpretation of Christianity shall be 
 made more difficult to commend to the morally 
 earnest men and women who are in our 
 churches. 
 
 In brief, so long as we permit the test of con- 
 tent of doctrine to remain supreme, there is 
 actual danger of moral disintegration; for every 
 scholar and every minister who departs from 
 the system is, according to this hypothesis, less 
 loyal to the truth than are those who retain the 
 system unimpaired. Every fresh modification 
 weakens the hold of the system as such on the 
 minds of men. And modifications are now be- 
 coming so many and so widely recognized, that 
 loyalties are perhaps actually more generally 
 weakened than we suspect. Does not the acquir- 
 ing of a "liberal" spirit too often mean that the 
 new enlightenment becomes the source of a prac- 
 
184 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 tice of easy-going self-indulgence, so far as the 
 church is concerned? The right to reject the 
 system easily passes into the right to excuse one- 
 self from any arduous participation in the work 
 of the church. 
 
 Let us put the matter in a little different way. 
 If we examine the inherited tendencies of our 
 religious thinking, we discover that we have 
 been carrying over into modern life the attitude 
 of mediaeval faith. As we have seen, for cen- 
 turies men were conscious that they had no in- 
 ductive method of discovering for themselves 
 the highest truths and values. They found in the 
 writings of antiquity a wisdom which they could 
 not hope to attain by their own efforts. Natu- 
 rally, therefore, they trusted in the content of 
 the doctrine provided by the church as the cus- 
 todian of ancient truth. The revealed system 
 was the foundation of their confidence. Indeed, 
 so meagre were the independent powers of schol- 
 arship during the first thousand years of Chris- 
 tian history that, if the authoritative writings of 
 antiquity had been lost, the loss would have en- 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 185 
 
 tailed the total extinction of culture. We still 
 have that long-continued feeling of absolute de- 
 pendence on the past reflected in the conviction 
 of many men that if the classics shall not have 
 the first place in our education culture will in- 
 evitably decline. From this point of view, our 
 salvation is dependent on the faithful retention 
 and repetition of the wisdom of the ancients. 
 To hold fast the "faith once delivered' ' is the 
 supreme duty because only in that "faith" have 
 we the highest truth. 
 
 Now an important consequence of modern 
 scientific procedure is to free men from this 
 sense of helpless dependence on antiquity. The 
 deeds and theories of men of the past are, in- 
 deed, of great value; but they are not indis- 
 pensable. If the books containing the results of 
 scientific inquiry should all be lost, it would not 
 seriously dismay the modern inquirer, provided 
 only the capacity to use scientific method re- 
 mained. If men had mastered this method, they 
 could after a few years of diligent labor recre- 
 ate the lost theories, or perchance even improve 
 
1 86 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 on them. When Newton's dog overturned the 
 candle which destroyed his mathematical papers, 
 the loss was not irrevocable, simply because 
 Newton possessed the method by which he could 
 reconstruct all that had been destroyed. 
 
 Thus while the mediaeval mind carefully 
 treasured the finished theories on which it was 
 so hopelessly dependent, the modern mind is 
 more concerned to attain such a mastery of 
 method as to be able, if possible, to improve upon 
 the past. This, of course, does not mean that all 
 value is denied to the past ; on the contrary, since 
 the perfection of science depends on the largest 
 possible social cooperation, we can never have 
 too much of the recorded results of other men's 
 thinking. But the use which is made of these 
 past products of thought is very different from 
 that made by the mediaeval mind. The scientist 
 obtains stimulus and help from them, but he feels 
 that he is nearest the truth not when he regards 
 them as finally authoritative, but when he finds 
 them of service in opening his own eyes. He 
 sees that any theory expresses only in part and 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 187 
 
 only imperfectly the truth which mankind seeks. 
 It is the reality lying back of all formulations 
 which he seeks to understand, and which de- 
 mands constant revision of working hypotheses. 
 The man who has attained the scientific attitude 
 is not afraid of the "destruction" of anything. 
 He does not fear lest culture will vanish if the 
 study of Greek be no longer required of every 
 boy in college. He is not dismayed when more 
 careful investigations of the properties of mat- 
 ter disclose the inadequacy of the older atomic 
 theory. He never thinks of demanding that a 
 new hypothesis shall be proved to conform to tra- 
 ditional doctrines before it shall be allowed to 
 prevail. He has attained a basis of trust which 
 leads him to look forward with confidence, and 
 which gives to transformations and revisions a 
 positive value. The man of scientific spirit can 
 live through changes of thought without pertur- 
 bation, and can calmly make use of all tenable 
 suggestions to enlarge the borders of his knowl- 
 edge. Criticism is never "destructive" for him. 
 It means rather the constructive process by which 
 
1 88 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 the borders of our knowledge are steadily en- 
 larged. 
 
 It is high time that we should realize the 
 steadying power of this newer type of assur- 
 ance. It makes possible a change of theory 
 without any serious disturbance of positive faith. 
 It preserves one from panic, because of the be- 
 lief that critical examination of facts and re- 
 vision of theory are normal ways of making 
 progress. There cannot be a wholesome revision 
 of theology so long as the older type of religious 
 assurance is insisted upon. For a theology 
 which tries at the same time to preserve confi- 
 dence in a finished system and to make use of 
 scientific methods is hopelessly divided against 
 itself. The retention of the older sort of assur- 
 ance means that whenever scientific truthfulness 
 compels a departure from the system, that de- 
 parture is apologized for in such a way as to 
 destroy the moral value of the change. It is 
 viewed as an unwelcome "concession" rather 
 than as a positive means of improving our 
 status, The attempt is made to anchor faith to 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 189 
 
 that portion of the field which does not need 
 any new interpretation rather than to the total 
 knowledge which we possess. Such a division 
 of the territory of experience is unfortunate. A 
 vigorous religion must possess all of life; but 
 this is impossible so long as science is regarded 
 as irreligious. Not until there shall be a re- 
 ligious trust in the truth-seeking quality of crit- 
 ical procedure can we advance to a theology 
 which shall be inspired by the spirit of eager 
 moral courage. "Mediating" theologies have 
 doubtless served a useful purpose in gaining a 
 hearing for the discoveries of modern science; 
 but the time has come when they are likely to be 
 so evidently embarrassed by the attempt to re- 
 tain two such different conceptions of the proper 
 basis of assurance as to lack that straight- 
 forward sincerity which alone can give moral 
 power. 
 
IQO SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 3. THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE HISTORICAL 
 METHOD OF STUDYING RELIGION 
 
 The shift of emphasis from the traditional to 
 the scientific basis is not so difficult today as it 
 would have been a century ago. Indeed, so little 
 was the religious consciousness of the eighteenth 
 century prepared for the shift, that the scientific 
 expositions of that age aimed at producing a 
 new "absolute" religion of reason. The older 
 rationalism had not really mastered the moral 
 implications of the scientific point of view. To 
 hold to God, freedom, immortality as undeniable 
 dogmas of reason seemed necessary. 
 
 But the adoption of the historical spirit in the 
 study of religion has freed us from the rational- 
 istic dogmatism of the eighteenth century as 
 well as from the ecclesiastical dogmatism of 
 earlier times. It has brought into our conscious- 
 ness the real relation between doctrine and life, 
 between theory and experienced reality. It has 
 brought to light the fact, which was not formerly 
 appreciated, that doctrines are constantly chang- 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 
 
 ing in form or in interpretation as the experi- 
 ences of men change. The progress of biblical 
 criticism has made it possible to see the process 
 by which the religious ideas of Israel changed 
 during the centuries of religious experimenta- 
 tion covered by the literature of the Old Testa- 
 ment. We are beginning to seek such an ac- 
 count of the New Testament doctrine as shall 
 show the genetic relations between the various 
 stages of development. We are thus becoming 
 accustomed to the thought that the vitality of 
 the biblical theology is due to the fact that it 
 was wrought out by arduous experiment, in 
 which searching questions were asked and an- 
 swers were found with the help of all the re- 
 sources at the command of the leaders of 
 thought. The moral quality of the Old Testa- 
 ment utterances is due to the fact that they rep- 
 resent attempts to meet the stern realities of He- 
 brew national and social life squarely and to dis- 
 cover the religious significance of contemporary 
 events. In so far as we find in the Bible the 
 record of a less direct type of thinking i. e., 
 
192 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 in so far as we find traditionalism we discover 
 a theology which was denounced by the prophets 
 and by Jesus and by Paul, and which possesses 
 no power to awaken our own religious assur- 
 ance. The historical study of the Bible, em- 
 bodying as it does the scientific spirit and 
 method, serves to reveal the fact that those con- 
 victions which possess the most power over us 
 were wrought out in a way not incompatible 
 with the scientific spirit of today. In giving a 
 historical valuation of biblical material, we in- 
 evitably take as our test the actual social effi- 
 ciency of the doctrines in their age rather than 
 their conformity or non-conformity to a previ- 
 ously fixed system. Thus we are becoming ac- 
 customed to a point of view which enables us 
 to use the biblical material precisely as the sci- 
 entific scholar uses any documents of the past in 
 his field. The way is splendidly prepared by 
 modern biblical scholarship for that transforma- 
 tion of the conception of religious assurance 
 which is now imperative. The men of the Bible 
 had to test doctrines by their actual out- 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 193 
 
 come in experience. Their test was in later the- 
 ology supplanted by a formal appeal to author- 
 ity. To restore the actual test which entered 
 into the making of biblical doctrines is the nat- 
 ural outcome of a better historical understand- 
 ing of the Bible. Jeremiah reversed the teach- 
 ing of Isaiah concerning the fate of the temple 
 at Jerusalem because in Jeremiah's day condi- 
 tions had so changed that the test of experience 
 demanded a revision of Isaiah's theology. Paul 
 eliminated circumcision from the requirements 
 of gentile Christianity, not because he found any 
 written command to that effect, but because the 
 religious welfare of the gentile world demanded 
 it. When once it is clearly seen that we have in 
 the Bible a changing theology to meet the chang- 
 ; ing needs of men we may readily gain confi- 
 dence in a theology which does not profess 
 finality or infallibility. 
 
 But the moral effect of this historical point 
 of view is largely obscured by the retention of 
 ideals of exegesis which belonged to the dog- 
 matic method of exposition. The theory that 
 
194 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 in the Bible we have a compendium of ethical 
 and religious commands in final and perfect 
 form dies hard. It is becoming clear that the 
 retention of this conception is responsible for 
 much moral blindness in contemporary Chris- 
 tianity. Some of our most pressing modern 
 problems arise out of circumstances which did 
 not exist in the time of the apostles. The duty 
 of a master to his slave is very different from 
 the duty of a modern employer toward a free 
 citizen whom he employs. The benevolent 
 patronage of the master toward the slave is felt 
 by a freeman to be lacking in true moral per- 
 spective, and it thus becomes an insult to a man's 
 sense of self-respect. So, too, the stern denun- 
 ciation of all worldly attachments, which was 
 natural in an age which looked for the speedy 
 destruction of this world, seems out of place in 
 an evolutionary view. But these and other dif- 
 ferences between ancient and modern ideals are 
 obscured by a harmonizing exegesis which pre- 
 vents issues from appearing in their clear light. 
 Do not our theologies and our Sunday-school 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 195 
 
 quarterlies often contain the sort of special plead- 
 ing for which we denounce lawyers and politi- 
 cians? We consider it a practice of doubtful 
 moral quality when a corporation employs a law- 
 yer to evade the meaning of the law by a tech- 
 nical interpretation which will give the desired 
 liberty under the guise of legal conformity. Yet 
 in the next breath we may praise the theologian 
 who has the dexterity to show that the first chap- 
 ter of Genesis, when "rightly interpreted," will 
 yield a modern cosmology; or we may feel very 
 comfortable if it can be ingeniously made out 
 that the precise type of church polity which we 
 prefer was authorized by Jesus himself. It 
 would mean a distinct clearing of the moral at- 
 mosphere if we should adopt that attitude toward 
 the Bible and toward the history of Christianity 
 which is made imperative by historical study, 
 and admit the inevitable historical limitations of 
 any particular theological doctrine. To expound 
 honestly a biblical doctrine is the best possible 
 preparation for the honest facing of the prob- 
 lems of our own day. 
 
196 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 The reason why Christian teachers and 
 preachers are so hesitant about the new attitude 
 is to be found partly in the fear that such a posi- 
 tion would be taken to mean the discrediting of 
 the Bible. It is often assumed that the new po- 
 sition is less eager than the old to preserve that 
 religious power which the knowledge of the Bible 
 is instrumental in producing. It is to be hoped, 
 however, that the days of ignorance which are 
 responsible for such an inference are numbered. 
 The accurate knowledge of the Bible itself 
 should reveal the fact that nothing is more un- 
 biblical than to refuse to face the facts. Does 
 not the message of the great prophets owe its 
 power to this facing of the facts in defiance of 
 tradition? Did not Jesus always insist that 
 moral and religious conclusions should rest on a 
 truthful estimate of the situation confronting a 
 man rather than on the rules formulated in the 
 traditions of the scribes? Did not Paul, because 
 of the new situation which he met in the gentile 
 world, revise the Christianity of the primitive 
 church? It is high time to emphasize the real 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 197 
 
 significance of this splendidly moral spirit of the 
 greatest of the biblical characters, and to deliver 
 men from the unfounded fear lest we shall be 
 dishonoring the Bible by adopting the very atti- 
 tude of moral sincerity which constitutes its 
 greatness. There is no reason why the influence 
 of the Bible should be opposed to the influence of 
 scientific inquiry. There is every reason why 
 they should work in harmony. 
 
 Such a harmony is established by the his- 
 torical interpretation of the Bible. Indeed, when 
 the biblical literature is thus read, it becomes a 
 vast social historical laboratory where we may 
 trace the processes by which a supremely moral 
 theology came to prevail. When one has mas- 
 tered this field by the use of the historical 
 method, one has already acquired the kind of 
 confidence which belongs to scientific method. 
 One finds that the magnificent utterances of that 
 literature so high and noble that they stand as 
 the supreme expression of an ethical religion 
 were produced by the persistent experimentation 
 of men in their endeavor to discover the will of 
 
198 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 God. The attitude of the great prophets is not 
 at all inconsistent with the method of scientific 
 procedure today. They found men satisfied with 
 a traditional cultus. But they faced the ugly 
 facts of social life in their day, and asked what 
 could be learned from a truthful survey of those 
 facts. To be sure their means of diagnosis were 
 not identical with those of our day. But their 
 attitude toward the problems which needed solu- 
 tion was such that it compels the admiration of 
 every man who is searching for the truth. In- 
 deed, we might almost formulate their method 
 in terms which modern science could accept, if 
 we were to say that insight into the facts before 
 us is a more direct and certain way of arriving 
 at the truth than is the mere repetition of a 
 solution formulated in the past. Just as the sci- 
 entist would be able to recreate the content of 
 his science even if all existing text-books were 
 swept away, so the prophets of Israel would 
 have been able to set forth religious beliefs in 
 cogent form even if the content of tradition had 
 been lacking in exact doctrinal form. They 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 1 99 
 
 were possessed of such insight that they knew 
 that God spoke to them directly in the facts 
 with their moral challenge. The power with 
 which Jesus compelled the experience of men to 
 furnish answers to religious questions is con- 
 spicuous in the great parables. 
 
 Thus the direct outcome of the historical 
 study of the Bible is the acquiring of a trust in 
 that attitude of open-minded inquiry which is at 
 the same time characteristic of the great biblical 
 characters and of the modern scientific mind. It 
 is this attitude which is even more important 
 than the doctrinal results attained by critical 
 study, significant as these are. The great con- 
 structive outcome of modern biblical study is 
 not to furnish the theologian with a new set of 
 authoritative dogmas, but rather to indicate the 
 fact that the historic genesis of doctrines can 
 be traced by scientific means, so as to make sci- 
 entific method a positive element in the study of 
 religion. Biblical criticism makes it possible for 
 us to see how doctrines have their rise, why they 
 change, what changes are for the better and 
 
2OO SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 what for the worse, and what the place of 
 formal belief is in the total religious life of men. 
 Tradition thus becomes a servant of the present 
 and not its despot. If it becomes evident that 
 changed conditions of modern experience re- 
 quire a changed emphasis or a changed interpre- 
 tation, the theologian in making the necessary 
 alterations may learn from the prophets and the 
 apostles the spirit of reverence and loyalty which 
 is indispensable to actual constructive work. 
 The power of the message of Jeremiah lies pre- 
 cisely in the fact that he did not attempt to keep 
 unchanged the theology of his day. Yet, in the 
 very changes which he proposed, he felt that he 
 was more loyal to God than were his opponents. 
 There is still altogether too much of the older 
 feeling that the result of biblical study should be 
 to establish an absolutely true and unchanging 
 system of theology. Critical scholarship is con- 
 stantly being urged to give the "assured results" 
 of modern investigation, the implication being 
 that a new authoritative dogmatics may be es- 
 tablished to supplant the older. Indeed, many a 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 2OI 
 
 man is excusing himself from bothering about 
 critical scholarship at all until he can feel that 
 the critics are "agreed" as to content of doc- 
 trine. In so far as this attitude is maintained, 
 the entire moral significance of the critical 
 method is lost. For this would leave men still 
 dependent on a guaranteed content of theology 
 rather than on a reliable method of ascertaining 
 the meaning of religion. No one who really un- 
 derstands the nature of biblical criticism can 
 have any desire to see a new set of "critically 
 established" dogmas come to exercise authority 
 in the place of the "orthodox" dogmas. A new 
 theology of this dogmatic sort would not really 
 mark much advance. It is far more imperative 
 to attain a new attitude toward religious beliefs 
 and a new method of constructing satisfactory 
 formulations of the great convictions of the hu- 
 man heart. Indeed, the critical attitude may 
 make one actually more appreciative of the con- 
 tent of the older theology. When one really 
 understands the cost in fidelity and in moral 
 'earnestness of some of the great doctrines of 
 
2O2 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 the church, one will come to think of them not 
 merely as formal doctrines, but as the reposi- 
 tories of deep spiritual achievements which must 
 forever command our reverence. To get back 
 of the "absoluteness" of doctrines as such and 
 to learn to find in them the great spiritual as- 
 pirations and struggles and triumphs of noble 
 men of old must give a new significance to theol- 
 ogy. At the same time such appreciation makes 
 us eager to secure in our day and generation a 
 vigorous life expressing itself in suitable doc- 
 trines rather than to preserve the "form of sound 
 words." 
 
 Thus the historical understanding of the Bible 
 brings into the religious thinking of our day a 
 keener insight into the human problems which 
 found their solution in the biblical doctrines. 
 The experience of biblical men and the char- 
 acteristics of biblical social life become more in- 
 teresting and more significant than are mere doc- 
 trines as such. This new appreciation harmon- 
 izes admirably with the modern spirit of social 
 analysis, which is responsible for the moral chal- 
 
RELIGIOUS ASSURANCE 2O3 
 
 lenge of our day. If there can enter into Chris- 
 tian theology this confidence in the outcome of a 
 direct investigation into the facts of life, the 
 way will be open for such a cooperation between 
 the awakened social spirit and the work of the 
 theologian that our religion will be immensely 
 strengthened both in the theologian's sense of in- 
 ner confidence and in its value for leaders in 
 the modern task of social regeneration. When 
 once theology can feel the moral courage which 
 comes inevitably from the scientific attitude, and 
 can throw off the terrible burden of cautious 
 ambiguities due to "mediating" systems and 
 "harmonizing" exegesis, when theology shall 
 be confident, as all other sciences are confident, 
 that the strongest possible guaranty of the re- 
 liability of a certain position is the fact that 
 it has been reached by accurate and truthful ob- 
 servation and induction, then we may look for 
 an era of new power; then we may expect to 
 see Christian convictions again standing fore- 
 most in the moral conflict, instead of needing to 
 be "conserved" by the watch-care of the church 
 
2O4 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 and the ingenuity of apologists. The acquire- 
 ment of such an attitude of confidence is not 
 difficult. We need only courageously to follow 
 to its legitimate conclusion the method now em- 
 ployed in critical biblical study, and to correlate 
 our religious beliefs to the sense of assurance 
 engendered by the use of the scientific method. 
 
V 
 
 THE ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION OF 
 THEOLOGY 
 
 WE have finally to inquire what will be the re- 
 sults if we make a thorough-going use of the 
 principles which have been elucidated. What 
 changes in doctrinal emphasis and in the con- 
 tent of theology may be expected if the the- 
 ologian take it for granted that his task is not 
 to reproduce an authorized system, but rather 
 to meet the moral challenge of his day by em- 
 ploying the method of critical investigation 
 which is so characteristic of our modern culture? 
 
 It will have been evident from the foregoing 
 discussion that the ethical principles of the tra- 
 ditional theology were essentially aristocratic. 
 That theology was worked out in days when 
 men were conscious that human institutions and 
 activities were hostile to the Kingdom of God. 
 The secular powers seemed to be in the hands 
 
 205 
 
2O6 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 of those who had ideals incompatible with the 
 splendid dreams of righteousness inherited from 
 the prophets of Israel and reinforced by the 
 teachings of Jesus and of his disciples. It was 
 natural, therefore, that the appeal of religion 
 should be away from the powers of this world 
 to a heavenly tribunal. Since the ways of God 
 were not the ways of men, nor his thoughts their 
 thoughts, a dualism between worldly principles 
 and the principles of the Kingdom was presup- 
 posed in all theological thinking. The ideals of 
 the Kingdom were to be defended because of 
 their divine rights rather than simply because 
 of their compatibility with earthly life. The 
 Christian who accepted the plan of salvation 
 could be rescued from the evils of this life and 
 made a citizen of the heavenly kingdom. From 
 this vantage ground, he could look down on the 
 ethics of the world, and could speak to his fel- 
 low men with the authority of one who shares 
 the divine rights belonging to the Kingdom of 
 Heaven. This note of authority is an inalien- 
 able element in the older theology. 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 2O/ 
 
 Such a dualism involves the formulation of 
 theology in terms of aristocratic privilege. The 
 members of the church are by virtue of the fact 
 of such membership raised above their un- 
 churched brethren, and can look upon these lat- 
 ter as unfortunates. The "goodness" of those 
 in the church is not so much a personal achieve- 
 ment on their part as it is a gift of divine grace. 
 Christians become "heirs" of a spiritual estate 
 which they themselves did not create. Their sal- 
 vation is a "gift" from God. Man in his natural 
 state is an outcast, when judged by the stand- 
 ards of the church, for he has not yet been initi- 
 ated into the select circle of God's elect. For 
 such a man to take pride in his own moral 
 achievements was a mark of unfitness for the 
 Kingdom. One must rather confess his utter 
 worthlessness and his total inability to live the 
 life demanded by the authoritative standards. 
 The way of salvation lay through the humble 
 acceptance of the grace furnished through the 
 plan of salvation. 
 
 This disparity between "natural" efforts on 
 
2O8 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 the part of man and the "supernatural" means 
 of salvation made it inevitable that the crucial 
 points in a theological system should be the 
 miracles by which the limitations of natural ca- 
 pacity should be transcended. Men were deliv- 
 ered from despair by the possibility of trust in 
 the miracle-working church with its means of 
 grace. The church assured them of a miracu- 
 lous revelation from heaven on the basis of 
 which the validity of the details of revealed 
 religion could be asserted. The church fur- 
 nished the ritual through which baptismal re- 
 generation might transform a son of Adam into 
 a citizen of the Kingdom. In the church 
 one found the perpetual miracle of transubstan- 
 tiation, which enabled men to come into the 
 actual presence of the divine substance of 
 Christ's redeeming flesh and blood. At shrines 
 miraculous deliverance from sickness could be 
 attained through the efficacy of relics. And 
 back of all the present miraculous aid furnished 
 through the church stood the vision of the great 
 second advent when the powers of this world 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 2OQ 
 
 were to be brought to an end by the irresistible 
 might of the heavenly King. These are essen- 
 tials of Catholic theology. Without them the 
 system would be hopelessly disintegrated, no 
 matter how great might be the stress on moral 
 and social interests. 
 
 Protestantism inherited from Catholicism this 
 same emphasis on miracle as the essential thing 
 in a theological interpretation of life. To be 
 sure, the Catholic doctrine of the church was 
 radically modified; but this only meant a more 
 rigid doctrine of the supernatural character of 
 the Bible as the sole divine authority. The con- 
 ception of "natural" man as corrupt and un- 
 worthy, the belief in the necessity of a 
 miraculous transformation through regeneration, 
 the representation of Christian goodness as 
 something bestowed upon one from a higher 
 realm rather than as something worked out 
 from within, and the retention of the eschat- 
 ological view of history all marked Prot- 
 estantism. 
 
 I do not mean to imply that this conception 
 
2IO SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 of theology made it unethical. On the contrary, 
 so long as men did their thinking in terms of 
 aristocratic distinctions, a theology which repre- 
 sented the relations between God and man in 
 aristocratic terms would seem profoundly moral. 
 As a matter of fact, the history of Calvinism is 
 ample proof of the deep moral vitality which 
 may spring from precisely this conception of 
 theology. Wherever men today do their think- 
 ing in terms of class distinctions, the orthodox 
 theology almost always is retained in its full 
 vigor. The "upper classes" in Europe and the 
 peasantry are loyal supporters of the state 
 churches. Whenever it seems morally admirable 
 for a member of one social order to exercise 
 benevolent patronage toward his inferiors, and 
 wherever it is possible for a humbler man to ac- 
 cept gratefully benefits from above without any 
 sense of personal indignity, aristocratic ethics 
 will, of course, prevail. But when democracy 
 advances so far as to call in question the moral 
 right of the older class distinctions, the ethics of 
 aristocracy is sure to be challenged. In so far as 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 211 
 
 theology embodies aristocratic principles, it, too, 
 meets with adverse criticism. 
 
 Now the total effect of those movements of 
 thought and of social activity which make up 
 what we call the modern world is to turn atten- 
 tion to the resources of this world, and to dis- 
 cover moral values in the immanent processes 
 of human evolution. The intellectual correlative 
 of this modern democratic movement is the de- 
 velopment of scientific method as a tool which 
 may be freely used by any one to ascertain the 
 truth and to further one's welfare. The moral 
 objection to miracle on the part of science lies 
 in the fact that miracle removes the control of 
 the miraculous event from human hands, and 
 makes men dependent on the unrestrained will 
 of a superior being. Thus the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, which saw the great revolt of democracy 
 against the arbitrary rights of political sover- 
 eigns, witnessed also the revolt against mira- 
 cles; for these represented the same sort of arbi- 
 trary rights in the realm of religion. In the de- 
 velopment of politics, the older aristocratic 
 
212 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 philosophy has almost entirely vanished. The 
 powers of government are now admittedly re- 
 ferred to immanent sources of authority. The 
 ruler may retain his right to rule only so long 
 as he cooperates with the people in the social 
 task of promoting the total welfare. In the 
 realm of religion, however, the traditional prin- 
 ciples of established authority have delayed the 
 process of transformation. Consequently, we 
 have had attempts to mediate between the old 
 and the new in the hope of doing justice to the 
 moral demands of the present without impair- 
 ing the authority of the established system. 
 
 Nevertheless, one who compares the the- 
 ological treatises of today with those of a cen- 
 tury or more ago cannot fail to be struck with 
 the very considerable modifications which have 
 been made at the behest of this democratic ideal. 
 Miracles have gradually declined in importance 
 until today it is almost universally true that in- 
 stead of being the main supports to faith they 
 require defense themselves. In other words, we 
 are coming more and more to feel that the best 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 213 
 
 credentials for religious faith are to be found in 
 the service which is rendered to humanity in 
 ways which humanity can understand and by 
 methods in which humanity can have a share, 
 rather than in superhuman claims. If we look 
 at the actual development of religious life, we 
 witness several significant ways in which Chris- 
 tian experience has detached itself from the 
 former supernatural interpretation of ritual or 
 creed, and has adopted, or is in the process of 
 developing, interpretations which embody the 
 immanent emphasis of democratic moral ideals. 
 Merely to rehearse the list of such modifications 
 will reveal the fact that this ethical transforma- 
 tion of theology is farther advanced than many 
 of us had supposed. 
 
 Take, for example, baptism. In mediaeval 
 theology its significance was found in the fact 
 that it was the channel through which the re- 
 generating grace of God found entrance into the 
 human soul so as to effect the great transforma- 
 tion of the "natural" man into a "saved" man. 
 But in Protestant churches, the tendency has 
 
214 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 been steadily in the direction of a repudiation of 
 the doctrine of sacramental grace in its Catholic 
 form. For Luther, baptism became primarily 
 the seal of God's promise, deriving its value from 
 the fact that in it God's ethical consistency was 
 affirmed. Some Protestant bodies have regarded 
 baptism primarily as a symbol of a moral trans- 
 formation which may take place prior to baptism. 
 Enlightened Protestants of the Reformed branch 
 of the church would today scarcely argue that 
 baptism is essential to salvation. The marks of 
 Christian character are sought in the actual 
 ethical and religious life of a man rather than in 
 his having received baptismal grace. This does 
 not mean that baptism ceases to be of value. It 
 is retained as a genuine element in Christianity 
 by practically all Protestant denominations. 
 But the interpretation given to it is quite differ- 
 ent from that furnished by the mediaeval church. 
 Its retention is increasingly coming to be justi- 
 fied by the positive part which it plays in the de- 
 velopment of an ethical life under the inspira- 
 tion of a vital faith rather than by appeal to 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 215 
 
 authoritative "rights." If historical research 
 should show that the older theories of the origin 
 of baptism are not tenable, so that the appeal to 
 its authoritative institution by Christ would be 
 felt to lack cogent evidence, such a conclusion, 
 which would be fatal to the traditional interpre- 
 tation, would not necessarily affect the ethical 
 interpretation which is becoming increasingly 
 common. If baptism actually helps to make men 
 conscious of the redeeming power of God, if it 
 actually serves to deepen in the consciousness of 
 the Christian the assurance of God's presence, 
 its right in Christianity is sufficiently vindicated. 
 A similar development may be traced in the 
 case of the Lord's Supper. For mediaeval the- 
 ology it was essentially the vehicle of a miracu- 
 lous substance with life-giving power. But it is 
 not an uncommon thing today to find even high 
 churchmen emphasizing an ethical significance 
 of the sacrament which is logically quite differ- 
 ent from that inculcated by the doctrine of a 
 "real presence." It is frequently urged that one 
 of the chief benefits of the eucharist is so to 
 
2l6 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 impress the soul with the presence of God in 
 this particular instance that, under the inspira- 
 tion thus gained, one may learn to discern the 
 divine presence everywhere. In the non-ritualis- 
 tic churches the sacramental efficacy of the 
 Lord's Supper is completely disappearing. It is 
 coming to be regarded as a symbol of an ethical, 
 mystical experience which is not absolutely de- 
 pendent on the ritual for its existence. Whether 
 the Christian shall participate in the Lord's 
 Supper or not depends on whether he actually 
 finds it to be spiritually helpful or not. Here, 
 again, the changed interpretation does not mean 
 the elimination of the ritual. It means rather 
 that its religious significance is referred to its 
 actual ability to serve religious experience rather 
 than to any authoritative rights. There is no 
 longer any miracle connected with the Lord's 
 Supper in Protestant churches. But as a means 
 of enabling the members of a Christian commu- 
 nity to realize the unseen presence of their social 
 possession of the divine Spirit, it is gladly re- 
 tained as an element of Christianity. 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 217 
 
 The same transfer of emphasis from the 
 thought of a miraculous origin to the recognition 
 of a proved moral efficacy is evident in the 
 changes which have taken place in the doctrine 
 of the inspiration of the Bible. No longer do 
 we feel it necessary to insist on the complete 
 passivity of the human writers of the biblical 
 books, so that it may be possible to assert that 
 the Bible has a totally different origin from 
 other writings. More and more are we seeking 
 to bring the biblical writers within the circle of 
 normal human experience, and to picture them 
 as subject to the same fears and hopes as other 
 men of their day. What constitutes their great- 
 ness in our eyes is their moral earnestness and 
 their heroic persistence in facing the facts of life 
 with the determination to realize the presence of 
 God in dark places. The Bible is valued today 
 because of its actual power to quicken our re- 
 ligious and moral ideals rather than because of 
 any particular theory concerning its origin. The 
 biblical writers take their place among their 
 fellow men, claiming no aristocratic immunity 
 
2l8 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 from the common temptations and weaknesses 
 of humanity, but revealing the possibilities open 
 to men if only they will trust the leadings of 
 religious insight and devote themselves to the 
 moral welfare of their fellows. It is perhaps not 
 without significance that this very democratizing 
 of our doctrine of scripture has resulted in a 
 new appreciation of the prophets of Israel, and 
 has exalted the historical Jesus in such a way as 
 to make him a savior for men who had failed to 
 discover the meaning of salvation as it was ex- 
 pounded in terms of aristocratic relationships. 
 That our estimate of the Bible has greatly 
 changed is undeniable; but the newer estimate 
 means that the spiritual power of the Bible is 
 better enabled to enter into our modern problems 
 and leaven modern life. Who that has learned 
 the message of the prophets would exchange the 
 enthusiasm for social righteousness which is 
 kindled by contact with these seers of old for 
 the traditional habit of finding in the prophecies 
 miraculous knowledge of future events? Just 
 in so far as we feel the pressure of the moral 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 2IQ 
 
 problems due to our democratic society do we 
 feel the actual leadership of those supreme re- 
 ligious non-conformists of ancient times, who 
 believed that the direct summons of a social 
 wrong needing to be righted was more valuable 
 than any ecclesiastical claim or any ritual sanc- 
 tified by authoritative usage. 
 
 Again, a notable change is coming over our 
 conception of the nature of regeneration. When 
 once the belief in baptismal regeneration is 
 abandoned, the way is open for a conception of 
 conversion which shall be genuinely ethical in 
 the modern sense. It is true that Protestantism 
 has to a large extent retained the picture of a 
 mysterious transformation which takes place by 
 unknown laws, and which has been frequently 
 regarded as an inner miracle. But as we bring 
 to bear on this experience the light of psycho- 
 logical investigation, and as we apply the test of 
 ethical results, we are coming more and more to 
 recognize that Bushnell was right when he con- 
 tended for a method of becoming a Christian 
 which should correlate the religious life with the 
 
22O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 processes of education in other realms. We see 
 that men like Theodore L. Cuyler and Phillips 
 Brooks, who never experienced anything which 
 they could identify as a miraculous change of 
 character, were none the less actually in posses- 
 sion of the secret of communion with God. In- 
 creasingly churches are depending on the natural 
 processes of religious education rather than on 
 the more dramatic methods of the public revival 
 with its suggestions of the special and peculiar 
 character of religious experience. The reality 
 of the transformation of character when one be- 
 comes a Christian is as unquestioned under the 
 new theory and practice as under the old. But 
 the transformation is referred to immanent 
 forces rather than to the intervention of an alien 
 influence. 
 
 So, too, in non-liturgical churches, ordination 
 has received an interpretation which transfers it 
 from the realm of miracle to the realm of prac- 
 tical efficiency. Indeed, there are not wanting 
 ministers who object to the practice of the lay- 
 ing on of hands on the ground that thereby it 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 221 
 
 may be suggested to observers that some mys- 
 terious potency is imparted through this rite. 
 Ordination thus becomes simply the symbol of 
 an ethical fitness for ministering to men in re- 
 sponse to the needs which Christianity can sat- 
 isfy. The important thing is the minister's 
 ethical sense of his calling rather than an appeal 
 to a sacramental source of religious efficiency. 
 
 These instances of doctrinal modifications re- 
 veal the fact that there has actually entered into 
 theology an ethical emphasis which finds abun- 
 dant access to God without appeal to miracle. 
 We have developed, or we are in the process of 
 developing, such a degree of confidence in the 
 morally honest use of God's universally acces- 
 sible resources that the older type of dependence 
 on miracle seems to be actually less secure. Who 
 that has come to the symbolic and ethical con- 
 ception of the value of baptism would wish to go 
 back to the place where he would feel that a soul 
 was lost if the rite of baptism had not been duly 
 administered? Do we not today regard with 
 pity the agonies of doubt endured by many an 
 
222 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 honest youth of former days, when he could not 
 be sure that there had entered into his life any 
 such supernatural transformation as was de- 
 manded by current standards? Are we not ac- 
 tually in possession of a religion of broader effi- 
 ciency when we frankly recognize that there are 
 purely "natural" ways by which the divine spirit 
 takes possession of a man's will and aspirations? 
 In an age when democratic opportunities for all 
 men to achieve their highest welfare are regarded 
 as morally admirable, the pathway to citizenship 
 in the Kingdom of heaven must not be barred by 
 aristocratic conditions. We cannot help believ- 
 ing that God cares more for the actual existence 
 of a transformed life than he does for the means 
 by which the transformation was accomplished; 
 that he is more concerned that the church of 
 Jesus Christ shall be an active aggressive force 
 for righteousness than that it shall vindicate its 
 claims to a specifically authorized origin; and 
 that he would rather see the spirit of the 
 prophets and of the apostles actually dominating 
 the lives of men than to see them stake all on 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 223 
 
 the validity of a specific theory of inspiration or 
 of apostolic succession. 
 
 It is interesting and instructive in this con- 
 nection to observe that, in many current discus- 
 sions of miracles intended by theologians to 
 make possible a belief in the miraculous as an 
 essential element of Christianity, the miracles 
 are shorn of those very qualities which serve to 
 differentiate them from non-miraculous events. 
 They thus lose their aristocratic privilege, and 
 take their place in a democratic cosmos, where 
 all events are to be treated alike. Two or three 
 quotations from recent treatises will serve to 
 illustrate this point: 
 
 "Science recognizes no single miracle because all 
 the world has become miraculous." (William Adams 
 Brown, Christian Theology in Outline, p. 228.) 
 
 "Should we not rather say, 'Doubtless God's relation 
 to nature in this miraculous occurrence remains just 
 what it always is?' : (Henry Churchill King, Recon- 
 struction in Theology, p. 74.) 
 
 "Miracle is an immediate operation of God; but, 
 since all natural processes are also immediate opera- 
 tions of God, we do not need to deny the use of these 
 natural processes, so far as they will go, in miracle. 
 Such wonders of the Old Testament as the overthrow 
 
224 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 of Sodom and Gomorrah, the partings of the Red Sea 
 and of the Jordan, the calling down of fire from 
 heaven by Elijah and the destruction of the army of 
 Sennacherib, are none the less works of God when re- 
 garded as wrought by the use of natural means. In 
 the New Testament Christ took water to make wine 
 and took the five loaves to make bread, just as in ten 
 thousand vineyards to-day he is turning the moisture 
 of the earth into the juice of the grape, and in ten 
 thousand fields is turning carbon into corn. The vir- 
 gin birth of Christ may be an extreme instance of 
 parthenogenesis, which Professor Loeb of Chicago has 
 just demonstrated to take place in other than the 
 lowest forms of life, and which he believes possible 
 in all." (Augustus H. Strong, Systematic Theology, 
 Vol. I, p. 119.) 
 
 These quotations from widely influential 
 theologians of today illustrate the change which 
 has taken place in regard to the place of miracle 
 in our religious faith. The dualism which made 
 it possible to assign certain events to a higher 
 order has vanished completely. "Doubtless God's 
 relation to nature in this miraculous occurrence 
 remains just what it always is." But the very 
 essence of the traditional conception of miracle 
 was found in the belief that in the miraculous oc- 
 currence God's relation to nature was not what 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 225 
 
 it always is. When the virgin birth of Christ 
 and the experiments of a modern biologist can 
 be put on the same plane, class distinctions in 
 the cosmos have been as completely leveled as 
 were political distinctions in the French Revo- 
 lution. Even if the word "miracle" be retained 
 there is no room left for such a use of the term 
 as is implied in orthodox theology. In the case 
 of two of the above-mentioned theologians, the 
 actual content of their theology and the actual 
 structure of their faith would not be seriously 
 impaired if it should be found necessary to deny 
 the historicity of the biblical marvels. Man's 
 knowledge of God, his relation to God, his sal- 
 vation through Christ, and his religious life are 
 expounded in terms which would require practi- 
 cally no changes in content if the possibility of 
 miracles were denied outright. Their theology 
 is genuinely ethical in content according to the 
 standards of our democracy. Special privilege 
 has vanished completely from their conception 
 of the relations between God and man. One of 
 them in the same book from which the above 
 
226 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 quotation was taken confesses his belief in the 
 divinity of Christ in a series of propositions, not 
 one of which necessarily implies a miraculous 
 origin of Christ's personality. The significance 
 of Christ is measured according to the ethical 
 standards of our modern world, and is found to 
 be such that belief in Christ's divinity is a moral 
 duty just because of the ethical considerations 
 urged. 
 
 The foregoing remarks will show that the 
 ethical transformation of theology in accord- 
 ance with the democratic standards of our day 
 is actually taking place with great rapidity. At- 
 tention, however, should be called to one aspect 
 of the matter, which deserves careful considera- 
 tion. In spite of the fact that the content of 
 doctrine is allowed to appeal to the moral sense 
 of men for its vindication, and in spite of the 
 fact that it embodies the ethical values of our 
 modern democratic strivings, the fundamental 
 presuppositions of the older aristocratic ideal are 
 almost universally retained in modified form as if 
 the validity of religious belief depended upon 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 22? 
 
 their retention. The terms belonging to mediae- 
 val theology are retained and adapted to the 
 situation, as if these mediaeval ideals rather than 
 our modern moral convictions constituted the 
 real basis of assurance. Some doctrine of in- 
 spiration is likely to be elaborated, so that it 
 may seem that the utterances of the Bible are 
 guaranteed by this special and unique charac- 
 teristic rather than by their capacity to meet the 
 deepest needs of men. Some sort of an apology 
 for the miracles recorded in biblical literature is 
 likely to emerge so that one's attitude toward 
 the events recorded in this literature is different 
 from the attitude toward similar narratives in 
 other literature, as if faith really rested on a 
 miraculous basis. The supremacy of Christ is 
 felt to be endangered if it should be admitted 
 that his marvellous insight and his incomparable 
 life need not be explained primarily by a theory 
 of transcendent origin. 
 
 In other words, while the content of our re- 
 ligious experience has responded to modern 
 ideals so that we are really living in a spirit of 
 
228 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 confidence in the divine capacities of the imma- 
 nent forces of our environment, we have not yet 
 succeeded in defining divinity in accordance with 
 the dictates of our religious experience. We still 
 picture it as something essentially belonging to 
 an "other" world, and needing to be brought 
 into this world by a special process. We feel 
 that, in order to recognize it, it must be so set 
 apart from the "natural" order that it shall ap- 
 pear as something unique. But, at the same time, 
 we are compelled by the scientific and the moral 
 demands of our culture to pare down and to 
 modify those miraculous characteristics which 
 formerly stood as the signs par excellence of 
 divinity. The next step in the development of 
 an ethical theology must be the translation of 
 the categories of divinity into terms compatible 
 with democratic ethics. We must learn to think 
 of God as the immanent co-worker always toil- 
 ing with his children rather than as the sover- 
 eign to whom they are subject, and from whom 
 they receive special benefits and favors as from 
 a patron. The salvation which God makes pos- 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 229 
 
 sible must be interpreted as a process of co- 
 operation with God rather than as an endow- 
 ment from another realm. That this may in- 
 volve considerable modifications even of our al- 
 ready modified theology is quite probable; but, 
 having begun the transformation, why should 
 we halt until we have succeeded in adapting our 
 religious formulae to the actual exigencies of 
 life? 
 
 Perhaps the most significant step in the direc- 
 tion of such an ethical transformation as has 
 been suggested is to be seen in the modern em- 
 phasis in setting forth the nature of Christ. The 
 ancient and mediaeval conception of divinity is 
 revealed in the items which find a place in the 
 creeds of the church. If we take the Apostles' 
 Creed as an example, we find that the divinity 
 of Christ was most clearly seen in his super- 
 natural advent, in his suffering and death with 
 their mysterious redemptive efficacy, in his mirac- 
 ulous resurrection and ascension, and in his 
 expected miraculous second advent. Divinity 
 was pictured as something transcendent; and the 
 
230 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 divinity of Christ was located in those aspects 
 of his life and character which removed him 
 from the natural order. 
 
 Now if we examine the Christological discus- 
 sions of the past century, we find an increasing 
 eagerness to discover the significance of Christ 
 precisely in that region which is passed over in 
 absolute silence in the Apostles' Creed. Who 
 today does not wish that we might have access 
 to reliable sources of information concerning the 
 years of Jesus' boyhood and youth? What an 
 inspiration such an account would be to the boys 
 and girls who now find it difficult to be gen- 
 uinely interested in the doctrinal interpretations 
 of Christ which characterized the early centur- 
 ies ! How eagerly we are seeking to reconstruct 
 for ourselves from the fragmentary records of 
 the gospels a picture of the ethical religious life 
 of Jesus ! The past century has witnessed the 
 gradual retirement of emphasis on the virgin 
 birth, on the nature miracles and on the eschato- 
 logical advent, and the increasing interest in the 
 life of Jesus as a citizen of this world. When 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 23! 
 
 Schleiermacher, with his prophetic understand- 
 ing of the nature of modern religious demands, 
 undertook to set forth his Christology, he ex- 
 plicitly declared that every item of the Apostles' 
 Creed was inadequate to express the content of 
 modern belief in the divinity of Christ. That 
 divinity was not to be located in external marks, 
 for the God whom Schleiermacher knew was 
 not external to the world. The divinity of Christ 
 must rather be sought in the God-consciousness 
 which dominated his life. It is only as we share 
 this God-consciousness and thus discover God 
 within our life, that we can confess our belief in 
 the divinity of Christ in any religious sense. The 
 salvation which we may have through Christ is 
 located in the social power of the Christian com- 
 munity to transmit from generation to genera- 
 tion the God-consciousness which is possible be- 
 cause of the moral courage and the spiritual in- 
 sight created by our acquaintance with Christ. 
 Schleiermacher thus expounds the most precious 
 truth of Christianity that truth which, because 
 of its supreme value, has been put into terms of 
 
232 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 a transcendent miracle as an ethical social ex- 
 perience, which does not need the support of 
 the traditional miracles, and which, indeed, could 
 not be adequately interpreted by the appeal to 
 such miracles. It is true that Schleiermacher 
 still retained a vestige of the older dualism when 
 he insisted that this God-consciousness of Jesus, 
 which is the source of the religious transforma- 
 tion of the ideals of men, must be referred to an 
 alien source. But it requires only a little study 
 of his theology to see that his Christology and 
 his conception of salvation would not actually 
 be impaired if this transcendent reference were 
 eliminated. When God is conceived as a living, 
 immanent power, so that, as Schleiermacher said 
 in his famous Discourses on Religion, every 
 event, no matter how common, becomes miracle 
 to one who has felt the reality of the immanent 
 divine presence, it is not necessary to go outside 
 of the "natural" realm in order to find God. In- 
 deed, from this point of view, the divinity of 
 Christ may appear more significant if it be 
 shown to have sprung from the apparently tin- 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 233 
 
 promising level of purely human and purely 
 natural processes, exactly as the greatness of 
 Lincoln has peculiar value for us because he 
 started with no aristocratic advantages over 
 other boys in our republic. 
 
 It is this new conception of divine immanence 
 which makes the newer "liberalism" different 
 from Deism and its historical daughter, the older 
 Unitarianism. So long as the natural order was 
 conceived as Godless, needing some special in- 
 tervention in order to assure men of the presence 
 of divine power, the reference of the essentials 
 of religion to a "natural" source would seem to 
 be equivalent to a denial of the divine power of 
 those elements. Baptism must possess super- 
 natural potency ; the Lord's Supper must embody 
 a "real presence" ; the Bible must have originated 
 through a unique operation of the divine spirit 
 in the minds of the writers ; the church must have 
 a definite charter from Christ ; the ministry must 
 receive the special unction of the grace of ordi- 
 nation; and Jesus himself must have come from 
 another world. But if once our conception of 
 
234 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 God be so modified that he becomes the ever- 
 present immanent Spirit, we need no interven- 
 tions from an alien world in order to be sure of 
 the divine presence. The reference of elements 
 of our religion to "natural" sources does not 
 necessarily involve a denial of their divine po- 
 tency. It is quality, not metaphysical origin, 
 which determines the matter. The test is ethical 
 rather than cosmic; and since, in our demo- 
 cratic thought, lowly origin is not incompatible 
 with the achievement of supreme moral values, 
 we are not disturbed by the suggestions of 
 historians and scientists that some of the most 
 precious articles of our faith may have had 
 a less dramatic origin than was once supposed. 
 For in this wonderful world with its infinite 
 resources there is room for all that the human 
 spirit holds dear. God is found working his 
 marvels of transformation in the many varied 
 processes of growth which lead to beauty and 
 to moral life and to worship. Nothing is to be 
 despised which leads to awe and reverence and 
 moral aspiration. It is just in so far as this 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 235 
 
 feeling for the immanent presence of God 
 becomes a vital reality that the religious barren- 
 ness of the older "naturalism" disappears. The 
 genuine mystic has always possessed more direct 
 access to God than was possible by the pathway 
 of carefully defined miracle and revelation. It 
 is the fact of a broader mysticism today which 
 makes antiquated some of the fears which are 
 honestly expressed as men "view with alarm" 
 the inroads of criticism in the field of theology. 
 The eager response of thousands to even such 
 vulnerable forms of an immanent theology as are 
 represented in Christian Science and "New 
 Thought" shows that the soil is ready for the 
 sowing of seed which may grow into the fruits 
 of profound religious living. 
 
 The moment one consistently adopts the point 
 of view toward which modern science and mod- 
 ern ethics lead us, one becomes a humble seeker 
 after God. If one comes to regard this world 
 not as a hard and finished creation, but as a 
 realm of infinite potencies, many of which we 
 have not begun to appreciate, the most worthy 
 
236 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 attitude is one of optimistic trust in the out- 
 come of patient and honest questioning as to the 
 secrets of life. Just as we find by scientific re- 
 search that the universe has all the time been 
 waiting to reward man's quest by revealing the 
 marvels which invention and discovery have 
 brought to light, so we learn that the re- 
 ligious quest meets with abundant answer. We 
 are, indeed, dependent on the mighty resources 
 outside our little personal life for the blessing 
 of our experience. Let us not think that the 
 modern attitude involves a glorification of man's 
 isolated powers. On the contrary, the steam en- 
 gine and the telegraph make us acutely con- 
 scious of the limitations of our personal capaci- 
 ties. Let the train be delayed or the telephone 
 wire broken, and our impotence is exasperat- 
 ingly revealed. We are in practical life depend- 
 ing to an extraordinary extent on the friendly 
 cooperation of the mighty forces of the uni- 
 verse to achieve our welfare. 
 
 So in the spiritual life, the modern spirit be- 
 comes acutely conscious of its dependence on 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 237 
 
 the friendly cooperation of the immanent God. 
 Prayer and aspiration and strenuous endeavor 
 all become imperative. Linked as we are to an 
 animal inheritance, we are nevertheless able to 
 seek a higher life. Only as we shall be con- 
 scious of the reinforcement of our aspirations 
 by the power which comes from communion 
 with the unseen can we overcome temptation 
 and rise to a triumphant assertion of our high- 
 est ideals. There is a mighty religious impulse 
 latent in the attitude of humble and eager ques- 
 tioning which is becoming so common, but 
 which has not yet received adequate religious 
 interpretation. 
 
 Let us briefly put in contrast the older and 
 the newer type of religious experience. Both 
 recognize the imperative need of man for God. 
 The older, however, brings one into contact with 
 the finished theories and the established institu- 
 tions which have been wrought out in the past, 
 and asserts that, by learning the content of the 
 doctrines and by committing onself to the au- 
 thoritative power of the institutions, one may 
 
238 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 receive by special dispensation grace from an- 
 other world, which will enable one to overcome 
 temptation and enter into eternal life. The 
 newer starts with the questioning mood rather 
 than with the authoritative theories. It finds 
 that honest questioning is sure to meet with an 
 answer. It recognizes with gratitude and rever- 
 ence the value of the answers which come out 
 of the past; but it believes that these can al- 
 ways be verified, supplemented or improved by 
 further questioning. Therefore, the religious life 
 becomes an exercise of unceasing prayer, and 
 God is discovered not only in the traditional 
 ways, but in many an apparently unpromising 
 place. The positive appreciation of other re- 
 ligions than Christianity confirms the sense of 
 certainty that the religious quest is justified, and 
 enlarges the vision of religious achievement. 
 The history of Christianity, with its record of 
 many an originally pagan custom baptised into 
 Christian service, inspires the desire to see the 
 secular movements of our day also transfigured 
 by the spirit of Christian faith. Thus God is not 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 239 
 
 adequately symbolized as a sovereign who de- 
 creed in finished form the details of religion. 
 He is rather the immanent, living Spirit of truth 
 and righteousness, who meets our quest with the 
 resources of infinite love, and whose highest joy 
 is found in cooperating with his children. If 
 doubt comes concerning some of the traditional 
 theories concerning his nature and his ways 
 with men, it only means that we are again ask- 
 ing fundamental questions, which will receive 
 their answer if we honestly and persistently seek 
 the truth. 
 
 Life may be defined as the eager quest of an 
 organism for something in the environment 
 which will enable it to develop. The environ- 
 ment is absolutely essential. Religious life is 
 the quest for the reinforcement of our highest 
 ideals by the spiritual contribution from the en- 
 vironing universe. The supreme question for 
 theology is to discover how this environment 
 may be so correlated to the needy life that the 
 fullest possible use may be made of the divine 
 power. The theology of the coming generation 
 
24O SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 will confidently and positively adopt this point 
 of view which at the same time brings religious 
 questioning into line with scientific investiga- 
 tion, and also satisfies the demands of demo- 
 cratic ethics by giving to the most lowly elements 
 of historical and cosmic reality the free oppor- 
 tunity to command our reverence and our devo- 
 tion if only they evince the spiritual qualities 
 which are necessary. Thus there emerge from 
 the tossing deep of our restless questionings 
 certain islands of faith which perchance may 
 some time be joined together into a grander 
 continent of religious truth. 
 
 When the little babe is born into the world, so 
 helpless and dependent, mother love is there 
 ready to satisfy the wants of the little soul, 
 eager to anticipate its needs. Who that had 
 never seen it would suspect that the pleasure- 
 loving life of a young girl would yield such a 
 revelation of self-sacrificing love? The re- 
 ligious soul is sure that God here makes avail- 
 able for his needy little ones the resources of 
 his love no less surely than in the theological 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 24! 
 
 plan of salvation. As the life of the little babe 
 grows and expands, there emerge from its en- 
 vironment the satisfactions of its needs. The 
 growing intellect finds the marvellous universe 
 awaiting scientific formulation; and, in response 
 to invention and construction, unseen forces 
 cure our bodily ills, transport us in comfort and 
 safety to remote places, and enable us to com- 
 municate with our fellow men in defiance of 
 "natural" limits of space and time. Does it 
 mean nothing that our physical environment 
 thus ministers abundantly to our spiritual 
 needs? Then when the sense of social need de- 
 velops in the child, playmates and companions 
 and heroes enter and enrich experience. As the 
 craving for beauty stirs within us, lo! the col- 
 ors of the sunset sky, the majestic grandeur of 
 the mountains and the charm of human face 
 and form evoke the art which so enlarges the 
 spiritual life. Is there no religious significance 
 in this wonderful enlargement of our vision? 
 When, in the adolescent, restless longings grow 
 into youth's ideals, there comes a divine discon- 
 
242 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 tent with anything less than the best, and noth- 
 ing but a personal contact with God can satisfy 
 the lofty aspirations which take possession of 
 the opening heart. As sex consciousness arises, 
 in that mysterious way which only lovers un- 
 derstand, there comes out of the unseen that 
 great experience of a transforming love, lead- 
 ing to the religious sacrament of marriage, and 
 to the family love and devotion which furnished 
 Jesus with the best symbols for Christian rela- 
 tionships. When, in deep penitence for wrong 
 committed, the soul seeks communion with a 
 restoring power, the springs of moral achieve- 
 ment are again opened through the experience 
 of God's forgiveness, and the former ideals are 
 reconquered; but with the conquest come a di- 
 vine pity for those who have fallen and an ear- 
 nest desire to be used of God in making known 
 his never-failing aid in times of trouble. When 
 physical disaster overwhelms us and defeats the 
 body, the invincible spirit whch lives in com- 
 munion with the unseen Presence may rise su- 
 preme in the sense of a peace which passeth un- 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 243 
 
 derstanding. And when at last this little span 
 of physical life is run, and the exhausted body 
 can no longer serve the spirit, we can venture 
 with trust and joy into the infinite mystery 
 which has ever ministered to us so graciously. 
 
 Theology must interpret for us this varied 
 truth of the uplifting experience of the environ- 
 ing God. An ethical theology, which in all sin- 
 cerity asks the questions which are pressed 
 from the hearts of men; which in its question- 
 ing uses fearlessly the best methods which criti- 
 cal science can furnish; which insists on no aris- 
 tocratic privilege of definitely limited authorita- 
 tive doctrines, but admits gladly to its precincts 
 anything which compels the moral adoration of 
 men; which learns gratefully from the past, but 
 looks to a better future; which appreciates the 
 service rendered by those conceptions of God and 
 of salvation which have emerged in history, but 
 confidently believes that the borders of our 
 knowledge may ever be enlarged; such a theol- 
 ogy will not be poorer, but will rather be richer 
 than the ecclesiastical system. Did the mediaeval 
 
244 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 church rejoice that in its one unique baptismal 
 rite God's saving grace was mediated to men? 
 We have not only the baptism of the church, but 
 also the countless other ways in which the chil- 
 dren of men are initiated into the great experi- 
 ence of love for the good and power to over- 
 come. Have men in the past uttered their 
 hymns of praise because, uniquely in the eleva- 
 tion of the host at the Mass, the real divine 
 presence comforted and assured the hearts of 
 devout worshippers? We, too, can feel the 
 presence of God in the cathedral; but he also 
 speaks to us words of comfort in the memories 
 of a mother's love, in the influence of a strong 
 companion, in the reading of the story of the 
 life of Jesus, and in the call to heroic ministry. 
 Has the church expressed its belief in the readi- 
 ness of God to reveal himself, by formulating 
 theories of the inspiration of scriptures? We, 
 too, have those same scriptures; but we add to 
 them the words of Augustine and Luther and 
 Thomas a Kempis and Phillips Brooks. We are 
 glad to admit any man into the list of inspired 
 
ETHICAL TRANSFORMATION 245 
 
 writers on one condition only, viz., that he 
 shall actually make us feel the reality of the 
 presence of God in our life. 
 
 The theology of today is rapidly developing 
 toward this larger ethical ideal. The greatest 
 hindrance to a confident advance is the inher- 
 ited feeling that if the "vested rights" of the 
 older systems are completely disregarded, we 
 may lose our reverence for the ethical values 
 which were embodied in the systems. The 
 growth of a historical understanding of the way 
 in which these systems originated and developed 
 will, however, enable us to recognize with grati- 
 tude and admiration the splendid ethical service 
 rendered by that interpretation of Christianity 
 which took form in the appeal to authority and 
 which educated men by subjecting them to 
 the higher wisdom of the past. If we employ 
 the test suggested by Jesus, when he said, "By 
 their fruits shall ye know them," we must ac- 
 knowledge our lasting indebtedness to the 
 mediaeval church. But the employment of the 
 same test reveals the fact that in our modern 
 
246 SOCIAL IDEALISM 
 
 age, with its new ideals and its democratic as- 
 pirations, the older formulations of Christianity 
 are allowing large territories of human achieve- 
 ment to escape from the dominion of the 
 Christian spirit; indeed, these same formula- 
 tions are responsible for a tendency to revolt 
 from Christianity itself. Thus the summons 
 comes to a work of theological reconstruction 
 which shall enable Christianity actually to make 
 its contribution to our developing modern civili- 
 zation. To feel that this work is not destructive, 
 but constructive in the true sense; to feel that 
 it is not less religious than the old, but that it 
 is making religion more real for us this is a 
 primary essential. We need not apologize for 
 our undertaking. The time has come when the 
 secular forces of reform are crying loudly for 
 the aid which can come only from a religious 
 idealism. If Christian theology shall respond to 
 this modern ethical summons, the day of its 
 welcome is not far off. 
 
TNDEX 
 
 Addams, Jane, 140. 
 Ambrose, Saint, 52, 77. 
 Apocalyptic ideal, 6ff., 18, 
 43, 51, 102, 103, 116, 208. 
 Apostles, authority of, 16. 
 Apostles' Creed, 229, 230, 
 
 231. 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 49. 
 
 Aristocratic ideals, ix, x, 
 xviii, 69, 2O5ff. ; discred- 
 ited by modern democ- 
 racy, 21 iff. 
 
 Asceticism, 133. 
 
 Assurance in religion, 
 problem of, is6ff. ; ethi- 
 cal basis of, is6ff. ; nature 
 of in traditional theology, 
 I52ff., i66ff. ; in primitive 
 Christianity, 164; in me- 
 diaeval Christianity, 165 ; 
 in relation to scientific 
 method, i67ff. 
 
 Augustine, 25, 27, 29, 36, 
 244. 
 
 Authority, traditional con- 
 ception of, xx, 206, 226; 
 of Christ in the primitive 
 church, joff. ; of the 
 
 Catholic church, 
 33ff., 44ff. ; as the basis 
 of ethics, 36ff. ; based on 
 revelation, 167; as a 
 ground of loyalty, 175; 
 of the Bible, io6ff. ; 
 ethical defects of, an ap- 
 peal to, 193; idea of, in- 
 consistent with modern 
 ideals, 227. 
 
 Baptism, sacramental con- 
 ception of, 24ff., 213; as 
 a means of regeneration, 
 208, 213; modern ethical 
 interpretation of, 214. 
 
 Bible as authoritative, xx, 
 16, 18, 43, 209; and sci- 
 entific inquiry, icXSff. ; 
 modern conception of, 
 
 217. 
 
 Biblical criticism, viii, xviii- 
 xx, 93ff., 172; moral as- 
 pects of, I9off., 199; theo- 
 logical consequences' of, 
 191 ff. ; tests employed by, 
 192. 
 
 Brooks, Phillips, 220, 244. 
 
 247 
 
248 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Brown, William Adams, 
 
 223. 
 
 Bunyan, 106. 
 Bushnell, Horace, 219. 
 
 Calvin, 63. 
 
 Calvinism, 133. 
 
 Catholic Church, 5, 16, 17, 
 33, 44, 49, 62, 97. 
 
 Catholic theology, 208. 
 
 Christ, authority of in 
 primitive Christianity, 
 joff. ; virgin birth of, 
 2246*., 230; divinity of, 
 226, 229ff. ; modern inter- 
 pretations of, 226, 229ff. 
 
 Christianity, moral charac- 
 ter of, xvii; traditional 
 conception of, I ; primi- 
 tive, 8ff. ; mediaeval, 36ff . ; 
 modern transformations 
 of, 205 ff. 
 
 Church, primitive, 8ff. ; me- 
 diaeval theory of, 71 ; 
 modern theory of, 72ff., 
 
 222. 
 
 Copernicus, 148. 
 
 Cuyler, Theodore L., 220. 
 
 Deism, 233. 
 
 Democratic ideals, ix, 6iff., 
 85 ; and scientific method, 
 170, 211 ; revolt of against 
 divine rights, 211; influ- 
 ence of on modern the- 
 ology, 212, 222ff., 234. 
 
 Ecclesiastical ideals, 2ff., 
 28, 61, 99; control of in 
 religion, igff., 33**., 44fT., 
 7iff., is6ff. ; control of 
 in politics, 37ff., 630*. ; 
 discrediting of, 47ff. ; con- 
 trol of scholarship, 76ff., 
 
 93- 
 
 Environment, ethical sig- 
 
 nificance of, I37ff. ; re- 
 
 ligious significance of, 
 
 Eschatological view of 
 history, 6ff., 43, 51, iO2ff., 
 1 1 6, 2o8ff. ; social origins 
 of, 109, 164. 
 
 Ethics, of Jesus, 7; of mod- 
 ern democracy, 69, 85, 
 21 1 ; of conformity, 74ff. ; 
 of mediaeval scholarship, 
 77ff. ; of scientific schol- 
 arship, 79ff. ; secular the- 
 ory of, 86ff., 135; of 
 evangelical Christianity, 
 104, in, 127; of evolu- 
 tionary idealism, I04ff. ; 
 of industry, I4iff. ; of 
 aristocracy, 210; of mod- 
 ern religion, 235. 
 
 Evil, problem of, H7ff. 
 
 Evolution, moral signifi- 
 cance of, IO2ff. 
 
 Francis, Saint, 139. 
 Freedom of scholarship, 
 moral problem of, i76ff. 
 
INDEX 
 
 249 
 
 Gnosticism, 17. 
 
 God, modern thought of, 
 
 228, 234, 237, 243 ff. 
 Gregory the Great, 165. 
 Grotius, 
 
 Hall, Thomas C, 14. 
 
 Hildebrand, 63. 
 
 Historical method, xxii, 
 
 i9off., iggfi. 
 Hobbes, 135. 
 
 Industry, place of, in prim- 
 itive Christianity, Siff. ; 
 in mediaeval civilization, 
 55ff. ; in modern life, 50, 
 58ff. ; ethical significance 
 of, 141 ff. 
 
 Inspiration, changes of the 
 doctrine of, 217. 
 
 James, William, 129. 
 
 Jeremiah, 193, 200. 
 
 Jesus, ideals of, xvii, 3ff., 
 19, 30, 52, 61, 196; mod- 
 ern interpretation of, 
 
 230ff. 
 
 King, Henry Churchill, 
 
 102, 108, 223. 
 Kingdom of God, 4, 6ff., 19, 
 
 43, 102, 147. 
 
 Laissez-faire philosophy, 59, 
 
 144. 
 Lord's Supper, sacramental 
 
 conception of, 215; mod- 
 ern ethical interpretation 
 of, 216. 
 Luther, 104, 166, 214, 244, 
 
 Mediaeval ideals, SSff., 62, 
 99, iiSff. ; in religion, 
 7 iff.; in ethics, 88, 89, 
 103 ; contrasted with mod- 
 ern ideals, i84ff., 227. 
 
 "Mediating" theologies, 189. 
 
 Miracles, significance of, 
 103, 114, 118, 124, 131, 
 149-152; essential to the 
 traditional conception of 
 salvation, 2o8ff. ; discred- 
 ited by modern science, 
 211 ; disappearance of 
 from modern theology, 
 2i3ff. ; explanation of by 
 modern theology, 223ff. ; 
 Schleiermacher's attitude 
 toward, 232. 
 
 Missionary enterprise, 
 moral motives of, no. 
 
 Modern world, characteris- 
 tics of, 50, I05ff., i48ff. ; 
 industry in, 58ff. ; moral 
 challenge of, iO2ff. ; 
 ethical import of, I48ff., 
 158; religious aspects of, 
 
 t 
 
 Modernism, 97, 182. 
 Mystery-cults, 17, 23, 24. 
 
 Newton, Isaac, 186. 
 
250 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Ordination, modern ethical 
 interpretation of, 220. 
 
 Other-worldliness, 8ff., 43, 
 I02ff., 130, 133, 164, 206. 
 
 Paul, ethical ideals of, 
 i iff.; conception of re- 
 generation, 21 ff. ; and 
 Jesus, 174; and gentile 
 ideals, 193, 196. 
 
 Penance, ethical significance 
 of, 3off. 
 
 Physical conditions, spir- 
 itual significance of, I32ff. 
 
 Politics, mediaeval, 62ff. ; 
 early Protestant theory 
 of, 63; modern develop- 
 ment of, 64ff. 
 
 Primitive Christianity, ethi- 
 cal ideals of, 8ff., 19. 
 
 Prophets of Israel, religious 
 attitude of, 198, 217. 
 
 Protestantism, 5, 63, 103; 
 doctrine of salvation in, 
 209. 
 
 Rationalism, 190. 
 
 Reconstruction of theology, 
 x, xv, xviiiff., 102, 163, 
 1 88, 205-246. 
 
 Recreation, ethical problem 
 of, 112. 
 
 Regeneration, Paul's inter- 
 pretation of, 2iff. ; Catho- 
 lic interpretation of, 208; 
 early Protestant concep- 
 
 tion of, 209; modern con- 
 ception of, 219. 
 
 Religion and science, iisff., 
 1 20, 123. 
 
 Religious education, 131. 
 
 Religious experience, older 
 and newer types of, 237ff. 
 
 Rights, natural, 6sff., 70, 
 74; of free scholarship, 
 176. 
 
 Sacramentalism, 256*. 
 
 Salvation, early Christian 
 conception of, 196*. ; indi- 
 vidualistic conception of, 
 108, 136, 138; Catholic 
 conception of, 207; early 
 Protestant conception of, 
 209; modern conception 
 of, 237ff. 
 
 Schleiermacher's christol- 
 ogy, 23 iff. 
 
 Scholarship, critical, xviiiff., 
 92ff. ; ecclesiastical con- 
 trol of, 76ff. ; develop- 
 ment of modern, 79ff. ; in 
 theological study, 92ff., 
 I72ff., 182; effect of on 
 religious assurance, 
 I73ff. ; tests applied by, 
 I78ff. ; ethical significance 
 of, 182, 2Oiff. 
 
 Scientific control, ethical 
 significance of, H4ff., 153. 
 
 Scientific method, ethical 
 significance of, 158, I72ff. ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 251 
 
 unknown to early Chris- 
 tianity, 164; distrusted by 
 traditional theology, 
 i66ff. ; emphasis on in 
 modern life, I7off. ; em- 
 ployed in theological 
 scholarship, I72ff. ; tests 
 employed by, i78fL; con- 
 trasted with mediaeval 
 scholarship, i84ff. ; as the 
 basis of assurance, iSsff. 
 
 Secularism, I, 46, 100; in 
 industry, 58ff. ; in poli- 
 tics, 65ff. ; in church or- 
 ganization, 71 ff. ; in ethi- 
 cal theory, 86ff. ; in the- 
 ological scholarship, Q2ff. ; 
 misunderstood by tradi- 
 tional theology, i6off. ; re- 
 ligious interpretation of, 
 i6iff. 
 
 Separatism, 8ff. 
 
 Smith, Adam, 59. 
 
 Social Question, 61, 70, 91, 
 104, 109, 112, I4iff. ; and 
 religion, I25ff., 147. 
 
 State, ecclesiastical concep- 
 
 tion of, 63; secular con- 
 ception of, 6sff. 
 
 Strong, Augustus H., 223. 
 
 Supernatural, the place of 
 in traditional theology, 
 I56ff., 2o8ff., 233. 
 
 Swift, Morrison I., 129. 
 
 Tertullian, 31, 32, 54, 165. 
 
 Traditional theology, bibli- 
 cal basis of, xx ; moral 
 values in, xx, 43ff. ; so- 
 cial background of, 147, 
 152; basis of assurance 
 in, I52ff. ; tests employed 
 by, I78ff. ; loyalty in- 
 volved in, 175, 176, 183. 
 
 Virgin birth of Jesus, 224, 
 225. 
 
 Wealth, attitude of early 
 Christianity toward, 52ff. ; 
 mediaeval valuation of, 
 54ff. ; social significance 
 of, 139, 140. 
 
 Weber, Max, 133. 
 
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