Xtbrarg of Ibtstonc Ubeolopg 
 
 EDITED BY THE REV. WM. C. PIERCY, M.A. 
 
 MAI ABB CHAPJfcAIJI OF WHITIfcABDS COftlBCB 
 
 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 CHARLES J. SHEBBEARE, M.A. 
 
LIBRARY OF HISTORIC THEOLOGY 
 
 EDITED BY THE REV. WM. C. PIERCY, M.A. 
 Each Volume, Demy 8vo, Cloth, Red Burnished Top, 55, net. 
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 THE PRESENT RELATIONS OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION 
 
 By the Rev. Professor T. G. BOKNEY, D.Sc, 
 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 By Professor EDOUARD NAVILLE, D.C.L. 
 MARRIAGE IN CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 By the Rev. T. A. LACEY, M.A. (Warden of the London Diocesan Penitentiary), 
 THE BUILDING UP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 By the Rev. Canon R, B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A. 
 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS. An Essay in Comparative Religion. 
 
 By the Rev. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, D.D. 
 THE CHURCHES IN BRITAIN. Vols. 1, and II, 
 
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 CHARACTER AND RELIGION. 
 
 By the Rev. the HON. EDWARD LYTTELTON, M.A, (Head Master of Eton College), 
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 THE RULE OF FAITH AND HOPE, 
 
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 THE CREEDS ! THEIR HISTORY, NATURE AND USE. 
 
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 MYSTICISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
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 By theRev. W. J.SPARROW SIMPSON, D.D. AUTHQRITY AND FREETHOUGH T 
 
 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION i ITS 
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 By the Rev. Prebendary B. REYNOLDS. 
 
 COMMON OBJECTIONS 
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 By the Rev. C. L. DRAWBRIDGE, M.A. 
 
 THE CHURCH OUTSIDE THE EMPIRE. 
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 THE NATURE OF FAITH AND THE 
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 By the Rev. P. N. WACGETT, M.A. 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL IN 
 
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 By the Yen. E. E. HOLMES, M.A. 
 
 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 
 
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 IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
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 GREEK THOUGHT AND 
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 THE GREAT SCHISM BETWEEN 
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 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
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RELIGION IN 
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 BY THE REV. 
 
 CHARLES J. SHEBBEARE, M.A. 
 
 RECTOR OF SWERFORD, OXON 
 
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EDITOR'S GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 IN no branch of human knowledge has there been a more 
 lively increase of the spirit of research during the past few 
 years than in the study of Theology. 
 
 Many points of doctrine hare been passing afresh through 
 the crucible ; " re-statement " is a popular cry and, in some 
 directions, a real requirement of the age; the additions to 
 our actual materials, both as regards ancient manuscripts and 
 archaeological discoveries, have never before been so great as 
 in recent years ; linguistic knowledge has advanced with the 
 fuller possibilities provided by the constant addition of more 
 data for comparative study; cuneiform inscriptions have been 
 deciphered, and forgotten peoples, records, and even tongues, 
 revealed anew as the outcome of diligent, skilful and devoted 
 study. 
 
 Scholars have specialized to so great an extent that many con- 
 clusions are less speculative than they were, while many more 
 aids are thus available for arriving at a general judgment ; and, 
 in some directions at least, the time for drawing such general 
 conclusions, and so making practical use of such specialized 
 research, seems to have come, or to be close at hand. 
 
 Many people, therefore, including the large mass of the parochial 
 clergy and students, desire to have in an accessible form a review 
 of the results of this flood of new light on many topics that are of 
 living and vital interest to the Faith ; and, at the same time, 
 " practical " questions by which is really denoted merely the 
 application of faith to life and to the needs of the day have 
 certainly lost none of their interest, but rather loom larger than 
 ever if the Church is adequately to fulfil her Mission. 
 
 It thus seems an appropriate time for the issue of a new series 
 of theological works, which shall aim at presenting a general 
 survey of the present position of thought and knowledge in 
 various branches of the wide field which is included in the study 
 of divinity. 
 
 vii 
 
 357867 
 
viii EDITOR'S GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 The Library of Historic Theology is designed to supply such 
 a series, written by men of known reputation as thinkers and 
 scholars, teachers and divines, who are, one and all, firm upholders 
 of the Faith. 
 
 It will not deal merely with doctrinal subjects, though pro- 
 minence will be given to these ; but great importance will be 
 attached also to history the sure foundation of all progressive 
 knowledge and even the more strictly doctrinal subjects will 
 be largely dealt with from this point of view, a point of view the 
 value of which in regard to the " practical " subjects is too 
 obvious to need emphasis. 
 
 It would be clearly outside the scope of this series to deal with 
 individual books of the Bible or of later Christian writings, with 
 the lives of individuals, or with merely minor (and often highly 
 controversial) points of Church governance, except in so far as 
 these come into the general review of the situation. This de- 
 tailed study, invaluable as it is, is already abundant in many 
 series of commentaries, texts, biographies, dictionaries and mono- 
 graphs, and would overload far too heavily such a series as the 
 present. 
 
 The Editor desires it to be distinctly understood that the 
 various contributors to the series have no responsibility whatso- 
 ever for the conclusions or particular views expressed in any 
 volumes other than their own, and that he himself has not felt 
 that it comes within the scope of an editor's work, in a series of 
 this kind, to interfere with the personal views of the writers. He 
 must, therefore, leave to them their full responsibility for their 
 own conclusions. 
 
 Shades of opinion and differences of judgment must exist, if 
 thought is not to be at a standstill petrified into an unpro- 
 ductive fossil ; but while neither the Editor nor all their readers 
 can be expected to agree with every point of view in the details 
 of the discussions in all these volumes, he is convinced that the 
 great principles which lie behind every volume are such as must 
 conduce to the strengthening of the Faith and to the glory of 
 God. 
 
 That this may be so is the one desire of Editor and contributors 
 alike. 
 
 W. C. P. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE following pages of which the substance was 
 delivered in the form of lectures to the Vacation 
 Term of Biblical Study in the Divinity School at Cam- 
 bridge in 1911 may be described in the language of 
 modern journalism as an ' open letter to the teachers of 
 religion/ 
 
 Religious teachers of all grades from the theological 
 Professors in the Universities at one end of the scale to 
 the Sunday School Teachers at the other are engaged, 
 and ought surely to feel that they are engaged, in a great 
 co-operative enterprise. They are therefore all concerned 
 hi some measure with the same problems : and difficult 
 though it necessarily is for any writer to gain the ear of 
 an audience so varied, it can hardly be said that the 
 attempt does not need to be made. 
 
 Voluntary association in a common work requires a 
 common plan of campaign. ' Image the whole', said Mr. 
 Browning, ' then execute the parts/ But this is a day 
 of specialists : and while in the various departments of 
 the study of religion there is appearing a great quantity 
 of work of quite extraordinary brilliancy, it is only in 
 a few circles that the conception of theology as a con- 
 nected scheme of knowledge can be said to exist at all. 
 Moreover our theologians have abandoned the habit, 
 which marked the theology of the Middle Ages, of asking 
 
 ix 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 clear and definite questions and formulating a definite 
 answer. 
 
 In one sense the work of the Christian teacher is in 
 every age the same. He must interpret, in relation to 
 the duties and prevalent conceptions of his own time, 
 the unchanging doctrines of the Gospel. It is sometimes 
 said that the main difficulties of Christian work in the 
 present generation are not theological or philosophical 
 but moral. ' To be a real Christian to-day ' says the 
 Bishop of Oxford, ' involves a great deal of trouble about 
 matters which are called social/ If justice is one of the 
 weightier matters of the law, and if the present condemna- 
 tion of those who do the unpleasantest part of the world's 
 work to insufficient and precarious payment is contrary 
 to justice, then the truth of the Bishop's words must be 
 admitted. The Church has the duty of 'binding and 
 loosing ' ; and it cannot discharge this duty by merely 
 criticizing and rejecting in turn the various proposals 
 for social remedy. 
 
 But if it is true that to be a Christian involves ' trouble 
 about matters which are called social ' it is none the less 
 true that to be a Christian teacher involves trouble about 
 matters which are called intellectual. Till Christianity 
 has full possession of our minds it will never have com- 
 plete influence upon our conduct. And the intellectual 
 problems which now confront us are exceptionally diffi- 
 cult. 
 
 There are at the present moment, besides those schools 
 of thought and piety with which the majority of Anglicans 
 are most familiar, three great religious movements doing 
 active work in the world, yet working in almost complete 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 isolation from one another. There is, first, English 
 Evangelicalism ; there is, secondly, the moral and doc- 
 trinal theology of the Church of Rome ; there is, thirdly, 
 that far-reaching tendency in the religious thought of 
 Germany which is associated with the name of Ritschl. 
 This theological situation, taken as a whole, presents us 
 with a momentous question. The following essay is an 
 attempt to disentangle this question from others which 
 tend to obscure its importance. Are we, in a word, to 
 accept the theological revolution which ' Ritschlianism ' 
 seeks to accomplish ; and if we accept it, how are we to 
 set out upon the work of reconstruction that must follow ? 
 If this question is once fairly faced, however it may be 
 answered, English theology can hardly remain just what 
 it is now. 
 
 The special purpose of the present volume has necessi- 
 tated an arrangement and naming of Chapters which 
 may in itself provoke criticism. ' What can be the value 
 of a book ' it may be said ' which deals with Evan- 
 gelicalism in ten pages, Buddhism and Judaism in eight, 
 the Doctrine of the Trinity in twenty ? If the writer 
 who proceeds on these methods is suspected of mere 
 indolent " book-making ", he has only himself to thank/ 
 
 It is, perhaps, a sufficient answer that one chief aim 
 of this volume is to point a very simple moral to urge 
 the importance for every Christian teacher of a compre- 
 hensive conception of his subject. 
 
 The specialist is, unquestionably, a very valuable per- 
 son. To trace (let us say) the mental development of 
 Kant or of Ritschl to shew minutely the changes in 
 then- view between one edition and another is to do an 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 excellent work. But it is more important, after all, to 
 know what the teaching of Kant and Ritschl is about, and 
 what their relation is to our own problems. Such com- 
 prehensive knowledge is not only the more valuable in 
 itself : it is also the one condition on which the other 
 kind of knowledge can attain any value whatsoever. 
 The specialist, therefore, like the bee, is often labouring 
 rather for others than for himself. 
 
 It is well, then, that we should ask whether the present 
 reaction against the encyclopaedic methods of the past 
 is not being carried too far. Are we not missing, in theo- 
 logy as in other pursuits, a great opportunity ? Is it 
 right that theology should become a merely antiquarian 
 study ? May it not be that, if we would rely less on 
 tradition and more on the Holy Spirit, we might justly 
 hope to produce even before the present century has 
 run its course a theory of the Universe which shall be 
 as much in advance of that of Hegel, as Hegel himself 
 is in advance of St. Thomas Aquinas ? 
 
 But while these latter questions are for the future, 
 the two already mentioned seem to press for immediate 
 answer. 
 
 First : Has our theology has even all the theology 
 which calls itself Liberal really learned the lesson of 
 Ritschl ? Have we sufficiently recognized that, for the 
 individual, the Christian life is in large measure inde- 
 pendent of Christian doctrine : that the plain man who 
 knows but little theology, and perhaps even rejects what 
 he knows, may yet, by moral insight and by the experi- 
 ence of sin forgiven, gain such a knowledge of Christ 
 as shall enable him to take his place as an active member 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 of Christ's Body a partaker through Christ of the Life 
 of God ? 
 
 Secondly : When the Ritschlian lesson is once com- 
 pletely learned, will it not then be needful to look back ? 
 The individual Christian can live without theology : 
 the Church at large can never dispense with it. We have 
 not yet, however, made full use of those older intellectual 
 methods which Ritschlianism has tended to displace. 
 We have not yet exhausted the religious value of the 
 old-fashioned ' proofs ' of God's existence. Perhaps, 
 then, when we have sat a little longer at the feet of 
 Ritschl, 1 we shall find time to recur to the older methods 
 with the added insight which his teaching has brought us, 
 and so to lay the foundations of a doctrinal system which 
 basing itself upon a knowledge of the present reality of 
 God's pardoning Grace, shall at the same time furnish 
 a rational ground for the hope of future Glory. 
 
 I wish to express my gratitude to my old friend Mr. 
 Clement Webb (Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford), 
 and to my neighbour Mr. Philip Malleson (Vicar of Great 
 Tew), for many most useful suggestions. The value 
 of what I have learned in discussions with Mr. Webb 
 and other friends and, above all, from the teaching and 
 influence of my Father is quite beyond my power to 
 estimate. 
 
 1 In the days of Lux Mundi, Ritschl had, in England, hardly 
 yet appeared above the horizon. For the writers of Foundations 
 he has already sunk some way below it. The noonday of his 
 influence upon Anglican Oxford may, conceivably, have syn- 
 chronized with the appearance of Contentio Vcritatis : but it 
 would not be easy to prove this from its pages. His treatment 
 of Ritschl is the chief defect perhaps the only defect of Arch- 
 deacon Peile's admirable Bampton Lectures. 
 
SYLLABUS 
 
 I A PRACTICAL PROBLEM. II. THE RIVAL METHODS. 
 
 A large probably an increasing number of our 
 contemporaries may be described as men who believe 
 in Duty without believing in God. This fact forces 
 the Christian preacher to consider what is the ultimate 
 foundation of Christian doctrine. Is its true basis in 
 personal experience or in supernatural revelation ? Are 
 the facts on which it primarily rests events occurring 
 to-day, or events which occurred long ago ? 
 
 III THEOLOGY PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 The answer to these questions which is given by the 
 Ritschlian School is well-known. Ritschl teaches (a) 
 that Christian theology must base itself on the personal 
 experience of ' justification ' through Christ : (b) that 
 religious knowledge and scientific knowledge cannot 
 be united in a single homogeneous system. We shall 
 find that he is right in the first, and wrong in the second, 
 of these assertions. We shall conclude that theology, 
 while needing the complete revision which he demands, 
 cannot be limited as he would limit it : that if it is to 
 make good its claim to survive in the modern world at 
 all, it must while admitting to the full the claims of 
 freedom in thought seek to regain its old position as 
 Queen of the Sciences : that the construction of such 
 a philosophic theology is the best method of giving 
 intellectual support to religion in an age of doubt. 
 
 IV MORALITY. V DUTY. 
 
 How far will the method which relies solely on moral 
 and spiritual experience carry us ? First, it can show 
 by the kind of arguments used by Kant the absolute 
 supremacy of Duty. 
 
xvi SYLLABUS 
 
 VI GUILT. 
 
 From the knowledge of Duty as an ' Imperative ' 
 arises the recognition of universal guilt ' conviction 
 of sin '. 
 
 VII DELIVERANCE FROM GUILT. 
 
 All the higher religions seek deliverance from Guilt : 
 but this deliverance cannot really be attained either 
 (a) by asceticism and gradual self-purification, as at- 
 tempted in Buddhism, or (6) by ' good works ' and moral 
 behaviour, as in Pharisaic Judaism and the common 
 morality of the world. Both these methods are found 
 by the awakened conscience to be insufficient. 
 
 VIII CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Christianity seeks deliverance from guilt not by 
 ' works ' but by ' faith ' : and this ' faith ' is interpreted 
 in Christian practice as an act of will -a, wholesale sur- 
 render of the will to God. ' Justification by faith ' is 
 not to be interpreted as implying ' justification by ortho- 
 doxy'. The unique success of the distinctive Christian 
 method can be learned in spiritual experience. 
 IX CHRIST ; and X THE HISTORICAL JESUS. 
 
 The successful application of the Christian method 
 is found in practice to be associated invariably with 
 submission to the influence of Jesus : Whom we may 
 truly claim as its Author. 
 
 XI EVANGELICALISM ; and XII. THE KESWICK SCHOOL. 
 
 Thus the method which relies on experience can estab- 
 lish the supremacy of Christianity, and its essential 
 connexion with Christ. But an assent to the claims of 
 Christ which remains merely intellectual is not yet reli- 
 gious. Knowledge of Christianity does not become 
 religious till it has been proved by personal obedience. 
 The personal adoption of Evangelical methods in the 
 inward life even apart from the acceptance of Christian 
 dogma will reveal to us spiritual laws ' valid for every 
 rational being.' 
 
 XIII THE RITSCHLIAN REVOLUTION. XIV RITSCHLIANISM 
 AND CHRISTOLOGY 
 
 The systematic statement of these laws, as verified 
 in experience, is the true basis of Christian theology. 
 The doctrines of Grace, of Adoption, of the Holy Spirit, 
 
SYLLABUS xrii 
 
 of the absolute supremacy of Jesus Christ in the spiritual 
 sphere, and of His absolute claim to our obedience, can 
 be established by this method alone. 
 
 XV THE ' ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.' 
 
 But the Ritschlian theology has its limitations. The 
 mere appeal to experience cannot establish the belief 
 in a Future Life, the traditional Christian doctrine of 
 special Providence, or the belief in the ' personality * 
 of the Creator. We must therefore reconsider those 
 ' rationalistic ' arguments such as the ' Argument from 
 Design ' upon which Ritschlianism has looked coldly. 
 The Argument from Design, revised and restated, estab- 
 lishes an optimistic view of the Universe which (for 
 those who accept the Christian standard of values) 
 involves Theism. 
 
 (1) Defects of the argument as it stands. (Just as 
 
 popular materialism explains the world by atoms, 
 but does not account for the existence of the atoms 
 themselves, so popular Theism explains the world 
 as the work of God, but leaves the existence of God 
 unexplained and inexplicable.) 
 
 (2) Yet the argument contains a correct thought. The 
 
 beauty and harmony in the forms and colours of 
 Nature is recognized by reason as an ' end in itself '. 
 The same is true of other occurrences in the world, 
 e.g. the moral and intellectual life of man. In 
 virtue of this realization of ' ends ' approved by 
 reason we pronounce the world a ' rational ' whole. 
 If we can truly say ' It is no accident that in Nature 
 rational ends are realized ' we are affirming a be- 
 lief in the rationality of the world which if thought 
 out involves a general Optimism. 
 
 XVI A FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 Such an Optimism if accepted must be carried out to 
 its natural conclusion. For those who accept the Chris- 
 tian belief in the supreme value of conscious life, and 
 the goodness of matter, Optimism involves the hope of 
 heaven and of a bodily resurrection. 
 
 But the thinking out of such a thorough-going Op- 
 timism as this entangles us in difficulties which only a 
 philosophical theology can hope to solve. 
 
xviii SYLLABUS 
 
 XVII THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY AND THE INCARNATION. 
 XVIII. THE TASK OF THE FUTURE. XIX THB 
 PARTING OF THE WAYS. 
 
 We find ourselves led by the seand similar considera- 
 tions to the following principles : 
 (a) Religious knowledge must begin in personal moral 
 
 judgments and spiritual experience, 
 (fc) The ' rationalistic ' arguments which lead to an 
 
 optimistic view of the Universe are valid. 
 Thus our religious judgments cannot be kept apart 
 from our view of the world in general. Theology 
 must develop a Theory of the Universe. 
 (c) Such a constructive task, if undertaken systematic- 
 ally, will involve a philosophical criticism and 
 ' reconstruction ' of our common notion of the 
 world. 
 
 It is our duty, if we accept these principles, to apply 
 them boldly to such theological questions as those of 
 ' the doctrine of the Trinity ', the ' atonement ', ' mir- 
 acles ', the ' Sacraments ', etc., etc. 
 
 And first of all it is necessary to give definite answers 
 to certain preliminary questions. What is to be our 
 conception of Sin ? What is to be our doctrine of For- 
 giveness ? Again, are we to retain the time-honoured 
 opposition between ' Reason ' and ' Revelation ', or 
 should the modern theologian avow as his aim the estab- 
 lishment of a Christian Rationalism ? 
 
PAGS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A PRACTICAL PROBLEM . 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IHE KIVAL METHOD 
 
 s 
 
 9 
 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 
 THEOLOGY PRESENT 
 
 AND PAST 
 
 17 
 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 
 MORALITY 
 
 
 
 . 24 
 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 
 DUTY 
 
 
 
 32 
 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 
 GUILT . 
 
 
 
 37 
 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 
 DELIVERANCE FROM 
 
 GUILT . 
 
 . 44 
 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 
 CHRISTIANITY . 
 
 
 
 52 
 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 
 CHRIST . 
 
 
 
 . . 64 
 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 
 THE HISTORICAL JESUS .... 
 
 - 83 
 
PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 EVANGELICALISM 103 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE KESWICK SCHOOL 114 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 THE RITSCHLIAN REVOLUTION 121 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 RlTSCHLIANISM AND CHRISTOLOGY . . . .131 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE ' ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN ' . . .141 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 A FUTURE LIFE . . 162 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY AND THE INCARNATION . 178 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 THE TASK OF THE FUTURE 198 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 208 
 
Religion in an Age of Doubt 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 A PRACTICAL PROBLEM 
 
 LL the religious convictions which I have been 
 able to retain/ said a thoughtful Undergraduate 
 recently , ' might be written on the back of a single 
 Postage-stamp.' 
 
 The words were spoken as if they were felt to be the 
 record of a total decay of faith. And such indeed they 
 may actually have been. 
 
 Yet it would surely have been well that any one who 
 heard them should bear in mind that the contrary and 
 more hopeful view was also tenable. This meagre 
 remnant of religious conviction, if it included as appeared 
 to be the case a sincere belief in the absolute supremacy 
 of Duty, may well have been of far more worth than the 
 speaker himself imagined. 
 
 The Gospel speaks of ' faith like unto a grain of mus- 
 tard seed/ Such faith, it is implied, has immeasurable 
 powers of further development. May it not be then 
 that just as the seed is the germ of the completed tree 
 so a genuine faith in the supreme claims of Duty is the 
 germ, if not of all that is of value, at any rate of all that 
 
 I B 
 
2 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 is in the strictest sense vital, in the theology of Christen- 
 dom ? 
 
 The question deserves, at least, a serious answer. 
 The worthlessness of ' bare morality ' has been, as we 
 know, a common theme with preachers : and if our 
 ' morality ' is mere self-interested conformity to estab- 
 lished custom, it then merits a great part of what has 
 been said in its dispraise. To the Christian, who, like 
 Bunyan, has descended into the depths of religious con- 
 flict, the doctrines of ' Mr. Legality of the town of Mor- 
 ality ' will always appear to be not merely inadequate 
 but a snare, since the greatest of all obstacles to repen- 
 tance is self-satisfied virtue. But if, on the other hand, 
 Duty and the Moral Law are taken, not in this superficial 
 sense, but in the graver significance in which the words 
 are used by Kant if they involve the belief in a per- 
 petually valid ' Imperative/ a command which we cannot 
 disobey without incurring guilt and condemnation 
 then the sincere recognition of what Duty means, coupled 
 with the perception that the Law which it implies is one 
 to which man never fully attains, leads directly to that 
 ' Conviction of Sin ' which it is the characteristic aim 
 of Christian preaching to produce. And Conviction of 
 Sin is a stepping-stone to further knowledge. Apart 
 from the sense of personal guilt, the Christian conception 
 of Salvation must be wholly unintelligible ; but when 
 this sense of guilt exists in an effective form, there 
 is always a hope that the meaning of Salvation as 
 Christianity conceives it will become plain by contrast. 
 
 This subject has an importance which is not merely 
 theoretical. It has a direct bearing on the work of the 
 
A PRACTICAL PROBLEM 3 
 
 preacher, the apologist, and the theologian. How, for 
 example, is the Christian preacher to address himself to 
 those who believe in Duty but not in God ? How is 
 he to seek to convince the minds of the ' Godless good ' 
 of the men to whom Duty and Righteousness mean 
 much and God means little or nothing ? 
 
 It is with special reference to this practical problem * 
 that the following pages have been written. Unbelief 
 of this particular type is already common in all classes 
 of society, and it is probably on the increase. In many 
 minds too serious and thoughtful to be shaken in their 
 moral convictions religious doubt is still the natural 
 product of physical enlightenment. And the more 
 physical knowledge is disseminated as it must be and 
 ought to be disseminated among the masses of our 
 people, the greater probably will be the growth, at least 
 for a time, of materialistic unbelief. 
 
 In some quarters, no doubt, it is the fashion to speak 
 as if materialistic unbelief belonged to a byegone genera- 
 tion. ' When/ said an elegant critic, ' I read a book 
 like Haeckel's Riddle of the Universe, I murmur gently to 
 myself the words " A.D. 1860." But such light- 
 hearted contempt whether real or affected is out of 
 place. Whatever may have been the merits or demerits 
 of this particular book and some of its merits were great 
 the creed of which it is an able exposition is always a 
 formidable foe to religion. It strikes its roots so deep in 
 what Lotze called the ' natural theory ' 2 of reality, that 
 
 1 It should not be assumed that a pastoral aim is intrinsically 
 inconsistent with intellectual frankness. Nor is it inconceivable 
 that by frankly rationalistic methods we may reach an unex- 
 pectedly conservative conclusion. 
 
 2 Lotze, Metaphysic, Eng. Trans., vol., i., pp. 29, 35, 36. 
 
4 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 we may reasonably expect to see the debate with 
 materialism still in active progress when many of the 
 questions which seem more interesting at the present 
 moment have been long forgotten. 
 
 At any rate the materialistic view is widely prevalent 
 now ; and it has great influence even in religious circles. 
 In spite of the philosophical work that has been done 
 since 1860 by T. H. Green and others, questions are 
 still asked, by well-informed men favourably disposed 
 to religion, which betray a lurking fear that if religious 
 beliefs were brought fairly out into the open they would 
 not long be able to defend themselves successfully against 
 the assaults of Science. " All physical changes," we 
 hear it said " including the changes of the weather, 
 appear to be linked by unchanging laws to events that 
 have preceded them. What room then is left for the 
 action of divine Providence ? All our mental life seems 
 to be dependent upon processes taking place within the 
 brain processes which are as much subject to physical 
 law as the weather or the tides. What place then is left 
 for the influence of the Holy Spirit ? Again is not 
 Christianity explainable by anthropological methods as 
 itself a mere natural phenomenon ? Can it any longer, in 
 the light of recent discoveries, even assert its uniqueness 
 among the religions of the world ? Have not savage 
 religions anticipated both its dogmas and its rites ? Can 
 we then show any real evidence that the ' Hand of God ' 
 has been at work in Nature, in history, even in the 
 history of religion ? And is the notion of God as an 
 omnipresent invisible Being, holding in His mind at once 
 all the complicated contents of the Universe 1 really 
 
 1 Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, popular edition, p. 97. 
 
 I 
 
A PRACTICAL PROBLEM 5 
 
 conceivable at all ? Is not such a God a contradiction 
 in terms ? The only invisible substances which we can 
 readily conceive of as filling space are certain gases. 
 The common notion of God, therefore it has been 
 suggested 1 regards Him as a ' gaseous vertebrate ' : and 
 if we seriously try to think out our religious notions into 
 clearness is it not to some such unmeaning contradiction 
 that we shall ultimately be reduced ? Again, is it possible 
 to disentangle even the most impressive doctrines of 
 religion from the antiquated theory of the world with 
 which they are traditionally associated ? If we cease 
 to believe in Heaven as a place beyond the sky, what 
 conception of Heaven are we to substitute ? And do not 
 similar difficulties crop up on every side ? Christ appears 
 to have looked forward to collecting all nations before His 
 judgment seat. Could He have framed this conception 
 if He had rightly estimated the numbers of the human 
 race ? Where on the earth 2 is room for such a scene of 
 judgment to be found ? And are not the moral difficulties 
 in the conception of Divine Judgment even greater than 
 the physical ones ? Is not God too far responsible Him- 
 self for the evil of the world to occupy the judicial throne ? 
 Is it not in dealing with an Omnipotent Being some- 
 thing of an evasion to say that He merely ' permits ' 
 evil ? Must He not be conceived as ' causing ' it ? 3 
 For even if we can acquit Him of complicity with the 
 evil wrought by the free will of man, did He not still 
 implant the evil tendencies and passions by which that 
 free will has been seduced ? Is it then substantially 
 unfair if we complain that, having enmeshed us round 
 
 1 Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, popular edition, pp. 93 and 
 102. 
 Acts i. ii. Isa. xlv. 7. 
 
6 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 with predestination, He has no right to ' impute our fall 
 to sin ' ? 1 Moreover is not ' predestination ' or at 
 least ' determinism ' of some kind the only scientific 
 theory ? To Dr. Johnson's assertion that we ' know our 
 wills are free, and there is an end of the matter/ might 
 we not retort with truth that we ' know ' that our con- 
 scious life is dependent on the brain ? Lastly, do not 
 the physicists threaten that one day they will prove 
 by the actual production of a living organism in the 
 laboratory their right to explain on mechanical princi- 
 ples all the phenomena of life and consciousness ? " 
 
 To such questions, of course, we can often give an 
 answer which sounds effective in debate. The material- 
 istic arguments we may say prove too much. The 
 argument that ' a God invisibly present must be conceived 
 as gaseous or nothing ' might equally be used to prove 
 the non-existence of the human mind. Our feelings and 
 thoughts, though invisible and immaterial, are certainly 
 real. If then an immaterial mind is possible, why not 
 an immaterial God ? 2 Again when it is said that 
 
 1 See Omar Khayyam, stanza 57. 
 
 2 The rejoinder is sometimes made that mental life is only 
 physical life regarded in another aspect. If this mode of expres- 
 sion serves provisionally for the clearer statement of any psy- 
 chological problem, we have no right to object to it. But as 
 an ultimate account of the facts it is obviously unsatisfactory. 
 We find two quite distinguishable objects of experience matter 
 and consciousness. If, because he finds it hard to explain how 
 these two are related, the physicist cuts the knot by declaring 
 that they are not two facts but one, he merely shows that science 
 may have its evasions no less than theology. 
 
 Some of the other ' difficulties ' mentioned above are inci- 
 dentally touched upon later. Does the conception of a God 
 who is ' attentive at all times to millions of contradictory prayers ' 
 
A PRACTICAL PROBLEM 7 
 
 there is no ' room ' for divine action it may be shown 
 that on the contrary, physical and spiritualistic ex- 
 planations may be valid side by side. The fact that one 
 explanation is within its own limits complete, does not 
 always exclude the right to demand another. The colour 
 of an animal, for example, is due to the chemical elements 
 that compose its body. But even if our explanation 
 of its colouring is chemically complete, we may still seek 
 to account for these tints by the part they have played 
 in the evolution of the species. 1 Similarly a complete 
 physical explanation of all the elements of our mental 
 life, if such a thing were possible, would not prove that 
 no more remained to be said. The fact that the ex- 
 planation was physically complete would not prove 
 our mental and moral life to be the mere accidental 
 product of physical forces. Even in the supposed case 
 of the living organism produced in the laboratory, the 
 physical factors would not be the whole story. It would 
 be absurd to say that ' no room is left ' for any other ; 
 for we must leave ' room ' at least for one other factor 
 the mental labours of the producer. Indeed the analogy 
 might seem to make rather in favour of the doctrine of an 
 Intelligent ' Designer ' of the world than against it. 
 
 But we need something better something more 
 
 (Haeckel, p. 97) differ in principle from the case of the debater 
 who sees in a flash of thought all the divisions and subdivisions 
 of an elaborate reply ? 
 
 1 The chemical explanation of formic acid once supposed to 
 require ' vital force ' for its production is so complete that 
 the acid can be produced by artificial means. But this fact 
 does not forbid us to seek an evolutionary explanation of the 
 occurrence of formic acid in ants and nettles. 
 
8 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 systematic than ' good debating answers/ 1 The fact 
 is that the character of the explanation which satisfies 
 a man's mind depends on the particular phenomena 
 with which he happens to be familiar. The man who is 
 concerned simply with physical phenomena will rest con- 
 tented with physical explanations. The man who has 
 observed chiefly the phenomena of the moral life will 
 often be satisfied with theories that take insufficient 
 account of physical facts. Each however has a right 
 to be heard. The impression of physical uniformity is no 
 illusion : but neither again is the sense of moral guilt 
 an illusion. And the intellectual problem has not been 
 solved till both these classes of facts have been adequately 
 and systematically accounted for a conclusion which 
 is quite in agreement with the view that the sense of 
 Duty and of Guilt is the foundation stone of Christian 
 Apologetics. 
 
 1 It would be especially well worth while to set out in system- 
 atic form some of the apologetic arguments which sound im- 
 pressive in poetry. As Wordsworth wrote of the ' intimations 
 of immortality ' which may be derived ' from recollections of 
 early childhood/ so Mr. Browning has given us his intimations 
 of immortality from recollections of the Morgue at Paris. M. 
 Bourget's romance Le Disciple closes with a somewhat similar 
 piece of reasoning. There is indeed even an element of humour 
 in trying to picture the impression which these passages of litera- 
 ture must leave upon the minds, say, of Prof. Karl Pearson, or 
 Dr. J. G. Frazer, or Miss Jane Harrison. The connexion of 
 thought is plain enough, no doubt, to all who have understood 
 the presuppositions in the minds of the authors. But the argu- 
 ments, as arguments, would be of greater theological value if 
 set out in systematic shape. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE RIVAL METHODS 
 
 EVEN more important then than the relations be- 
 tween religion and physical knowledge, is the 
 question as to the ultimate ground on which Christianity 
 must rest its own case. Is its appeal to be primarily an 
 appeal to the individual conscience, or is it to be based 
 wholly or mainly upon the evidence of historical events, 
 such as the miracles of Christ and His Apostles ? 
 
 When the Apostles set out on their mission, says the 
 Lyra Apostolica 
 They argued not, but preached ; and conscience did the rest. 1 
 
 Yet the view that Christian preaching should make 
 its appeal primarily to the conscience is often disputed, 
 and disputed by representatives of the very school of 
 thought from which the Lyra Apostolica proceeded. 
 
 ' The Gospel/ we are told ' signifies " good news," and 
 not " good advice," and therefore rests not on an appeal 
 to men's subjective moral convictions, but on the witness 
 of objective facts/ The Apostle it is pointed out 
 asserts that the Gospel which he preached consisted in 
 statements concerning the Death and Resurrection of 
 his Master. 2 The conclusion drawn is that Christian be- 
 
 1 Lyra Apostolica. Ixxx. I Cor. xv. 
 
io RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 lief is essentially a belief in certain historical occurrences 
 in the first century of our era. 
 
 The Dean of St. Paul's, indeed, has gone so far as to 
 argue 1 that a non-historical Christianity is not Chris- 
 tianity at all, that if we ' separate Christianity from 
 the historical Christ ' we shall get ' one of three results 
 either the thinly disguised paganism of Southern 
 Europe, a religion only fit for children and savages : or 
 the deliberate sophistication which keeps idealism in 
 reserve for the educated, and trades on the superstitions 
 of the vulgar : or a pure mysticism which has no 
 real connection with Christianity/ How the Dean has 
 arrived at this threefold division of our dangers is not 
 clear : but it is evident that so assured a statement by 
 so able a writer is worthy of our consideration, and that 
 the question, therefore, as to the ultimate basis of the 
 Christian claims cannot be dismissed as a subject on 
 which no controversy exists and no decision is needed. 2 
 
 We are, in fact, called to decide here between two 
 radically different theories. We are told on the one hand 
 to put the theory in its most thorough-going, and at the 
 same time most consistent, form that all that is char- 
 
 1 The Guardian, May 13, 1910. 
 
 2 If any one thinks it needless to address to theologians the 
 simple and elementary argument of the present chapter, let him 
 read Tanquerey's criticism of the Kantian ethics (Synopsis 
 Theologies Moralis et Pastoralis. Tom. II. sees. 49-64.) This 
 learned, candid, amiable, and most lucid writer has produced a 
 criticism of which it is not too much to say that it is fundamen- 
 tally unintelligent. To make morality dependent upon theo- 
 logical propositions is to argue in a circle : since apart from 
 moral ideas God, as Christians conceive God, cannot even be 
 denned. 
 
THE RIVAL METHODS n 
 
 acteristic in the Christian religion, all that distinguishes 
 it from a barren Deism, is contained in certain doctrines 
 which we are not required to judge on their merits, but 
 to accept by faith : that we have no faculties for passing 
 judgment on these doctrines, since ' God's ways are 
 higher than our ways/ and ' what is wisdom with the 
 world may be foolishness with God ' : that therefore 
 the only course is to take them on the authority of ac- 
 credited teachers, especially of One ' declared to be the 
 Son of God with power by His Resurrection from the 
 dead/ The evidence for this and other miracles it is 
 argued may be made good by solid historical reasoning, 
 and so must afford a far firmer support for religious con- 
 viction than can be given by the shifting uncertainty of 
 our inward intuitions. 
 
 The opposite theory must rely on other texts and other 
 arguments. It will maintain that he who ' willeth to 
 do God's Will, will know of the doctrine, whether it be 
 of God ' : l that the ' honest and good heart ' applied 
 to the hearing of the special call which the Gospel makes, 
 is the only condition annexed by Scripture to the bear- 
 ing of good fruit : that such a heart will ' of itself judge 
 that which is right : ' 2 and thus that Christianity must 
 show its characteristic power primarily by the new type 
 of inward life and outward service to which it calls us. 
 The conclusion will be that if Christianity cannot make 
 good its distinctive claims to our obedience by an appeal 
 to our moral consciousness, its distinctive claims can never 
 be made good at all. 
 
 The difference between these two theories will at once 
 
 1 St. John vii. 17. 
 2 St. Luke viii. 15, xii. 57. 
 
12 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 show itself in practice. The former, if it acts consistently, 
 must bid us approach the sinner with Paley's Evidences 
 or some similar authority in our hand ; in order that he 
 may be convinced at once of those miraculous occurrences 
 on which alone, as the theory alleges, rest the claims of 
 Christ to be accepted as the Saviour of the world. The 
 other theory would lead us to adopt the method of calling 
 the sinner first to repentance, bidding him take upon 
 himself the yoke of obedience to Christ's moral commands, 
 and leave the belief in miracles to come to him later 
 if so it should happen after the work of reconciliation 
 with God is accomplished. It would not be too much 
 to say that till the question between these two theories 
 is settled one way or the other, it is impossible to take 
 any one step in Theology securely. 
 
 Let us consider first, then, the theory, which, bidding 
 us distrust the judgments of our own moral consciousness, 
 asserts that Christianity stands or falls with the evidence 
 for certain historical events. 
 
 The best way, perhaps, of judging this method of re- 
 liance on supernatural evidence, is to suppose it entirely 
 successful. Let us suppose that we had at hand the 
 fullest external evidence that the nature of the case ad- 
 mits. Let us suppose that the leaders of the Christian 
 Church could now perform miracles such as even their 
 adversaries must recognise as genuine. Let us suppose 
 also that historical evidence was found which strengthened 
 the probability for the Resurrection and other miracles 
 of our Saviour, till it became to all intents and purposes 
 a certainty, not for the Christian believer only but for 
 every student of history. How much of the case in 
 
THE RIVAL METHODS 13 
 
 favour of Christianity would this purely external evidence 
 be able to prove ? 
 
 It is surely clear that it must wholly fail to prove the 
 one thing with which the religious man is most seriously 
 concerned namely the moral claim of Christianity upon 
 our obedience. If we really left it an open question 
 whether our sense of the holiness of the Christ of Whom 
 we read in the Gospels, and of the purity of His Law, was 
 a correct judgment or a delusion, we might still perhaps 
 prove by the evidence of miracles that Christ was sent 
 by the Creator and Ruler of the world, and that it would 
 be to our interest here and hereafter to take Christ's 
 side against His enemies : but that obedience to the 
 Gospel was right as well as prudent, and disobedience 
 essentially sinful as well as unwise, we could not show. An 
 act does not become right merely because it has the 
 approval of the strongest Being in the Universe as such : 
 and if we were really incapable of perceiving that He of 
 Whom we read in the Gospel is holy, and His teaching 
 pure, no weight of external authority could show it us. 
 The story of the half-witted peasant woman, who 
 on being told that the final battle between good and evil 
 had been fought, and that it was God and not the Devil 
 who had been vanquished said that none the less 
 she should still remain faithful to her Master, presents 
 us with a far nobler conception than that which relies 
 on miracles and external power as the ultimate basis of 
 authority in religion. 
 
 The contention that the final appeal must be to 
 external facts rather than to the inward witness of con- 
 science may often be presented, it is true, in an attractive 
 form. It chimes in with that deep-seated sense of 
 
14 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 dependence and distrust of self which is essential to true 
 religion. It agrees also with the quite reasonable ten- 
 dency, which appears in men who have already perceived 
 the moral value of Christian teaching, to turn to external 
 authority for the solution of perplexities which still 
 remain. The Evangelical, who, when troubled with 
 doubts concerning his own Salvation, is reassured by the 
 universality of the promises in the ' Written Word ' ; the 
 Catholic penitent, who allows his fears to be overcome 
 because of the sentence of absolution which the Church 
 pronounces ; are both examples of the same eminently 
 sane belief that the Bible or the Church, the accepted 
 guides of millions of our fellow-men, are in some respects 
 more worthy of trust than private scruples of our own. 
 Securus judicat orbis termmm, and ' Shall not the Judge 
 of all the earth do right ? ' are both in their respective 
 ways just maxims : and both call us away from our 
 individual selves to something which is in a sense ex- 
 ternal to us. Yet it is surely clear that neither the one 
 maxim nor the other can ever attain to the rank of a 
 personal conviction, apart from a basis of private moral 
 judgment a judgment that has recognized that in 
 many unquestionable respects the general constitution 
 of the world is good ; and therefore trusts that mankind 
 will not be utterly deceived or misled, even in matters 
 that at present seem obscure. 
 
 A lack of ultimate confidence, then, in our own moral 
 judgments would in the end undermine Religion. After 
 we have perceived for ourselves Christ's right to our 
 allegiance, fit may produce in us an infinite spiritual 
 exhilaration it may beget us again unto a lively hope 1 
 1 i St. Pet. i. 3. 
 
THE RIVAL METHODS 15 
 
 to become convinced that He rose from the dead. But 
 apart from the power to perceive, by an act of moral 
 judgment, that He has this claim upon us, the evidence 
 of the Resurrection will have no religious significance 
 for us whatever. A theology indeed, which should take 
 an ultimate reliance on miracles, and a distrust of our 
 own spiritual insight, as serious principles, would be the 
 helpless prey of the ' lying wonders '* foretold in Scripture. 
 So soon as the False Prophet could claim that the pre- 
 ponderance of miracles was on his side, the theologians 
 of this school must desert the cause of Christ and go over 
 to the enemy. 2 
 
 It follows that the first step in the acceptance of the 
 Christian Religion the perception of its intrinsic claim 
 
 1 2 Thess. ii. 9. 
 
 2 It is important here to separate distinct issues. Miracles 
 are not the primary ground for belief in Christianity : but it 
 does not follow that no miracles have ever occurred. Again, it 
 is true that in the last resort we must trust our own moral judg- 
 ments (since even acceptance of authority is an act of private 
 judgment) : but it does not follow that we should be right in 
 desiring to exclude at any point the operation of the Holy Ghost. 
 The truth is the very opposite. It is only when we distinguish 
 clearly in practice between our own personal discoveries and 
 the beliefs we have taken on trust from others, that we learn 
 to find in the former the one convincing evidence of the Spirit's 
 reality and power. 
 
 Further, we must distinguish the various objects to which 
 in this connexion our faculty of moral judgment needs to be 
 applied. There is, first, the special and distinctive moral ideal 
 which Christianity expresses. This would remain unchanged 
 even though the whole of Christian history were proved fictitious. 
 There is, secondly, Christianity as a phenomenon of the modern 
 world, with its Bible, its Sacraments, its public activities, its 
 private victories of grace. The man of learning is often unaware 
 how much it is the Christianity of the present which is the real 
 witness of God to those who read the Bible in the English, Yet 
 no clergyman, who keeps his eyes open and knows Christian 
 
16 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 upon our obedience is a step which our moral faculties 
 must take alone, unaided by the evidence of signs, or 
 wonders, or mighty works. 
 
 piety when he sees it, can long be of opinion that a ' non-his- 
 torical Christianity is not Christianity at all ' unless his clerical 
 experience is gained almost exclusively in academic circles. 
 Thirdly, there is the Christianity of the past, especially the Chris- 
 tianity of the first century, which even for the scholar raises 
 many obscure and intricate problems. If the claims of Christian- 
 ity rested upon history, in any strict sense of the word, then 
 they would be resting upon knowledge which can come to the 
 ordinary believer at second hand only. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THEOLOGY, PRESENT AND PAST 
 
 ONE of the chief facts of the present theological 
 situation is the influence exerted, both in Eng- 
 land and in Scotland, by the school of Ritschl. 
 
 This school of thought had its origin among men trained 
 in modern methods of research men who though they 
 had abandoned the traditional beliefs concerning the 
 divine creation and government of the world, had none 
 the less felt the unique power of Christ and His Gospel 
 to bring peace and decisive victory into the inward life. 
 
 Thus the relation between these teachers and the prob- 
 lem with which we are here concerned is plain. The two 
 principal doctrines which the Ritschlian school advances 
 may be provisionally expressed in the following state- 
 ments first, that Christianity can justify itself by an 
 appeal to spiritual experience, 1 and by that only ; second- 
 ly, that religious knowledge belongs to so special a depart- 
 ment of human life, and is of so special a character, that 
 we cannot as the theologians of the past have tried to 
 do unite religious and other knowledge in a single 
 system. Knowledge of God and scientific knowledge of 
 the world are regarded as quite disconnected pursuits. 
 
 1 For the two senses of the word ' experience ' compare note 
 on p, 137. 
 
 17 C 
 
i8 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 In theology, according to the Ritschlian view, it is not 
 only our first step which depends on spiritual experience 
 (as we have already seen to be the case), but all the 
 succeeding steps likewise. 
 
 It will make the purport of the following pages clearer 
 to state here in outline the conclusion to which they lead. 
 Briefly, it is that the Ritschlian school is right in the one 
 assertion, and wrong in the other : right in affirming the 
 dependence of theology on the appeal to experience, wrong 
 in denying the possibility of uniting in a single scheme 
 religious and physical knowledge. The question will then 
 remain whether the older theology has conceived this 
 ' single scheme ' in a satisfactory manner. 
 
 One whole department of religious knowledge is based 
 on experience directly and immediately. The doctrines 
 of Sin, of Grace, of Personal Salvation through Christ 
 though commonly associated with the orthodox dogma 
 concerning Christ's Person are still, as Ritschl has shown, 
 not absolutely inseparable from it. On religious experi- 
 ence, on the other hand, they are entirely dependent. 
 
 The facts which in this connexion we shall have first to 
 consider relate to the contact of the believer with Christ, 
 His example and His law x ; to the effect of this contact 
 in delivering men from the sense of guilt and the power of 
 temptation ; to the peculiar spell which Jesus has thrown 
 upon His followers, which is such that they have not 
 hesitated, either in theory or in practice, to treat Him as 
 equal with God. If we find that this influence is not 
 merely powerful with other men, but that we ourselves 
 1 St. John xv. 3. 
 
THEOLOGY PRESENT AND PAST 19 
 
 yield to it willingly and with our eyes open, convinced 
 that apart from it all that is best in our lives would vanish 
 away if this same willing consent to subjection to Christ 
 continues unweakened, even when we come to doubt or 
 to reject the received dogmas of theology, so that His 
 influence has still for us the ' value of God ' in the sense 
 that we neither want nor can conceive anything higher 
 or better than it we are then bound as reasonable men 
 to give some theoretical account of experiences which 
 possess so distinct a character. If this is how we regard 
 the Founder of Christianity, then even if we adopted a 
 wholly materialistic theory of the Universe so far as con- 
 cerns its origin and future fate we might still assert that 
 the world is not a ' Godless ' world since it has contained 
 Jesus : we should still have the foundations for a high 
 Christological theory, even though it be something very 
 different from the Christ ology of the early Church. And 
 thus our conclusion would be that though the traditional 
 theology may need a drastic revision, there is in it much 
 which is worthy of profoundly respectful study. 
 
 But, secondly, though the Ritschlian school has done 
 excellent work in showing how the true basis of Christian 
 theology lies in Christian experience, there are other 
 respects in which it has failed. It has not always done 
 justice to the work of the older divines : especially to 
 those arguments by which Paley and others have sought to 
 establish an optimistic theory of the Universe. Dr. Bosan- 
 quet 1 has spoken of the ' permanent meaning of the Argu- 
 ment from Design/ and Kant in his day used somewhat 
 similar language. We shall find that, in spite of grave 
 defects of statement and of conception, the Argument from 
 
 1 Proceedings oj the Aristotelian Society, vol. ii, p. 44. 
 
20 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Design, alike in its ancient and modern forms, contains a 
 thought that is both profound and correct. The Chris- 
 tians of the first age, who believed themselves to have 
 known God in the inner life as the Holy Spirit, who also 
 had recognized an immediate revelation of God in human 
 form in Jesus, were convinced that the same Divine Will, 
 in spite of sin and evil, was truly working itself out in 
 Nature and in human history, and that the Creator and 
 Governor of the Universe might be known as the Father 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the face of abundant temp- 
 tations to Pessimism, their view of the world remained 
 Optimistic : and their Optimism was of that thorough- 
 going sort from which it would follow that if the position 
 of Jesus in the Universe is that of King de jure, He is also 
 King de facto. The doctrinal outcome of this faith was 
 the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation. 
 The Christian recognition of Christ as Lord, joined with 
 such a Theism as was dominant in the intellectual world 
 of the first four centuries, required that Christ should 
 be recognized as ' Consubstantial with the Father/ 1 We 
 have only to turn to the heresies which at various stages 
 confronted the orthodox dogma as its rivals, to see how 
 deep a gratitude we owe to the orthodox Greek Fathers 
 for the intellectual courage which asserted, in the only 
 form in which it could in their day have been asserted 
 effectively, the optimistic faith which is native to the 
 Christian spirit. 
 
 But can we rest absolutely satisfied with Christian 
 
 theology as it took shape by the time of the Council of 
 
 Chalcedon ? This is our remaining question and we 
 
 shall find that we must answer it in the negative. The 
 
 1 See chap. xvii. below. 
 
THEOLOGY PRESENT AND PAST 21 
 
 theology of the Greek Fathers was a most serious and 
 heroic attempt : but it is hard to see how any candid 
 critic can think it wholly successful. The difficulties 
 of the traditional theology have become in recent times 
 peculiarly evident : and the embarrassment will be found 
 to be on the side, not of those who deny its complete 
 consistency, but of those who try to maintain it. Thus 
 we shall conclude that the absolute homage which the 
 Christian spirit renders to Christ, has not yet found its 
 final theological expression. 
 
 Such a conclusion implies that the task which still 
 awaits the theologian is indeed gigantic. Sir Oliver 
 Lodge, in a happy phrase, has expressed the doubt whether 
 theology has yet found its Newton. We shall see, more 
 and more clearly as we proceed, that no theological 
 formula has been put forward which deserves to be treated 
 as being at all on the same level with the great generaliza- 
 tion by which Newton brought unity into the realm of 
 physical knowledge. Indeed the utmost that we can 
 hope for in our generation is that we may do some of the 
 preliminary work by which the task of the theological 
 Newton shall be made easier when he comes. 
 
 If it is f ->d that the undertaking of so vast an intel- 
 lectual t. is here suggested is inconsistent with the 
 faith tha jtianity is, above all things, a religion for 
 the simple, we need only remind ourselves of the dis- 
 tinction between religious experience and theological 
 definition. The simplest can fall under the spell of our 
 Saviour, and can know that His influence is of more worth 
 than all in the world beside. The simplest can know what 
 Christ is, not only to the soul but to the Church to that 
 ' redeemed community ' through which the knowledge 
 of Christ comes to the individual. The simplest can see 
 
22 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 the Finger of God in the events of life and history, and in 
 the midst of a world of sin can bask in the sunshine of 
 God's love. But Christianity nevertheless is unable 
 permanently to dispense with the work of the scientific 
 theologian. The example of those Churches where 
 intellectual darkness has been followed by spiritual 
 decline, leads us to infer that no high level of spiritual 
 experience can ever long be maintained except where its 
 results are garnered by careful intellectual labour in the 
 form of clear and systematic statements. But if to use 
 Dr. Newman's comparison we are to write down in 
 scientific form all that we know of God and call it theology, 
 just as we write down all that we know of the earth and 
 call it geology, it is obvious that this must be a task 
 which will require the efforts of the best intellects of many 
 succeeding generations. 
 
 Theology has been called the Queen of the Sciences. 
 There are some theologians of whom it might well be said 
 that this phrase, though near to their lips, is far from their 
 hearts. Too commonly the name is used as a mere 
 honorific title : and Theology is called the Queen of the 
 Sciences in the same sort of sense in which Brighton is 
 called the Queen of Watering-places. In their proper 
 meaning the words make a very high claim indeed. 1 
 And on this claim the theologian ought strenuously to 
 insist not in the sense of desiring to limit freedom of 
 thought and research in each separate field, but rather 
 in the sense that knowledge must aim at becoming a 
 systematic whole. The work of systematizing is the 
 special work of the philosopher. In this aspect of the 
 matter it makes no great difference whether we call 
 
 1 Cf. Summa Theol. Pars. i. Qu. i. Art v., Gonclusio. 
 
THEOLOGY PRESENT AND PAST 23 
 
 the central science Theology or Metaphysic. But for 
 those who believe in God, God must stand at the centre : 
 and therefore it is strange that any thinker should rest 
 contented with a doctrine of God which does not seek 
 in the end to become also a theory of the Universe. In 
 these matters the only safe course is the bold one : and 
 till theology dares in some sense to claim its old position 
 and to emancipate itself from the tyranny of the special- 
 ist, must it not fail to afford to religion the support which 
 religion needs in an age of widespread doubt ? 
 
 In truth we have no more right to leave to the Fathers 
 of the early Church a monopoly of hard thinking, than 
 to leave to the Martyrs a monopoly of heroic suffering. 
 Those whose task it is to commend Christ and His Gospel 
 to the modern world must lack neither intellectual industry 
 nor intellectual courage. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 MORALITY 
 
 THE main conclusion, however, to which the preceding 
 chapters have brought us is simple and definite- 
 Christianity depends we have seen upon the appeal to 
 conscience. In taking his first step, the Christian apolo- 
 gist must rely solely on the moral consciousness of his 
 hearer. 
 
 And thus it becomes a matter of primary importance to 
 inquire how far this method of apology will carry us. 
 How many of the beliefs of religion rest on a purely moral 
 foundation ? And first how far is the testimony of 
 moral consciousness itself worthy of our trust ? 
 
 There are those who assert that all morality in general 
 is an illusion, an instinct ' useful to the species ', but 
 revealing no absolute truth. What other conclusion 
 asks the sceptic can we draw from the variety and 
 inconsistency of the moral judgments of mankind ? The 
 story of Darius, who startled his Greek subjects with 
 the proposal that they should eat the bodies of their 
 deceased parents after the manner of the Calatian Indians, 
 and evoked an equal horror in the Indians by suggesting 
 that they should burn their parents after the manner 
 of the Greeks, is told by Herodotus in order to point the 
 
 24 
 
MORALITY 25 
 
 moral that ' custom is king of all men/ 1 Many similar 
 divergences of moral view are collected by Locke in the 
 famous chapter 2 in which he maintains that men possess 
 no ' innate practical principles/ The Mengrelians ' a 
 people professing Christianity ' bury their children alive 
 without scruple. The Caribbees make their children fat 
 on purpose to kill and eat them. The virtues whereby 
 the Tououpinamboes believed they merited Paradise were 
 Revenge and eating abundance of their enemies. 
 
 Now the criticism of sceptical theories of morality is 
 for many reasons an interesting subject : and it is quite 
 worth while to point out that though the sceptics have 
 done good work in correcting certain hasty conclusions, 
 they have at the same time been guilty of a good deal both 
 of exaggeration and irrelevance. Even an extreme case, 
 such as the experiment of Darius, bears witness to a 
 fundamental agreement. The principle that one must 
 honour one's dead relations is accepted on all sides : it is 
 only on the special issue whether the honour is to be 
 shown by burning them, eating them or burying them, 
 that the divergence occurs : and this, after all, is a minor 
 matter. Again, it must be remembered that errors in 
 moral judgment no more prove that our moral faculties 
 are ultimately untrustworthy than arithmetical blunders 
 prove that we have no trustworthy faculties for discovering 
 mathematical truth. 
 
 Yet for our present purpose this merely negative type 
 of argument is insufficient. The main concern of the 
 religious teacher is to produce positive conviction : and 
 nothing is really needed for the support of moral beliefs, 
 when these are assailed by sceptical theories, except to 
 
 1 Herod, iii. 38. 
 
 8 An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Bk. I. ch. iii. 
 
26 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 make men attend honestly to the processes of their own 
 thought. 
 
 In this work, the most valuable of all assistance will 
 be found in the moral writings of Kant. Though the 
 sublimity of the Kantian morality is generally recognized, 
 the complaint is often made that his style is too difficult 
 and technical for the purposes of popular teaching. The 
 truth is, however, that those parts of his moral treatises 
 which are clearest and least controversial, are just those 
 which possess the highest practical and religious value. 
 At the worst, Kant is not a more difficult writer than St. 
 Paul. He is, moreover, admirably adapted, by the 
 gravity and dignity of his thought, to a method of popular 
 treatment not dissimilar to that in which Scripture is 
 expounded in the pulpit. 
 
 The place of Kant in Christian apologetics will best be 
 shown by making, first, a statement of the least question- 
 able parts of his teaching, accompanied by such incidental 
 comments and criticisms as are germane to the present 
 subject : and, secondly, by inquiring whether for all 
 those who have really understood him, even if in very 
 large measure they dissent from his views he has not 
 made it for ever impossible to relapse into the suspicion 
 that morality is an illusion, an evolutionary accident and 
 nothing more. For our present purpose it is more impor- 
 tant, perhaps, to reflect on the Kantian doctrines and 
 phrases, one by one, than to gain a connected view of 
 his system. 
 
 Kant's moral teaching begins 1 with the assertion of 
 1 For many readers there can be nothing new in Chapters IV 
 
MORALITY 27 
 
 principles which popular thought, when it has grasped 
 their meaning, will at once admit. There is nothing, 
 he maintains, in the world nor outside it, which can 
 be regarded as unconditionally good except a Good Will 
 only. 1 Talents, courage, riches, health, are in many 
 aspects worthy objects of desire, 2 but they are not good 
 unconditionally, since they may all become evil if the 
 will which makes use of them is a bad one : and thus a 
 reasonable and impartial spectator can find no satisfaction 
 in contemplating the uninterrupted prosperity of a being 
 wholly destitute of Good Will. 3 Even self control, which 
 appears to make part of our inner worth, and was extolled 
 unconditionally by the ancients, 4 is far from deserving 
 to be called good without qualification. The coolness of a 
 rascal (Bosewicht) makes him not only the more dangerous, 
 but also the more intrinsically odious. Thus, while all 
 other good things depend for their goodness on subordina- 
 tion to a Good Will, the Good Will is good quite inde- 
 pendently of anything else, and for its own sake alone. 
 Kant, of course, is not speaking of those shadowy ' good 
 intentions ' with which, according to the proverb, Hell is 
 paved. He is speaking ' not of a mere wish ', but of the 
 will which, so far as lies in its power, summons all the 
 necessary means to the end at which it is aiming. 5 It 
 is often said, with perfect truth, that some of the worst 
 things in the world are done by well-meaning persons : 
 and, moreover, that these persons deserve the severest 
 
 and V, except so far as they bear indirectly upon the question 
 of the usefulness of the Kantian ethics for the purposes of the 
 Bible-class and the Pulpit. 
 
 1 Grundlegung zuv Metaphysik der Sitten, p. 393. The refer- 
 ences are to the German paging. 
 
 P. 393- 8 P. 393- 4 P- 394- B P. 394- 
 
28 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 blame if they confide in the mere excellence of their 
 intentions without making any serious attempt to gauge 
 the probable effects of their actions. This common type 
 of mental indolence would be clearly recognized by Kant 
 as betraying a defect of Good Will. But wherever the 
 Good Will is serious, there its mere failure due to no 
 fault of its own to carry out its purpose, cannot detract 
 in any degree from the respect which is felt for it. 
 
 We all distinguish, in judging of human actions, between 
 the actions that are due to pure motives and those that 
 spring from motives either base or ' mixed '. There has 
 been, in consequence, a very general revolt against any 
 use of language which has seemed to found the claims of 
 religion on a mere calculation of profit and loss. The 
 fact is that the value of the best result is felt to be im- 
 paired if it was wrought from motives of self-interest ; 
 while, on the other hand, the value of an act which pro- 
 ceeds from genuinely good motives, is in no way impaired 
 by its ill-success, a conception of morality which may 
 very well be summed up in the Kantian doctrine that we 
 value Good Will for itself and not for its effects : that 
 though Good Will is not the only good or the whole good, 
 it is still the highest good, and is also that upon which the 
 goodness of all other things depends. 1 
 
 The assertion, however, that the Good Will possesses 
 unconditional worth apart from any good results to 
 which it may lead, is as Kant confesses a somewhat 
 startling proposition. Such language begets the suspicion 
 that it is based upon some highflown fancy (bloss hoch- 
 fliegende Phantasterei)* It is in order to remove this 
 suspicion that Kant is led to examine the notion of ' Duty '. 
 
 1 P. 394. 399- t P. 394- 
 
MORALITY 29 
 
 And here Kant makes not merely the obvious contrast 
 between acting from duty and acting from motives of 
 self-interest : he contrasts duty with ' inclination ', in the 
 sense in which even benevolent inclinations are included. l 
 Love of our neighbour, regarded as a sentiment, is not 
 within our control and cannot be enjoined upon us. 
 When, therefore, Scripture bids us love our neighbour as 
 ourselves, this command, says Kant, is to be understood 
 as relating not to feeling but to action, to love which is 
 not ' pathological ' but ' practical.' 2 He compares those 
 who are so sympathetically constituted that, without any 
 motives of vanity or self-interest, they take delight in 
 spreading joy around them, with the person whose feeling 
 for the joys of others has been deadened by his own 
 sorrows, who yet rouses himself out of his stupor and does 
 from pure duty the benevolent action from which he is too 
 sorrowful to reap any sympathetic pleasure. The action 
 of the former has much real loveliness, 3 yet it is the action 
 of the latter alone that has in the strict sense ' moral 
 worth '. The one is done in accordance with duty 
 (pflichtmdssig) ; the other for duty's sake (aus Pfticht). 
 
 At first sight, perhaps, this teaching may seem to run 
 counter to many accepted notions. In appearance it 
 conflicts with our preference for an act of spontaneous 
 unreflective kindness over that which is laboriously 
 framed by regard to moral laws. 
 
 Our hesitation in accepting the Kantian view arises 
 partly, no doubt, from certain associations which the 
 word ' duty ' carries with it in English. 4 But that 
 the objection is not entirely a question of words, is shown 
 
 i P. 399. 2 P. 399. 3 P. 398. 
 
 4 In English ' principle', rather than ' duty ' is sometimes the 
 better word to use. 
 
30 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 in the well known epigram of Schiller. 1 Would my 
 acts of kindness to my friends he -asks in effect become 
 of greater moral worth if I could succeed in extinguishing 
 all my friendly feelings towards them ? Obviously we 
 must answer this question in the negative. Even though 
 we should be sorry to think of our benefactor as one who 
 merely ' goes by his feelings ', we still prefer that the 
 friendly feelings should exist. The solution of this diffi- 
 culty however is really simple. 2 What we want chiefly 
 to know of a man is whether he has enough ' high princi- 
 ple ' to enable him to act rightly when his emotions fail 
 him as guides to conduct. Even the overflowing charity 
 of a St. Francis would not receive our unqualified praise, 
 if it were not that we are absolutely convinced that high 
 principle was its basis. If we suspected that the charity 
 of St. Francis, like the zeal of Peter the Hermit, was 
 dependent on mere effervescence of emotion, our estimate 
 of St. Francis would be very different from what it is. 
 The man dependent on emotion is not merely less worthy 
 
 1 Gewissensskrupel 
 
 Gerne dien' ich den Freunden, doch thu' ich es leider mit Neigung 
 Und so wurmt es mir oft, dass ich nicht tugendhaft bin. 
 
 Entscheidung 
 
 Daist kein anderer Rat, du musst suchen, sie zu verachten 
 Und mit Abscheu alsdann thun, wie die Pflicht dir gebeut. 
 
 2 The criticism of Schiller is answered in advance in what 
 Kant says on the subject of a ' Holy Will ', such a Will as we 
 attribute to God. A Will ' whose maxims necessarily agree 
 with the laws of freedom ' (autonomy) is absolutely good. God 
 (ein heiliges Weseri) is not to be considered as under any obligation, 
 and our dignity (Erhabenheit) depends not on our subjection 
 to the Moral Law but rather on the fact that the rational will 
 is seTf-legislative (430-440). Thus Kant does not treat the 
 goodness of a Good Will as wholly dependent on the obstacles 
 which it overcomes. It is supremely good in God, in Whom 
 it is conceived as free from all obstacles. 
 
MORALITY 31 
 
 of trust ; he is also less worthy of respect. And thus the 
 absence of amiable emotion and even the presence of 
 unamiable emotion as tending to exhibit and develop 
 the high principle which overcomes it may acquire a 
 positive moral value. If, then, we fancy that we are 
 here in disagreement with Kant, this probably arises from 
 a misunderstanding of his position. For our commonest 
 moral judgments are always in essential agreement with 
 his view. High principle is thought worthy of respect 
 even when associated with the coldest feelings, whereas 
 warm feelings are comparatively worthless in a character 
 devoid of principle. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE ' IMPERATIVE ' OF DUTY 
 
 EEPING in mind these contrasts between Duty and 
 Interest and Duty and Sentiment, we may now 
 pass to the elements in Kant's teaching which are more 
 distinctive. These also, as he holds, are in essential 
 agreement with popular morality, and are its legitimate 
 development. 
 
 Among motives of action he maintains it is Duty 
 alone in contrast with all appetites and inclinations, 
 which is an object of ' reverence '. He defines Duty as 
 the ' necessity of an action from reverence for the Moral 
 Law '. Our appetites may be approved, but not revered : 
 ' for inclination, my own or another's, I can feel no 
 reverence '. l Duty, it has been well said, commands 
 itself : pleasure recommends itself. It is the command 
 alone, then, which enforces respect. ' The awe of duty 
 has nothing in common with the enjoyment of life/ a 
 
 Again, Kant contrasts Happiness which is an ' Ideal of 
 the imagination ' (Einbildungskraft) 3 with Duty which is an 
 
 1 Grundlegung, p. 400. 
 
 2 See Critik der Practischen Vernunft. Sechste Auflage, p. 129, 
 chap. iii. 
 
 * Grundlegung, p. 418. 
 
 32 
 
DUTY 33 
 
 ideal of the reason. Reason 1 he teaches is given, not to 
 secure our happiness, but rather to make possible that 
 kind of conduct which alone makes us worthy to be 
 happy. 1 If reason had been intended by Nature as a 
 mere means to happiness, then Nature, he argues, has 
 chosen her means badly. Those whose aim is personal 
 happiness often find that reason is rather an embarrass- 
 ment in this pursuit than a help ; and it seems obvious 
 that our happiness might have been far more safely pro- 
 vided for us by the aid of an implanted instinct. 2 Thus 
 the consideration of our nature suggests that we are 
 intended for some worthier end. And even if we utterly 
 refuse to recognize in Nature any evidence of Purpose, and 
 therefore /reject the assumption that natural means are 
 well chosen, the argument still retains its value. It 
 draws attention to the wide distinction between Duty 
 and Happiness in their character as motives. Reason 
 in delivering itself of this absolutely universal Law of 
 Duty demands an obedience which is disinterested. It 
 offers no enticement, and promises no reward ; it uses 
 moreover, no threat ; but the mere thought of Duty extorts 
 reverence even if not always obedience, simply by holding 
 up its naked law in the soul. 3 And if considerations of 
 happiness ' empirical ' motives 4 are allowed to operate 
 on our conduct, the value of our performance of duty 
 is positively impaired. 
 
 1 On the relation of this statement to the medieval doctrine 
 of 'Merit', see below, pp. 75, 105, 122. 
 
 2 P. 395- 
 
 3 Critik der Practischen Vernunft. Sechste Auflage, p. 125. 
 See Semple's translation (T. and T. Clark, 1871) p. 127, and cf. 
 note below. 
 
 4 Grundlegung, pp. 411, 426. 
 
 D 
 
34 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Again, the Moral Law is represented as a ' command ' 
 or ' imperative ', and as the only imperative which can be 
 ' categorical ' that is ' unconditional '.* Rules of skill 
 and maxims of prudence are likewise imperatives, but 
 conditional. ' If you wish to be beloved, do not make 
 vexatious demands upon your friends.' ' If you wish for 
 a long life, do not neglect to take exercise.' All such 
 rules are conditional, since thus conceived they have 
 weight with us so long only as we set before ourselves 
 these particular objects of desire. ' Act on all occasions 
 like a man of honour ' is, on the other hand, an uncon- 
 ditional command. From such commands we cannot 
 detach ourselves (los sein). 2 Even in our violation of the 
 law, the law asserts itself : it takes its revenge in the form 
 of self-accusation in humbling our self-esteem. And it 
 is just this consciousness that Duty is a command from 
 whose authority we cannot escape, which gives Duty its 
 distinctive character and meaning. 
 
 Thus it is that obedience to the Moral Law produces a 
 satisfaction different from all others in kind. It is this 
 obedience only which entitles me to the respect of other 
 men, or to my own self-respect ; it is this alone which gives 
 inward peace. In the case of the man says Kant whose 
 conscience sustains him in the extremest miseries, because 
 it tells him that he declined to avoid these miseries by 
 bartering his duty, this consolation is not happiness it 
 is nothing like happiness, and no one would wish to be so 
 situated, nor for a life in such conjunctures. But so long 
 as man lives, he cannot endure to be in his own eyes 
 unworthy of life. This inward peace is an effect of rever- 
 ence for something quite different from life, in comparison 
 1 P. 432, &c. a P. 420. 
 
DUTY 35 
 
 and contrast with which, life with all its amenities has no 
 value. 1 
 
 Again, Kant insists that morality is essentially independ- 
 ent of examples. Examples serve as an encouragement : 
 they show the pra.cticabilityl(Thunlichkeit) of that which the 
 law enjoins : they exhibit the law in clear form before our 
 eyes ; 2 but it is not upon these that the law itself is founded. 
 ' Even the Holy One of the Gospels must first be compared 
 with our ideal of moral perfection before we can recognize 
 Him for what He is.' 3 Such moral teaching is therefore 
 peculiarly proof against the scepticism which rests on 
 cynical doubts of human goodness. 
 
 And why is morality thus independent of examples ? 
 Because our reason is 'self -legislative ' 4 and produces the 
 Moral Law spontaneously by its own act. If its moral 
 judgments were forced upon it from outside if they were 
 due to the pressure of passions or other external causes 
 reason would not, as it does, regard its judgments as its 
 own. 5 The Moral Law is a law for every rational being 
 as such. 6 Man, as subject to the legislation of his reason 
 only, and not a slave to physical motives, is free. 'A 
 free will and a will subject to Moral Laws is one and the 
 same thing .' 7 Such freedom is, in Kant's phrase, ' Auto- 
 nomy'. Man, as a rational being beset with passions, 
 stands to the Moral Law at once as its author and its 
 subject. 8 
 
 1 Semple's translation which is too often a mere paraphrase 
 seems here to express with great eloquence the very essence 
 of the Kantian thought. 
 
 2 P. 409. 3 p. 4 o8. 
 
 4 P. 440- 5 P. 448. 6 P. 447- 
 
 7 P. 447- 8 P. 440. 
 
36 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Again, Kant argues that since morality takes no account 
 of consequences, but bids us do our duty, come what 
 may, since we are thus deprived of the power to base 
 moral obedience upon any material motives we are there- 
 fore left with no other ground for morality but the pure 
 ' form ' of the Moral Law itself. 1 This pure ' form ' he 
 expresses in the phrase, ' So act that thou canst will that 
 thy maxim should be regarded as law universal.' 2 This 
 rule he maintains can be, and is, used by the simplest 
 understanding ; and we shall find, that in our transgres- 
 sions we never, as a fact, will that our evil maxims shall 
 be regarded as law universal. We merely allow an 
 occasional exception in our own favour : abasing the 
 absolute ' universality ' of the Moral Law, 3 into a mere 
 ' generality ' which is to hold good always except just this 
 once. 
 
 1 Pp. 400, 402, 426, 427, 436. 2 Pp. 402, 421, &c. 
 
 3 p. 424. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 GUILT 
 
 IF we now ask how far Kant has strengthened the case 
 of the preacher who seeks to produce ' conviction of 
 sin ', the answer is clear. He has done this in the only 
 way 1 in which it can be done at all namely, by describ- 
 ing moral consciousness in a manner which may be seen 
 to be correct by those who possess it. False moral 
 philosophy arises for the most part from simple failure 
 to recognize the character of the principles which we 
 ourselves are employing daily. 
 
 As a measure of the debt owed to Kant by the modern 
 world, we might cite many passages of pre-Kantian 
 literature. Take, as an example, Mosheim's criticism of 
 Lord Shaftesbury. ' He has perniciously endeavoured ' 
 says the historian 2 ' to destroy the influence and efficiency 
 of some of the motives that are proposed in the Holy 
 Scripture to render men virtuous, by representing these 
 motives as mercenary, and even turning them into ridi- 
 cule/ ' He substitutes in their place the intrinsic excel- 
 lence and beauty of virtue, as the great source of moral 
 obligation, and the true incentive to virtuous deeds. 
 But however alluring this sublime scheme of morals may 
 
 1 Cf. Chap. ii. 
 
 8 Vol. iii. (Cent. xvii. Sec. i. xxii). 
 37 
 
38 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 appear to certain minds of a refined, elegant and ingenuous 
 turn, it is certainly little adapted to the taste, the compre- 
 hension and the character of the multitude. Take away 
 from the lower orders of mankind the prospect of reward 
 and punishment that leads them to virtue and obedience 
 by the powerful suggestions of hope and fear, and the 
 great supports of virtue, and the most effectual motives to 
 the pursuit of it, will then be removed with respect to 
 them/ 
 
 To Mosheim, therefore, the choice of moral motives 
 appears to lie beween two only self-interest and exalted 
 sentiment. The latter, he thinks, may serve well enough 
 for philosophic noblemen, but the former alone can be 
 effective with the vulgar. And thus he gives a super- 
 ficial air of commonsense and hard-headed wisdom to a 
 judgment which will immediately be perceived to be false 
 by any one who knows the ' lower orders of mankind ' by 
 personal acquaintance. Kant has taught the world once 
 for all to distinguish a third type of motive, different both 
 from sentiment and self-interest, and has enabled us to 
 recognize that this highest kind of motive is often present 
 in the most simple and unlearned persons. 
 
 In the same way Kant clears up the common confusion 
 between morality and ' appetite'. 1 As Touchstone in 
 As you like it 2 compares the love-story of Rosalind with 
 the passions of the cat ; so the moral sceptic compares 
 morality to the child's fear of the dark. Both of these 
 
 1 Two distinct positions may be maintained : (a) ' that mor- 
 ality is only a form of appetite, e.g. a kind of fear ' ; (b) ' that 
 though morality and appetite are distinct, the evolutionary 
 origin of morality deprives it of authority.' 
 
 * Act iii. 
 
GUILT 39 
 
 latter he argues have continued to exist, because both 
 have been useful to the race. The comparison is not 
 without its value. Yet, after all, as surely as the feelings 
 of Rosalind differ from the feelings of the animal (for if 
 they were really identical where would be the amusement 
 in comparing them ?), so also morality differs from child- 
 ish fear and from every other selfish ' appetite ' in our 
 nature : and it is not on its history but on its character 
 not on whence it came but on what it is that the 
 authority of the Moral Law depends. 
 
 Thus at all points the Kantian lesson is essentially the 
 same. His presentation of morality as ' rational ', not 
 on the ground that it conduces to self-interest, but on the 
 opposite ground that it is founded on principles superior 
 to all private considerations, has served to bring into 
 clearer light the true character l not only of morality but 
 of reason. To refute the paradox that morality is an 
 illusion we need only appeal to the personal convictions of 
 the very man who asserts it. Is there no law we may 
 ask him whose absolute authority you yourself own ? 
 Could you betray a friend without compunction ? Do 
 you regard this feeling of compunction as merely an in- 
 
 1 It is true that his manner of distinguishing the moral motive 
 from all others is associated with the weakest part of his system. 
 The theory that we cannot know things ' as they are in them- 
 selves, but only as they appear to us/ is a common piece of 
 popular metaphysic. This common view is developed by Kant 
 in systematic form. He teaches that the ' self ' which I know 
 in experience as living in time, and acted upon by material 
 motives, is not my true self. This true ' self ' is a mysterious 
 entity which belongs to a ' supersensible ' world ; it is a being 
 of which I can know nothing but that its law conforms to 
 principles of pure reason. Grundlegung, 457, 458. 
 
40 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 stinct useful in the evolution of your race, or do you 
 regard it as a sentiment in itself correct so that the act 
 of treachery is in truth as base as the feeling of compunc- 
 tion represents it to be ? If you admit as of course every 
 rational person, whatever it may amuse him to say when 
 he is engaged in an argument, does admit in his heart 
 that fidelity to one's friends is a principle which we are 
 bound to observe even when it conflicts with all our 
 inclinations and interests, what is this but to allow that 
 Duty is just such an unconditionally binding Imperative 
 as Kant maintains ? 
 
 ' Yet after all/ it may be said, ' this sense of absolute 
 obligation and of consequent guilt is not universally 
 diffused : it cannot therefore be made the sole basis of 
 religious doctrine.' 
 
 The ' higher man ' of to-day, says Sir Oliver Lodge, ' is 
 not worrying himself about his sins at all.' These words 
 no doubt contain an element of truth. It is true that we 
 do not, as Bunyan did, go home weeping after a sermon. 
 Yet if future ages are led to conclude from such contem- 
 porary testimonies that we are a peculiarly light-hearted 
 generation it is not clear that they will be wholly right. 
 Certainly there is in our literature little evidence for this 
 conclusion. Is Sir Oliver Lodge himself, indeed, a con- 
 spicuously light-hearted phenomenon ? Surely no genera- 
 tion has been so sensitive as ours is to the faults of its 
 social system. If we are less occupied than our fathers 
 in explicit confession of personal misdeeds, still we are much 
 in the habit of confessing, like Daniel, 1 ' the sins of our 
 
 1 Daniel ix. 20. 
 
GUILT 41 
 
 people', admitting at the same time our own share in the 
 common responsibility. 
 
 We are told sometimes that the sense of individual 
 guilt which belonged to Puritanism has been replaced, 
 among ' the higher men of to-day ' by a deeper conception. 
 ' The greatest guilt of man ' says Schopenhauer quoting 
 Calderon, 1 ' is that he was born.' The resemblance of 
 this doctrine to the Pauline, Augustinian, and Lutheran, 
 teaching that ' works do not justify ' has been pointed out 
 by Schopenhauer himself. Yet the difference is even 
 greater than the resemblance. Schopenhauer's concep- 
 tion of guilt, though in a sense severer than St. Paul's, is 
 at the same time less effective as a practical incentive to 
 conduct : and in spite of the fact that Schopenhauer has 
 had great influence on many of our most popular writers, it 
 is still true that in England at least the more practical 
 conception of guilt is almost everywhere dominant. 
 
 But we need not confine ourselves to one country or one 
 circle of society. The same general sense of right and 
 wrong or the capacity for it may be found under the 
 most varied social conditions. The late Sir Alfred Lyall 
 used to tell the story of the murder of a blind man in an 
 Indian bazaar by means of a present of poisoned fruit. 
 The community to which the murderer belonged was 
 inured to crime, and its moral sense was peculiarly obtuse : 
 yet this act aroused its most intense indignation. This is 
 no solitary case. The truth is that, though in low com- 
 munities it may need a very gross example to stir the 
 faculty of moral condemnation to activity, yet when 
 their moral indignation is once aroused it is based upon 
 
 1 World as Will and Idea, p. 328, Vol. i. 
 
42 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 ultimate moral principles which are in harmony with 
 our own. We find, when we get deep enough down, the 
 same categorical imperative issuing the same universal 
 command. If one has once perceived that it is wrong 
 to take advantage of a man's infirmity ^to do him an 
 injury, one has discovered the principle on which all the 
 law and the prophets hang. The denizen of the Indian 
 bazaar differs from Kant in the slowness with which this 
 principle dawns upon his mind, and in his capacity for 
 applying it, but not in his perception of its content. 
 
 Let us suppose, however, that we could produce an 
 individual, or a race, destitute of moral conceptions and of 
 the capacity for framing them. Even this evidence would 
 not suffice to prove that we are wrong in seeking to make 
 moral consciousness the basis of our theology. The 
 religious teacher is primarily concerned with the moral 
 consciousness of his immediate hearer, and not with that 
 of the lower types of humanity. The reader who on 
 mature reflection is convinced that he possesses no moral 
 consciousness at all can hardly be invited to pursue the 
 present argument. But no such reader will be found. 
 Sophistical methods of explaining morality away exist 
 in plenty. Against these there lies ready to hand an 
 inexhaustible armoury of weapons in the Dialogues of 
 Plato. It is, however, needless to spend much time 
 in the solution of sophistical puzzles, since very few men, 
 even in their first youth, are seriously deceived by them. 
 Further, unless a man will seriously affirm that he has 
 never done anything of which he is or ought to be ashamed, 
 he must admit that he stands, just as Kant alleges, under a 
 Law which humbles him. Between such an admission and 
 
GUILT 43 
 
 an effective conviction of sin there is a wide difference. 
 But no candid man can refuse to admit the premises on 
 which the conviction of sin is based. 
 
 The main obstacle, in fact, which the Christian teacher 
 has to meet is not sophistry but thoughtlessness. Kant 
 has taken some of our most familiar conceptions those 
 which are expressed by the words ' good ', ' ought ', 
 ' guilt ', ' Law ', ' reverence ' and among them he has 
 established a strict connexion. By defining the thought 
 which is contained in these terms terms which have a 
 clear and an absolute meaning for normal people, what- 
 ever may be the case with certain savage races Kant has 
 shown our subjection to a law under which those who know 
 it are all bound, and are all guilty. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 DELIVERANCE FROM GUILT 
 
 WE see, then, how the preacher who relies on moral 
 arguments, without any reference to the super- 
 natural, may lead his hearers to conviction of sin. But 
 can he lead them from knowledge of sin to knowledge 
 of justification ? He has ground sufficient to establish 
 the Christian doctrine of condemnation ; can he estab- 
 lish the Christian doctrine of salvation also ? 
 
 The' sense of sin in its general form is in no way 
 peculiar to Christianity. Indeed it is from the sense that 
 Man and the Universe are out of joint, and that some 
 kind of reconciliation must be attempted between them, 
 that religion seems, for the most part, to arise. 1 The 
 distinction between religions is found in the methods 
 by which this attempt is made, and thus to contrast 
 the Christian method of Salvation with other methods 
 is among the foremost tasks of the apologist. 
 
 The two methods which alone can be considered as 
 serious rivals to Christianity, are the method of Asceticism 
 and the method of Good Works. From both Christianity 
 must be sharply distinguished ; for though self-abnega- 
 tion and a virtuous life have a high place in Christianity 
 
 1 This phrase covers the development of early religions as 
 described e.g. in Mr. Frazer's Golden Bough. 
 
 44 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM GUILT 45 
 
 itself, it is essentially different from any system which 
 puts its sole or main trust in either. 
 
 Of the ascetic method the noblest representative is 
 Buddhism. On this subject the Western student must 
 always speak with caution. It is inconceivable that any 
 Western scholar can know an Oriental language as 
 thoroughly as the majority of educated Europeans know 
 Latin. And thus the mutual misunderstandings between 
 Roman Catholics and Protestants where the difficulties 
 of comprehension are comparatively small should serve 
 as a warning against too implicit confidence in the judg- 
 ment of Western Orientalists. With regard, however, to 
 the main outline of Eastern beliefs, we may assume that 
 our teachers have not wholly misled us. 
 
 Buddhism has in many respects a close resemblance to 
 Christianity. It resembles it in its hostility towards 
 sharp lines of social cleavage, in requiring self-denial, in 
 inculcating charity and meek behaviour towards all man- 
 kind, in condemning the method which seeks salvation 
 through external works, 1 and in condemning even the 
 more violent forms of asceticism itself. As in Christianity 
 and in Stoicism, so in Buddhism also, man seeks freedom 
 not by subduing the world to his will, but primarily by 
 changing the attitude of his will toward the world. 
 
 1 Buddhism : by T. W. Rhys Davids, p. no, note. We may 
 compare the error of the modern Buddhist who classes Christi- 
 anity with the religions which depend on ' works', with that 
 of Tanquerey and other Roman Catholic writers who class Kant 
 with the Stoics. Both errors are instructive. Tanquerey cannot 
 afford to understand Kant : just as the Buddhist cannot afford 
 to understand Christianity. To understand the higher system 
 is to accept it. 
 
46 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 But this superficial resemblance to Christianity masks 
 a deep internal difference. It is the glory of Christianity 
 that the Salvation it offers is universal, excluding neither 
 the morally degraded nor the intellectually weak. ' There- 
 fore it is of faith ' says St. Paul ' that it might be by 
 grace ; to the end the promise might be sure to all 
 the seed'. 1 It is the boast of the Gospel that it addresses 
 itself to the common man living under common conditions ; 
 that it seeks not to take him out of the world but to keep 
 him from the evil 2 ; that it offers immediate reconcilia- 
 tion to the man newly rescued from gross sin ; and 
 further that the humblest intelligence is within the scope 
 of its ministrations. A Christian Bishop has recently 
 administered the rite of Confirmation to an idiot, assured 
 that the man understood Repentance and Obedience, and 
 reconciliation thereby with God ; and from the time of the 
 Thief on the Cross to our own, Christianity has offered 
 instantaneous pardon to the penitent. Buddhism, on 
 the other hand, seeks gradually to liberate and purify the 
 soul by methods which only few can employ 3 by slow 
 and gradual ascent through moderate asceticism and in- 
 tellectual contemplation, the former beyond the reach 
 of all but celibate persons, the latter closed to the man 
 of low mental endowment. ' He that is dead is freed from 
 sin' 4 . On this subject the Christian and the Oriental may 
 hold similarlanguage ; but the typically Oriental religions 
 with greater or less severity seek a living death, in 
 which all the passions shall be stilled, while Christianity 
 is consistent with the life of the plain man living in the 
 world. 
 
 1 Rom. iv. 1 6. 2 St. John xvii. 15. 
 
 3 See especially Rhys Davids, Buddhism, chaps, iv. and v. 
 
 4 Rom. vi. 7. 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM GUILT 47 
 
 This difference of method results from a profound differ- 
 ence of conception. It cannot be too often repeated 
 that while the Christian glories in the Cross and practises 
 self-denial with enthusiasm, Christian self-abnegation is 
 conceived essentially as the sacrifice of that which is in 
 itself good. It is compared with the plucking out of the 
 eye to save the whole body. 1 The Oriental, on the other 
 hand, dies to the world, because he takes it to be evil a 
 world of vanity and illusion. 
 
 How then is the ascetic method to be regarded ? Can 
 we seriously look upon it as a means by which we our- 
 selves can gain deliverance from guilt ? That the life 
 of voluntary poverty is the true vocation of some indivi- 
 duals is a truth more clearly perceived in Christendom 
 at this moment than at any other period since the close 
 of the Middle Ages. Again to ' keep under the body and 
 bring it into subjection ' is a duty, not for some only, but 
 for all. In Christendom, however, asceticism holds a 
 place which, though important, is subordinate. The as- 
 cetic and contemplative life, as such, can never be accepted 
 by the Christian as equivalent to the Way of Salvation. 
 It is true that upon many Western minds the religions of 
 the East exercise at first contact a powerful attraction, 
 and it is to their ascetic practices that this attraction is 
 due. While the Christian saint professes death to the 
 world, the Eastern ascetic seems to surpass him in the 
 thoroughness of his self-surrender. Yet in most cases this 
 attraction is merely romantic. The European does not 
 in fact become an Oriental ascetic. And if for a time 
 he seeks peace by persuading himself of the worthlessness 
 of the things of sense, this is a phase which passes away 
 1 St. Matt. v. 29. 
 
48 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 with youth. 1 To suggest that the revolt of the European 
 from asceticism proceeds from worldliness or lack of 
 courage would be palpably unjust. The European races 
 are indeed conspicuous for their power to overcome ob- 
 stacles. Our refusal of the ascetic method arises not from 
 our inferiority to the Oriental in strength of character, 
 but from our superiority in moral perception. If Chris- 
 tianity declared ' all earthly blessings to be valueless ' 
 and pointed exclusively ' to a world-shunning and contem- 
 plative life', it would be ' an offence to all energetic, nay, 
 ultimately to all true natures ; for such natures are cer- 
 tain that our faculties are given us to be employed, and 
 that the earth is assigned to us to be cultivated and 
 subdued'. 2 We are in fact convinced that eating and 
 drinking, trade, learning, marriage and family life, are 
 not evil but good that it is God who thus ' fills our 
 hearts with food and gladness'. 3 We have all retained 
 enough at least of the Optimism of Christianity to recog- 
 nize that a total extinction of sensation, even if it were 
 possible, would be wrong. And thus the European who 
 professes that the Oriental and not the Christian method 
 of salvation is the true one, is seldom serious. Pure asceti- 
 cism, as St. Paul perceived long ago, is ' of no value 
 against the indulgence of the flesh'. 4 Error can be ex- 
 pelled only by truth : and the maxims of an ultimate 
 
 1 ' The Enchiridion of Epictetus I had ever with me, often 
 as my sole rational companion ; and I regret to mention that 
 the nourishment it yielded was trifling.' Sartor Resartus, bk. 
 ii. chap. vi. Compare the passages about the De Imitatione 
 Christi in the Mitt on the Floss. 
 
 2 Harnack, What is Christianity ?, pp. 80-8 1. 
 
 3 Acts xiv. 17. 
 
 4 Col. ii. 23 (if this is the right rendering of an obscure 
 passage). 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM GUILT 49 
 
 asceticism are as false as those of an unrestrained self- 
 indulgence. 
 
 Buddhism then, understood as a religion of asceticism 
 in this sense cannot be accepted as a serious alternative 
 to Christianity. But if deliverance from guilt is not to 
 be sought by Oriental asceticism, can it be found in the 
 method of ' Good Works' ? 
 
 The phrase suggests to us at once the Jewish Law. 
 But though it is in Pharisaic Judaism that this method 
 has found its most complete embodiment, it has been by 
 no means confined to the Jew. 
 
 The method of ' Good Works ' is indeed the obvious 
 and natural method by which justification is sought. 
 It consists in setting before oneself some definite standard 
 of behaviour, and expecting by strict conformity thereto 
 to attain satisfaction and peace of mind. It is a method, 
 however, which inevitably leads either to disappointment 
 or to self-righteousness : to disappointment in the minds 
 of the honest and thoughtful, to self-righteousness in 
 those who are contented with defective self-knowledge 
 and a low and arbitrary standard. The man who has 
 fulfilled all his more obvious duties in business and in 
 family life, will sometimes say upon his deathbed that 
 he knows no reason why he should fear to meet his Judge. 1 
 Yet will he assert upon these grounds that he has a 
 peace ' which passes all understanding ' ? It is probable 
 that no such claim has ever been made. Even the sym- 
 
 1 The question ' Are you then one of the ninety and nine just 
 persons mentioned in Scripture who need no repentance ? ' will 
 sometimes bring men of this type to their senses. 
 
 B 
 
50 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 pathetic onlooker who is indignant that the Christian 
 Minister should disturb the dying man's last moments by 
 any hint of doubt, proves by his very indignation that 
 he distinguishes this negatively easy conscience from the 
 assured peace of the Christian. That Christian assurance 
 is not easily disturbed is recognized even by those who 
 regard it as an illusion. For the confidence, on the other 
 hand, which is based on one's own blameless past, no 
 one at heart feels much respect. Good humour and 
 commercial honesty are high virtues : but they do not 
 constitute the whole duty of man. 
 
 Compared with the Pharisaism of common life, the 
 Pharisaism of the Pharisee stands high in the moral scale. 
 Pharisaic Judaism of which the essence is an ordering of 
 conduct by detailed regulations was, at least, a serious 
 and persistent effort after righteous living. If it has 
 not the romantic charm of the systems of the Stoic and 
 the Buddhist, it has the solid merit of a greater effective- 
 ness. Yet the writings of St. Paul show plainly that its 
 success was but partial. And thus the most conspicuous 
 of those who have given the system a fair trial becomes 
 the classic example of its ultimate failure. 
 
 We have, moreover, learned St. Paul's lesson to very 
 little purpose if we think that the failure of the legal 
 method depended upon the peculiar contents of the Law 
 of Moses. Just as there were those who found in the Law 
 something very like a Gospel, 1 so there are always those 
 who living under the Gospel use it as a Law. ' There are 
 two methods of seeking holiness ' said a modern preacher, 
 ' the inward and the outward. May not the latter be as 
 
 1 Mic. vi. 8 ; 2 Chron.vi. 14-42 ; Jer. xxxi. 31-34. 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM GUILT 51 
 
 effective as the former ? Could not a man become 
 saintly by acting at all points like a saint ? ' To that 
 question St. Paul has given once for all the negative 
 answer. 1 Through a great part of the Epistle to the 
 Romans the same word is applied indifferently to the 
 Law of Moses and the true Law of God. 2 The difference 
 between the two did not here need to be insisted on 
 since it was irrelevant to the argument. The legal 
 method must fail, whether our conception of the contents 
 of the Law be Judaic or Christian, for the simple reason 
 that in either case complete obedience is beyond human 
 attainment. The Covenant of Works may be faultless, 
 as regards its contents ; its one unalterable defect is that 
 no one can fulfil it. 
 
 1 Behind the preacher's question there may have lain a true 
 meaning, unfortunately as the sentiment is expressed. Cf. 
 what is said about the Keswick School below. 
 
 * Rom. chap. ii. to viii. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 WHAT then is the method which St. Paul proposes 
 to substitute ? Against the method of ' works ' 
 he sets the method of ' faith ' spoken of in many contexts 
 as faith ' in Christ', and sometimes also in special relation 
 to Christ's ' blood '. 
 
 In regard to the doctrine of ' atonement by blood ' only 
 one remark is needed here. 1 Though the doctrine has 
 received elaborate development at the hands of theolo- 
 gians medieval and modern, especially in the Churches 
 of the Reformation, the tendency at the present moment 
 is in a contrary direction. St. Paul's references to the 
 subject have led some writers to infer that his mind moved 
 so entirely among antique and barbaric conceptions that 
 he cannot be regarded by the modern world as a serious 
 ethical teacher at all. And even the defenders of the 
 doctrine of the Atonement themselves have preferred 
 in recent times to dwell chiefly upon Christ's general 
 obedience, and upon His position as the Representative 
 of our race, leaving aside so far as possible all reference to 
 sacrificial blood. In Dr. Macleod Campbell's chapter 2 
 on the Death of Christ the word ' blood ' occurs only 
 
 1 See chap, xviii. 
 
 2 The Nature of the Atonement, chap xiii. p. 312. Cf. p. 292 
 (3rd edition, 1869). 
 
 52 
 
CHRISTIANITY 53 
 
 once, and then in a quotation. Much the same general 
 criticism is applicable to Dr. Moberly. 
 
 Now to state a self-consistent theory of the relation of 
 the blood of Christ to the sins of man is certainly not 
 easy. Yet it should always be remembered how much 
 of the attractiveness'of Christian preaching has been due 
 to this very doctrine of the cleansing stream the paradox 
 of the robes made white in blood. 1 A philosophy based 
 upon experience must not despise the testimony of the 
 emotions. ' Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this 
 blood clean from my hand ? ' asks Macbeth. It is 
 surely a significant fact that to many a mind, in modern 
 no less than in ancient times, the statement that what 
 water is thus unable to accomplish may be accomplished 
 by the blood of Christ, conveys both a distinct meaning 
 and an emotional satisfaction : and that few passages 
 of Scripture are more often quoted than those which 
 speak of Christ in sacrificial language. We may be per- 
 mitted to surmise, then, that if Dr. Moberly like Macbeth 
 had committed a murder, or if the youth of Dr. Macleod 
 Campbell had been stained with the offences of Don 
 Juan, these two able writers might have perceived that 
 even the most unlettered exponents of this doctrine may 
 sometimes have gone nearer to the heart of the matter 
 than they. 
 
 To this subject we must return below. For the present 
 we are concerned primarily, not with the work of Christ, 
 but with the mental attitude of the Christian. When 
 this mental attitude is spoken of as ' faith', in what sense 
 is this term being employed? 
 
 This question touches the most important point in 
 1 Rev. vii. 14. 
 
54 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Pauline interpretation ; and in answering it it is well 
 to bear in mind that we stand to-day at a critical period 
 in Pauline study. The tacit assumption that St. Paul's 
 terminology is identical with that of the Reformers or 
 the Greek Fathers, or that his views are precisely those 
 of the modern High or Low Churchman, is not now so 
 commonly made as formerly. But there is a danger lest 
 this error may be replaced by the more scholarly but 
 hardly more reasonable assumption that he was the mere 
 child of his time. That much light is being, and will be, 
 thrown on the New Testament writers by a study of 
 their hitherto unregarded contemporaries is certain. 
 Yet the greatest men are always those who are their own 
 best commentators. Such men can be understood fully 
 only by the student who will give independent thought 
 to the subject of which they treat. Is St. Paul then a 
 mere spinner of Rabbinical cobwebs, or is he a genuine 
 thinker dealing with the eternal facts of the spiritual life ? 
 If we may assume the latter view and those who have 
 tried by St. Paul's aid to spell out the problems of their 
 own inner life will not doubt it it will not be impossible 
 to arrive at some definite conclusions as to his meaning. 
 
 In the first place it will become clear that Pauline 
 faith is not a form of intellectual assent, but an act of 
 will. ' Belief ' in the Gospel and ' obedience ' to the 
 Gospel are used by him as interchangeable terms. The 
 believer has ' yielded himself as a servant to obey ' God's 
 law. 1 If by ' justification through faith ' St. Paul 
 had intended ' justification through orthodoxy/ he 
 
 1 2 Thess. i. 8 ; Rom. vi. 12-22 ; Rom. ii. 8 ; cf. i Pet. iii. 
 i i iv. 17 ; Heb. v. 9. 
 
CHRISTIANITY 55 
 
 would in fact be teaching that we are justified by the 
 kind of faith which the Epistle of James attributes 
 to the devils. 1 To teach that apart from good works 
 men can be justified by such faith as this to 
 teach that so long as a man holds correct opinions it 
 makes no matter what he does is to teach that very 
 Antinomianism against which St. Paul consistently 
 protests. 2 The Pauline faith is described as 'working 
 by love ' ; 3 that is, it is such that though distinct from 
 good works it must inevitably lead to them. There is 
 only one mental state namely an act of will to which 
 this description is applicable. No mere act of appre- 
 hension and no mere feeling leads inevitably to good 
 works. Our conduct is not under the immediate control 
 either of our emotions or of our beliefs : it is under the 
 immediate control of our will only. We can thus give 
 no self-consistent interpretation to the Pauline teaching 
 except on the supposition that the ' justifying faith ' of 
 which he speaks is equivalent in essence to that which 
 in the language of Kant is called the ' Good Will ', namely 
 the general determination of ourselves in conduct to 
 the choice of all that is good as such. 
 
 The use of ' faith ' as equivalent to an act of will was, 
 after all, no novelty. It was already in St. Paul's time 
 a theological commonplace 4 to single out from the Old 
 Testament certain examples which consisted primarily 
 in such a trust in God as implied practical self-surrender 
 
 1 St. James, ii. 19. 
 
 2 Antinomianism has been popularly expressed in the couplet 
 
 'Tis no matter what you do 
 If your heart be only true. 
 
 3 Gal. v. 6. 
 
 4 Heb. xi. ; St. James ii. 21-25. 
 
56 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 to His will the ' faith ' of Rahab, the ' faith ' of Moses, 
 the ' faith ' of Abraham. St. Paul it is to be remembered 
 found on his Conversion a religious system already in 
 existence. He found men living in a state of inward 
 peace, assurance and joy, which he himself had failed 
 to find in the Law. Christianity had indeed effected 
 a marked simplification of religion. It had set before 
 men as the ' one thing needful ' x the spirit of discipleship. 
 The following of Christ had become to the disciples 
 not only the centre, but the whole, of religion. And it had 
 become plain since the Crucifixion that this following of 
 Christ was in essence not a literal but a moral following, 
 not an actual attendance on the Master but a submission 
 to His call. ' Faith ' is contrasted in Scripture not with 
 'reason' but with 'sight'. 2 The disciples endured as 
 seeing Him Who is invisible. 3 And the attitude of the 
 Christian who found peace in submission to a law, the 
 full contents of which are necessarily beyond his know- 
 ledge, was strictly analogous to the obedience of Abraham 
 who goes forth in reliance on the divine command ' not 
 knowing whither he went '. The ' one thing needful ' 
 is indeed variously described. In relation to the past it 
 is repentance : in relation to God's Law it is the teach- 
 able spirit : in relation to mankind it is the faith which 
 worketh by love. But, however described, it is one and 
 the same frame of mind, and its one indispensable 
 element is Tightness of will. Since, therefore, St. Paul 
 
 1 Much of the failure to recognize the distinctive character 
 of the Christian Religion is due to the habit of taking as its central 
 principle its inculcation of universal charity which it shares 
 with Buddhism instead of that conception of ' spiritual religion ' 
 which as we shall see below is peculiar to itself. 
 2 2 Cor. v 7. 3 Heb. xi. 27. 
 
CHRISTIANITY 57 
 
 speaks of righteousness by faith as a righteousness 're- 
 cently manifested', 1 we are justified in interpreting his 
 meaning by a reference to the circumstances of his time. 
 But even apart from this his own language is sufficiently 
 clear. Faith is described by him as consistent with every- 
 thing except wilful disobedience : and the command 
 to prove oneself whether one be 'in the faith' 2 refers 
 obviously to a self-examination which turns, not on 
 belief, but on conduct. 
 
 And, in truth, the method of ' faith ' thus interpreted 
 is the method not of St. Paul only but of Christianity 
 in general. The sense that the ' one thing needful ' is the 
 will right with God is the universal and peculiar possession 
 of Christians. It is manifested by Christians in practice 
 even in schools of thought where its theoretical expression 
 has been weak and halting ; and it is never manifested 
 fully except in Christianity alone. The prophet Micah, 
 indeed, divined that the Lord required nothing but that 
 man should ' do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly 
 with his God.' 3 But apart from the all-important fact 
 that Micah entirely failed to establish a religion which 
 should rest on these purely spiritual conditions, his 
 statement is in itself defective. The dictum of Micah 
 would have brought no explicit comfort to the Penitent 
 Thief, since it insists upon justice, the very virtue which 
 the Thief had neglected to practise. In Christianity, 
 on the other hand, the peace which depends on the 
 Tightness of the heart with God is always explicitly 
 connected with the knowledge of the imperfection of our 
 actual achievement. To St. Paul the Christian is one 
 
 1 Rom. iii. 21. 2 2 Cor. xiii. 5. 3 Mic. vi. 8. 
 
58 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 who ' worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth 
 the ungodly \ 1 . Similarly, Luther insists that it is not 
 faith and love, but faith alone, which justifies the sinner. 2 
 And even in types of Christianity which stand at the 
 opposite extreme from that of Luther and St. Paul, 
 there exists the same perpetual sense of the presence of 
 sin. The repeated prayer of the author of the ' Golden 
 Legend ' is that the Saints may ' impetre remission ' 3 
 of our sins from God. It is a pure mistake to suppose 
 that Christianity even of the simplest type is ever a 
 mere fairy-tale the mere Legend of One Who sends His 
 Son in changed form upon earth and arbitrarily offers 
 Heaven to those who shall penetrate this disguise, 4 
 and thence to conclude that popular Christianity is con- 
 cerned with Salvation in no higher sense than that of 
 material happiness in a future existence. The Christian 
 mind in all its varieties is set on Salvation in its deeper 
 significance, and even where language turns mainly upon 
 future glory it is as a symbol of deliverance from moral 
 guilt that future glory is chiefly valued. A future life 
 without deliverance from sin, however happy it might 
 otherwise be conceived to be, would have no attraction 
 for the Christian soul. 
 Thus it is not enough to say that Christianity is char- 
 
 1 Rom. iv. 5. 
 
 2 With the discussions in Mohler's Symbolik 15 to 20 cf. 
 Ritschl, Rechtfertigung und Versohnung, 19. 
 
 3 See e.g. the life of St. Paul the Hermit : the Purification 
 of our Lady : the Chairing of St. Peter. 
 
 4 So that the few 
 
 On whom My grace descends, those who are marked 
 As vessels to the honour of their God, 
 May credit this strange sacrifice and save 
 Their souls alive. 
 
 Shelley's ' Queen Mab ', vii. 
 
CHRISTIANITY 59 
 
 acterized by the ' inward method ' in the spiritual life 
 the same thing might be said of Buddhism : it is char- 
 acterized by the use of an inward method of a special kind. 
 Christianity has worked the supreme revolution because, 
 unlike Buddhism, it has set before men an ideal which 
 contains no element against which the healthy soul re- 
 volts. The Christian ideal, even as embodied in the 
 Person of Christ, is rather a sketch than a complete pic- 
 ture. Christ is presented to us in Scripture rather as 
 faultless than as perfect. There are many aspects of 
 human duty the life of the soldier, the thinker, the 
 scholar, the artist for which neither His precept nor 
 His example give any explicit guidance. But, so far as it 
 goes, the Christian ideal has a convincing finality which 
 is quite unique. The perfected Buddhist ascetic has 
 destroyed elements in human nature which were worth 
 preserving. The perfected Christian saint, if such a 
 saint could be found, would be fit for immediate entrance 
 upon the life of glory. While, however, Christianity 
 has made the unattainableness of the true ideal plainer 
 than ever before, it has at the same time revealed the 
 possibility of peace of mind through genuine submission 
 to this ideal in will a submission which may be com- 
 plete at any moment though the obedience in deed can 
 never in this world be complete at all. 
 
 We may see then how the Kantian terminology enables 
 us to define, with a clearness unattained in pre-Kantian 
 days, the frame of mind which is characteristic of Chris- 
 tianity, and also to connect this with the claim of Chris- 
 tianity to be the universal religion. If the ' Good Will ' 
 the whole-hearted surrender of the Will to God's com- 
 mand is indeed the ' one thing needful ' for justification, 
 
60 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 then, but not otherwise, justification is open to all man- 
 kind. Special capacities of emotion, belief, or know- 
 ledge are possessed by some men and denied to others. 
 The Good Will alone is within the reach of every rational 
 being. It is true that with St. Paul the surrender of 
 the Will to God had been contemporaneous with the con- 
 viction that Christ was raised from the dead. The de- 
 cision and the belief, thus associated together, were never 
 afterwards severed. And therefore St. Paul has used 
 language which some schools of theology will always 
 quote 1 as evidence that the ' faith ' of which he speaks is 
 
 1 See especially Rom. x. 9, i Cor. xv. 2. Those who allege 
 these passages in favour of a non-moral interpretation of St. 
 Paul's language may be asked whether they would themselves 
 be willing to accept St. Paul's statements in an absolutely literal 
 manner. His actual words would cover the case of the morally 
 profligate scholar who on arriving at the conclusion that Christ's 
 resurrection was the best attested fact in history should have 
 courage to avow this belief. But the Epistle to the Romans is 
 in form a letter : and the warning of Matthew Arnold against 
 applying to literary works canons of interpretation appropriate 
 to dogmatic treatises only cannot be too often in our minds. 
 
 St. Paul's general attitude towards moral and intellectual 
 errors seems sufficiently plain. We may indeed recognize three 
 grades of severity in his condemnation. 
 
 His greatest severity is for those who while professing Christi- 
 anity violate the Moral Law (i Cor. iv. 19-21 ; v. 1-5, 9, 11-13 
 Eph. v. 6 ; cf. 2 Tim. ii. 18. To hold oneself to be already a 
 saint in glory if this be the meaning seems inconsistent with 
 moral sanity. It is clear at any rate that the heresy, whatever 
 it was, was associated with antinomian practices. See v. 19 
 and cf. i Tim. i. 20 with i Cor. v. 5). 
 
 Next in severity is his language towards those who have 
 renounced a higher spiritual method in favour of a lower one. 
 (Gal. iii. i ; Col. ii. 20). 
 
 Lightest is his condemnation of error which concerns mere 
 matters of fact, even though this be disbelief in the Resurrection 
 of Christ (i Cor. xv.). 
 
 In the first case he excommunicates : in the second he de- 
 
CHRISTIANITY 61 
 
 not an act of will but the acceptance of an historical 
 belief, or perhaps that it is an act compounded of these 
 two heterogeneous elements. Such arguments, however, 
 are for controversial use only. By an honourable in- 
 consistency they are forgotten in dealing with the sinner. 
 No one really desires that the Penitent Thief, pending 
 his instruction in the Apostles' Creed, should be excluded 
 from Paradise. And it is surely clear that if St. Paul had 
 been conversant with modern distinctions if the broad 
 line between belief and will, the speculative and the 
 practical, had been as evident to him as, since the time 
 of Kant, it is to us he could on his own principles have 
 had little tolerance for those who would assert that the 
 penitent and obedient spirit is no longer the one thing 
 needful for finding peace with God, but that we must be 
 
 nounces : in the third he merely argues. To profess that Christ 
 delivers from sin (xv. 17) and yet to deny that He is risen seems 
 to the Apostle profoundly illogical ; but there is no word here 
 of ' delivering the unbeliever to Satan ', no suggestion that the 
 Christians should ' put away from among themselves that wicked 
 person ', no passionate pleading and rebuke such as marks the 
 Epistle to the Galatians. 
 
 That belief in Christ's Resurrection, though associated in St. 
 Paul's own case with ' saving faith ', is not considered by him 
 as absolutely identical with it or inseparable from it, may be seen 
 by a consideration of Rom. ix. 32. The Jew is there declared 
 to have failed, not because the Resurrection of Christ was not 
 made known to him, but because of the faultiness of the method 
 by which he sought righteousness. If the veil had not been 
 upon his heart he might have learned from the words of Moses 
 (Rom. x. 6) the method of righteousness through faith which 
 was ' witnessed by the law and the prophets ' (iii. 21), though 
 not actually manifested till the veil was done away in Christ. 
 It is Christ as the bringer in of a new Law and a new Covenant, 
 rather than Christ as risen, that is the central theological thought 
 even for the Apostle for whom the bodily resurrection meant 
 so much. 
 
62 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 careful and troubled about many things besides, such as 
 the intricacies of evidential theology. The childlike and 
 teachable spirit will lead the scholar to seek out the 
 truth on these subjects as on all others : but since belief 
 in Christ's resurrection can on no hypothesis come to us 
 with immediate evidence, but only as the result of a 
 chain of reasoning, it is impossible that this belief can 
 stand in the same relation to our faith as it did to that 
 of the Apostle, or to any other of the original eye-wit- 
 nesses. 1 
 
 We arrive then at an answer to the question with 
 which this chapter opened. The method by which 
 the religion of Christ seeks deliverance from guilt is a 
 
 1 It seems worth while to point out that the ambiguity of the 
 word ' faith ' though it has led to confusion can seldom have 
 led to vital error. Here, indeed, as so often, the vaguer term 
 the language of ' literature ' rather than ' dogma ' is in the 
 end the more expressive. Christianity proclaims salvation 
 through ' will ' rather than through ' deed ' (cf. Rom. vii. 18) ; 
 through ' trying ' to serve God rather than through ' succeeding ' 
 in this service. But the term ' faith ' has advantages which 
 suggest that we cannot well find a satisfactory substitute for 
 it. While ' trying ' carries with it the association of precarious 
 experiment, ' faith ' suggests assured confidence. Again ' will ' 
 suggests activity, while ' faith ' suggests that passive attitude 
 which is congenial with the language of Kant no less than with 
 that of the New Testament (Rom. ix. 16) the attitude of sub- 
 mission to a law which even against our will can extort our 
 reverence. To Kant the Moral Imperative, though present 
 to every rational being, is yet a standing miracle, comparable 
 to the starry heavens. For St. Paul, though Salvation is thrown 
 open to ' all the seed ', it is yet the gift of God (Eph. ii. 8). And 
 no one who has known the temptations of a time of torpor when 
 all good impulses except the bare Imperative of Duty have 
 ceased to act will find such language unintelligible. 
 
CHRISTIANITY 63 
 
 method quite its own : and it is not too much to say 
 that it is the one method by which freedom from guilt 
 can reasonably be hoped for. For what are its possible 
 competitors ? Oriental Asceticism is a way of condemna- 
 tion an ' offence ultimately to all true natures '.* The 
 legal method is a way of condemnation also : 2 since no 
 honest man can conceivably hold that he has fulfilled all 
 the Law of God. Christianity, on the other hand, offers 
 the only peace, freedom and self-respect, which is possible 
 to an awakened soul in a world of sin. Granted that to 
 many the cleansing by Christ's blood is an unmeaning 
 phrase : there is yet no one who may not discover, by 
 direct experience and quite apart from all supernatural 
 conceptions, that with a will attuned to the law which 
 he cannot perfectly fulfil in deed he may be ' clean ' 
 in spite of sin ' through the word which Christ has spoken '. 3 
 
 1 Harnack, loc. cit. 
 
 2 ' The ministration of death ', 2 Cor. iii. 7. 
 
 3 St. John xv. 3. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 CHRIST 
 
 ROM Christianity as a System we now pass to 
 A Christ as a Person. How far will the purely 
 moral method of argument which we have hitherto pur- 
 sued lead us towards a Christian estimate of Jesus ? 
 
 There are many to whom the transition from Christianity 
 to Christ is so natural as to seem hardly to be a transition 
 at all. We use Christ's name freely in speaking of our 
 own religious states : we speak of Christian salvation, 
 Christian hope, Christian humility, Christian charity, 
 Christian resignation. In these and other phrases 
 the common language of believers has always identified 
 our Religion with its Founder. 
 
 But is this identification well grounded ? There are 
 those who deny it : who assert that Jesus stands in no 
 such unique relation as this phraseology implies with 
 the religion of the modern Christian. ' What our re- 
 ligious experiences prove is that there is a present power 
 adequate to produce them : they give no one any right 
 to call that power by any historical name. To call it the 
 " Living Christ " is to beg the question : it is to go be- 
 yond what the evidence will justify. The Buddhist 
 would have as much right to call it the " Living Buddha ". 
 
 64 
 
CHRIST 65 
 
 The best name for it is doubtless the " Living God " '.* 
 This objection has in part been already met. We have 
 seen why St. Paul could not have spoken in the sense 
 here suggested of the ' Living Moses '. The modern 
 Christian has the same reason for refusing to speak of the 
 ' Living Buddha ', and in general for singling out the 
 influence of Christ from among all the other holy and 
 noble influences which the world has known. Christ it 
 is true is not unique in every sense. He is not the 
 only spiritual teacher of mankind. Nor is He the only 
 teacher in whose light men have seen light through 
 succeeding generations. Gautama, Socrates, Francis of 
 Assisi may all in various ways be aptly compared to Him. 
 But He is unique in being just what He was, and in 
 teaching just what He taught. And it is precisely by 
 being what He was and not another, that He has been 
 the author of the gifts that are distinctively Christian. 
 When we are speaking, not of achievement, but of right- 
 ness of mood and temper, the difference between absolute 
 Tightness and anything less than this is indeed infinite. 
 It is quite conceivable then that Christ is not merely 
 unique but supreme that the supremacy which belongs 
 to His religion belongs also to His Person. But is this 
 so in truth ? We have seen in the preceding chapter 
 that the Gospel has brought a deliverance from guilt such 
 as other systems have failed to achieve ; and thus that 
 we are not going beyond what experience warrants if we 
 say that we have found Salvation through Christianity. 
 But are we entitled to say, on mere grounds of experience 
 alone, that Salvation is to be found through Christ ? 
 
 1 Hibbert Journal, vol. iv. no. 4, July 1906, p. 851. Why 
 not face the facts ? An appeal to Protestants. Rev. K. C. Ander- 
 son, D.D. 
 
 F 
 
66 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 This question may be asked in two senses. We may 
 conceivably regard the Christ of the Gospels as an Ideal 
 Figure and nothing more. Even so we can hardly deny 
 that the moral teaching of the Gospels is inextricably 
 intertwined with its Personal Embodiment : even so it 
 will still in a sense be Christ, and not merely Christianity, 
 which is the force which draws men upward. If on the 
 other hand we believe ourselves to know Jesus as a 
 Person of history, a Power of Salvation manifested in 
 the flesh we shall have arrived at a position far nearer 
 to that of traditional theology. Has the world then 
 been saved by the historic Jesus ? Has the world been 
 saved by the Ideal Christ ? Provided that we keep these 
 two questions clearly apart in our minds, there is no harm 
 in discussing them together. 
 
 In dealing with both these questions we must be careful 
 to avoid the familiar assumptions of orthodoxy. We 
 must not assume that the Evangelists were supernaturally 
 protected from error, or that, Christ being divine, His 
 actions must be judged by a special standard. 1 What- 
 ever result we may arrive at as a conclusion, it will be 
 arguing in a circle to introduce such assumptions among 
 our premises. 
 
 It will be wise, moreover, to keep constantly in view 
 opinions which stand at the extreme of opposition to 
 those usually held by Christians. A brilliant writer has 
 declared himself weary of hearing all ' perfections ascribed 
 to a semi-mythical Syrian '. Others have spoken as if 
 
 1 See One Volume Bible Commentary (Macmillan and Co). 
 p. 655. The reply made here to Professor Huxley's argument 
 would serve to justify, not only the destruction of property, but 
 murder or theft. 
 
CHRIST 67 
 
 the Gospels contained nothing but the commonplaces 
 of morality with a garniture of fabulous incident. Such 
 sentiments ought not greatly to surprise us. It should 
 be remembered that the whole tendency of modern 
 training is to make men suspicious of miraculous stories 
 in whatever context they may occur. The onus probandi 
 is upon the Christian. 
 
 We must give special attention too, at the present 
 moment, to what is called the ' eschatological theory '. 
 As expounded by Dr. Schweitzer, 1 it cannot be classed 
 among the views which seek to lessen the Figure of the 
 Saviour. In the popularized form, however, in which 
 it has had vogue in this country, little except the nega- 
 tions have been retained. Thus we are told that what 
 Jesus really was must always remain in large measure un- 
 known : and that so far as we know Him He belongs to 
 a world of thought so different from ours that to enter into 
 His mind is impossible. The surest fact about Him it 
 is said is that He proclaimed the speedy Advent of 
 the end, and His own appearance, as the Son of Man pre- 
 dicted by Daniel, upon the clouds of heaven : and, more- 
 over, since all His teaching is subordinate to this hope 
 His directions for conduct become a mere " Interimse- 
 thik", a purely provisional morality fitted to fill the 
 short gap between His earthly preaching and His miracu- 
 lous return. 
 
 1 The translation into English of Dr. Schweitzer's great Prose- 
 Epic under the title of the ' Quest of the Historical Jesus ' 
 is an important event. Yet, so far as the character of our Lord 
 is concerned, we may gain more light from an older work written 
 in our own tongue. The texts which revealed the ' secret of 
 Jesus ' to the author of Literature and Dogma, are still in the 
 Bible, even though scholars more learned than he have failed 
 to understand their significance, 
 
68 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 What positive evidence have we to oppose to these 
 denials ? Let us turn to the Synoptic Gospels. 1 The 
 Master's teaching as there described is conditioned, no 
 doubt, by the popular notions of His day. It is moulded 
 by the Messianic expectation. But was He Himself at 
 the same intellectual standpoint as His contemporaries, 
 or did He merely use current notions for His own higher 
 purposes ? 
 
 And first of all what sort of picture of His character 
 and teaching do these Gospels convey ? A clear concep- 
 tion of this picture, of its definiteness, its unity, and its 
 uniqueness, is the first step towards a just estimate of its 
 historic value. 
 
 Now to dissect so sacred a thing as our impression of 
 the teaching and character of Jesus can never be a 
 wholly pleasant task, however reverent be the spirit in 
 which it is undertaken. Yet the effort is worth making : 
 for even a brief study of the subject is enough to show 
 that there are facts within the reach of every Bible- 
 reader which form a sufficient basis for the conclusions 
 which most concern practical Christianity. In all the 
 direct sources of the Evangelical narrative which modern 
 criticism asks us to distinguish in St. Mark, in the 
 " non-Marcan document", in the special sections peculiar 
 to the authors of the First and Third Gospels there is a 
 type of teaching which cannot in the nature of the case 
 be purely subordinate to the hope of a Messianic Reign, 
 unless this hope is interpreted in a highly spiritual sense. 
 Modern critics have been accused sometimes of making 
 
 1 The Gospel of St. John has no obvious bearing on the present 
 argument. It may be doubted whether modern criticism has 
 yet found the key to the intricate problems which that Gospel 
 presents, 
 
CHRIST 69 
 
 the arbitrary assumption that Jesus is to be interpreted 
 as if He were a modern Liberal and Protestant. These 
 phrases would not be applied to Him without qualifica- 
 tion by any man of reverent mind. Yet none the less 
 the Liberal Protestant may fairly claim that all that he 
 values most in his religion has been directly learned from 
 the express teaching of Jesus in the Gospels. The words 
 of Jesus, as the Evangelists report them, are no mere 
 ' striking moral aphorisms ' comparable to the dicta of 
 the Wise Men of Greece or to the Proverbs of Solomon. 
 Many of His sayings, even if taken singly, may justly be 
 described to-day in spite of the distance which separates 
 His time from ours as the last word of spiritual wisdom 
 on the subjects of which they treat. His sayings, if taken 
 together, embody a consummate and masterly expression 
 of the loftiest moral attitude yet manifested to humanity. 
 It is not too much to say that He has led men into the 
 clearest of all spiritual atmospheres, that He has taught 
 us to approach spiritual things in just that temper of 
 mind which leads most surely to the right solution of 
 moral problems as they are one by one presented to us 
 and that His teaching may therefore be justly regarded as 
 the supreme achievement of the human spirit. 
 
 To form such a judgment is an act no doubt of moral 
 intuition which cannot be justified by mere argument : 
 yet this judgment would appear to be within the reach 
 of every open mind. To treat the moral teaching of the 
 Pagan philosophers as in any sense equal to that of Jesus, 
 is possible to those only who take the facts not as a whole 
 but piecemeal. And one thing at least is demonstrably 
 plain. The view that His teaching is identical with the 
 morality of other systems, consisting merely of the 
 commonplaces with which no religion can dispense, can 
 
70 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 be held only by those who close their eyes to the evidence. 
 Whether His teaching is true or false, it is at least 
 distinctive. 
 
 It will be convenient though the correctness of the 
 current theory is in no way vital to the argument to 
 follow the commonly accepted division of the ' sources ', 
 and to begin therefore with the Second Gospel and the 
 supposed ' non-Marcan document '. 
 
 St. Mark whatever view we may ultimately come to 
 take of him as a historian is clearly no mere ignorant 
 recounter of marvels. He stands, for example, on a 
 much higher intellectual level than that of the earliest 
 historians of the Franciscan Movement. Granted that 
 there are in his Gospel touches of naivete such as the later 
 Evangelists were careful to eliminate, he is concerned, no 
 less than they, with the great spiritual issues which 
 belong to all time. It is he who points out that the 
 parable concerning the washing of hands before meat is 
 in effect a declaration that all meats are clean. 1 It is he 
 alone who has preserved the fine phrase which condemns 
 the blasphemer against the Holy Ghost as guilty of an 
 ' eternal sin '. 2 There is indeed no ground whatever 
 for the suspicion that the Master as He here appears is of 
 lower spiritual or intellectual stature than in the por- 
 traits in the other Gospels. 
 
 We may notice to begin with how much the Second 
 Gospel contains of the teaching which we are apt to regard 
 as distinctively Pauline. St. Paul's greatest service to 
 theology has been to define in unmistakable phrases the 
 essence of ' spiritual religion '. He teaches that our 
 
 1 Mark vii. 19, reading KaOapi&v. See R.V. 
 
 2 Mark iii. 29, reading ' 
 
CHRIST 71 
 
 standing before God depends wholly on our inward frame 
 of mind. ' To the pure all things are pure : but to them 
 that are denied and unbelieving is nothing pure : but 
 both their mind and their conscience are defiled/ 1 If all 
 things are pure to the pure in heart, it follows in sharp 
 opposition with the Pagan and Jewish belief in the un- 
 cleanness of special material things, and with the Oriental 
 belief in the evil nature of Matter in general that nothing 
 is unclean in itself ; that nothing can become unclean 
 except in relation to the perverse intention of a rational 
 being ; and consequently that all time, and all matter, 
 are in themselves good, every day being worthy of 
 esteem, 2 and the earth the Lord's and the fulness thereof. 3 
 Hence it arises that Christianity can be independent of 
 externals without despising them. It is independent of 
 ' works ' since works cannot justify, 4 while the pure 
 heart apart from works can : 5 it is independent of wisdom 
 since though in our knowledge of Christ all the treasures 
 of wisdom are implicitly contained, 6 and though we 
 speak wisdom among the perfect, 7 men can yet be justified 
 at the lowest stage of intellectual development : 8 it is 
 independent of ordinances since under the Gospel par- 
 ticular commands and rules can never be absolute. 9 The 
 
 1 Titus i. 15. It is clear that these words sum up the Pauline 
 view, elsewhere less compendiously expressed. The question 
 therefore of the authorship of this Epistle is not here relevant. 
 
 2 Rom. xiv. 5. 3 i Cor. x. 26. 
 
 4 Gal. ii. 1 6. 5 Rom. iv. 6. 6 Col. ii. 3. 
 
 7 i Cor. ii. 6. 8 i Cor. i. 26-27. 
 
 9 Coloss. ii. 1 6, etc. Even the strictest sacramental teaching 
 denies that the necessity of sacraments to salvation is absolute. 
 They are held to be necessary ' where they may be had '. Cf. 
 Summa Theol. part iii. 68 art. 2, and St. Ambrose's De obitu 
 Valentiniani Consolatio, sec. 51. 
 
72 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 soul which is subject to the Law of Love is ipso facto 
 free from every other law. Since nothing can override 
 the Law of Love, 1 and since nothing can be required to 
 supplement it, 2 it follows that, except in subordination 
 to this law and as mere cases of its application, other laws 
 can have no place in Christianity at all. ' Against love ' 
 therefore ' there is no law/ 3 Hence the Christian is 
 subject not to the letter but to the spirit 4 and so is free, 5 
 the one principle which rules him being a principle which 
 he understands and voluntarily accepts. 
 
 The chief Pauline doctrines and phrases are united thus 
 by a simple thread of connexion. But can we not for 
 every one of these doctrines find a parallel in the pages of 
 St. Mark ? Here too it is taught that the pure heart is 
 the one condition by which all things become good to us. It 
 is by a change of heart 6 that the Kingdom of God is to be 
 prepared for ; it is to those who have a mind open to 
 welcome God's blessings 1 and His commands 8 that the 
 Master attributes the faith which stands in contrast with 
 the hardness of heart of those who are in bondage to their 
 own preconceived theories : it is this ' faith ' which alone 
 opens to us all God's gifts. 9 And how could the fundamental 
 principle of all spiritual religion be expressed with more 
 convincing felicity than in the epigram that ' not that 
 which goeth into the mouth, but that which cometh out of 
 it, defileth the man ' ? 10 Thus we are brought to that 
 very attitude towards works, wisdom, and ordinances, 
 
 1 Cf. St. Mark. xii. 31. Cf. St. Matt. xxii. 40. 
 
 3 Gal. v. 23. 4 Rom. ii. 29 ; vii. 6 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6. 
 
 5 Rom. vii. 2-6 ; Gal. v. i. 
 
 6 /x,Tavoia, Mark i. 15. 7 ii. 5. 
 
 8 iv. 20. iv. 25. 10 vii. 20. 
 
CHRIST 73 
 
 which was defined in more technical language by St. 
 Paul. The Master is described as teaching clearly that 
 good works may even be an obstacle to the reception of 
 the Gospel j 1 that the simplicity of the child is no dis- 
 qualification for membership in His Kingdom ; 2 that rules 
 and ordinances are to be judged simply by the good or 
 evil that results from them ; 3 that since the Sabbath was 
 made for man, man is lord of the Sabbath. 4 
 
 On the subject of spiritual religion then, Jesus teaches- 
 according to St. Mark the whole Pauline view. 
 
 Nor is the disciple above his Master. Apart from the 
 Pauline distinctions between ' faith ' and ' works ', ' grace ' 
 and ' nature ', the ' flesh ' and the ' spirit ', the true drift 
 of much of the Gospel teaching might have been missed. 
 Yet the language used by Jesus in the Second Gospel, 
 though less systematic than St. Paul's, is wider in appeal, 
 more final, more convincing. It is Jesus Who speaks 
 with the more masterly air of ease and grace, with 
 the readier wealth of illustration and epigram. St. Paul 
 speaks, after all, as a Rabbi of the schools : Jesus speaks 
 in the language of common life. 
 
 The truth is that, wherever they can be compared, the 
 Master is plainly above the disciple. Though optimistic 
 doctrine the belief in the goodness of matter and of the 
 things of sense is a fundamental part of the Apostle's 
 theory, his teaching is not pervaded as the Master's is 
 with the optimistic sentiment. So clear is the Apostle's 
 sense of the unique value of the ' New ', of the dispensa- 
 tion of Grace, of Liberty, of the Spirit, that he is apt to 
 
 1 ii. 17. Cf. St. Luke xv. 7. 2 x. 15. 3 iii. 4. 
 
 4 ii. 27, 28. The argument becomes a non sequitur if the words 
 ' Son of Man ' are here referred in any exclusive sense to the 
 Master Himself. Cf . Chrysostom's Homilies on St. Matthew xxxix. 
 
74 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 undervalue the ' Old ' to see little in his past life but the 
 galling bondage of the letter, and even at times to opine 
 that in his flesh dwelleth no good thing. 1 Of such 
 Puritanism on its weaker side there is in the Master's own 
 teaching no sign. Of the novelty of His doctrine He is 
 in the Marcan account no less than in the other Gospels 
 well aware : 2 and He teaches unhesitatingly that there 
 is but one sole condition for the reception of the highest 
 gifts, and that from him that hath it not is taken away all 
 that he seemeth to have. Yet he freely recognizes the value 
 of those gifts of nature which, though not themselves the 
 one thing needful, yet predispose the mind thereto. 
 Just as in the Third Gospel we read of Him as declaring 
 the harlot's sins forgiven ' because she loved much/ 3 so 
 in the Marcan narrative He applies the term ' faith ' to 
 the eagerness, persistence, and hope, with which the 
 sick man's friends desire for him a purely earthly blessing. 4 
 In a similar spirit he declares the value not only of childish 
 innocence, 5 but of the earlier stages in every spiritual 
 development. ' First the blade, then the ear, then the full 
 corn in the ear.' 6 He does not indeed say that works 
 
 1 Rom. vii. 18. 2 St. Mark ii. 19, 22. 
 
 3 St. Luke vii. 47. It is said both ' that she loved because 
 she was forgiven ', and ' that she was forgiven because she loved '. 
 The words do not necessarily imply that passionate gratitude 
 and personal devotion to Christ after the flesh can of themselves 
 reconcile a soul to God. No more need be meant than that her 
 love, the remote cause, led to repentance, the immediate cause, 
 of justification. 
 
 4 St. Mark ii. 5. Cf. x. 51. 5 St. Mark x. 15. 
 
 6 St. Mark iv. 28. It is strange that in the light of this phrase 
 any scholar should hold that the Founder of our Religion was 
 as John Baptist may well have been a ' man of one idea ', a 
 sharer in the vulgar apocalyptic notions. With St. Mark iv. 
 28 compare xiii. 28 : and see Mr. Percy Gardner's suggestion 
 (Jowett Lectures, chap, iv.), that the reference to the fig tree 
 
CHRIST 75 
 
 done ' before the grace of Christ ' deserve grace de con- 
 gruo l for such a notion of merit is alien to His teaching 2 
 yet in His general attitude on this subject He is certainly 
 in some respects nearer to those who have affirmed this 
 position than to some who have impugned it. 
 
 We need not indeed go beyond St. Mark to find the 
 portrait of One Who combines a Puritan strictness 3 with 
 a total absence of the harshness, the sourness, the narrow- 
 ness which that term is held to connote ; Who unites the 
 enthusiasms of diverse religious schools while eschewing 
 their perversions. He would have His disciples cultivate 
 a Franciscan independence of earthly resources. 4 He 
 affirms that ' taking up the cross ' is a condition of true 
 discipleship. 5 Yet He evinces no tendency to regard 
 the good things of this life as merely transitory and 
 valueless ; 6 no inclination to the view that childhood and 
 youth are vanity, 7 no contempt for bodily pleasures 8 and 
 needs. It is not rebuked as a sign of a wordly mind, but 
 praised as an act of faith, that the blind man, without a 
 word concerning higher blessings, asks to receive his 
 sight. 9 The very connexion which Jesus perceives between 
 healing of body and forgiveness of sin 10 is enough by itself 
 
 appears here in a wrong context which ' spoils a fine natural 
 parable '. It has been similarly suggested that in St. Matt, 
 xxiv. 27 ' the shining which cometh from the east even unto the 
 west ' refers not to the lightning but to the dawn. Cf. St. 
 Luke xi. 36. Aeschylus Fragm. 372. 
 
 1 Articles of Religion of the Church of England. Art. XIII. 
 
 2 St. Luke xvii. 10. 3 Cf. Luke xiii. 3, 5. Matt. vii. n. 
 4 St. Mark vi. 8. 5 St. Mark viii. 34. 
 
 6 As in the hymn ' Passing soon and little worth, Are the 
 things which tempt on earth.' 
 
 7 Eccles. xi. 10. 
 
 8 With St. Matt. xi. 19 cf. Mark ii. 19, etc. 
 
 9 St. Mark. x. 51. 10 St. Mark ii. 9. 
 
76 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 to prove that He regarded bodily health as good. Epic- 
 tetus would console a man for the loss of his wife by the 
 reflection that after all she was but a woman. 1 Jesus, on 
 the other hand, far from belittling the gifts which He asks 
 in sacrifice, rather exalts the commonest services 2 and 
 assigns to those who shall most humbly serve the highest 
 place among His disciples. 3 It is in the same spirit that 
 He commands toleration of him ' who followeth not us '. 4 
 Can we then read the Second Gospel without perceiving 
 that its Central Figure is One Who surrounds Himself at all 
 times with an atmosphere of tenderness, humility and 
 fearlessness, Who inculcates through His sense of the 
 overflowing bounty of God a bountiful generosity toward 
 men, which explains that which will always stand out as 
 the most striking element in Kenan's picture namely 
 the air of sunny cheerfulness which belongs to those who 
 in the presence of the Master were indeed children of the 
 bride-chamber ? 5 
 
 Thus Jesus, as sketched by St. Mark, unites elements 
 which to say the least are but rarely united elsewhere. 
 He teaches a religion of supreme ' good sense ' which 
 shall judge observances solely by the good they can 
 accomplish 6 yet a religion which is very far removed 
 from the mere vulgar " common sense " which demands 
 nothing more than tolerance and good nature. Infinitely 
 tolerant with regard to matters which are of no real import- 
 ance, 7 He is yet infinitely strict with regard to that 
 which may cause the little one to stumble. 8 
 
 1 Encheiridion, 3. a St. Mark ix. 41. 
 8 St. Mark ix. 35 ; x. 43, 44. 
 
 4 St. Mark ix. 38. 6 St. Mark ii. 19. 6 St. Mark iii. 4. 
 
 7 St. Mark ii. 23. 8 St. Mark ix. 42. 
 
CHRIST 77 
 
 His attitude too is as unlike that of the ordinary religious 
 man in its doctrinal, as in its moral, outlook. There has 
 been much speculation as to the meaning of the words 
 concerning the ' mystery of the Kingdom '.* On one 
 point at least the language is clear. In the Kingdom of 
 God no mystery is ultimate : since ' nothing is made 
 secret but that it should come to light/ If this statement 
 is to be taken as universal in meaning, as it is in form, we 
 could ask for no more philosophic theory concerning the 
 place of mystery, ignorance, and delusion in the life of 
 man. ' AU that God is/ says Hegel, ' He reveals.' 2 
 ' God ', we read, ' is light and in Him is no darkness at 
 all.' 3 The Master surely on St. Mark's showing would 
 have been as severe a critic of the obscurantism of much 
 subsequent theology as of the leaven of the Scribes and 
 Pharisees. 
 
 It is often objected that modern theology eager to 
 claim Jesus as its own builds too much upon single 
 passages, and that these moreover are arbitrarily interpre- 
 ted in the light of modern conceptions. Scepticism of this 
 sort may be carried even further. It may be suggested 
 that all the teaching in this Gospel is but a chance col- 
 lection of striking sayings, delivered on various occasions, 
 and possessing no general significance whatever. It is 
 possible, for example, (though this reading meets with no 
 support from the context) 4 to interpret the mystery of the 
 Kingdom in a trivial sense to suppose it some mere secret 
 
 1 St. Mark. iv. n ; cf. iv. 22. 
 
 8 Logic, Eng. Trans, p. 254 (2nd edit. Clarendon Press, 1892). 
 
 3 i John i. 5. 
 
 4 The words are used in relation to the Parable of the Sower, 
 a parable whose significance is obviously moral rather than 
 Eschatological. 
 
78 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 which for motives of policy it was not prudent immediately 
 to disclose. With regard to many other passages, taken 
 singly, a fairly good case may be made for interpretations 
 of a similar character. But can such negative views ever 
 survive a prolonged study of the Marcan narrative as a 
 whole, except in those who are exceptionally destitute of 
 moral perception ? For do we not come in contact in 
 this Gospel with an original but self-consistent attitude 
 towards life an attitude moreover which possesses the 
 distinction of a supreme sanity ? 
 
 Turning from St. Mark to the ' non-Marcan document ' 1 
 we find material which is almost wholly new, and yet the 
 same general traits remain. There is here the same 
 insistence upon the spirituality and inwardness of true 
 religion if the eye is single the whole body will be full 
 of light ; 2 the same perception that men are to be judged 
 by their response to God's call and not by their achieve- 
 ments it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the 
 Day of Judgment than for Chorazin and Bethsaida ; 3 
 the same spirit of broad tolerance, overflowing love and 
 open-handed generosity ; 4 the same optimistic joyous- 
 ness ; 5 the same sense of the high prerogative of the 
 
 1 This ' Source ' according to Dr. Harnack's re-construction 
 of it is printed in extenso in Mr. Conybeare's Myth, Magic and 
 Morals, chap. vii. For Greek text see The Sayings of Jesus 
 (Crown Theol. Library). 
 
 2 St. Matt. vi. 22 ; St. Luke xi. 34. Harnack 32. 
 
 3 St. Matt. xi. 22 ; St. Luke x. 14 ; Harnack 23. 
 
 4 With St. Mark vi. 34 ; ix. 37, 39, 41 etc. cf. St. Luke xvii. 
 3, 4 ; St. Matt. v. 39, 40, 42, 44, 48, etc. Cf. ' good measure, 
 shaken together and running over.' Harnack 4, 5, 6, 54. 
 
 5 St. Luke vi. 23';] xii. 22, 31, etc. Cf. however xii. 51, 53 ; 
 Harnack 3, 35, 38. 
 
CHRIST 79 
 
 simple ; * the same high value set upon each human soul ; 2 
 the same union of tender love with stern wisdom. 3 And 
 even where we encounter quite new elements, the teaching 
 is dominated still by the same temper. We have here as 
 unmistakable evidence as in St. Mark of a clearly thought- 
 out doctrinal position. Jesus is represented as contrasting 
 the mission and teaching of His predecessors with His own : 
 the law and the prophets which lasted ' until John ' with 
 the Kingdom of God. 4 For this Kingdom the qualifica- 
 tions are not national but spiritual. 5 And Jesus not only 
 contrasts Himself with the Baptist in relation to their 
 opposite methods of life, 6 but points to His own teaching 
 as that which fulfils the highest aspirations of the past. 7 
 And further, though John is acknowledged as equal to 
 the greatest teachers of past time, it is yet said that he 
 that is but little in the Kingdom of God is greater than he. 8 
 In the light of this passage if we allow ourselves to reflect 
 upon the use in such a connexion of the very phrase the 
 ' Kingdom of God ' at all it will be hard to deny that the 
 ' non-Marcan document ' represents Jesus as claiming the 
 position of Founder of the ' Absolute Religion '. What 
 meaning does the modern phrase convey that goes beyond 
 what the passage quoted unmistakably requires ? 9 
 
 1 St. Luke x. 21, 22 ; Harnack 25. 
 
 2 With St. Mark ix. 42 cf. St. Luke xii. 6, 7 ; xv. 4-7. 
 Harnack 34 A, 48, 54. Cf. also ' maketh His sun to rise on the 
 evil and on the good.' 
 
 3 St. Luke xii. 58, 59 ; xvii. i ; Harnack 39, 53. 
 
 4 St. Luke xvi. 16 ; Harnack, 50. 
 
 6 St. Luke xiii. 28-29 ; Harnack, 42. 
 
 6 St. Luke vii. 33, 34 ; Harnack, 15. 
 
 7 St. Luke x. 24 ; Harnack, 26. 
 
 8 St. Luke vii. 18-28; Harnack, 14. 
 
 9 Cf, St. Luke xx. 13. 
 
8o RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 There is one other aspect of the general religious theory 
 here attributed to the Master namely His attitude 
 towards miracles to which only a passing reference need 
 now be made since it will occupy our attention below. 1 
 It is true, however, that His words contain a view of miracle 
 far nearer to what we might expect from a Christian 
 divine in the eighteenth century than to the uncritical 
 conceptions we are apt to attribute to the first age. 
 Whether Jesus actually performed miracles or not, the 
 doctrines attributed to Him on this subject by the Evangel- 
 ists are far less akin to primitive and magical notions 
 than to the Christian rationalism of Paley. 2 
 
 That the same general impression of the Central Figure 
 which is gained from St. Mark is confirmed not only in 
 many passages in the Non-Marcan source, but likewise in 
 many that are peculiar to the first Evangelist or the 
 third, will probably be denied by no careful student. 
 It is only necessary to mention here the Parable of the 
 Prodigal Son, of the Unmerciful Servant, of the Good 
 Samaritan, and lastly the advice, when we have done all 
 things that are commanded us to say ' We are unprofitable 
 servants, we have done that which was our duty to do ' ; 3 
 
 1 Chap, xviii. 
 
 2 The ' rationalistic ' element if we may so call it in the 
 teaching of Jesus has been too little recognized. For example, 
 Kant's interpretation of the question ' Why callest thou me 
 good ? ' seems far saner than the explanations of more modern 
 interpreters. ' Why call ye Me (Whom ye see) good. There 
 is none good (the Archetype Urbild of the Good) but God 
 alone (Whom ye see not).' Grundlegung, p. 408. 
 
 8 St. Luke xvii. 10. 
 
CHRIST 81 
 
 to suggest the wealth of confirmation of this assertion 
 which study of the Gospels can supply. 
 
 Nor is the argument affected by the presence of a few 
 passages where a false note is struck. It is indeed sur- 
 prising, considering the literary conditions of the time, 
 how few of such passages can be pointed to ; * and common 
 sense will surely be more impressed by the multitude of 
 passages which go to form and confirm our impression 
 than by the few which contradict it. 
 
 Again the impression of originality is neither destroyed 
 nor weakened by the production of parallels from the 
 literature of other religions. We may recall the well- 
 known story of the antiquarian who after showing to a 
 
 1 The most conspicuous perhaps of these is in Luke xi. 37, 
 etc., where the discourse against the Pharisees is described as 
 being spoken at a Pharisee's table. But St. Matt, xxiii. i asserts 
 that the discourse was spoken ' to the multitudes '. See Har- 
 nack, 33. 
 
 Other passages where incidents or phrases are alleged which 
 on various grounds have seemed to some modern readers to be 
 unworthy of the Master, are the following : Mark xi. 14 (fig- 
 tree) ; vi. ii (' shake off dust.' Cf. Luke x. 8-n. Harnack, 
 22) ; vii. 6 ; iv. 39 (Tre^i/xwcro cf. i. 25 and Matt. xxii. 34 and 
 see also Matt. viii. 26 ; Luke viii. 24) ; v. 12-13. (Note, how- 
 ever, that the view of some commentators, that the destruction 
 of the swine was no part of our Lord's intention, finds confirma- 
 tion in His immediate compliance with the request of the people 
 (v. 1 8)). Luke viii. 46 (but cf. Mark v. 30) ; Mark xi. 15 ; ix. 
 19 ; xiv. 61 and xv. 5 (but cf. Isaiah liii. 7) ; xii. 38 ; Luke xi. 
 41 (according to one interpretation). Can any one seriously 
 desire to add Mark xiv. 21 ? It is to be noted that, in Dr. Har- 
 nack's reconstructed ' Source ' (Q), not a single passage occurs 
 which any reader is likely to wish to add to this list. Yet it 
 would be absurd to argue that the principles on which Dr. Harnack 
 has proceeded make this result a foregone conclusion. His 
 method is, so far as the main outlines are concerned, purely 
 textual and objective. 
 
 G 
 
82 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 sculptor friend how one by one the characteristic fea- 
 tures of Greek sculpture had been anticipated by the 
 Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Hittites, exclaimed in 
 triumph that the Greeks had in fact invented nothing. 
 ' Nothing ' rejoined the sculptor, ' except the beautiful/ 
 Similarly, even if we could show for each saying of Christ 
 a parallel in non- Christian literature, we should not alter 
 the fact that Christianity is a unique phenomenon, and 
 that the teaching recorded in the Gospels is its starting- 
 point. Jesus stands out as the greatest, nay as the first 
 effective, exponent of spiritual religion in the distinctive 
 Christian sense : and also of the general ideal of human 
 conduct which alone is adequate thereto. 
 
 The latter fact is hardly less important than the former. 
 The connexion between spiritual religion and the Good Will 
 we have already observed. But what definition of a Good 
 Will can we frame which can be seriously and practically 
 accepted by modern religion, except that which describes 
 it as a Will devoted to the carrying out of the Ideal set up 
 by Christ? 
 
CHAPTER X 
 THE HISTORICAL JESUS 
 
 r I ^HE teaching, then, which is attributed to Jesus in 
 the Synoptic Gospels is very far from confirming 
 the notion that He was a mere ' Syrian of the first century 
 with a message for His own time alone '. Moreover a 
 careful reading of these Gospels throws doubt on many of 
 the conclusions that have been drawn from His use of 
 Eschatological language. 
 
 Did He ' elaborately prophesy what did not take 
 place ' His own return on the clouds of heaven before 
 the first generation of His followers had passed away, or 
 even before His twelve disciples should have come back 
 from their earliest mission ? The charge is unproven and 
 incapable of proof. There are few single texts of which 
 we can say positively, ' Here we have the ipsissima 
 verba of the Master.' There are fewer still where we can 
 completely know the context. Every theory orthodox 
 and unorthodox alike as to the order and connexion of 
 events in the life of Christ has its difficulties its scrip- 
 tural texts which it must ignore or explain away. There 
 are texts which seem to imply a speedy return : there 
 are texts also which imply that the Christian Church will 
 run a prolonged course : * and it is not always easy to 
 
 1 E.g., Matt. xxi. 43 ; Mark xiii. 7, 8 ; Mark xiii. 10. With 
 d7roSr7//,os Mark xiii. 34, cf. aTrc^^cre Mark xii. i (where a 
 prolonged absence is implied). Matt. xxiv. 48. 
 
 83 
 
84 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 decide, in this case or in others, which class of texts 1 is 
 the most trustworthy. 
 
 With regard to Christ's language concerning His 
 Messianic claims there is need for caution in a very special 
 degree. The situation was of necessity an extraordinarily 
 delicate one. Unless He was to disavow Messianic con- 
 ceptions and hopes altogether, He must needs claim to be 
 Himself the Messiah. Yet, on any theory, there must 
 have been some elements in the popular conception which 
 He could not adopt. Let us admit that the current 
 Jewish conceptions of His day were less unspiritual than 
 has been sometimes assumed. Let us admit that Jesus 
 Himself was more sympathetic towards belief in the 
 ' supernatural ' than are some modern divines who have 
 tried to assimilate His views to their own. He must still 
 have had need to choose His language carefully. Unwil- 
 ling to speak chillingly of hopes which had in them much 
 of good, He may yet so conscious is He of the slowness 
 of spiritual progress, 2 so fixed in His avoidance of short 
 methods 3 have definitely refused to foster what He 
 would not too decisively condemn. 4 It is only natural 
 that, in a situation of such complexity, His words should 
 at times have been misunderstood and consequently 
 misreported. This, perhaps, then is one of the cases where 
 the results of German diligence may be modified by the 
 application of English caution and commonsense. 
 
 1 So with interpretations also. In some cases we may say 
 that the meaning is clear and that there seems no adequate 
 motive for invention, distortion or mistake : but such an assertion 
 can seldom be made with absolute confidence, since some currents 
 of Christian opinion in the First Century are necessarily unknown 
 to us. 
 
 2 Mark iv. 27, 28, 29, 31. 
 
 3 Matt. iv. 3, 6, 9. 4 Cf. Matt. xiii. 29. 
 
THE HISTORICAI JESUS 85 
 
 But we are not left with mere doubts and negations. 
 There is one fact which is far more certain than the ac- 
 curacy or correct interpretation of any isolated passage : 
 namely that, in scene after scene and in phrase after 
 phrase indeed with very few lapses from perfect con- 
 sistency 1 the Synoptic Gospels describe a character and 
 a doctrine which meets our own highest aspirations, 
 ' the perfection 2 of an ideal above and beyond which we 
 cannot get/ Jesus, we are warned, is not to be modern- 
 ized. But if He was not a modern man, we assuredly are 
 modern men ourselves : and the fact remains that we 
 find in the Gospels (not in the form of abstract principles 
 but in a vivid personal presentation) an embodiment of 
 what a great part of the civilized world does still undoubt- 
 edly recognize as the highest conception of morality and 
 religion. The historical significance of this fact can hardly 
 be overstated. 
 
 ' The modern study of the Gospels' it has been said 
 ' has recovered for us a Portrait.' While to many devout 
 souls in all ages the Portrait has been clear enough, to 
 others it has been long obscured. Yet if for some of us 
 an effort is needed to grasp the individuality of Jesus as 
 the Gospels present Him, the effort is one which may be 
 made with good hope of success. Indeed a simple experi- 
 ment will be enough to show that most people have latent 
 in their minds a far clearer conception of the character 
 of the Saviour than they are themselves explicitly aware 
 
 1 Cf. last note to chap. ix. What is here said as to consistency 
 refers, of course, to the character and doctrine of the Master ; 
 not to the order of events. 
 
 2 It is important to interpret this word with reference to the 
 qualification expressed above. The ideal is not ' perfect ' in 
 the sense that it contains explicit instruction upon every moral 
 question. 
 
86 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 of. Let us try to put into His mouth phrases uttered by 
 others whose circumstances were externally similar to His. 
 There are no persons in history, perhaps, whose circum- 
 stances have so much general resemblance to those of 
 Jesus, as Socrates and Francis of Assisi. Yet we cannot 
 without an immediate sense of incongruity imagine 
 Jesus professing ironical ignorance in the manner of 
 r jcrates, or calling Himself the ' little poor man of 
 Nazareth ' in the manner of St. Francis. It is surely no 
 accident that where He speaks of Himself in the third 
 person it is by the statelier title of the ' Son of Man '. Our 
 conception of His individuality, then, must really be 
 pretty clear, if we can so instantaneously perceive these 
 incongruities. Thus perhaps little is needed except that 
 we should make the impression which we already possess 
 fuller and more definite. 
 
 It is true that a vivid portrait may be fictitious : and 
 even where the character as a whole is true to life, many of 
 the incidents in which the presentation of it is embodied 
 may be sheer inventions or mistakes. But it is the 
 character of Jesus, rather than His history, which concerns 
 us here : and before deciding whether the description is 
 fictitious or historical, the first step is to perceive the 
 unity and uniqueness of the character itself as the Synoptic 
 writers describe it. 
 
 The unity of the character is, if possible, even more 
 striking than the unity of the teaching. Jesus it has 
 been well said ' was what He taught/ Throughout the 
 Synoptic Gospels He is consistently described as One 
 Whose whole soul is possessed with that conception of the 
 'one thing needful ' which we have already seen to be the 
 keynote of His teaching. The sole demand which He 
 
THE HISTORICAL JESUS 87 
 
 makes of all those who come to Him is that they should 
 have the spirit exhibited by Mary of Bethany the spirit 
 of Christian discipleship. Whether this spirit exhibits 
 itself as penitence, as docility, 1 or as the humble self- 
 surrender of those who leave all to follow Him, 2 whether 
 it is seen in the scribe who perceives that right dispositions 
 of mind are more important than external works, 3 in the 
 centurion who concludes that the power of faith is at least 
 as independent of distance as the discipline of the Roman 
 army, 4 or in the four men whose ' love forgetting manners ' 
 tears down the roof where He is teaching 5 an open mind, 
 a pure heart, a zealous eagerness for good, never fails to 
 find from Him a welcome. On one occasion, with defi- 
 nite symbolical intent, He sets a child in the midst of His 
 disciples ; 6 on another in a manner not unusual with 
 St. Francis but not elsewhere recorded of the Master 
 Himself He breaks out aloud into an ecstasy of joy 7 
 at the thought that it is to the simple mind only that 
 heavenly truth is made known. Similarly when His 
 withdrawal from the scene of His preaching is forestalled 8 
 by the eagerness of the multitude, He dismisses His project 
 of rest from His mind in a sudden outburst of compassion. 
 
 'Indeed it is just in His occasional outbursts of strong 
 and sudden feeling whether of compassion, grief, anger, 
 love or joy that the ruling principle of His life stands out 
 most clearly. His grief at hardness of heart is as con- 
 spicuous as His pity for sorrow. At an example of 
 spiritual obtuseness joined with familiarity with religious 
 language, He sighs deeply in His spirit. 9 When the 
 
 1 Luke x. 42. 2 Mark x. 29. 8 Mark xii. 34. 
 
 4 Matt. viii. 9. 5 Luke v. 19, 20. 6 Mark ix. 36. 
 
 7 Luke x. 21, cf. Fioretti, ch. viii., ch. x. etc. 
 
 8 Mark vi. 31-34. 9 Mark viii. 12. 
 
88 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 disciples assume that babes will be of no interest to Him, 
 He is much displeased. 1 When on the other hand He 
 finds, even in one unready to make the supreme sacrifice 
 which is required of him, a genuine desire for better things 
 ' looking upon him He loves him/ 2 In every case of 
 real insight He awards praise with the outspoken warmth 
 which belongs to the generous nature to which praise- 
 giving is a delight. 3 
 
 Precisely the same general view of life is expressed 
 with entire consistency of spirit amid a wide variety of 
 phrase and circumstance in His aphorisms, His parables, 
 His actions ; in His reception of the woman that was a sin- 
 ner, 4 in the rebuke conveyed to His disciples by means 
 of the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, 5 in the 
 declaration that there is more joy in heaven over one 
 sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine impenitent 
 righteous. 6 In this refusal to judge conduct by mere 
 results He comes into conflict with the common morality 
 of the modern, 7 no less than with that of the ancient world. 
 
 1 Mark x. 14. 2 Mark x. 21. 
 
 8 Mark xii. 34 ; Matt. xvi. 17. 
 
 4 Luke vii. 37. 
 
 5 Matt. xx. 12 ; cf. xix. 27, 30. 
 
 6 Luke xv. 7. 
 
 7 It is necessary to insist upon this because it is continually 
 denied. The notion that the Gospels teach only those common- 
 places of morality with which no civilized religion can dispense 
 is common still, even in circles not professedly hostile to Chris- 
 tianity. A high dignitary of the Church is reported to have 
 declared recently that at the time of the Crucifixion the disciples 
 had had no decisively new teaching, that nothing had then been 
 said which could have made them Christians rather than Jews, 
 and that the novelty of Christianity consisted not in Christ's 
 teaching, but solely in the fact of His resurrection. Even the 
 attacks of Nietzsche are less unedifying than such statements 
 as these : since he at least recognizes our Lord as a great Teacher, 
 
THE HISTORICAL JESUS 89 
 
 For those, however, who have ears to hear, His comment 
 on the Widow's offering is a triumphant vindication of 
 His principles against His critics. While the work of His 
 disciples is the pursuit of justice and mercy by their 
 fruits ye shall know them it is yet the fidelity of the 
 pursuit rather than its success by which He chiefly judges. 
 The Good Will the honest and good heart this alone 
 is the pearl of greatest price ; and the mere paucity of its 
 achievement in no way detracts from its value. 
 
 The same central conception is the key also to His 
 polemic. While demanding of every disciple the thor- 
 ough-going sincerity which ' counting the cost ' is willing 
 to perform humble services, 1 to 'bear the cross', to 
 ' endure to the end ', He resists with indignation the impos- 
 ition of any other demands whatever. His zeal for the 
 ' one thing needful ' has, as its obverse side, a burning 
 wrath against those who represent as needful that which 
 is not so against those who ' condemn the guiltless ' 2 
 and bind heavy burdens on the shoulders of men. 3 True 
 obedience consists, not in refusing the demands of Caesar, 
 but in giving what is due to God. 4 
 
 His sense of the supreme value of spiritual religion is 
 shown, perhaps, even more clearly still in His language 
 concerning those tendencies in human nature by which 
 spiritual religion is in every age opposed the unforgiving 
 spirit, lust, pride, covetousness. It is here says Mr. 
 Conybeare 5 in felicitous language that Jesus ' sharpened 
 His precepts to a point, and imported an almost para- 
 
 as one who taught something that was not already well known 
 before He came. 
 
 1 Matt. xxv. 40, etc., etc. a Matt. xii. 7. 
 
 3 Matt, xxiii. 4 ; Luke xi. 46. * Mark xii. 17. 
 
 5 Myth, Magic and Morals, p. 162. 
 
90 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 doxical vigour into His utterances, just because He 
 desired to raise a hedge against the most common forms 
 of selfishness.' Against the pressure of petty cares the 
 ' lusts of other things entering in ' He recommends a 
 freedom from anxiety, a perpetual watchfulness in regard 
 to man's highest interests, 1 a general attitude of ' detach- 
 ment ', of independence of circumstances, 2 such as only a 
 concentration of mind upon the one thing needful can 
 produce. ' Be not anxious what ye shall eat : 3 be not 
 anxious what ye shall say : 4 seek first the Kingdom of 
 God and His righteousness/ In His service there can 
 be no divided allegiance, and no neutrality. ' He that 
 is not with Me is against Me.' 5 ' Be not anxious, for ye 
 cannot serve God and Mammon.' 6 
 
 The whole life, then, of Jesus as the Gospels portray it 
 is an embodiment of the principle which puts ' first things 
 first '. Yet He is in one respect markedly unlike others 
 who have been conspicuous for their success in seizing 
 this principle and applying it. Those teachers with 
 whom the supreme interests of the spirit have been 
 habitually predominant, incline for the most part to a 
 quality of feeling which can best be described, in Northern 
 idiom, as ' dourness '. Of Luther, of St. Augustine, even 
 of St. Paul, there may be quoted phrases which carry with 
 them something that is repellent. Kant not wholly 
 without ground was accused of pedantry by his most 
 distinguished disciple. Newman for whom there were 
 
 1 Mark xiii. 33, 37, etc., etc. 
 
 2 Mark xiii. 2, 5, 7, n. 'Be not anxious ' though the Temple 
 of God be ' thrown down '. 
 
 3 Matt. vi. 31. 4 Mark xiii. n. 
 
 5 Matt. xii. 30. 6 Matt. vi. 24, 25. 
 
THE HISTORICAL JESUS 91 
 
 but two ' supreme and luminously self-evident beings ' 
 God and his own soul exhibits in some contexts a 
 ' dourness ' which is ahnost inhuman. None of these 
 great men would very naturally be described as ' children 
 of the bridechamber '. The attitude of Jesus becomes 
 only the plainer by the contrast. ' To him that worketh 
 not ' says St. Paul ' but belie veth on Him that justifieth 
 the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness/ Al- 
 though if we compare this Pauline phrase with the words 
 of Jesus to the dying robber we shall find no essential 
 difference of meaning, there is assuredly a quite infinite 
 difference in gracefulness. And is not this gracefulness of 
 utterance the symbol of a liberality of view, not acquired 
 as in the Apostle's case through the turmoil of an inward 
 revolution, but rather the native endowment of His spirit 
 which appears also in His tolerance, 1 in the conspicuous 
 gentleness of His rebukes, 2 in His courteous recognition 
 of what is good in men even where there is need of warning 
 and condemnation, 3 in His tenderness to the religious 
 system which He is come to supersede, 4 in His sympathy 
 with the natural feelings of the heart even when these 
 are expressed in an entirely unconventional manner, 5 
 in His recognition of the value, not only of human souls 
 but also, in their place, of the lives of animals ? 6 To 
 Jesus as the Synoptists portray Him the gifts of nature 
 
 1 Mark ix. 39, 40. The contradiction suspected by some 
 between Mark ix. 40 and Matt. xii. 30 arises only if it is assumed 
 that the question is ' Are neutrals to be classed as friends or 
 foes ? ' not if it is recognized that there are no neutrals. 
 
 2 E.g. Mark xiv. 37 ; Luke x. 41 ; Luke xxii. 31, 61 ; xi. 28. 
 
 3 E.g. Luke xxii. 28, cf. 24 ; Mark xii. 34. 
 
 4 E.g. Mark i. 44 ; Mark xi. 16, 17. 
 6 Luke vii. 45 ; Mark ii, 4, 5. 
 
 6 Luke xii. 6. 
 
92 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 seem good, as well as the gifts of grace. Conscious of the 
 universal sinfulness of the human race, 1 He yet recog- 
 nizes the natural innocence of childhood ; and finds, 
 among those born in sin and not yet of an age to make 
 their personal peace with God, a purity of heart akin to 
 that 2 which is the supreme qualification for His Kingdom. 
 
 There is another aspect of the Portrait also which must 
 not be lost sight of. If the life of Jesus revealed to man- 
 kind the supreme lesson which it has been the glory of 
 St. Paul, of Luther, and of Kant, to have developed and 
 defended in special contexts if this lesson was taught by 
 Jesus with an ease and charm which they conspicuously 
 lack, and taught by Him to many to whom neither St. 
 Paul, Luther, nor Kant can ever be intelligible then 
 not only is the life of Jesus the supreme achievement in 
 the history of religion, but His achievement is intellectual 
 as well as moral. 
 
 His intellectual pre-eminence is, in fact, as noteworthy 
 in its way as His holiness. A modern writer has spoken 
 of His belief in His Messianic office as an ' obsession '. A 
 more infelicitous phrase it would be hard to select. The 
 impression which the narrative consistently conveys is of 
 One Who teaches truly, not by happy accident or passing 
 inspiration, but because He knows the ultimate secret of 
 right moral thinking. His teaching is based on princi- 
 ples, and He never hesitates to give His reasons. Resem- 
 bling the Mystics in the penetrating power of His phrases, 
 He has no resemblance to them at all in their uncon- 
 sciousness of the processes by which their knowledge is 
 reached. Nor again does He resemble the philosopher 
 
 1 Luke xiii. 3, 5. 2 Mark x. 14 ; cf. Matt, xviii. 10. 
 
THE HISTORICAL JESUS 93 
 
 spoken of by Plato who is so blinded by the light from 
 whence he came that he cannot see clearly in terrestrial 
 darkness. His clear and critical estimate of the false 
 religious teaching around Him is joined with a general 
 knowledge of the world, an ability to deal wisely with men, 
 a rapid insight into the thoughts of his opponents 1 , an 
 easy readiness in dealing promptly with cunningly devised 
 objections, 2 an amazing fertility in the production of 
 felicitous arguments, similes, and illustrations, an attitude 
 towards the ' supernatural ' which can only be described as 
 ' modern '. Though He is represented as believing in 
 miracles and also working them, He is wholly at variance 
 with His contemporaries in His estimate of their worth. 3 
 
 1 Matt. ix. 4 ; xii. 25 ; Luke v. 22 ; vi. 8 ; ix. 47, etc. 
 
 a Mark xii. 17, 24. 
 
 8 ' In this rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you ' 
 (Luke x. 20). The difference between our Saviour's attitude 
 towards the supernatural, and that of His disciples, can more 
 readily be felt than described. A story which represented 
 the Master as allowing His action to be dictated, as St. Paul's 
 was, by a dream, would be felt to be quite out of keeping. It 
 is difficult, therefore, to accept Mr. Streeter's guess that an 
 ' audible voice divine ' heard at the Baptism was the decisive 
 factor in leading our Saviour to adopt the Messianic role (Foun- 
 dations, p. 100). If (p. 98 note) ' the stories of the Baptism 
 and the Temptation are ultimately derived from an account 
 given to the disciples by our Lord Himself ', why should we 
 suspect that the Voice from Heaven is any less a ' part of the 
 parable ' than the visible Tempter ? (Matt. iii. 17 ; iv. 3). This, 
 and a similar passage on p. 123, seem less convincing than other 
 parts of Mr. Streeter's valuable essay. There were, surely, quite 
 enough ' rational ' motives for the visit to Jerusalem to make 
 it needless to look for merely ' psychological ' ones. Those who 
 are acquainted with the phenomena of " leading " (p. 123 note) 
 at first hand will best be in position to form a general judgment 
 on this subject. They, if they want scriptural an? Tories for 
 these modern experiences which are often quite genuine and 
 
94 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Indeed through passage after passage we may trace the 
 signs of a Tightness [of temper and outlook which is in 
 itself an intellectual virtue as truly as it is a moral one. 
 
 No less remarkable than this correctness of insight is 
 the air of confident assurance which accompanies it, and 
 the fact that this self-confidence is accepted by the 
 reader without resentment. Jesus speaks at all times 
 even when dealing with the most intricate problems 1 
 as One who is conscious of an unerring certainty of aim. 
 Joined with the utmost humility and gentleness, is a 
 serene self-possession, a confidence in His own judg- 
 ment which permits Him, whether He speaks in praise 
 or blame, to use even the strongest expressions without 
 misgiving. It is quite in keeping with this that at a 
 certain time His opponents should be afraid to ask Him 
 any further question, 2 and that a similar awe of Him 
 should be ascribed to His own disciples. 3 
 
 He makes, too, the highest claims on His own behalf. 
 He speaks of Himself as the Bridegroom, the Heir, 
 the Son of man before Whom all members of God's 
 Kingdom are to stand, 4 Who is to come in the clouds of 
 heaven, in Whose blood God's new covenant is to be 
 made with His people. And yet sensitive as the 
 modern reader is to the wearisomeness of the ' too fault- 
 less ' hero was ever a reader of the Synoptic Gospels led 
 to complain, either that the claims of their Central Figure 
 
 quite edifying are likely to turn rather to the Acts than to 
 the Gospels. Why should we assume that He Who commended 
 the wisdom of the serpent (Matt. x. 16) disdained to ' study 
 tactics and opportunities ' ? 
 
 1 Mark ii. 17, etc. 2 Mark xii. 34. 
 
 3 Mark ix. 32. 4 Luke xxi. 36. 
 
THE HISTORICAL JESUS 95 
 
 are intolerable, or that an occasional error or fault would 
 be welcome as a relief ? 
 
 Why is it then that here, for the first and last time 
 in literature, we [are ready to accept a hero free from 
 blemishes, without the sense that a few faults and the 
 consciousness of them would make him more attractive 
 and more human ? The reason is partly that in Jesus the 
 air of intellectual ascendancy is wholly dissevered from 
 the common faults of the intellectual man. In the case 
 of Socrates a certain touch of the pride of intellect may 
 be observed even amid the affecting scenes which precede 
 his death. 1 Jesus deals tenderly not only with His 
 male disciples but also with the women who bewailed and 
 lamented Him. He affects no Stoical superiority to suffer- 
 ing. He faces death and pain, not only with a confessed 
 oppression of spirit 2 incompatible with the Stoic temper, 
 but also with a profound solemnity of manner consonant 
 with the Jewish sense of the connexion between suffering 
 and<sin. 3 He can be ' sore amazed ' as well as very heavy, 
 and though amid all distractions He speaks as if His will 
 within were throughout steady and undistracted He yet 
 feels to the full the weight both of His sufferings and of the 
 problem it carries with it. 4 In the whole story of the 
 Passion there is exhibited at once clear-minded self-pos- 
 session and extremest human tenderness, even "when at 
 the last stage of mortal weakness the darkness invades 
 His soul. 
 
 But the chief reason why in the Jesus of the Synoptic 
 Gospels we do not feel that faultlessness is itself a fault, 
 is that we have here so convincing a picture of One who 
 
 1 Phaedo. 60. A. B. 2 Mark xiv. 34. 
 
 3 Which He is represented as teaching explicitly elsewhere. 
 Mark xv. 34. 
 
96 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 stands for interests which are not personal but general. 
 His emotions ' personal ' indeed in the sense that He 
 feels them with intensity may yet be called ' impersonal ' 
 in the utter absence from His mind of all self-seeking. 
 His indignation is so impressive just because it is so disin- 
 terested. 1 His rebukes and His commendations are far 
 removed from the wounded and gratified vanity of the 
 teacher who desires personal success. Personal homage 
 to Himself is no substitute for loyalty to His principles. 2 
 He rejects even the simplest title of praise. 3 When a 
 hearer blesses the Mother who bore Him, He gently 
 points out to whom it is that blessing truly belongs. 
 When Peter for once plays the courtier, 4 he receives the 
 sternest of all the rebukes which Jesus is ever recorded 
 to have uttered. He rebukes His disciples no less than 
 His opponents, and praises faith equally in those who are 
 not His followers and in those who are. Resistance to His 
 mission and work He treats as blameworthy, not primarily 
 because it is a resistance to His own person, but because 
 it is a resistance to the Inward Voice. 5 The blasphemy 
 against the Son of Man is a light offence compared with 
 the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Thus there is 
 nothing to suggest that in destroying one ' religion of 
 authority ' He is setting up another. When He calls men 
 to Himself, He demands an eye open to read the signs of 
 the times ; 6 He desires that even of themselves they may 
 judge that which is right ; 7 He never asks for blind obedi- 
 
 1 Mark viii. 33, etc. * Luke vi. 46. 
 
 3 Mark x. 18. * Matt. xvi. 22. 
 
 6 Luke xii. 10 ; cf. Mark iii. 28. St. Luke's development 
 of the doctrine is covered, after all, by St. Mark's general state- 
 ment. 
 
 8 Matt. xvi. 3. 7 Luke xii. 57. 
 
THE HISTORICAL JESUS 97 
 
 ence to His personal authority as such. Rather it would 
 be true to say that He ever forgets Himself in His mission : 
 that His Father's work fills His whole horizon : that He 
 wins the trust of His disciples by leading them to con- 
 tinual trust in God : that they who receive Jesus receive 
 not Jesus but Him that sent Him. 1 
 
 And thus as the separate traits unite in our minds into 
 a single Character the effect produced is of a personality 
 unlike any other in the world : of One unlike other men 
 and yet unlike them in being more attractively human. 
 That He stands, as no one else can do, for the Moral Law, 
 that He evokes response from humanity on its best side, 
 is vividly expressed in the oft-quoted saying of Lamb, 
 that whereas if Shakespeare entered the room we should 
 all stand 'if Jesus entered the room we should all kneel.' 
 If we would see how pre-eminent a figure the Jesus of the 
 Synoptic Gospels really is, let us contrast Him, on the one 
 hand with other representations which purport to be 
 pictures of the same original, 2 and on the other hand 
 with all that we know or have read of other men. Among 
 His followers in especial there have been noble types of 
 humanity in plenty holy priests, pure-minded ascetics, 
 learned divines. Yet His strongest attraction for the 
 general mass of the human race has lain in the fact, not of 
 His resemblance to these types, but of His difference from 
 them : in the fact that His natural sympathies are pre- 
 dominantly with the Publican and not with the Pharisee. 
 If we may venture to apply to Him the phrases which are 
 appropriate to certain schools of His disciples, we may 
 
 1 Mark ix. 37 ; cf. x. 18. 
 
 2 Esp. the Jesus of Kenan's ' Life '. 
 
9 8 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 describe Him as a Protestant without pedantry, a Liberal 
 without sentimentality, a Franciscan without childishness. 
 No intellectualist, no mystic, no formalist, no ascetic, 
 for as He is without all other pedantry, so also He is 
 without the pedantry of renunciation 1 He differs broadly 
 from every type of ' professional ' religious man. Fitted, 
 as no one else is, to be our Great High Priest in Heaven, He 
 is yet eminently a laic upon earth. 
 
 Is it then conceivable or not that the Character of Jesus 
 as it appears in the Synoptic Gospels is the result of 
 conscious or unconscious fiction ? 1 It is surely hard to 
 believe that a character so marked in its originality and 
 charm, is the mere product of the embellishment by the 
 first Christian disciples of a more commonplace reality. 
 The invention of a character possessing genuine individual- 
 ity of a ' character ' as distinct from a ' type ' is rare 
 even in the greatest works of genius. Where a character, 
 real or fictitious, is already known to us by a multitude 
 of sayings and characteristic incidents, the invention of 
 further stories in the same vein is often comparatively 
 easy. There are indeed few men of strong personality 
 around whose names such stories do not grow up. But 
 is it reasonable to suppose that the original sketch of the 
 character of Jesus was anything else than a transcript from 
 life ? The reader of the Platonic dialogues may often be 
 in the greatest doubt as to how many of the recorded 
 sayings of Socrates were really his. The reader of the 
 Little Flowers, the Mirror of Perfection or the Legend of 
 the Three Companions may feel the same sort of doubt with 
 regard to Francis of Assisi. But can we doubt that in 
 
 1 Contrast the command Ama nesciri, 
 
THE HISTORICAL JESUS 99 
 
 both these cases the character itself the ' nucleus ' 
 around which the inventions gather and which alone 
 gives them significance is drawn from memory ? Can we 
 doubt that the impression which these books convey of 
 contact with an actual personality is a correct one ? 
 And does not the character of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels 
 bear the same stamp of truth ? 
 
 But we are not left with vague impressions. The 
 impression is confirmed by argument. ' Every saying ', 
 says Dr. Schweitzer and we might as truly say ' Every 
 incident ' ' contains in its own way the whole Jesus.' 
 To what men or group of men can the original invention 
 of those sayings and scenes be ascribed ? When the 
 disciples of Jesus began to idealize Him, we know what 
 direction their imagination took. When an Evangelist 
 corrects his ' source ', the correction is made too often 
 under the influence of that abstract conception of divinity 
 in which the divine is merely the opposite of the human. 1 
 The true majesty of Jesus is rather impaired by the cor- 
 rection than enhanced by it, just as the charm of Francis 
 begins to vanish when his biographers assimilate him 
 to the conventional saint. In the case of Socrates, the 
 idealization was carried out with greater genius. But 
 with the Central Figure of the Gospels, as with St. Francis, 
 there is much to be said for the conclusion that it is just 
 the blemishes in the picture which are its least historical 
 features. 
 
 What bearing have these questions on the religious 
 
 1 Cf. St. Mark iii. 5 with St. Matt. xii. 9-13, and St. Luke vi. 
 10. The first and third Gospels here omit both our Lord's 
 'anger' and His 'grief. Cf, also St. Mark vi. 5, 6, with St, 
 Matt. xiii. 58. 
 
ioo RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 estimate of Jesus ? The connexion between history and 
 religion is here a close one. ' Of all the great figures ', 
 says Mr. Conybeare, 1 'which look down upon us across 
 the gulf and void of time, Jesus of Nazareth is the most 
 gracious and winning of aspect : and although his memory 
 was soon associated with that policy of craft and exclu- 
 siveness, of cruelty and credulity, which in East and West 
 styled itself orthodoxy, nevertheless his name has ever 
 been for the poor and oppressed, for the despised and 
 disinherited of the earth, a bond and symbol of union in 
 peace and charity '. If such is the estimate formed by 
 one who views these questions in an attitude of detach- 
 ment and can any one deny that graciousness of aspect 
 of which Mr. Conybeare speaks ? is it surprising if 
 those who have made it the business of their lives not 
 only to study the influence of Jesus, but actively to 
 submit to it, see in Him even more than is perceived by 
 the pure historian however open-minded ? There are 
 many of the great names in ancient history which even 
 to this day are a living inspiration for conduct. But 
 what if by contact with Jesus we discover in Him an 
 inspiration which we feel to have an absolute claim 
 in all respects to our obedience ? There have been 
 leaders who have led men to face with confidence what 
 looked like overwhelming odds. But what if we find that 
 we have learned from Jesus to face with confidence both 
 death and the Hereafter, convinced that the whole 
 Universe can contain nothing to abash those who have 
 entrusted the guidance of their lives to His command ? 
 There are those of whom it has been said metaphorically 
 no doubt but none the less truly that they look reproach- 
 
 1 Myth Magic and Morals, p. xi, 
 
THE HISTORICAL JESUS 101 
 
 fully at us from out of the past. But what if, when we 
 examine our lives as in His presence with the eyes of 
 the ' recovered Portrait ' upon us, we find such language 
 so supremely applicable to Jesus that the sense that it is 
 metaphorical is lost ? 
 
 His kind but searching glance can scan 
 The very faults which shame would hide. 
 
 It is easy to suggest that the writer of such words was 
 under the influence of theological presuppositions, and 
 for the rest was drawing on his imagination. Yet may he 
 not, after all, have been describing a genuine experience, 
 such as those who do not share his theological outlook 
 may themselves in turn repeat ? 
 
 We may go yet further. We may ask whether even 
 the dogma of the sinlessness of J^sus itself is unsupported 
 by historical evidence. It shows little penetration to 
 argue that on this subject our evidence can be merely 
 negative that we can at best say no more than that no 
 sin is recorded of Him. We do not know the whole life- 
 history of Socrates. Yet we know enough of him to be 
 sure that he was not the man to become wilfully and 
 contentedly the victim of a sophistical illusion. We do 
 not know all that was said and done by Francis of Assisi. 
 Yet we know enough of him to be sure that he was not 
 actuated in his choice of a career by sordid or selfish 
 motives. Francis might very well be described as a 
 ' semi-mythical Italian '. Yet there is ample ground 
 nevertheless for the high estimation in which our 
 generation has learned to hold him. We have similar 
 grounds for confidence in regard to the character of Jesus, 
 even though we may distrust in some parts the narratives 
 
102 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 of His life. No one could well seem more conscious than 
 He of the facts of human sin. No one has done so much 
 to bring that consciousness home to the minds of others. 
 Yet while all those who have learned of Him appear to be 
 above all things penitents, Jesus appears as something 
 essentially different from a penitent. It has been well 
 said that taking Him as the Synoptists describe Him 
 we see in Him none of the scars of conflict, none of those 
 marks of past warfare with evil habits which are conspic- 
 uous on the souls of all who have waged the battle with 
 alternating success and failure. Could He have spoken 
 with that serene self-confidence which we observe in Him 
 could He so unquestioningly have exalted Himself above 
 His followers as their Master if He had been haunted 
 by the fear that as He had erred in one direction in the 
 past, so He might err in other directions in the future ? 
 Could He, being the frank, candid, right-minded teacher 
 which we find Him to be, have claimed for Himself the 
 position in the Kingdom of God which there seems to be 
 evidence that He did claim, if He had been conscious that 
 He had not been always strictly loyal to the commands of 
 the Father ? 
 
 It is in a spirit of candour like His own that all such 
 questions should be met. If we have once really perceived 
 wherein the distinctiveness of the Christian method of 
 salvation lies we may approach these further problems 
 without haste and without fear : for those who practise 
 His method have already become His disciples. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 EVANGELICALISM 
 
 LET us now pause to notice the results at which we 
 have arrived. Relying solely on arguments which 
 are independent of supernatural assumptions, we have 
 discovered the unique power of the Christian religion to 
 deliver mankind from guilt : and we have seen how the 
 claims of Christianity are associated with the personal 
 claims of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It will also have become evident that these truths can 
 never be grasped in their full significance till they become 
 something more than mere ethical and historical judg- 
 ments. Conviction, if it is to become religious, must 
 become in a peculiar sense personal. Intelligent assent 
 to the Kantian ethics, for example, is not the same thing 
 as effective conviction of sin. To ' take the sinner's 
 place ', with humility and contrition, is an act of the will 
 as well as of the intellect. 
 
 If, then, we are to pursue our present method as a 
 serious search for religious truth, we must turn to the 
 schools of personal piety and seek to learn and apply their 
 lessons. 
 
 There is, in especial, much to be learned from Evan- 
 gelicalism. Evangelical teaching has been greatly mis- 
 
 103 
 
104 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 understood. It is condemned as a form of ignorant 
 emotionalism and Bibliolatry. It is even suspected of a 
 tendency towards antinomianism. 
 
 That these suspicions are unjust may be readily seen 
 by any one who will acquaint himself with Evangelical 
 practices and literature : and it is in the popular literature 
 of Evangelicalism that the clearest documentary evidence 
 on this subject is to be found. 
 
 So far as reliance on emotion is concerned, modern 
 Evangelicalism is in perpetual protest against it. We 
 are saved it teaches not by feeling but by ' believing ' 
 by ' taking God at His word.' 1 
 
 But, as it would be a mistake to suppose that Evan- 
 gelicalism relies on emotions, so it would be an equal mis- 
 take to conclude from these expressions that it places 
 salvation in orthodox belief, or in a blind reliance on the 
 letter of Scripture. ' Believing that Jesus died ' says 
 
 1 See, for example, Sacred Songs and Solos, no. 514. 
 
 ' Cease of fitness to be thinking ; 
 
 Do not longer try to feel : 
 
 It is trusting, and not feeling, 
 
 That will give the Spirit's seal.' 
 
 The italics are in the original. Sankey's Sacred Songs has be- 
 come the standard hymn-book of Evangelicalism. Cf. no. 278 
 in the same collection : 
 
 ' Weeping will not save me, 
 
 Though my face were bathed in tears.' 
 
 The test of ' feeling ' is essentially a quantitative test : and, as 
 every one acquainted with the language of Evangelical discourses 
 must know, the reliance upon quantity of emotion, even upon 
 quantity of faith, is sternly discouraged by this school. Such 
 phrases may be heard as that ' it is not the quantity of our faith 
 which saves us, but its object.' Cf. no. 193 which speaks of 
 ' trusting when our faith is small '. ' Build up yourselves on 
 your most holy faith not on your most happy feeling ' (Figgis. 
 Christ and Full Salvation, p. 206). See p. 136 below. 
 
EVANGELICALISM 105 
 
 a well-known tract l ' will save nobody : it is simply a 
 matter of history.' ' The reason why Christianity has not 
 made more rapid advance ' says another tract 2 ' is 
 because the people are asked to believe too many things. 
 One half the things a man is expected to believe in order 
 to reach heaven have no more to do with his salvation 
 than the question how many volcanoes there are in the 
 moon, or how far apart from each other are the rings of 
 Saturn. I believe ten thousand things ; but none of 
 them have anything to do with my salvation except these 
 two that I am a sinner and that Christ came to save 
 me/ 
 
 Still more outspoken is the following passage from a 
 published address by Dr. Torrey. ' I said to him " John : 
 you ought to accept Christ." He said " Well : I don't 
 believe as you do. I don't believe in God or in your 
 Bible." " But" I said " John, that does not make any 
 difference. If you will take Jesus Christ as your Saviour, 
 He will save you 
 
 The fact is that though the word ' moral ' is avoided 
 because of its association with the doctrine of justification 
 by works the ' one thing needful ' which Evangelicalism 
 demands, whether this is spoken of as ' repentance* 
 ' obedience ' ' faith ' ' trust ' or ' surrender of the will to 
 God ', is always conceived as in the fullest sense a moral 
 act. Where morality is dissociated as it is by Kant 
 from the ' doctrine of works ' altogether, and where it is 
 
 1 ' The difference between history and faith.' See The Tra- 
 veller's Guide (London, S. Partridge & Co., 23oth thousand, p. 
 
 32). 
 
 a ' Two things necessary for salvation.' p. 40 of the same 
 collection. 
 
io6 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 made to consist in the Tightness of the Will, a view of 
 morality results which not only would be accepted by 
 Evangelicals at once, if they understood the terms 
 in which it is propounded, but which actually expresses 
 the very essence of their own view. 1 
 
 A sufficient proof of what is here asserted may be 
 found in the use of the term ' backsliding ' which in 
 Evangelical usage implies always a moral lapse and not a 
 doctrinal one 2 and in the doctrine of ' Conversion '. 
 
 1 The hymn quoted above no. 514 in Sankey's Sacred Songs 
 speaks of ' choice ', ' decision ' and ' yielding ' as well as of 
 * trusting'. ' Let your will to God be given'. Cf. The Keswick 
 Convention, edited by C. F. Harford (Keswick House, E.G.) p. 34. 
 
 'Can it indeed be true that Thou hast not only promised, but 
 commanded this ? For Thy command seems to me to involve, 
 if possible, even a stronger assurance than Thy promise.' This 
 thought is assuredly not borrowed from Kant directly or 
 indirectly. But this fact only makes the agreement the more 
 impressive. 
 
 2 See Traveller's Guide, p. 12. ' He who accepts Christ has 
 to obey Christ. He who says " I believe " and yet lives in sin 
 is a liar.' On the very same page occur the words ' Men are 
 punished by God, not because they have led a wicked life, but 
 for one sin, unbelief in Christ ' (John iii. 18). Then follow (in 
 entire accordance with St. John iii. 19. ' This is the judgment ' 
 etc.) the words quoted above. Thus if from such statements 
 as that ' we are punished for unbelief only ' (cf. Traveller's Guide 
 p. 40 ' You must beware of resting your peace on your feelings, 
 convictions, tears, repentance, prayers, duties or resolutions. 
 You must begin with receiving Christ, and not make that the 
 termination of a course of fancied preparation ') the conclusion 
 were drawn that Evangelicalism teaches the antinomian doctrine 
 of justification by orthodox belief, this conclusion would be due 
 to taking these sentences out of their context. This, however, 
 is just what the critics of Evangelicalism have habitually done. 
 
 Cf. Rom. vi. 2, 15 ; iii. 8. It is only when we have perceived 
 why it is that the Pauline teaching slides so naturally into anti- 
 nomianism that we are in a position to understand the former. 
 
EVANGELICALISM 107 
 
 In defending ' sudden conversions ' the late Mr. Moody 
 pertinently argued that to ask a man to renounce his 
 sins partially and not entirely, for fear that a total renuncia- 
 tion should make too sudden a change in his habits, 
 was contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. 1 In truth, an act 
 of will must in the nature of things be ' sudden '. A 
 decision good or bad may have been prepared for by the 
 experiences of a lifetime ; but to take the decision is, 
 when we come to the point, the work of a moment. 
 But, even if Mr. Moody's argument were unsound, it 
 suffices to explain the teaching of his school. 2 
 
 1 Another preacher asked, in the same connexion, whether 
 we were to require the professional thief gradually to reduce 
 the number of his daily thefts, lest the total change of habits 
 should be too much for him. 
 
 2 Cf. the following passage from Mr. Moody's pamphlet The 
 way to God, p. 39. ' Notice how the Scripture puts it " Except 
 a man be born again " " born from above " " born of the Spirit " . 
 From amongst a number of other passages where we find this 
 word " EXCEPT ", I would just name three. Except ye repent, 
 ye shall all likewise perish. Except ye be converted and become 
 as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
 Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the 
 Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom 
 of Heaven. They all really mean the same thing.' 
 
 This assertion that the ' new birth ', ' conversion ' and ' repent- 
 ance ' are the ' same thing ' may be compared with Bunyan's 
 declaration that ' believing and coming are all one ' (Pilgrim's 
 Progress, Part I, near the end). Bunyan, whose influence on 
 English Evangelicalism has been powerful and continuous 
 teaches that he that ' comes, that is, runs out in his heart and 
 affections after salvation by Christ, he indeed believes in Christ.' 
 
 This passage is especially worthy of being reflected on by 
 those to whom the identification of Evangelical ' faith ' with 
 the Kantian ' good will ' is a hard saying. It may be taken in 
 connexion with Dr. Torrey's remark that a lack of belief in God 
 ' does not make any difference '. What else can this whole- 
 
io8 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Now since we are concerned here with the case of 
 those who believe in Duty but not in God it is necessary 
 for our present purpose to distinguish carefully between 
 Evangelical doctrine and Evangelical method. Evan- 
 gelicalism rests explicitly upon the witness of spiritual 
 experience. What, then, when we eliminate those 
 doctrinal presuppositions which colour its language 
 does the experience of Evangelicalism teach ? 
 
 This question can be answered intelligently by each 
 individual, so far, and so far only, as his own experience 
 carries him. Yet there is an impressive uniformity in 
 the phrases which are found by different men to be 
 the natural expression of their own spiritual history, 
 in the sense they attach to these phrases, and in the 
 conclusions they draw from "them. Again and again, 
 for example, in one generation after another, men recur 
 to the Scriptural phrase which speaks of the ' peace which 
 passes all understanding/ 
 
 Thus we find, first, that those who practise the Christian 
 method of whole-hearted surrender of the will to God's 
 Law, experience a peace, a rest, a satisfaction of soul, which 
 
 hearted desire for salvation through Christ, which Bunyan 
 describes, be supposed to be, except a genuine willingness to 
 follow His commandments ? When we have once perceived that 
 Evangelicalism lays the chief stress neither on orthodox belief 
 nor on the strength of the emotions, on what can it be supposed 
 to be laying stress except on the Tightness of the will ? And what 
 can be the meaning of the language about ' total self-surrender ' 
 etc., except to teach such an act of universal submission to the 
 Law as Kant demands ? Compare the common distinction 
 between remorse (which is sorrow for a particular sin) and repent- 
 ance (which is renunciation of sin in general). 
 
EVANGELICALISM 109 
 
 is different in kind from all other happiness. In mere 
 quantity of pleasurable emotion other kinds of happiness 
 may surpass it. ' The satisfaction of being well-dressed ' 
 said a worldly-minded woman ' is greater than any joy 
 which the consolations of religion can bestow.' That 
 worldly satisfactions may be quantitatively greater than 
 spiritual peace of mind is the experience of many who are 
 in a position to compare them. Hence arises the power 
 of temptation. But spiritual peace is felt to be in a special 
 sense ' from above '. It cannot be reckoned with other 
 pleasures, or judged by the same hedonistic standard. 
 It is a satisfaction which goes down to the depths of our 
 being. Its essence is that in Kantian language it is 
 ' rational '. 
 
 That the individual may in this matter be under 
 an illusion must be admitted. There are cases in which 
 we may suspect that the real causes of a happiness 
 which professes to be spiritual are chiefly mundane : 
 that it results from an equable temperament, a good 
 digestion, an assured income. But experience will show 
 that, by genuine self-surrender, a peace of mind may be 
 attained which survives all changes both of mood and of 
 circumstances. 
 
 Secondly, this special peace of mind is found to be 
 associated with Christ, and this not only in the minds of 
 those who start with an d priori belief in His divinity. 
 In the case of many men there can be no question -as all 
 mission-preachers know well that the doctrine is based 
 upon the experience, and not the experience upon the 
 doctrine. We find Jesus to be God, because we have first 
 known His peace to be the ' peace of God which passes all 
 understanding '. With others the experience is clear and 
 
no RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 indubitable without ever leading them to the doctrine 
 at all. No one, for example, has ever known better than 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold did, hostile though he was to 
 dogmatic theology that it is ' no grand performance or 
 discovery of a man's own ' that can ' bring him to joy 
 and peace, but an attachment the influence of One 
 full of grace and truth ; an influence which we feel we 
 know not how, and which subdues us we know not when, 
 which, like the wind, breathes where it lists '. l 
 
 Thirdly, the peace of Christ is so unlike all other known 
 pleasures, both in its character and its conditions, 
 that to the simple mind it appears miraculous and super- 
 natural : something which reason cannot define nor 
 philosophy explain. 2 Indeed this fact has given rise at 
 times to misleading phraseology, which in its turn has 
 been made the excuse for really erroneous teaching. 
 The work of God in the soul has been distinguished so 
 sharply from the efforts of the sinner himself, and it 
 has been represented as so much beyond his comprehen- 
 sion as to suggest a quiescence both of the understand- 
 ing and of the will, like that which characterizes the worst 
 forms of quietistic Mysticism. 3 Just as for Kant the 
 
 1 Literature and Dogma, chap. viii. i. 
 
 2 Cf. Moody's The Way to God, pp. 51-52. Such language 
 as this of Mr. Moody's is often quoted to prove that Evangel- 
 icalism regards God's dealings as absolutely arbitrary as having 
 in them nothing either rational or moral. The language must be 
 judged by its context. 
 
 3 One danger which follows from such language is well indicated 
 by a modern writer who describes in a brilliant passage the 
 deathbed of the great Pitt. 
 
 " He was attended " he says " by a worldly-minded prelate 
 who talked to him in the conventional style about ' the Saviour ' 
 and his own unblemished life, with the result that, were not the 
 
EVANGELICALISM in 
 
 Moral Law is mysterious (in that it proceeds from the 
 hidden ' noumenal ' self), and simple (in that abstraction 
 is made of all special motives), so Evangelical preachers 
 describe the method of salvation as at once simple and 
 inexplicable. They bid us to turn away from the various 
 means, and the various efforts, by which the natural 
 man seeks for righteousness, and to adopt an attitude 
 which appears to be purely passive 1 and negative. 
 
 The criticisms to which both the Kantian and the 
 Evangelical teaching lie open are obvious. A law, it 
 may be truly said, which has no definite ' content ' is no 
 law at all. The Evangelical teaching if followed quite 
 literally would lead to absolute indolence. 
 
 Yet such language though peculiarly liable to be 
 misunderstood expresses a genuine fact of observation. 
 When the man who has been oppressed by ' thronging 
 duties ' finds sudden victory and peace in the mere ab- 
 stract willingness to do whatsoever God may command 
 the change produces sometimes an almost bewildering 
 
 scene so tragic, it would provoke a smile. After listening to 
 these topics, Mr. Pitt is said to have raised himself and said : 
 ' I must confess that I have completely neglected religion during 
 my life, being so much taken up with politics. But,' he added, 
 lifting up his arms, ' I throw myself entirely on the merits of my 
 Saviour.' The Bishop reports this with infinite satisfaction, 
 as shewing clearly that his friend was now ' all right '. Repent- 
 ance, it will be seen, or satisfaction, or self-humiliation, was not 
 thought of. Poor Mr. Pitt had simply consented to transfer 
 his case entirely to other guardianship. He had made this hand- 
 some acknowledgment without reserve, and was at rest." See 
 Death Jewels by Percy Fitzgerald (Burns and Gates). We can 
 only remark Corruptio optimi pessima. 
 
 1 Such expressions are used as ' Just trust in God,' ' Just be- 
 lieve His promise,' ' Just leave yourself in His hands.' To the 
 question ' What have I to do ? ' the answer is given ' You have 
 
H2 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 impression of vacancy. 1 This state of mind is peculiarly 
 difficult to describe for the enlightenment of others. Yet 
 it may well j be said that those who have never known 
 the experience in which the mere ' form ' of the Law or 
 the Divine Will isolates itself from all particular aims and 
 motives, have missed one of the most precious experiences 
 of our religion. This experience, however, is obviously 
 not dependent upon any particular form of theological 
 belief. 
 
 If then the reader will really take the trouble to ex- 
 amine for himself those facts of Christian experience 
 which are dealt with under the above three headings 
 (especially the former two, and here one possibility of 
 experiment at least lies open to him) he will find enough 
 uniformity to justify him in speaking in a quite scien- 
 tific sense of the ' law ' or ' laws ' which Evangelical 
 experience makes known to us. It is a uniform ' law * 
 that the whole-hearted surrender of the will to the obe- 
 dience of Christ is followed by the unique sense of peace 
 which has been described. 
 
 A further question, however, still remains. If we 
 
 nothing to do.' Again the method by which peace is found has 
 been compared to the method by which one may learn to float 
 upon water. ' You will not float ' it is said ' till you cease to 
 struggle, till you cease to make efforts to save yourself, till you 
 remain quite passive and are willing to trust to the mere buoyancy 
 of the sea.' The spiritual value of such language is not disproved 
 by the mere fact (see first note to chap, xii.) that it can be mis- 
 understood and perverted. 
 
 1 Cf . the peculiar sense of ' lightness ' which Newman pictures 
 as belonging to the redeemed soul newly delivered from the body. 
 Dream of Gerontius, II, 
 
EVANGELICALISM 113 
 
 recognize that these laws exist, what character are we to 
 assign to them ? 
 
 A comparison has been drawn between ' the phenomena 
 of religious emotion even in its highest form ' and those 
 ' of hypnotism, of neurosis, and of the effects of nitrous 
 oxide '. It has been argued that ' the development of 
 all these is governed by the same psychological laws '. * 
 From this position it is no great step to the suggestion 
 that the ' laws ' of the spiritual life are merely the uni- 
 formities which belong to a particular type of the neurotic 
 temperament. 
 
 Now even to those who know the Christian religion 
 from without only, the theory which regards the sense 
 of sin and reconciliation as a neurotic illusion can hardly 
 seem to possess much probability. The moral results 
 of these convictions are familiar : and they are seldom 
 such as to suggest either delusion or weakness of mind. 
 But the test to which alone we can appeal with absolute 
 confidence is the test of personal practice. As the man 
 of reasonably good life knows, if he will reflect upon it, 
 that there are moral laws before which he not merely 
 feels guilty, but is so : so the normally constituted man 
 who whole-heartedly seeks to take Christ's yoke upon him 
 will attain not merely an emotional sense of relief from 
 guilt, but the conviction that this sense of innocence 
 justly belongs to him. 
 
 In other words, he will learn that in Christian experi- 
 ence we have to do, not merely with valid pathological 
 generalizations, but with laws which, in quite another 
 manner, are valid for every rational being as such. 
 
 1 Lord Haldane remarks that Prof. James has ' shown ' that 
 this is so. Would not ' brilliantly maintained ' be a juster 
 expression ? See Pathway to Reality (first series), pp. 5, 6. 
 
 i 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 THE KESWICK SCHOOL 
 
 IF this is true of the experiences already mentioned 
 it is true equally of those" special experiences which 
 are associated with the School of Thought which takes its 
 name from the Keswick Convention. 
 
 We are concerned with Evangelicalism here in one 
 special aspect only. The Keswick School deserves, in 
 fact, a far fuller treatment than belongs to the present 
 argument. In the time of Jerome the Church was not 
 ashamed to seek instruction in the wilds of little Bethle- 
 hem. The learned theology of to-day (though the par- 
 allel is not complete) might gather far more good than it is 
 prepared to expect at the shores of the Cumbrian lake. 1 
 
 1 Keswick has never been slow to acknowledge its debt to 
 external sources. Yet Mr. Figgis is clearly right when he states 
 that the Keswick teaching ' is not Quietism ', with which it is 
 sometimes compared. This may be seen by comparing any of 
 the Keswick books especially Mr. Figgis' own Christ and Full 
 Salvation with the sixty-eight propositions (attributed to 
 Michael de Molinos and condemned by Innocent XI in 1687) 
 which may be regarded as the official definition of this heresy. 
 Consider for example the following ' condemned ' theses : 
 
 1. Oportet hominem suas potentias annihilare, et haec est 
 vita interna. 
 
 2. Velle operari active, est deum offendere, qui vult esse ipse 
 
 solus agens. 
 
 4. ... Deus operari vult in nobis sine nobis. 
 7. Non debet anima cogitare nee de praemio, nee de punitione, 
 
 114 
 
THE KESWICK SCHOOL 115 
 
 The Keswick Convention addresses itself to those who 
 are already ' the children of God through faith in Christ 
 Jesus/ and bids them press on to ' full growth V to 'ful- 
 ness of blessing/ bids them seek uninterrupted commu- 
 nion with God and 'victory over all known sin/ 2 
 
 The central tenet of the school is that, as Justification 
 is by Faith, so Sanctification is by Faith also. Its aim 
 is to prove that ' holiness of life is possible in a stricter 
 sense of the words than is commonly admitted in the 
 Christian Churches ', that a ' life of faith and victory, 
 of peace and rest ' is the ' rightful heritage of the child 
 of God, into which he may step not by the laborious ascent 
 of some Scala Sancta, not by long prayers and laborious 
 effort/ but by a ' deliberate and decisive act of faith ' : 3 
 that though sinless perfection is beyond our reach in this 
 world, still ' the normal experience of the child of God 
 should be one of victory instead of constant defeat, one 
 of liberty instead of grinding bondage, one of perfect 
 peace instead of restless anxiety/ 4 
 
 If this is the result aimed at, what is to be the method ? 
 
 nee de paradise, nee de inferno, nee de morte, nee de 
 
 aeternitate. 
 10. Si propriis defectibus alios scandalizet, non est necessar- 
 
 ium reflectere, dummodo non adsit voluntas scandaliz- 
 
 andi. . . . 
 15. Sicut non debent a Deo aliquam rem petere, ita nee illi 
 
 ob aliquam gratias agere debent ; quia utrumque est 
 
 actus propriae voluntatis. 
 44. Job blasphemavit, et tamen non peccavit labiis suis : 
 
 quia fuit ex daemonis violentia. Cf. 49, 42. 
 
 1 The Keswick Convention. Its Message, Its Method and 
 its Men, p. 5. See also an annual publication, The Keswick 
 Week (Marshall Brothers). 
 
 2 Keswick Convention, p. 26. 
 
 8 P. 6. * P. 6. 
 
n6 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 The answer is, in a word, ' complete surrender of will.' 1 
 This is the method, and the sole method. The very 
 same act of will which brings the sinner to forgiveness 
 brings him also if all its implications are fully thought 
 out to victory : and it is just the thinking out of these 
 implications with which the Keswick teachers are chiefly 
 concerned. This ' one decisive act ' of self-surrender needs 
 to be applied day by day to all questions of conduct as 
 they arise. 
 
 In describing this decisive act, the greatest care has 
 been taken by the Keswick speakers and writers to avoid 
 every appearance of fanaticism. They use no language 
 which represents the ' decisive step ' as a great psycho- 
 logical upheaval least of all as a miraculous deliverance 
 from future temptations. 2 In what then does the dis- 
 tinctive character of this teaching consist ? 
 
 The characteristic doctrine of modern Evangelicalism 
 that salvation depends upon one great decision, that we 
 need but ' one step ' ' out of self, into Christ ' is here 
 applied to the details of conduct. Men are called to 
 trust, not in habits or methods or rules, but in God 
 to meet each moment's temptation in direct reliance on 
 the present power of the Holy Spirit. The work of the 
 Keswick School arose ' as the immediate consequence 
 of a true definition of sin '. 8 Thus the essence of the 
 matter is that every separate decision should be brought 
 directly under the highest moral category that every 
 deliberate act be thought of as God's command. In such 
 a view of life there is no room for ' counsels ' or ' per- 
 
 1 K.C., p. 27, ' Renunciation of Discerned Evil/ cf. p. n. 
 
 2 p. 69. 
 
 *^Keswick Convention, p. 80. 
 
THE KESWICK SCHOOL 117 
 
 missions ' : every individual act, so far as it is legitimate 
 at all, is viewed as falling under a ' precept ' : 1 every act 
 of the Christian should be an act of faith, since whatso- 
 ever is not of faith is sin. No one advises, of course, 
 that all automatic and quasi-automatic actions should 
 be eliminated from our conduct, or that every single 
 minute act in our behaviour should be reflected upon at 
 the moment of its performance, and brought explicitly 
 and directly into relation with the divine law. Such 
 minute self-recollection would be neither desirable nor 
 possible. Yet since God's Law the Voice of God's 
 Spirit is conceived as being ever at hand to be referred 
 to, it is therefore our duty to refer our conduct to it, not 
 only for the general ordering of our course of life, but also 
 whenever temptation or serious doubt arises. 
 
 The Keswick teaching carries us, therefore, somewhat 
 deeper than the common discussions about habit and free 
 will. ' I ought : therefore I can.' If a given act is 
 plainly recognized by me, not merely as in a general way 
 right and desirable, but as personally enjoined upon me 
 by God, and to be done here and now, then not only can I 
 do it, but so long as my mind remains perfectly clear 
 on the subject I cannot forbear to do it. ' Let a man ' 
 said Law 2 ' but have so much piety as to intend to please 
 God in all the actions of his life, and then he will never 
 swear more. It will be as impossible for him to swear, 
 whilst he feels this intention within himself, as it is im- 
 possible for a man that intends to please his prince, to 
 go up and abuse him to his face/ Deliberately to disobey 
 God to His face is a thing as much out of the Christian's 
 
 1 Figgis, Christ and Full Salvation, p. 55. For the Roman 
 doctrine see Summa Theol. Prima secundae, Qu. cviii. 
 
 2 Serious Call, chap. ii. 
 
n8 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 power as it is out of any man's power to set deliberately 
 about undoing the work of his life upon which his whole 
 heart is set. If then we can contrive that certain actions 
 shall not be done in the dark that they shall be brought 
 out into the full light, so that if done they must be done 
 deliberately then they will not be done at all, and we 
 shall have the victory we desire. 1 
 
 ' But, suppose the testimony of the Keswick teachers 
 is accepted, has it any value for our present purpose ? 
 Can the inward experiences of victory over sin be detached 
 from their setting of doctrinal belief ? ' It is clear, of 
 course, that the attempt to state the Keswick method and 
 the Keswick experience in such abstract and impersonal 
 terms as belong, say, to the religious phraseology of Mr, 
 Matthew Arnold to speak of the ' Eternal ' rather than of 
 God with the definite intention of avoiding the implica- 
 tion of Personality must result in a serious impoverish- 
 ment of language. And for those who themselves 
 possess the belief in God to adopt such a change in their 
 own thought and speech as a mere psychological ex- 
 periment would be an act of reprehensible wantonness. 
 
 1 The chief danger, indeed, of this School is not from the 
 side of Quietism but from that of Rigorism. Though doubtless 
 right in rejecting the Roman distinction between divine ' pre- 
 cepts ' and divine ' counsels ', it has certainly something to learn 
 from the Roman Moral Theology on the subject of the ' doubtful 
 conscience '. The principle that ' whatsoever is not of faith is 
 sin ' is the very basis of whole-hearted service. The confusion 
 between this principle and the Rigorist doctrine, which treats 
 everything which is ' speculatively ' doubtful as ' practically ' 
 wrong, is a confusion which may well be called deadly in its con- 
 sequences : and it is a confusion into which more than one school 
 of English piety has been in danger of falling. See p. 2031 
 
THE KESWICK SCHOOL 119 
 
 Yet, if the power of whole-hearted self-surrender is indeed 
 what the Keswick School has affirmed it to be, does it 
 not follow that the principle which can not only overcome 
 ordinary temptations and anxieties, but can be victorious 
 also ' where faith is small ', may still exert its power 
 even in the total eclipse of doctrinal belief ? To bring 
 our sins to Christ ' for Him to deal with ' involves not 
 merely that we should think of Him and them in some 
 vague connexion, but that, from moment to moment, 
 we should think of each wrong act as definitely forbidden, 
 and each right act as definitely enjoined, by His law. 
 Therefore, as knowledge of His law is compatible with 
 an absence of the usual Christian beliefs about His person, 
 it cannot be impossible for those who believe in Duty but 
 not in God to apply the Keswick method in practice. 
 Nor should this be regarded by them as a mere experi- 
 ment. 1 For those who have perceived the binding char- 
 acter of Christ's law upon the conscience, the duty of 
 bringing this law to bear upon each successive detail of 
 conduct is clear : and no doctrinal unbelief is any excuse 
 for evading this obligation. With regard to that which 
 is within one's own control the will may be in active har- 
 mony with the ' Law of God ' even though it be not called 
 by this name : with regard to that which is outside one's 
 own control, there may be an absence of rebellion, a 
 passive acquiescence, if not because of the conviction 
 that all is for the best, then because of the conviction 
 that it is forbidden to the disciple of Jesus to disturb his 
 peace by vain struggles against that which he cannot 
 
 1 A mark of the whole Evangelical school has been the abun- 
 dance of personal testimonies. On this special aspect of the 
 Keswick influence which is here referred to, personal testimony 
 is not lacking. 
 
120 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 alter. And just as the experience of justification is inde- 
 pendent of strong emotion just as we find that it is a 
 law of our inner life that the right will, even apart from 
 emotional penitence, brings the assurance that the soul 
 is under ' no condemnation ' 1 so here it will be found 
 to be a law, ' valid for every rational being ' who seriously 
 adopts this method, that quite apart from the delight 
 and happiness which a clear faith in God's providence can 
 add there is for those who bring all their life in minute 
 detail to be regulated by the command of Christ, not 
 merely a growing sense of inward innocence, but also the 
 knowledge that they are in contact with a source of moral 
 strength which can never fail. 
 
 1 Rom. viii. i. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 THE RITSCHLIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 DURING the brief survey of Evangelical methods 
 which we have just completed, we have seen 
 how we learn in the practices of piety the laws of the 
 spiritual life laws as valid in their own sphere ' as the 
 laws of thought or the laws of nature/ 1 
 
 But can these laws be systematically stated ? And 
 when so stated can they form the basis of a theology ? 
 
 To a Christian apologetic which relies on moral intuition 
 and experience alone this question is, of course, vital : 
 and the best way, perhaps, to answer it is to examine 
 that school of thought in some respects the most char- 
 acteristic movement of modern times which took its 
 rise from Kant's formulation of the ' Moral Proof of God's 
 Existence '. 
 
 The chief difference between the theological method 
 of Kant and that of his predecessors may be summarized 
 in a sentence. While the older rationalism best known 
 through the Argument from Design infers the existence 
 of God from the phenomena of the world, Kant finds 
 religious assurance in the exercise of moral freedom. 
 
 1 Ritschl, Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung and Ver- 
 sohnung, vol. iii. p. 587 (English translation p. 622). 
 
 121 
 
122 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Our Moral Reason he argues 1 bids us aim at the 
 highest good. We cannot reject this command without 
 becoming contemptible in our own sight. But the 
 highest good as Kant conceives it consists in the happi- 
 ness of all moral beings so far as they possess fitness 2 
 to be happy. If, however, there is no God and no future 
 life, this highest good is incapable of realization. But 
 can our moral reason bid us aim at what we know to be 
 a mere chimera ? Obviously not. To aim at what ad- 
 mittedly cannot be realized is a plainly irrational act. 
 Therefore Kant concludes the attitude of the really 
 moral man is inconsistent with religious unbelief. 
 
 We must not confuse this argument with others which 
 have a similar sound. It is not as Professor Huxley 
 thought 3 an attempt to ' found ' morality upon the 
 assumption of a future life. For Kant morality needed 
 no such foundation. On the contrary, he founds the 
 hope of a future life upon morality. 4 Reason bids him 
 aim at the summum bonum. That this is a rational 
 command he cannot doubt. But reason cannot say 
 ' Attempt the impossible : tilt at what you know to be 
 a windmill/ Therefore Kant cannot regard the summum 
 bonum as a mere creature of fancy. ' The belief in God ', 
 he says 5 ' and in another world, is so interwoven with 
 
 1 Kritik der Urtheilskraft 87, etc, (Critique of Judgment, trans- 
 lated by J. H. Bernard, D.D., Macmillan, 1892). 
 
 2 ' Worthiness ' to be happy suggests to the English reader 
 a Pharisaic ' doctrine of works '. For Kant the ' worthiness ' 
 is the result not of good works but of good will. 
 
 3 See Huxley's Hume, p. 180. 
 
 4 See Urtheilskraft, 424 note. 
 
 6 Critique of Pure Reason, Meiklejohn's translation p. 502 
 (German paging 857).! 
 
THE RITSCHLIAN REVOLUTION 123 
 
 my moral nature that the former can no more vanish 
 than the latter can ever be torn from me/ 
 
 The first impression produced by this argument is 
 often unfavourable. It reads like a piece of sophistry. 
 Yet it has an odd way of returning upon the mind which 
 thinks it has rejected it : and the passages in the Critique 
 of Judgment 1 which deal with it are well worth careful 
 study. 
 
 Our chief concern here, however, is not with this argu- 
 ment for its own sake, but with the general method of 
 religious apology of which it is the first systematic ex- 
 ample. Kant's chief service to religion is his distinction 
 between the Practical and the Speculative Reason ; and 
 his insistence that it is through the Practical i.e. the 
 Moral Reason alone that we can either know God or 
 approach Him. 2 On this distinction and on this principle 
 a great school of theology has been founded. The 
 mantle of Kant has fallen upon Ritschl : and Ritschl has 
 carried out the Kantian method more successfully in 
 some respects than Kant himself. 
 
 The third volume of Ritschl 's Justification and Recon- 
 ciliation 3 though not free from philosophical defects 
 may reasonably be regarded as the greatest religious 
 book of our time. Its main contention is that Chris- 
 tianity cannot be understood except through those 
 experiences which are specifically Christian ' justifica- 
 tion ' and ' reconciliation with God through Christ '. 
 
 1 87, etc. 
 
 2 See Crit. of Judg. 89 (Bernard, p. 393). See also Die 
 Religion inner halb etc. Viertes Stuck Zweiter Theil. 2. 
 Alles was, etc. See also same section ( 2) near the end. 
 
 3 Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versohnung. 
 
124 RELIGION IN AN ^GE OF DOUBT 
 
 Ritschl refuses therefore to explain justification by legal 
 analogies. 1 Indeed he rejects from Christian theology 
 all arguments which 2 are ' purely rational ' that is, all 
 arguments (such as the Argument from Design) which 
 are intelligible apart from a distinctive Christian experi- 
 ence. ' Whoso willeth to do God's will, he shall know 
 of the doctrine.' 3 ' We are able,' says Ritschl ' to know 
 and understand God, sin, conversion, eternal life in the 
 Christian sense, only so far as we consciously and in- 
 tentionally reckon ourselves members of the community 
 which Christ has founded/ 4 
 
 Thus knowledge of God is attained by an act of Will, 5 
 and is quite independent of the usual ' arguments for 
 God's existence]', which Ritschl distrusts. 6 So far as we 
 subordinate ourselves to Christ, we gain the experience 
 of ' reconciliation ' 7 the sense of being justified by the 
 very law against which we have offended. In reconcilia- 
 tion we enjoy a sense of 'lordship over the world.' 8 
 
 Vol. iii. p. 84, etc. (English trans, p. 86). 
 
 P. 5 (E.T. 5). 
 
 St. John vii. 17. See Ritschl, vol. iii. p. 8 (Eng. trans. 
 8). 
 
 P. 4 (Eng. trans, p. 4). 
 
 RitschTs language is more explicitly Christian than Kant's : 
 and he holds that unlike Kant he is not ' founding the Christian 
 religion upon morality ' (see p. 215 note, E.T. p. 226). But he 
 is at one with Kant in making religion a matter primarily of the 
 will not of the intellect : in basing religious knowledge upon acts 
 of obedience, and judgments of value judgments which have 
 ' spiritual ' as distinct from ' intellectual ' worth, since they can- 
 not be attained by cold reasoning alone without some goodness 
 of heart. 
 
 6 P. 17 (E.T. 17) ; p. 203, etc. (E.T. 214, etc.). 
 
 7 P. 132 (E.T. 139) etc., etc. 
 
 8 P. 308 (E.T. 326) etc., etc. 
 
THE RITSCHLIAN REVOLUTION 125 
 
 And this is associated with trust in God, in the sense that 
 ' the activity of God becomes to us a matter of convic- 
 tion through the attitude we take up to the world as 
 religious men.' l 
 
 This general position is developed by Ritschl in detail 
 by means of his well-known doctrine of the Judgment 
 of Value (Werthurtheil). ' Value- judgments ' of a sort 
 are implied in all knowledge ; since without a belief 
 in its value without ' interest ' ' we do not trouble 
 ourselves about anything.' 2 But while in science the 
 judgment of value is a mere ' concomitant ', in religion it 
 is the heart of the matter. 3 ' Religious knowledge * 
 moves in independent value- judgments, which relate to 
 man's attitude to the world, and call forth feelings of 
 pleasure or pain, in which man either enjoys the dominion 
 over the world vouchsafed him by God, or feels grievously 
 the lack of God's help to that end.' 
 
 Is Ritschl, then, drawing the simple distinction between 
 ' judgments of value ' and ' judgments of fact ' with 
 which recent discussion has made us familiar ? Does he 
 teach that religion is not concerned with facts but with 
 ideals only that if God is an ennobling conception it 
 makes no matter whether He is real ? that in asserting 
 that a belief is true we mean no more than that it is edify- 
 ing ? In a word, is Ritschl a Pragmatist ? 
 
 1 P. 207. In the English trans, (p. 218), the force of the con- 
 trast between Wirklichkeit and Wirksamkeit is necessarily lost. 
 
 P. 195 (E. Tr. 204). 
 
 * P. 195 (E. Tr. 204), and therefore ' independent ' (selbstdndig). 
 
 4 P. 195 (E. Tr. 205). The words ' or it may be ' in the 
 English translation on page 205, line 3 are slightly misleading. 
 
126 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Assuredly not. The teaching of Ritschl is so essen- 
 tially different from Pragmatism that it is strange they 
 should ever have been confused. 1 It is impossible to 
 read him with care without at once perceiving that he 
 feels his religious knowledge to be in its own sphere 
 ' absolute ', and also to be a knowledge of what ' is ' 
 as well as of what ' ought to be,'. He believes in the 
 reality of guilt, in the reality of justification. 2 Indeed he 
 even falls foul of the particular way in which Kant 
 states that great fundamental distinction which has 
 entered so deeply into Ritschl 's own thought the dis- 
 tinction between Speculative and Practical Reason. 
 Knowledge of the laws of our action, he points out, is 
 itself ' speculative ' : it is ' theoretical knowledge, the 
 knowledge of the laws of our spiritual life.' 3 
 
 The difference which Ritschl finds between theoretical 
 knowledge and religious knowledge is concerned not 
 with the character of the objects known since in both 
 cases the object is the world^ 4 but with the different 
 way in which the world is regarded by science and re- 
 ligion respectively. 5 He compares the ' certainty of 
 
 1 ' Truth ' says Prof. James (Pragmatism, p. 77) ' is what it 
 would be better for us to believe.' ' An idea is true ' (p. 75) 
 ' so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives.' The Profes- 
 sor desired, no doubt, by these paradoxical utterances to call 
 attention to certain neglected aspects of philosophic truth. His 
 statements, none the less, are, as they stand, absurd. It may 
 be good for an intending thief it may be ' profitable for his 
 life ' to believe that he is watched by the police. But it is 
 not necessarily true. 
 
 * See e.g. p. 31, line 20, etc. (E. Tr. p. 31 bottom). 
 
 3 211 (E. Tr. 222) cf. note on p. 215 (E.T. 226). These two 
 passages alone are sufficient defence against the imputation of 
 Pragmatism. 
 
 4 See p. 193 (E.T. 203). 
 
 5 See p. 587 (E.T. 622). The usual religious doctrine of Provi- 
 
THE RITSCHLIAN REVOLUTION 127 
 
 divine providence ' with the ' certainty of our own ex- 
 istence '. ' To become certain of our own Ego we do not 
 need a scientific analysis of its grounds and conditions, 
 or an empirical explanation of its origin/ We know it by 
 the exercise or by the restriction of our ' independent 
 activity.' 1 Similarly 'we believe in divine Providence, 
 not because we can follow or demonstrate its course 
 clearly and completely, in other words, objectively/ 2 
 but because of those ' voluntary activities in which man 
 appropriates the operations of God/ 3 The most influ- 
 ential beliefs are not always those which are scientifically 
 clearest. 4 Just as, for example, I may have no scientific 
 knowledge of the exact proportion between the strength 
 of my horse's muscles and the strength of my own will- 
 power and yet may be absolutely sure that I can master 
 him just as a British Pro-Consul may have no exact esti- 
 mate of the forces with which he will have to contend 
 and yet may be quite confident in the ultimate triumph 
 of the Imperial Power so apart from any scientific 
 theory as to providential methods, ' faith in divine provi- 
 dence ' is the ' normal tone of feeling ' of the Christian, 
 and may be compared with the unscientific but justifiable 
 self-confidence with which a strong man meets his an- 
 tagonists. 5 Clearly such ' judgments of value ' are partly 
 ' judgments of fact ' . 
 
 dence says ' I am intended by my Creator to triumph over 
 the obstacles that oppose me.' A high-minded Agnosticism 
 would say ' The rational interests of man are worthy to triumph 
 over these obstacles.' Ritschl's attitude lies between the two. 
 ' I am sure that, as a member of Christ's redeemed community, 
 I shall be able to triumph over them.' 
 
 1 Pp. 587> 588 (E-T. 622). P. 587. 
 
 3 Pp- 33-34 (E.T. 34). 4 P- 587. 
 
 5 Pp. 588, etc. (E.T. 622, etc.). 
 
128 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 The confusion of Ritschl with the Pragmatists has 
 tended, in fact, to obscure the issue. Pectus facit theologum. 
 The very pith of the Ritschlian thought is summed up 
 in this ancient saying ; of which Ritschl has for the first 
 time made a really consistent application. Theology, 
 he holds, is a matter of ' will ' and ' character ' rather 
 than of ' intellect '. Religious knowledge is to be attained, 
 not by cold reasoning but by personal religious experience. 
 Our standing before God depends not on our belief in the 
 ' mystery of Christ's Two Natures '* but on our voluntary 
 attitude towards Him and the Redeemed Community of 
 which He is the Founder. 
 
 It is quite in accordance with these conceptions that 
 Ritschl directs his chief polemic against the ' objective 
 method"'. We cannot write a satisfactory theology 
 in the form of a ' narrative ' 2 a mere ' record of the 
 great deeds done by God.' ' The more objectively the 
 truths of Christianity are handed down in narrative form, 
 the closer at hand will doubt be found.' 3 And thus we 
 are prepared for his assertion that there is no such thing 
 as a 'disinterested knowledge of God': 4 that we can 
 know God only by trusting Him : 5 that God and Christ 
 can be known to man only through our discovery of their 
 ' value for ourselves.' 6 
 
 The usual Anglican criticism of this theology is that it is 
 ' too subjective '. Catholicism it is said sees God in 
 glory surrounded by saints and angels ; Protestantism 
 
 1 P. 370, etc. (E.T. p. 391, etc.). 
 
 2 See pp. 33-34. etc., etc. (E.T. 34-35)- 
 
 8 P. 34 (E.T. 35). 4 P. 202 (E.T. 212). 
 
 P. 202 (E.T. 213). * P. 202 (E.T. 212). 
 
THE RITSCHLIAN REVOLUTION 129 
 
 sees only its own sins and their forgiveness. Catholic 
 worship, therefore, is a nobler thing, even in its most 
 childish forms, than the Methodism which keeps its eye 
 ever fixed upon its own navel. 
 
 This kind of criticism, sound enough in its proper 
 place, is here beside the mark. We may admit that if 
 Ritschl had had a deeper insight into the type of piety 
 expressed in certain medieval hymns which while 
 ' objective ' and even ' narrative ' in form are passionately 
 religious in spirit 1 he might possibly have stated his 
 meaning somewhat differently. But what he has at 
 heart 2 is to insist that ' in theology, however coolly we 
 may sketch out its formal relations, we have to do with 
 spiritual processes of such a kind that our salvation 
 depends on them/ It is plain that knowledge on such 
 a subject cannot be disinterested ; nor can it be gained 
 by purely ' objective ' methods. God is not known till 
 He is reverenced : but in reverence we bring Him into 
 relation with subjective feelings of our own. 
 
 If it is complained that Ritschl is ' too subjective ' in 
 his theory of knowledge, the accusation is partly true. 3 
 He did not wholly escape the prevalent tendencies of his 
 time. But even this criticism is not much to the point ; 
 since Ritschl's theory of knowledge is incidental only. 
 His interest is centred, not upon philosophy, but upon 
 religion. 
 
 Against the confusion of his doctrine with Mysticism 
 though the mistake still continues to be made Ritschl 
 has himself sufficiently guarded us. That his religion is 
 very far from being an ' amorous duet between the soul 
 
 1 Cf. his remark on ' Egoism ', p. 418 (E.T. 442). 
 * P. 34 (E.T. 35). 
 3 P. 34 (E.T. 34). ] 
 
 K 
 
130 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 and God ', that he is jealously concerned for a recognition 
 of the place of the redeemed community in the Christian 
 life, is apparent in every chapter. 
 
 But in order to grasp the real significance of Ritschl's 
 teaching, we need something more_than a mere defence of it 
 against criticism. 
 
 His special achievement has been to produce a school of 
 Christian apologetic which makes its appeal to the typical 
 modern man. The educated man of to-day speaking 
 roughly and broadly disbelieves in miracles and dis- 
 trusts metaphysics. In producing a theology which 
 depends on neither, Ritschl has done, surely, a great 
 service to his generation. And if the modern sceptic 
 is partly right if miraculous ' evidences ' and philosophi- 
 cal ' proofs', 1 however valuable in themselves, are still 
 secondary and not primary in religion then Ritschl 
 has done a service not to his own age alone but to mankind. 
 On this view the supreme test of the value of his method 
 will be in its application to doctrinal scepticism of an 
 extreme kind. 
 
 1 i Cor. i. 22. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 RITSCHLIANISM AND CHRISTOLOGY 
 
 WHAT success, then, can the Ritschlian method 
 have with those who believe in Duty but 
 disbelieve in God ? 
 
 The complete answer to this question can be learned 
 in practice only. Yet the following remarks may serve 
 to indicate the direction in which this answer is to be 
 sought. 
 
 It is clear, in the first place, that much of our religious 
 knowledge consists of ' judgments of value ' in the simplest 
 sense of the phrase : and is therefore quite independent 
 of the dogmas of traditional religion. 
 
 Take, for example, the doctrine of Nature and Grace. 
 The verification of this doctrine is open to all those who 
 ' take Christ's yoke ' upon them. In such whole- 
 hearted submission, we shall assuredly learn to contrast 
 the two rival impulses which will henceforth be at war 
 within the soul. To ask, therefore, how it is possible to 
 believe in ' grace ' without believing in the God Who 
 gives it, is to miss the point at issue. The matter of 
 primary moment is neither the name by which this 
 impulse is called, nor our theory as to its origin. The 
 primary matter is to recognize its character ; to distin- 
 guish the supreme^conflict between Grace and^Nature from 
 
 131 
 
132 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 the conflicts known even to the worldliest of Pagans 
 between impulses which are amiable and impulses which 
 are less so. The Pagan contrast between ' things which 
 are better ' and ' things which are worse ' cannot be trans- 
 formed into Christian belief by merely ascribing the better 
 impulses to God's gift. But when we come to see that, 
 in the choice between the world and Christ, the contest 
 is between darkness on the one hand and absolute light 
 on the other that here is the one supreme issue in com- 
 parison with which all else in the world is unimportant 
 this is a Christian judgment even in the total absence of 
 any definite theological background. 
 
 It is true, secondly, that many religious beliefs which 
 are commonly supposed to be ' judgments of fact ' are in 
 reality ' judgments of value'. 
 
 To ignore this is to do injustice to believer and unbe- 
 liever alike. Consider, for example, the doctrine of God's 
 wrath and future punishment. To those who know reli- 
 gion from the outside only, the belief in a God Who is 
 angry with the creatures of His hand, and has invented 
 strange and arbitrary methods for His own appeasement, i 
 seems naturally enough a mere survival of barbarian 
 mythology. The believer, on the other hand, is apt to 
 regard the unbeliever as lacking in moral seriousness. 
 If we question those who insist upon the eternity of 
 punishment, we can generally at once discover their 
 motive. To deny that punishment is eternal involves in 
 their minds the denial of the absoluteness of moral dis- 
 
 1 ' Popular Christianity has for its central mystery an insane 
 vengeance bought off by a trumpery expiation/ Mr. Bernard 
 Shaw's Major Barbara. (First aid to Critics. Christianity and 
 Anarchism). 
 
RITSCHLIANISM AND CHRISTOLOGY 133 
 
 tinctions ; of the ultimate difference between obedience 
 and rebellion. In other words, what seems to the unbe- 
 liever to be a judgment of fact, is in the religious man's 
 own mind primarily a judgment of value. 
 
 If we regarded God as a ' person in history V our 
 religion would then indeed be the degraded mythology 
 which the unbeliever thinks it. But to those who know 
 religion from within, God is never a Person merely. 
 Though the Christian loves to think of a divine Father 
 into Whose ears he can pour his complaint, it is still true 
 that his primary knowledge of God is through the Spirit. 
 In other words we must know God first as a principle 
 within us before we can profitably think of Him as a 
 person outside of us. 2 This is the true order as observ- 
 ation will show even in the religion of the very simplest. 
 
 It is the knowledge of God as an inward Principle which 
 alone gives religious meaning to the doctrine of God's 
 wrath. 3 There are extreme expressions on this subject 
 
 1 Loisy, Autour d'un petit livre, p. 10. 
 
 2 It is interesting to notice how many simple Christians 
 without the smallest desire to deny the personality of the Holy 
 Ghost do yet habitually follow the example of the English 
 Bible (Rom. viii. 26) and speak of the Spirit in the neuter. Cf . 
 Anselm's Id quo nil majus cogitari potest. 
 
 3 For many believers in the eternity of punishment the doc- 
 trine seems to be hardly a ' judgment of fact ' at all. They are 
 affirming a principle : they are not really picturing a future 
 event. To others who quite definitely accept Hell as a real 
 place or state, it is still the principle the heinousness of impeni- 
 tent rebellion which is most prominent in their minds. The 
 principle seems sure, and belief in Hell seems its natural conse- 
 quence. The difficulties, they feel, are for God to solve and not 
 for them. The more, however, that the belief in eternal punish- 
 ment becomes really what it is professedly a ' judgment of 
 fact ', the less likely is it to maintain its place in religion. 
 
134 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 which we shall, no doubt, do well to avoid. To speak of 
 Jesus as ' smoothing the angry Father's face ' is unques- 
 tionably misleading. Yet to one who knows his guilt, 
 and so has come under his own wrath, not even the extrem- 
 est representation of the wrath of God will be unintelli- 
 gible : while to those to whom conviction of sin is unknown, 
 the Christian religion will be a mere mythology to the end. 
 The wrath of a ' magnified non-natural man ' a Creator 
 Who is at once too near and too far off, Who resembles us 
 in personality and yet is bound tc us by purely external 
 relations could only provoke just rebellion and unanswer- 
 able retorts. 1 
 
 Consider, thirdly, the cases where judgments of value 
 and judgments of fact are necessarily bound together. 
 Along with the judgment of value which perceives the 
 absolute claims of the impulse which we call Grace, goes 
 the judgment of fact which perceives the power of this 
 impulse in those who wholeheartedly take Jesus for then- 
 Master. 
 
 It is thus, then, that without any reliance on super- 
 natural dogmas, and without any excursion into metaphy- 
 sics we find ourselves in possession of the materials for 
 the construction of a Christian theology : a theology 
 which shall include a doctrine of Grace, a doctrine of 
 Adoption since no one who has fallen decisively under 
 the influence of Christ can doubt that it is in some sense 
 ' through Him ' 2 that we ourselves come into a changed 
 
 1 See Omar Khayyam, stanza 58. 
 
 * See Ritschl's contrast between the position of Jesus in Chris- 
 tianity and that of Gautama in Buddhism, pp. 364, 363, E.T. 
 385, 387- 
 
RITSCHLIANISM AND CHRISTOLOGY 135 
 
 relation with the Moral Law, a ' new birth', a ' new 
 sonship ' 1 which yet is never fully equal to that air of 
 ' complete guiltlessness and filial relation with the 
 Father ' which appears to belong to Him ' by nature ' 2 
 and lastly a doctrine of God. 
 
 Though the ' personality of God ' was an article of 
 faith with Ritschl himself, it is not clear that this doctrine 
 can be established by means of the characteristic princi- 
 ples of his system. This is unquestionably a serious 
 admission. Yet it is well to bear in mind here the defin- 
 ition of God which satisfied so truly religious a man as 
 St. Louis of France. To the definite question ' What is 
 God ? ' he approved the answer ' God is so good a thing 
 that there can be no better.' In this sense Christian 
 experience apart both from miracle and from philosophy 
 can bring us into assured contact with God. In 
 reconciliation through penitence we attain a peace of 
 mind, an inward self-respect, which we know to be above 
 all price, and thus a contact with Something to Which 
 however else we may conceive it we can ascribe absolute 
 truth and supreme value. 
 
 The prevalence of the ' objective method ' has really 
 disguised from us the strength which the argument from 
 experience possesses. Its value may be made clearer by 
 a comparison. Imagine a painter replying to sceptical 
 doubts as to the worth and reality of beauty ; or a phy- 
 sicist defending the truth and value of his own branch 
 of science. Both of them would rely in the last resort on 
 
 1 For those who believe in no personal God, the words ' Son- 
 ship ' and ' Adoption ' will remain metaphors ; but they may 
 still describe a real and vivid experience. 
 
 1 See chap. x. p. 91. 
 
136 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 the certainty gained in long experience. Regarded as a 
 piece of dialectic, their defence might be a very lame 
 affair. Yet not even the acutest sceptic would really 
 shake in them the convictions of a lifetime, or instil into 
 their minds any doubt of the value of their results and 
 the general correctness of their methods. In religion 
 there grows up, in spite of frequent failure, a similar 
 confidence in the worth and power of Grace not the 
 reasoned confidence of philosophy but the practical 
 confidence of successful achievement. It is just this 
 assurance of correctness and success which is the essential 
 element in the ' happiness ' which the simple believer is 
 apt to allege as an evidence. In this he is following a 
 sound instinct. The test of the rationality of a belief 
 is its power to persist when it has been free]y subjected to 
 counter-suggestions or criticisms. We distinguish a sane 
 belief from an obsession mainly by the capacity of the 
 former to fit itself into the general scheme of our know- 
 ledge : to find a place in that view of the world which we 
 share with other men. 
 
 Thus the final answer to those who doubt the Christian 
 method must always lie in the advice to try it. 1 To the 
 mere spectator, the desire to follow Christ may seem an 
 idle fancy ; a passing craze like the dreams of a stage- 
 struck boy. But when we find by actual practice that it 
 is something more solid than this, we shall then proceed 
 further. Experience reveals not only values but facts. 
 We shall find that innocence before the Moral Law is 
 actually attainable. Not only is the law true ; it is also 
 an effective impulse towards its own fulfilment. In 
 
 1 Even in the older Churches professions of Christian service 
 will not always be rejected on the mere ground of doctrinal 
 unbelief. 
 
RITSCHLIANISM AND CHRISTOLOGY 137 
 
 coming thus in contact with an inexhaustible source 1 of 
 moral strength we shall not long doubt that we are in 
 contact with God. Therefore the vital question is not 
 whether this impulse is a Personal Being, but whether we 
 are able to distinguish, among the various impulses to 
 which we are subject, one which is absolutely true and 
 right in its nature, and right by no mere chance or acci- 
 dent such an impulse as it could never be lawful to 
 resist. 
 
 There is a sense, however, in which the Ritschlian 
 method brings us to a knowledge, not only of God, but of a 
 God Who is ' personal ' : and no part of Ritschl's great 
 treatise is worthy of more careful study than the chapters 
 in which he maintains the divinity of Jesus Christ. 
 
 ' The divinity of Our Lord ' it is sometimes objected 
 ' which can be established on a basis of inward experience, 
 will be a " moral divinity " at best/ 
 
 The question turns on what " moral divinity " means. 
 If we merely call Jesus God by courtesy because He is the 
 best of good men, the divine title has here no theological 
 worth. But if we recognize His absolute supremacy in the 
 moral sphere in such a sense that we identify the ' Will 
 of Jesus ' with the ' Will of God 'we shall then not 
 hesitate to ' honour the Son even as we honour the 
 Father ', and Jesus in the fullest sense of the words will 
 have for us the ' value of God '. Magna ars est scire con- 
 
 1 All that ' experience ' in the narrowest sense can show is 
 that the source of inward strength is not as yet exhausted. Yet 
 does any one who has had such spiritual experience ever doubt 
 that this source of strength is not merely ' unexhausted ' but 
 ' inexhaustible ' ? Ritschl's use of the word ' experience ' 
 differs from Kant's. 
 
138 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 versari cum fesu. Yet, in spite of the difficulty of the 
 lesson, Christendom has not wholly failed to learn it : 
 nor have there ever been wanting those who when they 
 have heard His voice have admitted its absolute claim 
 upon their obedience. And if Jesus has this absolute 
 claim to rule our conduct, then Jesus is our God. 
 
 Here, then, is to be seen more clearly than elsewhere 
 the exact nature of the revolution which Ritschl has 
 effected in theology. Divinity is discovered to be prim- 
 arily a moral attribute. Whereas the older theology 
 argues that Jesus is to be obeyed in all things, because 
 Jesus is God, Ritschl contends rather that Jesus is God 
 because He is worthy of absolute obedience. 
 
 May we not, further, affirm with confidence that 
 this latter order is the right one ? If Jupiter had made 
 and governed the world, he would still not be God, because 
 he would not be worthy of our worship. Jesus is worthy 
 of our worship whether He has made the world or not : 
 since it is on His goodness, not on His power, that His 
 claim to be our Lord depends. 
 
 Hence it follows not that His exaltation, His pre- 
 existence, His activity in Creation, are unimportant 
 matters but that though important they are not primary. 
 To the soul which does not bow before Jesus in absolute 
 homage, no demonstration of His pre-existence or omni- 
 potence would reveal His Godhead. To the soul which 
 does so bow before Him, His Godhead is revealed whether 
 these doctrines are accepted or not. 
 
 Orthodox theology has, in fact, not always been true 
 to itself. It has professed the principle that the Incarna- 
 tion is the supreme revelation of God : and then instead 
 
RITSCHLIANISM AND CHRISTOLOGY 139 
 
 of basing its conceptions of God upon Jesus it has rather 
 based its conceptions of Jesus upon d priori theories of 
 God. The result is that it has placed His divinity not 
 in what has been revealed, but in what is hidden : not in 
 the compelling power of His words and life, but in some- 
 thing that is inferred to exist behind it. The inferences 
 may all be sound, but still the method is not what it 
 professes to be. 
 
 The more modern tendencies in theology suggest a 
 wiser procedure. They recall us to the very test which 
 was proposed to the first disciples. Can we recognize 
 the Godhead of Jesus in the midst of His humiliation ? 
 Have we faith to perceive that even if He did not 
 receive exaltation He was alone supremely worthy of 
 it that it is indeed a greater thing to have lived the life 
 of Jesus than to have created the world ? Those who 
 demand external evidence to prove that He is ' no impos- 
 tor ' are merely confessing that they themselves have not 
 yet seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 
 Those who say that unless He created the world He is 
 not ' really God ', confess that they do not yet know what 
 true Godhead means. When we know that Jesus is our 
 lawful Master it adds vigour to our efforts to know that He 
 is on the throne of heaven ; but though His exaltation 
 adds to our joy it adds nothing to His Godhead : for 
 truly to know the Sufferer Who reveals Himself in Gethse- 
 mane and Calvary is to know Him to be none else but God. 
 In each such manifestation He shows Himself divine : 
 and if in them we do not see Him as God, we do not see 
 Him as He is. Whiteness said Aristotle is no whiter 
 for being eternally white. l Jesus becomes no more truly 
 God for being eternally and pre-existently divine. 
 
 1 Eth. Nic. i. 6. 
 
140 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Should we not then instead of looking for external 
 proofs first make Jesus Himself the sole standard of 
 Godhead ? We want no higher God than He ; we know 
 that no higher God is conceivable or possible. We know 
 that if the Will of the Ruler of the Universe differs from 
 the Law revealed by Jesus, the Ruler of the Universe 
 falls short of true divinity. If the Ruler of the Universe 
 had been as the Jews conceived Him, if He had forsaken 
 Jesus upon the Cross, it would change our whole con- 
 ception of the world. But how should it change our 
 estimate of Jesus ? Would it not still remain true that 
 only the God Who can be identified with Jesus has a just 
 claim upon the worship of mankind ? 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 THE ' ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN ' 
 
 IT has been the aim of all the preceding chapters to 
 press upon the Christian preacher the importance of 
 the lesson taught by Ritschl, and to maintain that the 
 whole of our theology needs revision in the light of the 
 Ritschlian criticism. 
 
 But, though this is the subject with which we have been 
 expressly engaged, another conclusion has come to light 
 meanwhile, which is hardly less important. Although 
 the foundations of theology can be laid in moral and 
 religious experience just as Ritschl teaches, this method 
 seems insufficient by itself to complete the superstructure. 
 The belief in God as a conscious Being, the faith in Special 
 Providence, the hope of glory in the world to come, can 
 hardly be dismissed as extraneous additions to the Chris- 
 tian Creed. But none of these beliefs can be learned from 
 moral intuition or direct experience alone. If they are to 
 be rationally defended at all, this must be done by means 
 of a chain of reasoning. Therefore unless we regard 
 these doctrines as devoid of religious value we shall 
 inevitably be led back to the consideration of those 
 ' rationalistic ' arguments, such as the ' Argument from 
 Design', of which the Ritschlians have been apt to speak 
 too slightingly. 1 
 
 1 Rechtfertigung und Versohnung, p. 590 (E. tr. p. 625). 
 
 HI 
 
142 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 The Argument from Design is at the present moment 
 under a cloud. ' The discovery of Natural Selection ' 
 says Mr. Bernard Shaw in a well-turned phrase might be 
 described as 'the revelation of a method by which all the 
 appearances of intelligent design in the Universe may 
 have been produced by pure accident. ' x Natural Selection 
 even if it had remained an unverified hypothesis could 
 not but suggest a doubt. May it not be that what we 
 have taken to be ' evidences of design ' are after all mere 
 ' conditions of existence ? ' a 
 
 Popular theology, however even in circles where the 
 discoveries of Darwin are well-known has not wholly 
 abandoned the time-honoured argument. The world in 
 all its aspects is subject to rules. More and yet more 
 of these rules are revealed to us by every fresh pursuit on 
 which we enter. And though there is, of course, such a 
 thing as conforming to a rule accidentally and without 
 being governed by it trees, for example, may accidentally 
 grow in a circle, or the stains of damp on the wall may 
 make a regular pattern no one can seriously regard the 
 regularity of Nature as being of this purely accidental 
 sort. If we contrast casual ' conformity to rules ' with 
 actual ' government by rules ', we must regard the world 
 as in some sense really ' governed ' by them for, 
 if not, how could we use these rules for such purposes 
 as astronomical prediction ? We cannot reasonably 
 predict a series of events by reference to a rule to which 
 it only conforms by chance. 
 
 It is natural enough then that the popular theologian 
 
 1 Man and Superman, preface to new popular edition. 
 * The phrases occur in a work, published anonymously, by the 
 late Dr, RowlandjWilliams, 
 
THE 'ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN' 143 
 
 should proceed to argue that the influence of rules in 
 Nature implies a Governing Mind. How he asks can 
 a series of occurrences be subject to rules except through 
 the agency of a mind, or minds, which can frame the rules 
 and understand them ? Again, if the world is a Single 
 System, does not this point to one single ruling Mind 
 rather than to many ? And does not the general orderli- 
 ness of the world, and its general appearance of being a 
 rationally constructed scheme, suggest irresistibly to the 
 open-minded observer even in spite of disturbing factors 
 such as pain and sin that the Governing Mind is wise and 
 
 good ? 
 
 \ 
 
 The argument is always impressive : it is nevertheless 
 beset with difficulties. 
 
 The contention, for example, that Nature being an 
 orderly whole needs a conscious Mind to construct and 
 preserve it, leads to embarrassing consequences. For is 
 not the Mind of the Creator itself an ordered Whole also ? 
 By the same reasoning it too requires an ordering Mind 
 behind it, and this in its turn another and so we could 
 never reach finality. 
 
 Again the Argument from Design is wrong in treating 
 ' accident ' and ' design ' as absolute alternatives. To 
 maintain that ' wherever facts conform to a general 
 rule, this is either by accident or by conscious design ' 
 is to overlook the familiar case of Geometry. The interior 
 angles of every triangle conform to the general rule that 
 the three taken together must be equal to two right 
 angles. This is certainly no accident : yet it would never 
 occur to any one who understood the Euclidean proof to 
 point to this case as evidence of a conscious purpose. 
 
 These objections especially the last are not such as 
 
144 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 can be dismissed lightly. And yet, surely, there is some- 
 thing to be said on the other side. If we can say nothing 
 more, we may justly say as much as thisthat the Argu- 
 ment from Design has called attention to certain 
 facts in the constitution of Nature which have somewhat 
 the same sort of significance as it attributes to them. 
 These facts are not unimportant, even though the common 
 theology has not found for them precisely the right 
 interpretation. 
 
 What the argument from Design then seems to require 
 is revision and restatement. As it stands, it is a strange 
 mixture of truth and error : and the task of the modern 
 theologian is to separate the error from the truth. 
 
 We shall find, however, that to restate the old argu- 
 ment correctly and at the same time clearly, is a work of 
 quite extraordinary difficulty. The revised statement 
 will come in conflict at every step with one or other of 
 those philosophic tendencies which have been inherited 
 by our generation from the Empiricist and Conceptualist 
 schools of the Nineteenth Century. In one particular 
 matter the characteristic unwillingness of the modern 
 mind to admit that there can be absoluteness and finality 
 in the moral and aesthetic judgments of mankind it will 
 be opposed by the influence of writers so different in other 
 respects as Nietzsche and Mr. F. H. Bradley. For these 
 reasons the next few pages though no more than a 
 sketch in outline cannot be quite easy reading, 1 and the 
 reader must be prepared to pardon some awkward quasi- 
 technical phraseology, which though conducing to brevity 
 cannot fail to be a trial to his patience. 
 
 1 The argument is stated briefly above : p. xvii (2). 
 
THE 'ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN' 145 
 
 Mention has already been made of the agreement of 
 Nature with rules. Let us take as the starting point 
 for our new venture the fact that the world is subject 
 to rules not merely in the matter of physical uniformity, 
 but in the higher aspects of Nature likewise. 
 
 Take, first of all, the case of beauty and harmony of 
 colour. Not only does Nature afford us a lavish display of 
 colour-schemes of extreme beauty : but what is more 
 remarkable still there is a certain level of beauty below 
 which Nature never falls. Nothing in Nature ever violates 
 the principles of good colouring as these are often vio- 
 lated in the oleograph and the coloured photograph, and 
 sometimes even in the attire of feminine humanity. 
 
 Is the beauty of natural objects then accidental a 
 mere by-product of physical uniformity ? Some of the 
 evolutionary explanations of aesthetic facts will be 
 briefly dealt with below. But the truth is that the 
 discovery of Natural Selection has made far less difference 
 to this problem than might at first sight be supposed ; 
 and the decision must rest with simple observation and 
 common sense. 
 
 The beauty of Nature depends upon colour-schemes of a 
 highly complex character. As every one who has ever 
 tried to sketch from Nature knows, the laws of harmony 
 in colour are strict and difficult to fulfil. A few wrong 
 touches are enough to ruin the beauty of a whole picture. 
 Thus the beauty of Nature its avoidance of inharmonious 
 combinations is far from being a matter of course. 
 Whenever we find a large number of separate facts agreeing 
 strictly with a single principle, ' This agreement ' we 
 say ' cannot be due to accident.' And this is exactly what 
 we find here. When we see that Nature conforms itself, 
 unconsciously but unerringly, to the very same principles 
 
 L 
 
146 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 of taste, positive and negative, which the artist is con- 
 tinually striving to obey which moreover he can never 
 succeed in obeying except by laborious selective effort, 
 and as a result of long training or exceptional inspiration 
 the theory that Nature obeys these aesthetic principles 
 by mere accident becomes untenable. 1 
 
 Moreover the notion that natural beauty is an accident 
 is contradicted by our practice. If any one maintained, 
 either that natural objects are beautiful by mere chance* 
 or that our opinion of their beauty is a pious illusion based 
 on the d priori doctrine that Nature is the work of God, 
 the constant practice of painters would by itself be enough 
 to refute him. The painter, whatever his religious creed, 
 takes Nature for his model. Desiring to grasp the 
 principles of beauty with deeper insight, he turns to those 
 forms and scenes where they are consistently exemplified. 
 His advice to his pupil to ' study Nature ' is virtually a 
 prediction as confident in its own field as the predictions 
 of the astronomer in his that these principles will be 
 found to dominate Nature in every corner. 
 
 But what follows ? If it is not by ' accident ' that 
 Nature is beautiful, then it is in some sense a ' law ' that 
 what is in accordance with the principles of beauty 
 shall ' as such ' occur. 
 
 Whenever we say ' This is no accident ' we are affirming 
 
 1 It is not merely that in Nature there are ' many pretty 
 scenes '. Each of these involves the agreement of a large number 
 of coloured points with an intricate aesthetic principle in our 
 minds. This principle is not a mere product or copy of Nature. 
 It has a certain independence. For example we can judge the 
 colour-schemes of Nature as more or less perfect : sometimes we 
 can even supply their defects, although not even on the most 
 ' unpaintable ' day does Nature ever fall below a certain level. 
 
THE 'ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN' 147 
 
 the truth of some explanatory theory : x or (as we should 
 more naturally express it in the case of any recurrent 
 phenomenon) we are affirming the truth of a ' law '. 2 
 We find again and again in Nature harmonious combina- 
 tions of colours. Does harmonious combination occur 
 ' as such ' ? Are the various colours selected by Nature 
 ' because ' they are mutually harmonious, or not ? If 
 the harmoniousness of the colours has nothing whatever 
 to do with their occurrence, then their harmony is a 
 sheer accident just as much as it would be a sheer acci- 
 dent if a melodious air were played by an animal walking 
 on the keyboard. 3 But this is the sort of elaborate accident 
 
 1 A few examples will make this plain. If I say ' It is no 
 accident that so many of your guests are Germans ' I am sug- 
 gesting that it is in some sense ' because ' they are Germans that 
 they have been invited that in some sense Germans have been 
 invited ' as such '. If I say ' It cannot be an accident that we 
 always meet here on a Wednesday ' I am suggesting some kind 
 of causal connexion between our encounter and the day of the 
 week on which it occurs. We must distinguish the ' accidental ' 
 (TO (Tv/x/Je/ifyKos) from the ' contingent ' (TO v8^o/xvov aXXcos 
 cxciv). To say ' This is no accident ' goes beyond the mere 
 general and formal assertion ' This is not an event without a 
 cause'. The latter assertion is too obvious to be worth making 
 in practical life ; the former always implies a particular explan- 
 atory theory, even though as in the instances given above 
 it may be a very vague one. It would be assumed that you 
 invite no guest without some reason : the question would be 
 whether the explanation of the presence of some is to be found 
 in their nationality. 
 
 2 For this word see below. 
 
 3 It is alleged that the youthful Hildebrand, before he could 
 read, happened to form the letters of a singularly appropriate 
 verse from the Psalms by casually putting together pieces of 
 wood literas nesciens, casu formavit, ex ligni segmentis, hoc 
 dictum Davidis ' Dominabitur a mari usque ad mare.' Cave's 
 Hist. Lit. p. 151. We must choose here between fiction and 
 miracle : such an elaborate accident is quite beyond belief. 
 
148 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 which we cannot really believe in. If on the other hand 
 it is in any sense ' because ' of their harmoniousness that 
 the colours in Nature occur, then it is in some sense a law 
 that the harmonious colour occurs ' as such', and Nature 
 must be regarded as being in some sense ' governed ' by 
 aesthetic principles, though not necessarily through the 
 agency of a Conscious Mind. 1 
 
 This conclusion, if admitted to be correct, cannot 
 be denied to be important. Natural Science for the 
 most part eschews ' teleology '. a It refuses to explain 
 facts by the ' purposes ' or ' ends ' which they might 
 serve. And this refusal in its own place is right : since 
 teleology may often be the enemy of research. 3 
 
 Yet we cannot banish teleological conceptions entirely. 
 Our reason must recognize the beauty of Nature, not 
 necessarily as the fulfilment of ' purpose ', but certainly 
 as the realization of an ' end '. To right reason beauty 
 is an ' end in itself ' a thing of value for its own sake. 
 If then it is a law of Nature that Nature is beautiful, this 
 law may certainly be described as teleological. 
 
 1 Cf. the remark about Geometry above. This argument 
 will naturally be resisted by those thinkers to whom the exclusion 
 of all teleology seems necessary to the progress of science. Yet 
 can it be resisted except by evasion ? ' Is it in any sense because 
 of their mutual harmony that the harmonious colours occur ? ' 
 If we say ' In no sense because of this ' then the harmonies of 
 Nature are accidental. Thus, though we are not obliged to 
 choose between accident and design, we are obliged to choose 
 between accident and teleology. See next note. 
 
 3 It is not scientific e.g. to explain the berries of autumn 
 by the needs of the birds next winter. Teleology consists in 
 accounting for facts by the ends which they serve. 
 
 8 Newton, for example, would never have discovered gravita- 
 tion if he had been satisfied to explain the fall of apples by the 
 beneficent "'intention of the Creator that they should be eaten 
 by animals on the ground. 
 
THE ARGUMENT 'FROM DESIGN* 149 
 
 Nor are these conclusions affected by any evolutionary 
 hypothesis. The evolutionary explanation of aesthetic 
 facts takes two main forms : the one relying chiefly on 
 Hereditary Habituation, the other on Natural Selection. 
 Our pleasure in the green of the landscape, for example, is 
 explained as due to the fact that green trees have been 
 familiar to our race from remote ages. What the eye is 
 accustomed to perceive it perceives easily : what it 
 perceives easily, it perceives pleasantly : and that which 
 we perceive with pleasure is called beautiful. 
 
 But this type of explanation breaks down if we apply 
 it generally. It does not explain our pleasure in melod- 
 ies which are original or colour-schemes which are novel : 
 and for some of the most familiar aesthetic laws such as 
 the prohibition of consecutive fifths in music it is quite 
 unable to account. The hypothesis might conceivably 
 explain our pleasure in red, or in green, or in the transition 
 from one familiar colour to another which is often found 
 beside it. But just as the charm of a melody is not the 
 mere cumulative effect of a number of melodic intervals 
 if it were we might take the intervals in reverse order 1 
 so neither is the charm of a scheme of colour identical 
 with the cumulative effect of a number of pleasant transi- 
 
 1 Mr. Grant Allen's theories on this subject might be put 
 to a simple test. The first phrase of the familiar Toreador Song 
 in Carmen, contains the following ' transitions ' DE, ED, DB, 
 BA, AB, BC, CB. But so also does the following phrase, 
 
 
 7.ZI1 
 
 besides two quite pleasant intervals BD, DB in addition. On 
 Mr. Grant Allen's theory it ought to be the more pleasing melody. 
 
150 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 tions. If taste were a mere matter of physical and 
 sensual habituation, the rational conception of a single 
 harmonious scheme of colour would never have arisen. 
 
 The attempt to account for our aesthetic tastes by 
 Natural Selection is equally unsuccessful. What good 
 does a delicate enjoyment of the colour-schemes of Nature 
 do to us in the struggle for existence ? Actual colour- 
 blindness may diminish an animal's chance of survival. 
 But no one perishes brute or man from a lack of the 
 higher qualities of aesthetic taste. That a taste for the 
 particular colour-schemes which Nature presents is not a 
 necessary condition of survival is plain from the fact that 
 in the majority of cases this delicacy of taste though 
 generally present as a capacity remains undeveloped 
 even in civilized mankind. 
 
 Again, both these theories imply that the sense of 
 beauty is of the nature of an illusion that we give the 
 name beauty to what happens to please us ; that between 
 beauty and its opposite there is no real or ' objective ' 
 difference. But this is a view which no one admits with 
 regard to the kinds of beauty he understands, and in 
 extreme cases it is admitted by nobody at all. When the 
 process of evolution has produced as in many individuals 
 it has a type of bad taste which is really flagrant, it then 
 becomes quite evident that by ' good taste ' we do not 
 mean merely that particular kind of taste which is able 
 to survive in the evolutionary struggle. Art-critics, like 
 other people, contradict one another, and make mistakes. 
 Yet here as elsewhere there are some firmly established 
 results : and one of the surest of these for any one who 
 has any eye for beauty is the delicacy and harmonious- 
 ness of the colour-schemes of Nature. The merit of these 
 does not consist solely in the fact that they happen to 
 
THE 'ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 1 151 
 
 suit our eyes. On the other hand we discover that the 
 systematic training of the sense of colour adds not merely 
 to our enjoyment but to our knowledge. 1 The beauty, 
 
 1 The attempts to explain aesthetic facts by evolutionary 
 theories are interesting enough to deserve detailed treatment. 
 The following headings may suggest the general lines which this 
 treatment might follow : 
 
 A . Protective colouring in animals. Colour in flowers ren- 
 dering them conspicuous to fertilizing insects. Is it a mere 
 accident that the colours which possess these protective and fer- 
 tilizing properties are at the same time such as to play their 
 part in the elaborate colour-schemes of Nature ? Natural 
 selection explains the occurrence of each particular colour : but 
 does not under the present head explain why only those colours 
 occur which satisfy certain strict aesthetic requirements. 
 
 B. Sexual selection. The taste of the female animal for 
 bright colours explains the brightness of colouring in the male, 
 but not the delicacy of the colouring which is to us the most 
 conspicuous element. 
 
 Neither A nor B afford any explanation of the delicate colour- 
 schemes outside the animal and vegetable kingdom, e.g. the 
 beauty of rock, water, or the sky at sunset. 
 
 C. The theory mentioned in the text which seeks to explain 
 not the occurrence of the colours directly but our liking for the 
 colours which occur is the only theory capable of wide applica- 
 tion to the facts. 
 
 This theory is presented in three forms : 
 
 I. Hereditary Habituation. The theory that what we like 
 
 is that which has been familiar to our progenitors. 
 II. Natural Selection direct. The theory that our tastes 
 have been directly valuable to the race in the struggle for 
 existence. 
 
 III. Natural Selection indirect. The theory that though of 
 no direct value in the struggle they are associated with 
 other qualities which possess this value. 
 
 Assume that qualities (a), (b), (c), (d) tend to the survival 
 of the species which possesses them : and that with these are 
 associated respectively (w), (x), (y), (z), these latter standing 
 for ' aesthetic tastes '. Let (w) stand for ' the latent capacity 
 to like the Toreador Song when heard '. (This tendency if 
 
152 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 we find, was there all the time: we have now learned to 
 perceive it. 
 
 The case of Beauty, however, is only one example 
 among many. Beauty is far from being the only case 
 where Nature is regulated by laws in its higher that 
 is in its ' teleological ' aspects. For example, it is a law 
 of Nature that the general tendencies of human thought 
 are not merely psychologically uniform but, on the 
 whole, logically correct. Our belief in this law is our sole 
 justification for deliberate thinking. Yet we do as a 
 fact trust our thought even where its correctness has no 
 practical bearing, and cannot be accounted for by Natural 
 
 tastes are to be explained by evolution must have been matur- 
 ing simultaneously all over Europe in the ages preceding the 
 production of Carmen). Assume (w), to be associated with (a). 
 (Cf. the association of ' deafness ' with ' blue eyes ' in white 
 cats). If (a) is useful to the species it explains the universality 
 of (w). (x) (' taste for colour scheme of to-day's sunset ') might 
 be preserved by similar association with (b). 
 
 Notice, however, that what this theory does not explain is 
 (i) the tendency to correctness in taste, a tendency presupposed 
 in all artistic training (art-criticism would therefore be reduced 
 by this theory to, or even beneath, the level of tea-tasting), (2) 
 the agreement of our tastes with what is actually present in 
 Nature. Natural Selection does not explain why tastes (x), 
 (y) and (z) (tastes which are supposed to be preserved by their 
 association with (b), (c) and (d),) should happen to find in Nature 
 the objects which gratify them. Unless it is assumed (returning 
 to theory No. II) that the lack of this aesthetic gratification 
 would kill off the species, the agreement of our tastes with Nature 
 which quite apart from any assumption as to the correctness 
 of our taste is an undoubted fact is left unexplained. 
 
 The whole subject is of intrinsic interest. Regarded however, 
 as a reply to the Argument from Design, the evolutionary explan- 
 ation of beauty has flourished merely by its vagueness. The 
 theory if pinned down to one definite form will be seen to be 
 inadequate. 
 
THE ' ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN ' 153 
 
 Selection. Again, in spite of all varieties of moral stand- 
 ard, there is, after all, a solid background of agreement. 
 If it were not so, we could have no commercial or political 
 dealings with the lower races. It is, in other words, a 
 ' law ' that the Moral Ideal, when its demands are pre- 
 sented even to the lowest specimens of the human race, 
 evokes some measure of response. The laws of Nature, 
 then, are far from being exclusively physical. 1 
 
 Here therefore we may ask a really comprehensive 
 question. It is because of the beauty of physical objects, 
 and because of human intelligence and human morality, 
 and for other similar reasons, that we speak of the world 
 as a ' rational whole '. We call it a rational whole because 
 it realizes rational ends. Is this rationality then an 
 accident ? Is it an accident that in all these many 
 
 1 In this connexion it is quite worth while to reflect on some 
 of the more ' human ' aspects of the behaviour of the lower 
 animals. The following case of mimicry was recently observed 
 in North Oxfordshire. A Great Green Woodpecker had flown 
 over the high road, describing ascending and descending curves 
 in its well known manner, marking its rhythmical movements 
 with regular cries. A wren, sitting on the hedge at the road- 
 side, immediately imitated the action and cries of the woodpecker, 
 without leaving its perch. The three or four forward plunges, 
 which had carried the larger bird over a couple of fields, were 
 copied by the wren in an upward and downward movement 
 of its own body. The imitation was quite masterly of its kind, 
 recalling nothing so much as the boast of Coquelin that he could 
 act the leading part in the Polish Jew, standing on a four-foot 
 table. Again, the cuckoo has been heard to sing a major second, 
 a minor third, a major third, a perfect fourth, a perfect fifth, 
 the minor and the major sixth : i.e. every diatonic interval 
 between the major second and the major sixth with the one excep- 
 tion of the tritone. 
 
154 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 respects Nature fulfils such ends as our reason approves 
 that it agrees at so many points with the ideal which 
 reason sets up ? 
 
 The world, no doubt, may be called ' rational ' in two 
 distinct senses : either simply because it is subject to 
 general laws ' in this sense ' says Dr. Rashdall l ' the 
 Universe might be rational if it were a sort of infernal 
 machine ' or, secondly, in the more specific sense that 
 it is such as to merit rational approval. ' It has been part 
 of the Uger de main of a certain school ' Dr. Rashdall 
 continues ' to prove that the Universe is rational in the 
 first sense, and then to assume that it must be rational in 
 the second/ 
 
 We are concerned here with the latter sense alone. 
 We are confining ourselves to such evidences of ' ration- 
 ality ' as may be found in those aspects of the world in 
 which it is the fit object of the painter's contemplation 
 and the poet's praise : in which, again, it is the fit domicile 
 of moral education and co-operative moral enterprise : 
 in which therefore it is realizing rational ' ends '. Is the 
 world's appearance of rationality taken in this specific 
 sense something superficial, external, accidental ? 
 
 We cannot readily think so. The great historian, 
 it has been said, is commonly a Theist. No doubt there 
 are instances to the contrary. Yet, at least, it is natural 
 on the whole that the man whose interest in the world is 
 less abstract than that of the mere physicist, should 
 perceive irresistibly that the cases where ends approved 
 by reason are realized in Nature are too numerous to be 
 due to chance. 
 
 Again it is solely on the strength of our belief in the 
 
 1 The Theory of Good and Evil, vol. ii. p. 219, note. 
 
THE 'ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN ' 155 
 
 necessary conformity of the world to a rational standard 
 that we reject the superstitions of Paganism. We refuse 
 to believe in Charon and his ferry, not from mere lack of 
 evidence this would only justify us in suspending 
 judgment but simply because we perceive that in a 
 rationally ordered world no such incidents can find place. 
 If we consider the grounds on which we reject these inci- 
 dents so decisively, we shall readily find that they are 
 rejected because they are ' irrational ' in the second of 
 the two senses which Dr. Rashdall has distinguished. 
 How could we show who ever tries to show ? that the 
 incidents in the Pagan myths might not be brought 
 under general laws just as easily as many biographical 
 incidents which we accept ? But they are irrational 
 in the sense that they can form no part of such a world 
 as right reason could approve. In this sense, then, we 
 hold it to be a law that Nature wholly rejects the irra- 
 tional and conforms itself to the demands of reason. 
 
 What bearing has all this upon religious faith ? Three 
 brief remarks may help to an answer to this question. 
 
 We have seen, first, that by speaking thus of a rational 
 ' standard ', we are using the word ' standard ' in the 
 same general sense in which it is used in aesthetics and 
 ethics. Our perception of the world's ' rationality ' is a 
 ' judgment of value '. 
 
 Secondly : such a judgment implies a confidence in the 
 correctness of the standard by which we judge. We 
 cannot hold that a standard by which we ourselves are 
 at this moment judging is ' merely subjective '. To hold 
 that something is 'good', is to hold that it is 'really 
 good '. To hold that the world is ' rational ' is to hold that 
 it conforms to ' the standard set up by right reason '. 
 
156 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 The third point is more difficult, since it touches the 
 problem of Evil. The conclusion we have already 
 arrived at may be summed up thus : ' The observed 
 agreements between the actual world and the Ideal 
 which reason sets up are too numerous to be accidental : 
 therefore it is in some sense a law that the demands of 
 this ideal must as such be realized.' But this is a law 
 which, in the nature of the case, can accept no qualifica- 
 tion or limitation 1 without becoming entirely unmeaning. 
 Nothing indeed could be more flagrantly irrational than 
 a system of laws which prescribed elaborate agreement 
 with the rational standard at some points and violation 
 of it at others. If we admitted for a moment that such is 
 the system of law to which the world is really subject, 
 all the practical confidence which we base upon ' the 
 rationality of the Universe ' would be at an end. Such 
 a Universe, of course, is believed in by nobody. Those 
 who deny the optimistic conception of the world which 
 belongs to Christianity, deny at the same time that 
 there is any law of Nature which possesses a teleological 
 character. They have therefore to treat beauty and 
 morality and intelligence as evolutionary accidents. 
 Thus the controversy between Christian Optimism 
 and the doctrines which oppose it turns mainly on the 
 questions discussed in the earlier portion of this chapter. 
 The man who admits teleological laws at all, cannot 
 without absurdity draw back from a thorough-going 
 optimism. 
 
 1 In some cases the extension of an observed rule may remain 
 doubtful. A stranger arriving in London might soon perceive 
 that it is a ' law ' that letter-boxes are painted red : but he 
 might be ignorant whether this law held good of all Europe or 
 only of the City of Westminster. 
 
THE ' ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN' 157 
 
 Two questions, however, will inevitably be asked. 
 If the belief in the rationality of the Universe and the 
 acceptance of a thorough-going Optimism are identical 
 beliefs, how comes it that any single thinker fails to 
 be an Optimist ? The best reply to this question is to 
 ask another in return. We all are ready to believe in a 
 world which contradicts the ideals of other people : 
 but does any one seriously believe in a world which con- 
 tradicts his own ? The Physicist's belief in a reign of 
 law and order beyond the narrow sphere of our experience is 
 an act of faith no less than is the optimism of religion : 
 and, in truth, the two acts of faith are in their essence 
 one and the same. In a word, no one doubts that the 
 Universe conforms to the ideal of reason : the only 
 dispute is as to what that ideal contains. Thus, here as 
 elsewhere, the final question between religious faith and 
 unbelief turns upon a judgment of value. 
 
 But what of the facts of evil ? Christianity not only 
 admits these facts but insists upon them. To speak 
 lightly of evil as ' imperfect good ' is quite contrary to the 
 Christian spirit. Yet the ultimate judgment of Christian 
 piety upon the world as a whole, is expressed in the 
 words of the dying Chrysostom ' Glory be to God for all 
 things'. The recognition that many things are, when 
 regarded in isolation, utterly evil, has not seemed incon- 
 sistent with the faith that the world, regarded in its 
 totality, is good. 1 It is sufficient to point out here that 
 unless the world, regarded as a whole, is in entire accord- 
 ance with the ideal which reason sets up, then it is a 
 pure accident that it agrees with it at any single point. 
 This follows from what the word ' accident ' means. 
 
 1 Descartes, Meditation Quatritme. 
 
158 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Either, then, all evil is in the end good : or all good 
 comes by chance only. To the keen eye of popular re- 
 ligion the truth of this antithesis has always been clear ; 
 and hence popular Christianity has unfailingly drawn 
 the conclusion that even the worst of evils are all ' for the 
 best '. 
 
 These suggestions for a revised statement of the 
 familiar Argument from Design must now be left to the 
 thought and criticism of the reader. A few words, 
 however, may be added as to the word ' law ' and its 
 significance. 
 
 When we call it a ' law ' that ' the interior angles of 
 every triangle are equal to two right angles ' we mean 
 that this is a ' necessary truth ' : and we can demonstrate 
 that this truth is necessary because it follows from the very 
 definition of what a triangle is from the very meaning of 
 the term. 
 
 Are the laws of Nature, then, laws in the same sense ? 
 Could they conceivably be deduced in the same sort of 
 way from the meanings of ideas ? The hope that if 
 only we could attain sufficient knowledge for the task 
 the world and all its contents might be shown to follow 
 from general conceptions, as truly as geometrical facts 
 follow from the general notion of a ' line ' an ' angle ' and 
 a 'triangle', was not obscurely hinted at by Plato. 1 
 
 1 Republic, sub, 509. With 5170 cf. 5160 i. The Idea of 
 the Good, which is perceived by pure thought only, is regarded 
 as the ground not only of the truth of the intelligible ideas, but 
 of the existence of the visible things. The relation of this doc- 
 trine to the merely phenomenal nature of the latter is perhaps 
 never cleared up. 
 
THE 'ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN* 159 
 
 But this hope has met with singularly little sympathy. 
 Philosophers have been eager to defend themselves 
 from the charge that they sought to ' fashion the world 
 out of categories ' ; and great pains have been taken to 
 prove, of Hegel in particular, that he made no attempt 
 to deduce the world as it stands from the ultimate 
 categories of thought. 
 
 The repudiation of this Platonic hope is in some ways 
 intelligible enough. That in our present state of know- 
 ledge we cannot deduce the facts of the world's history 
 from ideas that therefore there is much which we cannot 
 as yet see ' under the form of necessity ' but must be 
 contented to learn from experience is an admission of 
 great practical importance. Yet it is only one side of 
 the truth. It does not follow that, because we cannot 
 perform it yet, this deduction from ideas is ultimately 
 inconceivable. Indeed if we think of it the ultimate 
 deducibility of all facts from ideas is involved in the very 
 notion of scientific explanation. Explanations are 
 couched in words ; and words are the symbols of ideas : 
 it is by means of ideas therefore that we explain. But 
 explanation through ideas implies sequence from them. 
 If the fact does not really follow from the ideas ; how 
 can it be explained by means of them ? It is only in 
 rare cases as for example in Geometry that all the 
 links in the chain of sequence can be shown. But the 
 consecutiveness of the chain does not depend upon our 
 perception of it. Moreover since the strength of a 
 chain is the strength of the weakest part of it the entire 
 value of the few links which are known depends upon 
 the absolute consecutiveness of the whole. If only 
 those few links were valid which are known to man, the 
 whole explanation would be worthless. 
 
i6o RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 There is no room to go more fully into this important 
 matter here. Enough perhaps has been said to set 
 the reader upon a train of reflection which will lead him 
 to the conclusion that unless a fact is ultimately deducible 
 from ideas it is not ultimately explicable : and further 
 that if it is not capable of ultimate explanation, it is not 
 capable of explanation at all. 
 
 This discussion bears directly upon the doctrine of 
 God. An infidel lecturer was asked the question : 
 ' Who made the World ? ' 'If you say that God made 
 it/ he replied, ' I shall ask, Who made God ? '. 
 
 For the popular Theist the infidel's retort is unanswer- 
 able. Popular Theism, in fact, is as lacking in finality 
 as popular Materialism itself. While the latter explains 
 the world by atoms but does not explain why the atoms 
 should exist, the former explains the world as the work of 
 God but leaves the existence of God unexplained and 
 unexplainable. 
 
 The only path out of this quagmire of non-finality 
 is the path indicated by Plato. This path the common 
 understanding I never finds : and therefore, though its 
 religion is habitually sound, its theology is always faulty. 
 To the common understanding ' ideas ' are merely 
 ' something in our heads'. But when men come to see 
 what is plainest in the case of mathematics that there 
 are truths which are prior to all knowledge and independ- 
 ent of it, and that these truths hold good simply because 
 
 1 The phrase is Hegel's. It is not a quite satisfactory expres- 
 sion since it suggests a certain superciliousness on the part of 
 the philosopher. Yet if the philosopher has learnt anything 
 whatever, this must give him advantage at some points over 
 those who have not this knowledge. 
 
THE 'ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN' 161 
 
 they follow from the meaning of ideas, then we are on 
 the road to discovering the direction in which alone finality 
 is to be looked for. 
 
 Is it possible to combine this conception of the world 
 as resting on ' ideas ' as its ultimate basis, with the Chris- 
 tian belief in a conscious God ? On this question some- 
 thing more will be said later. It is enough to remark 
 here that the notion of God as bearing no merely external 
 or accidental relation to the world but rather as being 
 the ultimate necessity by which the Universe has existence, 
 the ultimate law by which all things subsist, expressing 
 itself in the form of Conscious Will is (as we shall see 
 below) far more in accord with the aspirations of the 
 religious soul than are the usual definitions of popular 
 theology. Here as elsewhere, we may contrast the shallow- 
 ness of popular theology with the profundity and correct- 
 ness of popular religion. 
 
 M 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 BEFORE we accept an argument which leads to a 
 universal Optimism, we ought to subject it at 
 every point to the severest criticism. The philosophical 
 and sceptical temperaments as Mr. Bradley has re- 
 minded us are seldom found together. Yet if ever 
 scepticism is in its right place, it is when it is applied 
 to the arguments which are the foundation of religious 
 belief. When so much depends upon the rope, every 
 strand should be examined with jealous care. 
 
 But the very same spirit of intellectual sincerity 
 which refuses to accept a principle without sufficient 
 ground, will also draw conclusions from it fearlessly 
 when once it is firmly established. A theology which 
 accepts Optimism must have the courage to develop it. 
 It must not be afraid to state, for example, a definite 
 theory of Evil, of Special Providence, of a Future life. 
 
 With regard to the most interesting of these questions, 
 we have a striking example of fearlessness in the theology 
 of the Middle Ages. St. Thomas Aquinas in dealing with 
 the Future Life shows himself conspicuously free from 
 the modern fear of detail. He inquires whether all the 
 
 162 
 
A FUTURE LIFE 163 
 
 limbs of the human body will rise again, 1 whether the hair 
 and nails will rise again, 2 whether our blood will rise 
 again, 3 whether everything in the body pertaining to 
 the verity of human nature^ will rise again in the same 
 body, 4 whether all men will rise as persons in the prime 
 of life (inaetatejuvenili)* whether in the resurrection there 
 will remain difference of sex, 6 and this question he 
 answers in the affirmative. He discusses the opinion that 
 ' in the Blessed after the resurrection all powers of the 
 soul (omnes potentiae a nimae) and all members of the body 
 are in the active exercise of their characteristic functions 
 (in suis actibus) ' : that perfect pleasure includes all 
 forms even of sensuous delectation. 7 He inquires 
 whether the Blessed will possess all their five senses not 
 merely potentially but actively, 8 and also whether we are 
 to conceive the saints in glory as moving from place to 
 place. 9 Motion, he declares, takes away nothing from 
 the stability of a mind stayed on God. He holds there- 
 fore that it is probable that the saints in glory will move 
 about at their pleasure, that their sight may be refreshed 
 (reficiatur) by the beauty of diverse created things in 
 which the wisdom of God will abundantly shine forth. 10 
 Detailed discussion of this kind is uncongenial, as we 
 know, to modern taste ; and modern religion is of course 
 quite free, if it wishes it, to leave these questions aside 
 (as the Ritschlian teaching has disposed us to do) without 
 
 1 Summa Theol. Suppl. $ae partis. Ixxx. vel Ixxxii., art. I. 
 
 3 Do. art. II. 3 Do. art. III. 
 
 4 Do. art. IV. 5 Ixxxi. vel Ixxxiii., art. I. 
 6 Do. art. III. 7 Do. art. IV. 
 
 s Ixxxii. vel Ixxxiv., art. IV. 
 9 Ixxxiv. vel Ixxxvi., art. II. 
 10 Do. conclusio. 
 
164 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 in any way blunting its sense of sin, of pardon, or of 
 communion with God. But though in religion we may 
 freely concede the ' right of the individual to a general 
 haziness', the same concession must on no account be 
 extended to theology. Clearly the systematic theologian 
 must not shirk a question because it is difficult. 
 
 The general question of a future life cannot be called 
 unimportant. Lord Haldane, 1 Professor Bosanquet, 1 
 and others have, no doubt, done excellent work in showing 
 that religion is not to be identified with mere other- 
 worldliness. At all times our chief question must be, 
 not ' What is to be hoped for in a world beyond ? ' but 
 ' What is the true significance of the world which confronts 
 us ? ' But necessary as the protest against other-worldli- 
 ness is, it is still something of -a half-truth. ' Hegel ', says 
 Dr. Bosanquet with evident pride, ' never asks " Is it ? ", 
 but always " What is it ? " ' Yet the question " Is it ? " 
 " Is there, for example, a future life ? " is not a 
 foolish question always. Indeed the man who by seeing 
 his experiences in their true significance knows eternal 
 life here, 3 gains a heightened interest in eternal life here- 
 after. If we have made the best of earthly friendship we 
 shall be the more eager to meet our friends again. If 
 we have sought in philosophic study for the unification 
 of all knowledge, we shall wish to complete the work 
 which is here left imperfect. If we have struggled 
 for inward purity, we shall desire a life in which absolute 
 
 1 Pathway to Reality, first series, p. 10. 
 a Introductory Essay to his translation of Th Introduction 
 to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art (Kegan Paul, 1886). 
 * St. John xvii. 3, cf. i John iii. 15 ; v. 20, 
 
A FUTURE LIFE 165 
 
 purity can be realized. In general, if we have accepted 
 the Christian standard of values and not the Oriental 
 one, we shall wish to bring ' all thoughts, all passions, all 
 delights ' including the beatific vision of God within 
 the unity of a single experience. 
 
 In close connexion with the hope of a future life stands 
 the hope of a bodily resurrection. A disbelief in the 
 resurrection of the body has been regarded sometimes 
 as a sign of intellectual superiority. ' For though the 
 body dies the soul is still immortal.' The words have 
 been made familiar by their association with melodious 
 music. It is to the undying credit of High Churchmen 
 characteristic at once of the sound sense and high breeding 
 of that school that they have kept alive in English re- 
 ligion the faculty to perceive that in such a phrase, 
 however well adapted to a musical setting, we have what 
 the Christian mind must regard as an ill-balanced anti- 
 thesis. The prevailing tendency of Christian hope has 
 been, not towards a doctrine of the essential indestructi- 
 bility of the soul, 1 but rather towards a faith which 
 expects the future life of soul and of body on the same 
 general grounds. The sentiment which condemns the 
 desire for bodily resurrection as a coarse and earthy 
 hope is indeed but a symptom of the same false taste 
 as would expurgate from the Te Deum the mention of the 
 Virgin's womb. Those who do not perceive the false 
 delicacy in the one case will not perceive it in the 
 other. But at least we must confront the alternatives 
 and take our choice. If we regard the body as evil, we 
 
 1 The essential incorruptibility of the soul (on which see Summa 
 Tkeol., Part I, question 75, art. VI : Sec. secundae, question 
 164, art. I conclusio : St. Cyril's Catechetical Lectures, IV, etc.) 
 is a doctrine necessarily confined to the learned. 
 
166 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 shall desire to banish it from heaven. If we esteem it 
 as God's good gift, we shall desire it restored at the re- 
 surrection. The former view accords with the senti- 
 ment of Eastern barbarism : the latter with that of the 
 Western civilization which has deemed the body worthy 
 to be celebrated by the brush of Titian or the chisel of 
 Phidias. 
 
 It must be doubtful, indeed, whether those who believe 
 in a future life apart from a bodily resurrection, can ever 
 have thought out their own meaning. The decisive 
 question is that which has been asked by St. Thomas l 
 long ago. Is the saint in glory to be conceived as ex- 
 periencing the sensations of sight and touch ? That 
 sight and touch may subsist without the support of 
 any material substratum is the well-known doctrine of 
 Berkeley. But a thorough-going Idealism is one thing ; 
 the notion of matter as existing on earth but discarded in 
 heaven is quite another. If the life of the Blessed is con- 
 ceived as involving the active employment of the senses 
 of sight and touch, this signifies to the plain man, who is 
 no idealist, that there is in heaven matter to be touched 
 and seen bodies which, however incorruptible, are still 
 material. If on the other hand we conceive heaven 
 as some have conceived the intermediate state as a 
 life in which, while possessing thought and memory, 
 man is deprived of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, 
 does not this set before us the hope of a very imperfect 
 glory ? a 
 
 1 See note above. 
 
 * On the question whether the glorified body is palpable as well as 
 tangible, see references below. Flame, e.g., or vapour into which 
 we can plunge our hands without encountering resistance is 
 tangible but not palpable. St. Thomas holds the view that 
 though the blessed, while remaining ' tangible ', can render their 
 
A FUTURE LIFE 167 
 
 Similar to the question of the resurrection of the flesh, 
 is the question of the revival in heaven of our emotions 
 and passions. Mr. F. H. Bradley has drawn attention 
 to the general ' revolt', as he calls it, of modern Chris- 
 tianity against the ' stern sentence of the Gospel ' which 
 declares that in the life to come we shall neither marry 
 nor be given in marriage. That the meeting again of 
 lovers, even more than the meeting again of those bound 
 together by other ties, is prominent in the religious hope 
 of our day is abundantly clear. But is this hope a 
 revolt from the sentence of the Gospel ? Surely not, if 
 the text is taken in its context. The error of the Sad- 
 ducees consisted not in pitching their hopes too high, but 
 rather in imagining that heaven must necessarily possess 
 all the limitations and restrictions of earth. They 
 erred because they underrated the power of God to do 
 exceeding abundantly above what we ask or think. The 
 modern hope is thus not so much a revolt as a develop- 
 ment. If the Christians of the first age had spoken 
 boldly on this subject, they must have incurred the sus- 
 picion which has attached itself to the followers of 
 Mahomet of desiring a purely sensual Paradise. The 
 frank development in modern Christianity of a hope 
 which, in the circumstances of His time, was perforce left 
 undeveloped by our Saviour, is if we will reflect upon it 
 at once a conspicuous fulfilment of the promise that 
 we should do greater works than He, 1 and a testimony to 
 the power by which He has transformed the world. 
 
 body ' impalpable ' at will, they are normally palpable as well 
 as tangible. v Supplem. Ixxxiii. or Ixxxv., art. VI. 
 
 For a fuller discussion of this subject see St. Thomas in quantum 
 librum Sententianim, dist. 44, qu. 2, art. II., qu. 6. 
 
 1 St. John xiv. 12. 
 
168 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Since then such questions can hardly be ignored alto- 
 gether, what is the practical duty of the theologian to- 
 wards them ? In our days these problems are discussed 
 freely, but they are seldom dealt with systematically. 
 Is the theologian bound to offer a systematic treatment ? 
 
 The question is not without its difficulties. It is plain, 
 however, that the timidity which does not venture be- 
 yond scattered hints and tentative suggestions belongs 
 to the spirit rather of unbelief than of faith. Those for 
 whom the Future Life is a matter of deep concern will 
 be more in sympathy with St. Thomas who raises ques- 
 tions of detail and answers them with Mr. Keble who 
 desires to frame hopes of heaven which shall be new every 
 morning than with the conventional teacher who will 
 not stray an inch beyond the limits marked out for him in 
 advance by the language of the Bible and the Fathers. 
 
 Yet it does not follow that we are to ' modernize ' our 
 conception of Heaven in the manner of certain popular 
 preachers. These preachers have tried, not merely to 
 state in general terms the elements which must be present 
 in a heaven adequate to our hopes, but actually to bring 
 these various elements together into a single connected 
 picture. They have described a type of existence in 
 which, besides engaging in the exercises of religion, we 
 should read the poetry of Shakespeare and be enrap- 
 tured by the melodies of Mozart : in which the golden 
 harps of tradition should be supplemented by the violins 
 and pianofortes of modern life. All such attempts must 
 inevitably end in failure. To unite heterogeneous ele- 
 ments in a single scheme indeed even to arrange a 
 multitude of details of any sort so as to produce an im- 
 pression of congruity and harmony is the prerogative 
 of genius. To unite in one all-inclusive picture the 
 
A FUTURE LIFE 169 
 
 multifarious elements demanded by a perfect human 
 existence would require genius that may well be called 
 superhuman. It is the mark of an age of high culture to 
 perceive that, many as are the varied and conflicting 
 ideals which human thought has framed, there is in 
 each an element of truth. But since Heaven must be 
 conceived as exhibiting not merely comprehensiveness 
 but internal congruity and unity, it is easy to see how 
 the formation of a detailed picture of it surpasses the 
 power of our imagination. A critic who has watched four 
 acts of a drama with attention may be able to predict 
 many of the incidents which must have a place in the 
 concluding act : he may yet be unable to write the 
 concluding act himself. Similarly we may venture to 
 predict that in Heaven no single element of good will 
 be lacking ; and yet may confess ourselves unable to 
 forecast in detail this last act of God's great Drama of 
 the Universe. 
 
 But besides the fact that the detailed description of 
 Heaven is beyond our powers, there are also many positive 
 difficulties with which theology cannot well refuse to 
 cope. It is indeed often the vaguer difficulties of senti- 
 ment, rather than objections which can be articulately 
 expressed, which cause the modern world to look un- 
 sympathetically upon the hopes of the Christian. There 
 are those who feel that under the cloudless skies of Fra 
 Angelico's Paradise, or amid the golden light of the New 
 Jerusalem, they would long sometimes for the more 
 delicate tints of an autumn morning in Old England, 
 Others have the fear that in a life of perfect glory they 
 would be tortured by the sorrowful reflection of Alexander 
 
170 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 the Great that there remained no more worlds to conquer. 1 
 It is the struggle against temptation that has given life 
 its nobility and worth. What dignity they ask 
 would remain in a life from which all temptation is 
 removed ? There are others who know that they have 
 learned much even from the Pessimism of Schopenhauer. 
 If then there is any single element of correct feeling in 
 the temper of mind which Schopenhauer has produced in 
 them, this element of feeling must find in the Universe 
 a corresponding element of fact which satisfies its demand, 
 or the Universe will pro tanto fall short of perfection. 
 But can a Universe which fulfils this demand fulfil at the 
 same time the demands of Christian Optimism ? There 
 are those again who find that in contemplating Nature 
 their enthusiasm is chiefly stirred by the unremitting 
 struggle for the perpetuation and perfecting of the species. 
 They find therefore more to repel than to attract in an 
 immortality which relates only to the perpetuation of 
 the individual. 2 Lastly there are the numberless diffi- 
 culties associated with the ideas of the infinite and the 
 eternal. No one who has imbibed anything of the spirit 
 of the Greeks can fail to recognize that ' measure ' ' pro- 
 portion ' ' limit/ or however we name it, is one among 
 the conditions of perfection. Can a Universe then be a 
 * perfect Whole ' which is conceived as spreading itself 
 out indefinitely in all directions ? 
 
 1 This sorrowful reflection is made more acute by the needless 
 assumption that in Heaven the warfare of earth must fade more 
 and more into the background of our memory. A sense of 
 victory in which the memory of the struggle remained ever 
 fresh need not be ignoble. 
 
 2 It is curious to notice in this matter the contrast between 
 modern and medieval sentiment. See Summa TheoL Supplem. 
 Ixxx. vel Lxxxii., art. II. Conclusio. ad Secundum. 
 
A FUTURE LIFE 171 
 
 Here then are difficulties enough to justify a systematic 
 method of approaching the subject. 1 Yet we ought not 
 to declare them insoluble till we have made a serious 
 attempt to solve them : and to discover what in each 
 case the difficulty really amounts to. 
 
 Take, for example, those which turn upon conceptions 
 which may be classed as aesthetic. The only detailed pic- 
 tures of a life of glory which are aesthetically attractive 
 are those which are composed of very simple elements, 
 and which therefore like the sea of glass and the pearly 
 gates of the Apocalypse, or the shouts and feasting of St. 
 Bernard's hymn must be frankly accepted as symbolic. 
 If we accepted the scenes depicted, say, by Fra Angelico 
 as the real conclusion to the varied scene of life as we 
 know it on earth if we thought that the actual sequel 
 to the tender half-tones revealed by the modern landscape- 
 painter was to be this medieval revel of primary colours 
 the Universe would present to us a strangely bewildering 
 appearance of bizarrerie and grotesqueness. The texture 
 of our present life, with all its ragged edges, is yet too 
 good to be adequately mended by the sudden introduction 
 of a purple patch of so incongruous a pattern. 
 
 A distinguished writer has spoken severely of the 
 application of artistic analogies in theology. But we 
 are dealing here with no mere analogy. A Universe 
 that is to be perfect must not be aesthetically incongruous. 
 It must possess qualities which not merely resemble 
 those of a work of art, but are in part the very same. 
 Against inartistic representations of Heaven a secularist 
 
 1 With these difficulties as also with the question of the 
 restatement of the Argument from Design I am hoping to deal 
 at length elsewhere. 
 
173 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 philosophy will always have an easy triumph. A purely 
 ' unsupernatural ' Universe preserves at least its unity of 
 style : and the conviction that the world cannot violate 
 the demands of aesthetic unity is one of the strongest 
 of modern beliefs, though it does not always find articulate 
 expression. 
 
 It is worth while, then, to point out that a Christian con- 
 ception of Heaven does not necessarily ignore these 
 aesthetic claims. Take, as an illustration of this, a con- 
 ception of the future life which played an important part 
 in the popular religion of the Middle Ages. In the Golden 
 Legend, 1 comparison is made between the present world 
 and the Seventy Years' Exile in Babylon, the end of the 
 world being compared to the return of Israel to its own 
 land. The former is signified by the seventy days of 
 Septuagesima, the latter by the renewed Alleluias of 
 Easter. Such a symbolizing of the relations of earth to 
 Heaven, by the representation of the two in one single 
 ceremonial scheme of Christian holy-days is closely 
 akin to the conception of the Universe as a drama needing 
 more than one act for its completion. The ' time of the 
 deviation ' is conceived as the ' prelude ' to the life of 
 glory : or Heaven as the ' finale ' to the ' time of our 
 pilgrimage of the life of this world.' If then we are dis- 
 posed to feel that a future life of incorruption would vio- 
 late the unity of nature would be inconsistent with the 
 principle that in mundo non datur saltus, non datur 
 hiatus,* and also with the Aristotelian faith that 'the 
 world is not full of episodes like a bad tragedy '* it is 
 
 1 See Caxton's translation (Temple Classics, vol. i. p. 53). 
 * See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Meiklejohn, p. 170. 
 German paging, pp. 281, 282. Metapk., p. lopob, iO76a. 
 
A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 173 
 
 well that we should observe that even a sudden change 
 of style is not necessarily inconsistent with an ultimate 
 artistic unity. 
 
 It would not be difficult to prove this statement by many 
 examples from the history of modern art. In order, 
 however, to avoid allusions to particular works, we may 
 take an imaginary case. It is quite conceivable that a 
 prelude written, say, in the polyphonic style of the 
 Troubadours, 1 should form an integral part in a musical 
 work of which all the rest followed the laws of modern 
 music. The Troubadour music differs from modern 
 music, not only in being subject to peculiar laws of harmony 
 
 1 The following part-song is attributed to Adam de la Hale 
 
 
 
 
 
 See Ritter's History of Music, p. 48 (William Reeves, 1876). 
 
174 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 and counterpoint, but also in general aesthetic character 
 that is, in being subject to those unwritten laws by obedi- 
 ence to which, no less than to those which can be definitely 
 stated in the form of rules, the character of a style of art 
 is constituted. Thus in the case supposed the very 
 contrast of styles would be a necessary element within 
 the unity of the composer's scheme. If the work were 
 not a mere jeu d'esprit, but a seriously developed musical 
 conception, then we must regard the whole composition 
 as subject to laws which determine how this development 
 is to take place, and therefore the very violation of 
 law the transitions from the laws of the- one style 
 to those of the other would itself be subject to a law 
 of more comprehensive kind. Such an example is suffi- 
 cient to show that unity of conception and plan may exist 
 where there is no complete uniformity either in respect 
 of obedience to rules or in respect of aesthetic character. 
 For any one, then, who on other grounds is disposed to 
 believe in a future life, but is held back because he feels 
 that such a change of physiological conditions as is 
 implied in a resurrection from the grave is incompatible 
 with the unity of the world as a system, it might be well 
 worth while to work out this analogy hi detail : since a 
 rational hope of Heaven assuredly implies a conception of 
 the Universe at large, such that this Present Life and a 
 Life of Glory can both of them be contained within it 
 consistently with aesthetic unity and with the reign of 
 Law. The discussion of such an analogy will throw light 
 not only on this special miracle, the Future Life, but 
 upon the question of all miracles in general. 
 
 There remain, however, harder problems than that of 
 
A FUTURE LIFE 175 
 
 the miraculous as such. The belief in a future life can 
 hardly be expressed without our needing to employ at 
 some point the words ' infinite ' and ' eternal '. The 
 problems of infinity and eternity will be found incapable 
 of ready solution. Solution is indeed impossible apart 
 from a thorough-going criticism of the ideas which these 
 conceptions involve. And thus we are carried at once 
 into the distinctive province of the philosopher. 
 
 The same result follows from a treatment of other 
 religious problems also. We cannot without a philosophic 
 ' criticism of our categories ' deal really adequately with 
 the problems of Evil, of Freedom, or of God. If then 
 we have come to the conclusion that theology is bound 
 to develop systematically the optimistic hope which 
 Christianity implants in the human breast, there is a 
 further conclusion which follows from this one : namely 
 that the theologian should lay to heart the advice of Mr. 
 Bradley to be ' in earnest with his metaphysics '. Ex- 
 perience indeed shows convincingly that theology must 
 take its choice. A theology which consistently refuses 
 to be philosophical must in the end degenerate into myth- 
 ology. Those questions, therefore, of idealistic criticism, 
 which in many human pursuits we may safely ignore, 
 cannot be ignored without loss when we come to deal 
 systematically with the beliefs of religion. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 ' The modern world ', it may be suggested, ' will not be 
 brought back to a clear faith in the resurrection of the body, 
 till theology has answered certain questions which modern 
 physical knowledge will put to it, as the simpler questions 
 which occurred to the medieval mind were answered by St. 
 Thomas Aquinas. Is the scene of the future life to be some 
 part of the Solar System, or some locality outside it ? Or 
 
176 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 is the physical Universe to be so completely remodelled, 
 that the words ' Solar System ' will become unmeaning ? 
 Or, again, may we decline these questions on the ground 
 that Space and Time are merely the ' forms of our intuition ', 
 and that there is, therefore, no need to exhibit the hopes and 
 beliefs of religion in a spatial and temporal representation ? ' 
 
 Such problems cannot be profitably discussed apart from 
 a general discussion of Idealism. 
 
 If human consciousness is real, and Time ' mere appear- 
 ance ', then we seem compelled to adopt in some form a doc- 
 trine of the 'timeless Self. But need the 'timeless Self 
 be conceived precisely as it appears in the philosophy of T. 
 H. Green ? 
 
 The ' Self ' is commonly thought under the category of 
 ' Substance ', in the sense in which Substance is the ' correlatum 
 of change'. But in its more fundamental significance, Sub- 
 stance is rather the ' correlatum of attributes '. To think of 
 a ' thing ' as ' that which has attributes ' is more natural, 
 even to plain common sense, than to think of it as ' that which 
 changes/ Now since the ' Self ' of yesterday and the ' Self ' 
 of to-day have different attributes ought not the Self to 
 be thought of rather as a ' plurality of connected substances ' 
 than as ' one single substance ' ? (The Self of yesterday 
 was ' in pain ' : the Self of to-day is ' at ease '. Can these 
 two contradictory attributes really belong to one ' substance ' ? 
 Is it not just in virtue of its attributes that the Substance is 
 what it is ? Even apart, then, from a denial of the reality 
 of Time, the notion of the self as a ' substance permanent 
 through changes ' seems to be but an illogical, though con- 
 venient, makeshift). 
 
 The question would then arise, How far on this theory can 
 we give an adequate account of the world an account true 
 to the facts of moral and physical experience ? If Time is 
 not real, the supposed changes in the Self are not real either. 
 If then we replace our common conception of the Self as 
 ' one substance remaining permanent through change ' by 
 the conception of a number of ' non-temporal selves ' distinct 
 substances connected by a partial community of attributes, 
 by the sense of moral responsibility, and in other ways if, 
 
A FUTURE LIFE 177 
 
 further, we regard the existence of such 'selves' (our own 
 and ' other people's) and the experiences they contain (to- 
 gether with the laws by which they and their contents are 
 prescribed and in various ways connected) as comprising 
 the whole truth of the Universe, can we state this hypothesis 
 in such a way as to justify the methods by which in science 
 and common life we seek for knowledge ? 
 
 In reflecting on this subject there are two things which 
 it may be well to bear in mind. 
 
 (1) The antithesis 'matter v mind* is not identical with 
 the antithesis 'object v. subject'. My pain of yesterday is 
 the 'object ' of my present knowledge. Unless my memory 
 is a delusive dream, the pain which I remember is independent 
 of, and distinct from, my remembrance of it : and the Self 
 which felt the pain as real as the Self which without feeling 
 it remembers it. This is a simple truth which some state- 
 ments of the doctrine of the ' timeless self ' seem to ignore. 
 Is the reality, then, of this ' Self suffering pain ', which is the 
 object of memory, dependent upon its being ' really in past 
 time ' just as memory represents it to be ? or may we say 
 that while this ' suffering Self ' is real, its ' pastness ' is an 
 illusion ? 
 
 (2) The chief arguments by which we may deny the abso- 
 lute reality of Space are just as valid mutatis mutandis against 
 the reality of Time. (E.g. ' Space must be conceived under 
 mutually contradictory predicates : as a quantum, and as 
 not a quantum ; as having size yet no size in particular ; as 
 a Whole containing parts, and yet not a whole, since no 
 cubic area, however large, can be such that in it "none of 
 the parts" of space "are lacking"' etc., etc., etc.) 
 
 The treatment of the subject by Mr. Bertrand Russell, 
 and by Mr. H. A. Prichard (Kant's Theory of Knowledge) 
 is worthy of the most careful study, even by those who are 
 not disposed to find such reasoning conclusive. 
 
 N 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY AND THE 
 INCARNATION 
 
 T ET us now again pause to take note of the results 
 L-' which we have reached. These may be brought 
 under three headings. 
 
 We have seen, first, that a very great part of our 
 religious belief is based not on the argument from 
 authority nor on any chain of reasoning but directly 
 on moral insight and other personal experiences. The 
 theology of Ritschl consciously traces these doctrines of 
 the faith to the source from which, in all ages, the devout 
 soul has unconsciously drawn them. Thus our first 
 task is boldly to apply the Ritschlian method wherever it 
 is applicable. 
 
 We have found, secondly, that the Ritschlian method 
 can accomplish only part, and not the whole, of the 
 theological task. If faith in Duty is one ' grain of mustard 
 seed '* faith in the rationality of the world is another. 
 Unless this latter principle is interpreted in an optimistic 
 sense 2 it becomes as we saw too vague to have any 
 meaning. But if it is interpreted as it has been inter- 
 
 1 Cf. chap. i. 
 
 2 The ' rational ' universe might be as Dr. Rashdall argues 
 a sort of ' infernal machine ', or indeed anything else that could 
 be described under general principles. See Chap. xv. 
 
 173 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 179 
 
 preted above, then its consequences are of the most far- 
 reaching character. A theology which, in singleness of 
 aim, should set itself to the carrying out of these two 
 principles to their results would be a ' free theology ' in 
 its methods, however conservative it might happen to be 
 in its conclusions. 
 
 Thirdly the constructive task to which, on this reading 
 of its duty, theology is called, brings us into contact with 
 idealistic criticism. If any form of Idealism is correct, 
 it follows that apart from a thorough recasting of our 
 common conception of the Universe no serious advance 
 in systematic theology can take place. 
 
 What would be the effect on theology if these three 
 principles were accepted ? It does not seem possible 
 at the present moment to look very far ahead. If a 
 principle is sound we may leave its consequences with 
 Him Who sees the end from the beginning. We may 
 venture, however, to forecast some of the more immediate 
 effects to which these principles will lead, and to illustrate 
 them by a brief consideration of the Doctrine of the 
 Trinity. 
 
 To suppose that this doctrine is a mere ' embarrassment 
 to religion ', retained solely in the interests of a too 
 conservative orthodoxy, is a pure mistake. The belief 
 in the divinity of Our Lord even if accepted on Ritsch- 
 lian grounds and in a Ritschlian sense cannot be left 
 unrelated to our general Theism. The Ritschlian 
 Christology, like the older one, needs reconciliation with 
 Monotheism. 
 
 The ' Trinitarian ' problem, then, is far from being 
 
i8o RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 a gratuitously accepted burden. It arises in the first 
 place because the Christian Church from the beginning 
 has been compelled by the clear witness of experience to 
 recognize the Godhead of the Holy Ghost. This witness 
 is constant in all ages. We can all learn if we will 
 to distinguish the ' Inward Voice ' which has a claim to 
 our obedience from rival inward voices which tend to 
 obscure its authority. When we have once distinguished 
 this ' Voice ' from the others, we find that its claim 
 upon us is quite absolute. Therefore, if it is to be theolo- 
 gically described, it must be described not as an ' emana- 
 tion from God ' merely, or as a gift of God as much as 
 this might be said of other elements in our conscious life 
 but as God Himself. 
 
 It is equally a matter of experience that the Spirit 
 testifies of Jesus : and testifies that His law when we 
 have distinguished it from the various misrepresentations 
 of its meaning is one which the awakened soul can 
 never disobey without self-blame. No higher conception 
 of the Will of God can be framed than the conception of a 
 Will which is binding absolutely upon the conscience. 
 Jesus is our God because in all things He is our lawful 
 Master. 
 
 Thus the only open question on this subject for 
 those who have accepted Christ as their God on the testi- 
 mony of the Inward Voice concerns the Godhead of the 
 Creator. 
 
 The heresies, however, which reduced the Creator to 
 the level of a Demiurge, whose work Jesus came to 
 correct, were, of course, decisively rejected. The whole 
 influence of Jesus is against them at every point. In 
 spite of the facts of evil, the Christian can still see the 
 Universe at large as an embodiment of the same Holy Will 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 181 
 
 which has manifested itself more unequivocally by the 
 Spirit in the heart and by Jesus on the stage of history. 
 The same problem therefore arises for us as arose for 
 the early Gentile Church. How are we to reconcile 
 this threefold application of the Divine Name with the 
 claims of that Greek and Jewish Monotheism from which 
 Christianity has never tried to cut itself free ? What is 
 the relation between the Christology which is the product 
 of knowing Christ ' after the inward man ', and the Mono- 
 theism which is reached by the Argument from Design ? 
 
 Not only the Orthodox Dogma, but the heresies also, 
 were attempts to answer this question. How then does 
 Orthodoxy stand to the heresies ? Is Hume right 
 when he says that the latter were always the more ' reason- 
 able ' ? 
 
 It would be truer to say that the heresies were ' clearer ' 
 in the sense in which ' all shallows are clear.' What for 
 example could conceivably be shallower than the doctrine 
 which passes under the name of ' Sabellianism ' the 
 suggestion that ' God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
 according to the diverse capacities in which He acts ' ? 
 It is plain that this doctrine denies in effect the reality of 
 the ' filial relation ' of Jesus to the Father : and it is not 
 too much to say that the problem could never have arisen 
 if it had been capable of so simple a solution. 
 
 Arianism, again, denies the supreme claim of Jesus 
 to our homage a claim which in the genuine Christian 
 consciousness is prior to, and clearer than, the belief in 
 the Godhead of the Creator ; since it is not as mere 
 ' World-maker ' that the Father is recognized as God 
 
182 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 but primarily as the Father of Him Whom the Christian 
 acknowledges as Lord. 
 
 As against these heresies, then, the orthodox dogma 
 has the merit of recognizing and uniting some of the most 
 important of religious truths. It recognizes, first, that 
 the Spirit which speaks in our hearts speaks with absolute 
 authority : secondly that the same high claim belongs to 
 the ' law of Christ ' as this law is embodied in Christ's 
 Person and life : thirdly that the older rationalistic 
 Theism which saw in the world sufficient evidence of 
 divine creation and control was, so far as it went, a 
 sound way of thinking : and lastly that these three 
 beliefs, if true, cannot be mutually incompatible ; that 
 the Church must therefore strive to weld them together 
 within a single doctrinal system. 
 
 To admit that this last task was accomplished with some 
 measure of success is to admit the religious value of the 
 Trinitarian dogma. In truth, wherever this dogma is 
 taught faithfully, even if unintelligently, it seldom fails 
 to produce some good effect. To learn the supreme claim 
 of the Inward Voice, and of Jesus, to our obedience ; 
 to learn to look on the Power which rules the world as 
 the Father of Jesus Christ ; are genuinely religious 
 lessons. And when even a child has learned to know 
 God in these three ways so long as the knowledge is 
 religious and not merely dogmatic it will never occur 
 to him to think that he is thus learning to believe in more 
 Gods than One. 
 
 The attitude, however, of a ' free theology ' towards this 
 doctrine must differ in some respects from that of the 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 183 
 
 ordinary orthodox schools. The doctrine of the Trinity is 
 in fact rather the statement of a problem than the solution 1 
 of it. 
 
 There are of course many writers, even of the narrowest 
 school of orthodoxy, who are ready on occasion to take 
 this view who admit that the doctrine is ' negative 
 rather than constructive ' ; a defence against error rather 
 than a final and satisfactory description of the nature of 
 God ; a product of Greek thought and therefore not wholly 
 above the reach of philosophic criticism. 
 
 Yet in making this admission they at the same time 
 tolerate or even use language inconsistent with it. 
 ' God ' it is said ' Who alone knows the mystery of His 
 own Nature, has told us 1 that " eternal generation " and 
 " procession " are the best words which the poverty 
 of our language can supply by which this mystery can be 
 expressed.' The conclusion is drawn that we are bound 
 to use these terms, even if we do not precisely understand 
 their meaning. 
 
 Thus it becomes a matter of real importance to 
 religion to insist that the doctrine of the Trinity did not 
 drop down from Heaven. Unless the doctrine is to be 
 reverently laid up in a napkin, we must insist on the 
 right to deal with it freely. 
 
 That it was not in any supernatural sense ' revealed ', 
 that its origin is not particularly ' mysterious ', seems to 
 be becoming daily more plain as a pure matter of 
 history. 2 
 
 But the claims of modern theology to deal freely with this 
 
 1 See note at end of chapter. 
 
 1 Cf. Loisy, Autour d'un petit Livre, p. 151. La formule 
 ecclesiastique n'est point mysterieuse ; du moins, son origine 
 et son contenu logique sont assez clairs, cf. p. 153!. 
 
184 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Dogma do not depend solely upon history. Let us suppose 
 that it could be proved that its origin was more sudden 
 and unaccountable than recent research suggests. 1 It 
 is not clear that the Dogma would gain authority by this 
 demonstration : it might reasonably be argued that it 
 would rather lose it. But in any case this is not the fact 
 we are most concerned with. We are concerned, in this 
 connexion, rather with the present than with the past. 
 Whatever its origin, the Doctrine still retains its hold, 
 in Protestant no less than in Greek and Roman Catholic 
 lands. It is an instrument for expressing truths which 
 are still of value to the religious consciousness. If then 
 we find it a good but somewhat imperfect instrument for 
 expressing our own beliefs, it seems a plain duty that we 
 should subject it to a frank and open criticism. 
 
 How clear a title the doctrine has to our respect we 
 have partly seen already. If the early Church had taken 
 a kind of ' Ritschlian ' line had said that the divinity of 
 Jesus was made clear by the Spirit to the pure in heart 
 and that it was needless, or even wrong, to raise ques- 
 tions as to His relation to the Creator Christianity 
 would always have had popular rationalistic Theism as a 
 hostile force upon its flank. And such Theism is, and 
 deserves to be, a formidable foe. The men of highest 
 faith will perceive readily that no theory of His relation 
 to the Father can make Jesus any more divine than they 
 already know Him to be. But men of highest faith are 
 
 1 It is less usual now than formerly to ascribe the Baptismal 
 Formula in St. Matt, xxviii. 19 to our Lord Himself. The possi- 
 bility of interpolations in the first Gospel has been brought home 
 to the minds of many by consideration of the parentheses on the 
 subject of Divorce in St. Matt. v. 32 and xix. 9. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 185 
 
 rare: and the question 'If Jesus did not make the 
 world, what right has He to claim to be God ? ' would 
 always have been asked. Nor is such a question due 
 wholly to lack of intelligence. It is due on one side, no 
 doubt, to a partial confusion of thought as what has 
 been already said will have shown. It is due on the 
 other to the rooted optimism of the human mind, which 
 is unwilling to believe that any one, or any thing, can 
 be morally greater than the power by which the whole of 
 reality is ordered. 
 
 Thus we may fairly say that the Greek Fathers, starting 
 with the perception of the absolute supremacy of Jesus, 
 and with the particular Theistic conceptions which they 
 had inherited, were logically compelled to adopt just the 
 view they took up. ' To subordinate the ethical ' 
 says Ritschl ' to the idea of the cosmical is always char- 
 acteristic of a heathen view of the world/ 1 It is surely 
 clear that, for the early Gentile Church, there was no 
 other way of subordinating the ' cosmical to the ethical ' 
 except the method they adopted. Is not the Consubstan- 
 tiality of the Son with the Father the one doctrine by 
 which the Christian estimate of Christ and the common 
 rationalistic Theism can be united ? To have per- 
 ceived this, and to have had the courage to carry 
 the conviction out in a systematic manner, is a work of 
 genius. To expect the Christians of the Fourth Century 
 to institute a philosophic criticism of rationalistic Theism 
 itself would be to expect one age to do the work of another. 
 
 But the work of the Christian Fathers has a value which 
 
 is permanent. Popular theology as distinct from 
 
 popular religion pictures God as living in time, as a 
 
 person among other persons, as in some sense external to 
 
 1 Ritschl, op. cit. p. 25. 
 
i86 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 the world. Now though, in his higher thoughts of God, 
 even the simplest religious man unconsciously corrects 
 this notion, no one can, or ought to, dismiss it altogether. 
 For one and all of us, this quasi-pictorial representation 
 of God is necessary for the purposes of the religious 
 imagination. And here the superiority of orthodoxy 
 over the heresies is peculiarly obvious. To say that 
 before the creation of the world God ' did live and love 
 alone ' l furnishes at least a far better mental picture than 
 the thought of a Unipersonal Being absorbed through an 
 ' eternity of idleness ' 2 in the contemplation of His own 
 perfections. 
 
 But the difficulties of the Trinitarian formula are as 
 obvious as its advantages. ' The Three Persons of the 
 Trinity' said Feuerbach 3 ' are not only Unum but Unus : 
 God is a personal being consisting of three persons/ The 
 phrase lies open to criticism ; but it serves at least to 
 indicate the difficulty of applying to God the usual con- 
 ception of self-conscious personality. It may also lead 
 those who regard the Trinitarian dogma as faultless to a 
 clearer definition of their position. When they use the 
 Trinitarian formula we may ask what exactly do they 
 conceive themselves to be asserting ? 
 
 According to a common definition personality is essen- 
 tially exclusive : it involves the notion of conscious 
 experience which is absolutely private and peculiar to him 
 who possesses it. On this view God, before the creation 
 
 1 Hymns Ancient and Modern, 162. 
 8 Shelley's Queen Mob, vii. 
 
 8 The essence of Christianity Miss Evans' translation. The 
 reference is to St. Augustine or to the Athanasian Creed. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 187 
 
 of the world, must be either lonely, or must be conceived 
 of as broken up into distinct centres of personal conscious- 
 ness. Indeed, on such a view, all persons divine and 
 human must be essentially lonely to the end strangers 
 who, so far as their inmost being is concerned, do not 
 intermeddle with one another's joy. 1 Thus perhaps one 
 of the greatest services the doctrine of the Trinity has 
 rendered to human thought, has been that it has served 
 to keep before the mind of man the possibility that con- 
 scious life may be lived under conditions which do not 
 conform to that extreme conception of the essential 
 privacy of personal existence which dominates much of 
 our language a conception which really seems inconsis- 
 tent with the simplest and commonest exhibition of 
 friendship and mutual insight. It cannot, however, be 
 denied that a dogma which leads us to think of a ' personal 
 being consisting of three persons' to speak of God as 
 ' Him ' and also as ' Them ' is difficult to reconcile 
 with the very conception of personal consciousness upon 
 which it appears to be built. 
 
 No one indeed can reflect long upon this subject 
 without being confronted with difficulties of every kind. 
 The author of the New Pilgrim's Progress* speculates as 
 to the manner in which in their childhood the ' brethren of 
 the Lord felt and thought ' about ' trie brother who was 
 only a brother to them, however much He might be to 
 others a mysterious stranger, Who had stood face to face 
 with God above the clouds.' 
 
 1 On this subject, and on many of the other questions touched 
 in this chapter, see M. Webb's Problems in the Relations of God 
 and Man. See esp. p. 252. 
 
 8 Chap, xvi., sub. fin. 
 
188 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 It is characteristic of the sincerity of modern thought 
 that men should have sought to picture in detail what the 
 life of God Incarnate could have been : and at the same 
 time should have refused to be satisfied with a view 
 which ' simply puts in juxtaposition, during Our Lord's 
 earthly life, the divine and human consciousness ' and 
 ' represents Him as acting and speaking now as God and 
 now as Man '. 1 
 
 We find something strangely repellent in treating the 
 scene in Gethsemane as an incident in the history of One 
 Who is living a ' double life ' : in conceiving the agony 
 as affecting only an outlying part of His consciousness, a 
 part of Him which is related to His divine nature as is a 
 ' drop of water to an ocean of wine ' : so that while 
 apparently in agony He is really serene and happy ' above 
 the clouds'. 
 
 The more we dwell on these thoughts the more difficult 
 does the common notion of the Incarnation become. 
 Nor is much help afforded by the doctrine of a divine 
 ' Kenosis '. The criticism of Ritschl ' This way of 
 confessing Christ's Godhead is a ceremony that has lost 
 its meaning ' 2 does not apply to the particular form in 
 which the ' Kenosis ' theory is chiefly influential in Eng- 
 land. 3 In this latter form of the doctrine, the Eternal 
 Word is conceived as ceasing by the voluntary action 
 of His own self-limiting and self-restraining Love to 
 ' exercise divine functions ' * : and there is moreover a 
 
 1 Gore, Dissertations, p. 97. 
 * P. 411, E. tr. German paging, 388. 
 8 Gore, p. 94. 
 
 4 Ib., p. 94 : those divine functions which are ' incompatible 
 with a truly human experience*. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 189 
 
 definite refusal to attribute to Our Lord ' simultaneously 
 omniscience as God and limitation of knowledge as man '. * 
 
 Yet the difficulties even so are immensely great. If 
 we are to take seriously the function of the Eternal Word 
 in the government and preservation of the world, what 
 is to be conceived as happening to the Universe during 
 the season of His partial ignorance ? If, on the other 
 hand, while He is ' so truly living under human conditions 
 as Himself to be ignorant ' the Eternal Word continues 
 omnisciently to direct the course of events, this would be 
 tantamount to dividing Him, in ' Nestorian ' fashion, 
 into two persons, and to a denial of the real divinity of the 
 Jesus Whom we know and this would be in fact a denial 
 of the very belief which is the religious basis of the whole 
 doctrine. 
 
 Again the deliberate repression of omniscience by an 
 act of will seems hardly more compatible with a ' really 
 human experience ' than omniscience itself. It is incon- 
 sistent with real human childhood that the infant God 
 should be conceived as ' remembering His experiences 
 above the clouds'. Is His childhood any more really 
 human if conceived as a time when He deliberately 
 decided to forget them ? 
 
 If these difficulties are such as the theologian cannot 
 well ignore if they suggest that the Trinitarian dogma 
 needs a more drastic rehandling even than that which it 
 has received in relation to the doctrine of the Kenosis 
 in what direction are we to look for a solution ? 
 
 It seems a fairly obvious suggestion that we should 
 give our minds first of all to ' theology ' in the narrower 
 1 Gore, p. 97. 
 
RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 sense : that is, to an accurate definition and explication 
 of the religious conception of God. While popular theo- 
 logy tends to ' finite ' conceptions of God and thinks, for 
 example, of God as ' Cause ', and of the world as ' Effect ' 
 the truly religious instinct always corrects these errors. 
 According to the popular dogma of Free Will, man's 
 choice of good or evil is wholly his own. God gives the 
 occasion the call but to man alone belongs the deci- 
 sion. Yet who would carry this theory into his acts of 
 worship ? ' For that Thou didst call me by Thy grace, I 
 thank Thee : for that I responded to Thy call I thank 
 Thee not : I rather offer Thee my congratulations. ' 
 From allowing his devotion to sink thus to the level of his 
 doctrinal belief, even the severest of theologians is 
 kept back if not by reverence, then by sense of 
 humour. Again if God were simply the Cause, and the 
 world simply the Effect, some third term would be required 
 to bind these two terms together : and while we should 
 have ground for thanksgiving to God for His gracious 
 intentions, our gratitude would belong in equal degree to 
 this third term to the principle, or law, or whatever it 
 be, which effects that these intentions should be carried 
 out. But to the religious spirit, of course, such divided 
 gratitude would be absolutely repugnant. It was re- 
 marked by a witty High Churchman that some people 
 have the same unreasoning dread of Pantheism as others 
 have of Popery. There is a type of Pantheism, no doubt, 
 which Christianity must decisively reject. Yet there is 
 a sense in which all self-consistent Theism is Pantheism : 
 since Religion seeks in God the Ultimate, the Absolute, 
 the All-inclusive. 
 
 We have seen already how Plato finds the ultimate 
 basis of the world in Ideas ; how he represents all things 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 191 
 
 as following from the meaning of the ' Idea of the Good '. 
 On this theory it is in some such formula as ' the self- 
 necessity of the Good ' that the truth about the Universe 
 must be summed up. Now, mysterious as Platonic 
 language will always sound, some conception of this kind 
 is after all necessary, if we are to explain fully the position 
 which religion assigns to God. God we may say is the 
 ultimate and all-inclusive Law, conceived as conscious of 
 itself. To popular religion such expressions are not 
 congenial. But it does not follow that they are not a 
 true representation of its meaning. Christian Theism 
 consistently rejects the notion of an ultimate Fate to 
 which God is subordinate. As Christianity identifies 
 God's Will with the Moral Law, so also Christianity 
 identifies God's Will with the ultimate necessity of things, 
 the ultimate law of the Universe. It is not easy to see 
 how a divine Will so conceived can be separated from the 
 reality in which it issues, the events which it wills. In 
 the necessary law ' The world must be so ' is included the 
 reality ' So the world is '. In other words, God is 
 inevitably regarded as religion never hesitates frankly 
 to regard Him as ' all in all '. 
 
 To Spinoza the human mind appears as a ' part ' of the 
 ' infinite intellect of God '. l If the doctrine of the Trinity 
 is partly an expression of revolt against the common 
 conception of personality, it leads us among other things 
 to inquire whether human self-consciousness can be con- 
 ceived as included within the self-consciousness of God. 
 Or are we to assert on the other hand that the exclusion 
 of God from full participation in our conscious life is 
 necessary to the assertion of our independent personality * ? 
 
 1 Ethics, pt. II. Prop. XI. 
 
 8 ' What 'the reader may ask ' is the conclusion to whicfc 
 
192 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Such questions suggest, then, that one of our first 
 duties is to be in earnest with our Theism. At some 
 points the difficulty would undoubtedly be eased by the 
 acceptance of an idealistic theory. This seems specially 
 plain in regard to such difficulties as arise from the doc- 
 trine of Christ's ' pre-exist ence '. But apart from particular 
 problems it is clear that a Theism which is in earnest 
 will seek to be philosophic ; and the philosopher, whether 
 he accepts Idealism in any of its forms or not, must at 
 least not ignore it. And before we talk much of solutions 
 we need a just estimate of the magnitude of the problem. 
 
 these arguments are intended to lead ? We know what is meant 
 by a personal consciousness. Are we then to regard God as 
 One personal consciousness or as Three ? ' To regard God as 
 a ' unipersonal ' being as simply one knowing and feeling mind 
 is eminently unsatisfactory. Knowledge is posterior to, and 
 dependent upon, the truth it knows. Thus a God who was 
 merely a Conscious Mind would not be God at all, would not be 
 independent and unconditioned. God must therefore be taken 
 to include within Himself the world which He knows. 
 
 The conception of Christ as including within Himself the whole 
 of a perfected humanity, which is at the same time the complete 
 organ and adequate habitation of the Holy Spirit, is suggested 
 by several passages in the New Testament. It may be by some 
 such thought as this that the solution will ultimately be reached. 
 If Humanity, united in Christ, is in truth the ' fulness ' of God 
 (Eph. i. 23) ; if ' all that God is, He imparts and reveals ' ; if 
 to know all conscious experience and its laws would be to know 
 the whole truth concerning the Universe ; then perhaps the 
 questions concerning the solitary existence of God before the 
 world began may be dismissed as idle nightmares of the 
 imagination. 
 
 The mutual indwelling of God and Humanity, as conceived 
 in Scripture, is not to be confused with the barbaric doctrine of 
 a soul which first has a separate existence, and then is absorbed 
 (or reabsorbed) into God. The latter is akin to the pure thought- 
 lessness which conceives Time as followed by an existence which 
 is timeless. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 193 
 
 There are questions suggested by the treatment of the 
 Trinitarian dogma in modern literature, which give the 
 theologian ample scope for thought. 
 
 What, for example, is the bearing of theories like that 
 of Professor J. G. Frazer 1 which would derive the 
 Christian Doctrine of the Trinity from barbaric doctrines 
 of a divine Father, Son, and Mother ? 
 
 What again is the value of the Trinitarian speculations 
 of Hegel ? Christian theology can hardly be satisfied 
 till it has demonstrated that the divine ' Persons ' could 
 neither be more nor less than three. But have we any 
 clear conception as to how this may be done ? 
 
 What ground, again, have we for believing Christ to 
 be a unique phenomenon in the Universe ? It has been 
 argued that if any other man evinced the same filial 
 attitude towards God, he would have the same claim as 
 Christ has to divine Sonship. As a mere abstract state- 
 ment, the argument is sound enough. For those however 
 who connect with Jesus their conception of the unity of 
 history who find His pre-eminence just in this, that He 
 has gathered together in one the children of God that were 
 scattered abroad the supposition can hardly seem to 
 have much real importance. Are they then justified in 
 replying that the occurrence of ' another Jesus ' is incon- 
 sistent with an optimistic conception of the world ? 
 
 Further, what are the separate beliefs which are involved 
 in religious faith in God, and how far are these consistent 
 with one another ? The ultimate and all-inclusive law 
 of the Universe is conceived by religion as a ' Person to 
 Whom we can speak '. If then God's Will prescribes and 
 includes our existence, and therefore our separateness 
 from Him and from one another, how are we to define 
 1 Golden Bough, vol. ii. p. 3 note. 
 
 
 
194 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 the exact sense in which human persons are separate from 
 God ? If we accept Spinoza's statement that our minds 
 are ' parts ' of the intellect of God or any variant of 
 this view how are we to distinguish this from a theory 
 which either treats men as merely subjective incidents in a 
 dream dreamed by God : or else treats God as only another 
 name for Humanity at large ? 
 
 A faith which has the courage of its convictions will be 
 stimulated and not discouraged by the multitude of 
 the problems which await solution. True beliefs cannot 
 be inconsistent with one another. When therefore we 
 have once seen that the doctrine of Christ's divinity is 
 based, not on mere tradition, but on genuine religious 
 experience, we shall then reasonably expect that the 
 entanglements in which, in its assertion of this doctrine, 
 theology has become involved, will not be found in the 
 end to be beyond all hope of our unravelling. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 It may be objected that language such as is quoted above 
 (p. 183 ' God Who alone knows the mystery . . . has told us, 
 etc.') would be adopted nowadays by no theologian of repute. 
 It is true that our more eminent writers prefer a different 
 phraseology. Yet they continue to speak of the doctrines 
 of the Creeds as ' divinely revealed facts ' in the sense in 
 which the ' facts ' given in experience are contrasted with 
 the ' theories ' by which we explain them. For Dr. Illing- 
 worth (Reason and Revelation, pp. 142-143, cf. pp. 72-75) the 
 Trinity is a ' fact ', and a ' historic fact '. Dogma is (p. 132) 
 'epitomized or condensed history*. It states facts 'whose 
 character as facts rests on the authoritative statements of 
 Jesus Christ ' (p. 129). Very similar language has been 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 195 
 
 employed by Dr. Wace (See a paper circulated by him to 
 the members of the Convocation of the University of Oxford 
 in April 1913). We may compare also the following sen- 
 tence from a review (in the Oxford Magazine) of Dr. Sanday's 
 Christologies Ancient and Modern : ' On page 168 there is 
 a curious phrase " Whatever the Homoousion means ", which 
 in this context suggests (though it does no more than suggest) 
 that the Homoousion is somehow there, fallen down out of 
 heaven as it were, to be understood if possible, but anyhow 
 to be accepted '. The reviewer justly hesitates to attribute 
 this view to Dr. Sanday a hesitation which will be shared 
 by all the most cordial admirers of Dr. Sanday's work. Such 
 expressions, however, give us the right to demand that on 
 this question theologians should express themselves with 
 the utmost clearness. 
 
 Is the ' eternal generation of the Son/ then and the 
 same question may be asked with regard to all the proposi- 
 tions which together constitute the Doctrine of the Trinity 
 a datum or an inference ? That the pre-existence of our Lord 
 was inferred in the first days of the Christian Church seems 
 clear in spite of the argument of Ritschl (op. cit. p. 379, 
 E.T. 401) from Philippians ii. 6-8. The question at issue 
 here is not whether this inference is correct, but whether the 
 doctrine belongs to theology or to history. That all who 
 know Jesus as He is all who really know Christian experience 
 from within unite in assigning to Him a place in the esteem 
 of mankind which none but God can rightly occupy, may 
 justly be spoken of as a ' fact '. It is the very datum of experi- 
 ence and history which Christian theology sets out to explain : 
 and we may justly allege that he who is a stranger to this 
 experience is thereby disqualified from grasping Christian 
 theology in an adequate manner. When, however, our 
 minds pass from the statement that for the Christian soul 
 Jesus has ' the value of God ' to the statement that He was 
 ' begotten of the Father before all worlds ', this conclusion, 
 however undeniably correct we may believe it to be, is surely 
 at the same time unquestionably inferential ; and belongs, 
 not to historical description but to reflective theology. Must 
 it not, then, submit itself to rational criticism ? 
 
196 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 It may be objected, again, that no orthodox writer would 
 now maintain that the doctrine of the Trinity is a ' solution ' 
 of the problem of the divine Nature. It is true that our 
 orthodox leaders are at times willing only too willing to 
 belittle the intellectual achievements of the Age of Councils. 
 ' The Christian dogma ', exclaims Dr. Illingworth light- 
 heartedly, 'explained nothing'. He even suggests that it 
 was not ' intended ' to explain anything (Reason and Revela- 
 tion, p. 128). Yet Dr. Illingworth himself has argued with 
 great force, in another context, that Theism far from being 
 a mere statement of observed facts is part of a philosophic 
 theory of the world (' Theism, and all that it involves, lies 
 in the region of philosophy/ p. 166), and that the Doctrine 
 of the Trinity is ' the natural climax to which Theism logically 
 leads ' (p. 238). The contradiction between these two views 
 is obvious (cf . also Journal of Theological Studies, April 1903) : 
 and it serves to show how unlikely it is that the opinion 
 that dogma is ' condensed history ' will ever be consistently 
 maintained. 
 
 But, if once we recognize that the Doctrine of the Trinity 
 ' belongs to philosophy ', we cannot refuse to ask how far it 
 solves philosophic problems. Did the Age of Councils lead 
 to any intellectual advance ? Has it taught us anything 
 concerning the nature of God ? 
 
 We may venture, perhaps, to answer this question in some 
 such propositions as the following : (i) Theism, as Dr. Illingworth 
 admits, is itself a philosophic theory an attempt to account 
 for certain spiritual and other experiences. (2) The Doctrine of 
 the Trinity presents itself as an emended or developed Theism, 
 a fuller theory required by the further facts brought to light 
 in the experience which is specifically Christian. (3) Like 
 all theories, it is an attempted solution of the problem which 
 brought it into existence. And, even if it had done no more 
 than to bring the relevant facts together, and to suggest the 
 conditions under which alone the problem can be solved, 
 we might still claim that it possessed a high intellectual value. 
 But (4) the theory is, in part at least, a failure. It leaves 
 us with what appears to be a paradox a ' personal Being 
 consisting of three persons ' : and even the mere appearance 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 197 
 
 of contradiction is a mark oHmperfect intellectual success. 
 (5) But is the contradiction apparent or real ? Is it due to 
 defects of language, or inherent in the thought ? Does the 
 doctrine need elucidation only, or a thorough-going revision ? 
 Has it in any measure solved the problem, or has it merely 
 thrown light upon its character by exhibiting the difficulty 
 of the solution ? We may answer these questions variously. 
 Yet any view which maintains that the Fathers made a real 
 advance in knowledge of the divine nature, is'more respectful 
 than the suggestion that they merely summarized in a com- 
 pendious manner the statements of the Fourth Gospel. 
 
 The fault, surely, of much recent theology is that its writers 
 are devoid of intellectual hope. They believe that, so far 
 as Christian doctrine is concerned, the Voice of the Holy 
 Spirit has been silent for long ages. They do not expect 
 more light upon the mystery of the divine nature : there 
 is no evidence that they even wish for it. The suggestion 
 that we, with our better intellectual equipment, might con- 
 ceivably make as great an advance in doctrinal definition 
 as was made in the days of the Councils, they would dismiss 
 as almost an irreverence. Their efforts are directed, not 
 so much to the interpretation of the ancient phrases for why 
 interpret that which was ' never intended to explain any- 
 thing ' ? as to the mere justification of our right to go on 
 using them. They write as if our Saviour had promised 
 to be with us ' always, even unto the end ' not ' of the 
 world* but of the 'first six centuries'. 
 
 The appearance of Foundations has raised a storm, both 
 of criticism and of enthusiastic praise. It is surely the latter 
 which is the more appropriate to the occasion. The theology 
 of Mr. Streeter and his six companions in striking contrast 
 with much that has preceded it is all on the side both of 
 open-mindedness and of hope. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 THE TASK OF THE FUTURE 
 
 IT will be admitted even by many who are quite out 
 of sympathy with the aims of the "present volume 
 that the Doctrine of the Trinity is at any rate one of the 
 subjects on which Theology has not yet said its last word. 
 And there are other doctrines with regard to which the 
 same admission will still more readily be made. 
 
 There is, first, the doctrine of the Atonement. The 
 history of this doctrine, no doubt, will be copiously 
 dealt with by the anthropologists : and it is quite in 
 accordance with the best traditions of theology that we 
 should seek for light in this quarter. Yet more important 
 even than its history, is the general thought which it 
 embodies. 
 
 It is not always noticed that in the religious desire 
 for ' atonement ', ' cleansing ', physical or spiritual ' purifi- 
 cation ', there lies hid a genuinely philosophical thought 
 a thought which has a direct bearing upon the great 
 problem of Evil. The conception of a ' moral neutraliza- 
 tion ' of evil underlies the simplest notion of punishment 
 and revenge. The evil deed remains, and so do some of 
 its consequences : but its offensiveness is in a measure 
 
 198 
 
THE TASK OF THE FUTURE 199 
 
 removed by the avenging act. 1 The extension of this 
 conception so that it may be applied to all the sin and all 
 the evil of the world, conveys, at the very least, a pro- 
 foundly important suggestion : and it is just this the 
 universal application of a Jewish and Pagan belief 
 which first comes to light in the Christian doctrine of the 
 Atonement. 
 
 There is, again, the question of Miracles. This is a 
 subject which concerns both the philosopher and the 
 historian : and for neither has the debate yet come to a 
 close. 
 
 It is assumed by some that the philosophic case against 
 the credibility of miracle is overwhelmingly strong. But 
 is this really so ? It is worth while, at least, that we 
 should weigh well a suggestion made by Lotze. ' Con- 
 formity to a universal law ' he says is not the only 
 conceivable form in which we may make that supposition 
 of a ' universal relation of mutual dependence between 
 all things real ' which is the ' common foundation of all 
 scientific investigation*. Things may be conceived as 
 ' related to each other not primarily by permanent laws 
 but by the unchangeable purport of a plan ' ; and the real- 
 ization of this plan may require from the several elements 
 ' not always and everywhere an identical procedure, but 
 a changeable one/ 2 
 
 1 Esther vii. 10. The question at issue is this Can evil 
 which has actually existed be ' neutralized ' ? The case of 
 punishment is a specific example of this general notion of ' moral 
 neutralization ', The ceremonial washings of the Old Law are 
 another. It is not implied that the death of Christ is punitive. 
 
 2 Lotze. Metaphysic, vol. i. p. 18, Eng. tr. See chap. 
 
200 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 So far as the historical aspect of the matter is concerned 
 it is natural that we should first reverently examine the 
 utterances on this question which are attributed to our 
 Saviour Himself. The most immediately relevant facts 
 are briefly these. Jesus expresses a clear disapproval 
 of the desire of the Jews for a sign from Heaven ; and two 
 of His temptations result in a definite refusal to perform 
 a miraculous work. Yet He is represented as teaching 
 that when due occasion comes, even the most stupendous 
 miracles are within the reach of those who have insight 
 into God's plans, and sufficient faith not to impede God's 
 working by their own distrust. ' If ye have faith as a 
 grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain 
 Remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove/ 1 
 ' Sayest thou " If thou canst " ? all things are possible 
 to him that belie veth.' 2 ' Thinkest thou that I cannot 
 pray to my Father and He shall even now send me more 
 than twelve legions of angels, but how then should the 
 scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be ? ' 3 
 
 That the first of these passages appears to belong (as 
 does also the story of the centurion's faith 4 ) to the ' non- 
 Marcan source ', where the interest in miracles is but 
 secondary, adds much to its importance for our present 
 purpose. 5 
 
 xvi. above. Cf . also Dr. RashdalTs admirable remarks on causa- 
 tion in Contentio Veritatis, p. 52. 
 
 1 St. Matt. xvii. 20. 
 
 1 St. Mark ix. 23. 
 
 * St. Matt. xxvi. 53, cf. Mark i. 40 ; v. 34, etc. 
 
 * Cf. also, ' If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils ', Harnack, 
 29. Many of our Lord's most notable sayings seem quite 
 inseparable from the miraculous occurrences with which they 
 are connected. 
 
 8 See Harnack. Sayings of Jesus, Eng. tr., pp. 131, 163. 
 If the conversation with the centurion (Matt. viii. 8-10 occurred 
 
THE TASK OF THE FUTURE 201 
 
 It has been argued that Jesus, finding Himself pos- 
 sessed of mysterious powers of healing, was impelled by 
 pity to use them for the benefit of sufferers even at the 
 risk of giving a wrong impression as to the essential 
 purpose of His mission. But these circumstances, though 
 they might have justified the miracles themselves, would 
 assuredly not justify the words which Jesus uses concern- 
 ing them. In such a case would He not have had the 
 will, and have known how to find the means, 1 to disclaim 
 powers which He did not possess ? 
 
 There is, thirdly, the question of Sacraments. There 
 are at least two qualifications which must be possessed by 
 the theologian who is to deal successfully with this great 
 subject. The first is an insight into the meaning and 
 value of the sacramental life. No one can write an 
 adequate theory of the Eucharist who has not in that 
 Sacrament himself found Christ to be the Bread of God 
 Which came down from Heaven. It is a common error to 
 regard the Catholic estimate of Sacraments as evidence 
 of a non-Evangelical reliance on external works. In truth, 
 
 in the alleged context or in anything resembling it it is diffi- 
 cult to resist the conclusion that a ' notable miracle ' was per- 
 formed : and that our Lord had absolute confidence in His power 
 to perform it. 
 
 1 Cf. chap. x. p. 93. The strongest evidence for our Lord's 
 miraculous powers lies in the theory of miracles implied in the 
 words attributed to Him by the Evangelists. To invent miracu- 
 lous stories is easy : but to which of His early followers can we 
 reasonably attribute the invention of this theory ? The special 
 intellectual gifts which the originator of this theory must have 
 possessed were not common in the Church it may be doubted 
 whether they existed at all till times near our own. Cf. chap. 
 ix. p. 80; chap x. p. 93, note 3. 
 
202 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 this type of Christian piety far from leading us to value 
 the Sacraments because they are works of our own tends 
 rather to see in the Sacraments a witness to the truth 
 that the gifts and purposes of God are independent of the 
 changing moods and feelings of man. 
 
 The second qualification surely no less necessary than 
 the former is a grasp of the principle that God, if God 
 is love, can never be conceived as acting in an arbitrary 
 manner. That in Christianity God is represented as 
 never withholding His gifts from man on any but ' moral ' 
 grounds that God withholds His gifts solely because those 
 conditions are absent which alone would fit men profitably 
 to receive them is a position that is clearly stated by 
 theologians of all schools when they are engaged in defend- 
 ing the religion of Christ against the unbeliever. But 
 the same principle is not always so well remembered when 
 the purpose is, say, to convince the Quaker of the import- 
 ance of ecclesiastical ordinances. A systematic doctrine 
 of Sacraments, then, would require consistency and 
 uniformity in this matter as in others. 
 
 Fourthly, is it not clear that we need in the non- Roman 
 Communions a Moral Theology as full and complete as 
 that of Rome itself ? This is a work for which men of 
 our race are in some respects admirably adapted. If 
 then we could develop .a Moral Theology which should be 
 English, or British, rather than merely Anglican, it might 
 well be the best systematic treatment of this subject that 
 the world has yet seen. 
 
 There are two special problems in Moral Theology 
 the question of Marriage and the question of the ' Doubt- 
 
THE TASK OF THE FUTURE 203 
 
 ful Conscience ' which for various reasons are becoming 
 urgent. 1 
 
 In dealing with the ' Doubtful Conscience ' the Church 
 of Rome has drawn the distinction between those things 
 which are ' practically ' and those things which are 
 merely ' speculatively ' doubtful. For any one who 
 by sermons or otherwise has to guide the consciences of 
 others, this distinction is of great practical importance. 
 The earnestly religious man, dealing with these subjects 
 for the first time, tends almost always to Rigorism. 
 Grasping the principle that no one should act with a 
 doubtful conscience, since ' whatsoever is not of faith is 
 sin/ he is apt to confuse this principle with the very 
 different demand that every act which one could ever 
 suspect to be wrong is ipso facto to be regarded as forbid- 
 den. 2 The effects of this confusion may often be extremely 
 grave ; yet it is only the student of Moral Theology, or of 
 some form of systematic Ethics, who can be sure of not 
 falling into this mistake unawares. 
 
 The subject of the Law of Marriage is even more urgent 
 still. Though it is only in quite a few cases out of many 
 hundreds that any real moral doubt can arise as to whether 
 a given marriage is lawful and binding or not, these few 
 cases give infinite trouble to those who would state the 
 Christian Law of Marriage in concise form. The Roman 
 Theology of Marriage raises an immense number of diffi- 
 cult questions too important to be left unanswered. If 
 we do not accept as for the most part Englishmen will 
 not accept the answers which have satisfied the Roman 
 
 1 See Nineteenth Century and After. Aug. 1909 (' Marriage 
 Law in the Church of England ') and Church Quarterly Review, 
 July 1912 (' Probabilism '). 
 
 * Cf. note to chap. xii. above : p. 1 18. 
 
204 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 Catholic theologians, then we seem to be called on to give 
 answers of our own. Thus would it not be well worth 
 while to go back in this matter to first principles ? For 
 Christians, the fundamental principle of morality is that 
 Commandment upon which all the law and the prophets 
 hang. Is there, then, a better way of dealing with the 
 problems of the Marriage Law than by applying this 
 commandment directly to the various cases which arise ? 
 That this is not the method which theologians have 
 habitually adopted it would be singularly easy to show. 1 
 
 Again, a fully equipped theology requires a definite 
 ' theory of knowledge '. 2 Liberal theologians setting a 
 
 1 By taking St. Mark x. 8 and 9 in conjunction with i Cor. 
 vi. 1 6, we might defend on Scriptural grounds a doctrine quite 
 unlike that which is expressed in the phrases Consensus non 
 concubitus facit nuptias, Consensus qui matrimonium facit est 
 consensus in matrimonium. Yet it is on the latter principle 
 that the Church has consistently, and surely quite rightly, acted. 
 
 1 A systematic theory of knowledge must deal not only with 
 the special sources of religious knowledge, but with knowledge 
 in general. How is our knowledge related to the things we 
 know ? It might seem at first sight as if we were limited to 
 three possible answers. ' Either thought is the product of 
 things (the answer of common Empiricism) : or things are the 
 creation of thought (the answer of Subjective Idealism) : or 
 there is a pre-established harmony between the two.' 
 
 Empiricism and Subjective Idealism have been subjected 
 to searching criticism ; and neither theory has stood the test 
 well. Nor is the notion of a pre-established harmony more 
 satisfactory than they. 
 
 Take the plainest and simplest case. When I know that two 
 straight lines cannot enclose a space, this piece of knowledge 
 follows from the very meaning of ' straightness '. If I know 
 what straightness means, and if this question about the enclosing 
 of space occurs to me, my answer is certain. Thus the truth 
 
THE TASK OF THE FUTURE 205 
 
 high value on the thought of past ages, yet protesting 
 against the attitude of mind which ' learns nothing and 
 forgets nothing ' have sought refuge in vague phrases 
 which imply that what is true for one age may be false 
 for another ; that ' the time has now come ' for abandon- 
 ing dogmas which once were true ; and so forth. Against 
 such a conception the sound sense of the plain man is at all 
 times in just revolt. He sees, clearly enough, that though 
 our apprehension of truth may change and develop, 
 truth itself is immutable and eternal. Yet he does not 
 himself formulate any definite theory : and therefore the 
 whole subject is left in a state of confusion which gives 
 
 itself, and my knowledge of it, both of them follow from the 
 meaning of the terms involved. Here, then, is no merely external 
 relation mysteriously ' established ' between thought and things. 
 Knowledge and truth are distinct, yet their agreement is no 
 accident. 
 
 Incidentally, we may at the same time perceive that it is a 
 false theory which argues that ' either our knowledge comes 
 short of the truth and fails to know things " as they are " 
 or else thought and truth are identical/ I, the knowing subject, 
 am not the straight lines, nor am I their non-enclosure of a 
 space. The axiom indeed is prior to my knowledge of it. Yet 
 when I come to know it, my knowledge of it is complete. In 
 such a case I know the truth 'as it is '. 
 
 Confusion, in fact, seems to have been almost wantonly caused 
 by thinkers who have ignored the plain meaning of the verb to 
 ' know '. It is, surely, no more possible to redefine the verb 
 to ' know ' than to redefine the verb to ' be '. If this is true, 
 we may partly lay down the limits within which revolutionary 
 thought is possible in philosophy. While a new ' cosmology ' 
 and a new ' psychology ' may conceivably arise, which shall 
 be not merely novel but revolutionary, it seems impossible that 
 there should be a revolutionary ' ontology ' [doctrine of the 
 nature of being, as such] or a revolutionary ' epistemology ' [theory 
 of knowledge]. If, however, this principle were accepted, it 
 would furnish us with a severe standard by which to judge several 
 important works of recent times, 
 
206 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 to the more conservative schools of theological thought an 
 advantage to which they are not justly entitled. 
 
 Again, we need a systematic treatment of the Freedom 
 of the Will. In the common theology of the pulpit a 
 slavish doctrine of habit stands side by side with an 
 anarchic doctrine of liberty. ' Sow an act 'it is said 
 ' reap a habit : sow a habit, reap a character : sow a 
 character, reap a destiny.' The power of habit is unques- 
 tionably great : yet the man, to whom this sentence seems 
 to sum up the whole truth of the matter, has not yet 
 learned the secret of Christian freedom. 
 
 In dealing with all these questions as has been already 
 said with regard to one of them we might well take 
 example by the Church of Rome. If members of the 
 Church of England, of the Church of Scotland, and of the 
 various Free Churches in the two countries men whose 
 hearts God had touched a would work together in con- 
 scious co-operation, would formulate definite problems and 
 (as the Roman theologians do) would systematically 
 criticize one another's solutions, 2 we might arrive at 
 considerable results even within the lifetime of the present 
 generation. 3 
 
 1 Only by chance can work entered upon in such a spirit 
 promote the special aims of any school or party. Those, there- 
 fore, who undertake it must expect no reward in the form either 
 of popularity or preferment. 
 
 * On the side of Moral Theology we could not do better than 
 to take as a starting point Dr. RashdalTs truly great book The 
 Theory of Good and Evil. 
 
 9 Is it not the Scribe, made a disciple to the Kingdom of Heaven, 
 
THE TASK OF THE FUTURE 207 
 
 The great difficulty is that except in relation to 
 questions of history our theology appears to have lost 
 its enthusiasm for knowledge. That St. Thomas Aquinas, 
 though he had practical interests to serve was an 
 enthusiast for knowledge for its own sake, no one who 
 reads him could long doubt. When we turn from him to 
 our own Tractarians, it is not easy to feel that they were 
 in this respect his successors. For this we need not blame 
 them. They were called to a special task. In reviving 
 in the Anglican Ministry a sense of its divine commission 
 they did a priceless service to their country. Yet did 
 not their theology become, as a result, too much a theology 
 ad hoc ? And have we not all suffered ever since from 
 this circumscription of mental horizon ? 1 God, Man, 
 and the Universe, rather than the special claims of the 
 Church of England, are, after all, the central subjects 
 of theological inquiry : and the unification of human 
 knowledge is at least the Ideal, however far off be its 
 accomplishment, for those whose study is to deserve the 
 title of the ' Queen of the Sciences '. 
 
 who is set before us as the object of the theologian's imitation ? 
 Matt. xiii. 52. 
 
 1 How far this criticism is applicable to the authors of Founda- 
 tions, is a question which cannot be adequately discussed in a 
 footnote. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 
 
 BEFORE, however, we can enter on any such con- 
 structive work as is here indicated, there are 
 one or two preliminary questions to which we must give 
 definite answers. 
 
 What first of all is to be our attitude towards the 
 problem of Sin ? If Liberal Theology has weakened 
 its own powers by a vague theory of knowledge ; l if it has 
 weakened them still more by its association with coldness 
 in devotion ; it has weakened them most of all, and most 
 deservedly, by inadequate language on the subject of 
 Sin. In Liberalism, even at its worst, there is a certain 
 open-mindedness, a certain absence of hardness, from 
 which all the orthodox schools have something to learn. 
 Yet Liberalism throws away every chance it has of com- 
 peting with these other schools on equal terms, whenever 
 it evinces even the smallest Pelagian tendency either in 
 doctrine or in sentiment. For the sentimentality which 
 denies that sin is exceeding sinful, 2 which affects to 
 regard evil as ' imperfect good ', man feels at heart a pro- 
 found contempt. That the existence of evil is in the end 
 good, is a necessary corollary of Theism. 3 Yet, in the 
 
 1 Cf. chap, xviii. * Rom. vii. 13. 
 
 8 Rom. viii. 28 ; Eph. i. 10 ; v. 20 ; i Tim. iv. 4, etc., etc. 
 
 208 
 
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 209 
 
 very act of thanking God 1 that He has ' created evil ' a 
 in order that it might be overcome by the power of His 
 Spirit, in the very act of thanking Him that He has 
 ' shut up all unto disobedience ' 3 that all might gain the 
 priceless blessings of contrition and repentance we must 
 first recognize evil for what it is, or the victory over evil 
 will not be appraised at its true value. It may be true 
 sometimes that men are ' more sinned against than sin- 
 ning ', that if ' all is understood, all will be pardoned '. 
 But, in reference to conduct as a whole, man knows that 
 the truth is otherwise ; that to confess that we have 
 sinned ' by our fault, our own fault, our own most 
 grievous fault ', is the only statement of the matter which 
 is true to the facts. Whatever God's responsibility for 
 sin may be, there is at least no doubt about our own. 4 
 Nor if we do not close our eyes to the evidence is there 
 any doubt about the deep-seated corruption of our nature. 
 A theology therefore which is not merely to gain the ear 
 of the modern world, but to keep it, must be as sternly 
 Anti-Pelagian as that of Augustine himself. 
 
 In direct connexion with the doctrine of Sin stands the 
 doctrine of Repentance. Is Repentance the sole condi- 
 tion of Pardon ? Upon our answer to this question 
 depends the character of the Gospel which we preach ; 
 and therefore there is no question to which a clear answer 
 is more imperatively demanded. 
 
 The affirmative answer is stated with admirable plain- 
 
 1 Rom. xi. 33. 2 Isa. xlv. 7. 8 Rom. xi. 32. 
 
 * The moral responsibility of man is not to be identified with 
 the doctrine that such human acts as are free are therefore ' con- 
 tingent '. The former is established by the clear witness of moral 
 consciousness : the latter must be admitted, even by its defenders, 
 to be a highly questionable philosophic theory. 
 
 P 
 
RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 ness by Dr. Moberly. 1 ' Whether God forgives a man 
 or not/ he says, ' depends wholly and only upon whether 
 the man is or is not forgivable. He who can be forgiven 
 by Love and Truth, is forgiven by Love and Truth, 
 instantly, absolutely, without failure or doubt. In God, 
 forgiveness upon the necessary conditions so acts as if it 
 were self-acting penitence, so far as it is penitence, 
 never by any possibility failing of pardon/ 
 
 Though the doctrine which these words convey is 
 seldom denied expressly, it is often denied by implication, 
 as, for example, when the command of Ananias to the 
 newly-converted Saul 2 ' Arise and wash away thy sin ' 
 is taken to imply that Saul received forgiveness, not upon 
 his repentance but upon his subsequent baptism. The 
 motive of this literal exposition is obvious. Yet even 
 for its special purpose it seems entirely needless. The 
 admission that outward ordinances play a part that for 
 mankind at large they play an indispensable part in the 
 ministry of reconciliation, seems quite compatible with 
 the belief that true penitence leads unfailingly to pardon. 
 If, however, the two views are to be put into direct 
 opposition if we have to choose between the belief that 
 the new convert was immediately forgiven on repentance, 
 and the contrary belief that pardon was deferred till all 
 due formalities had been completed it seems hardly 
 conceivable that we can long remain in doubt between 
 them. That Pardon follows inseparably upon repentance 
 is surely the very essence of the Gospel of Christ. And 
 need we hesitate to say that here we have a truth which 
 
 1 Atonement and Personality, pp. 57, 60. The quotation s 
 not quite continuous. 
 
 2 Acts xxii. 1 6. See e.g. Dr. Mason's Faith of the Gospel, p. 
 289 (edition of 1892) : Dr. Darwell Stone's Holy Baptism, p. 35. 
 
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 211 
 
 stands at a higher level than any other doctrine of our 
 religion, in respect both of its certainty and of its impor- 
 tance ? 
 
 Less important to religion than the doctrines of Sin 
 and Pardon, but hardly less important to theology, is 
 the question of the source or sources of our religious 
 knowledge. 
 
 We are all familiar with the Antithesis between 
 ' Reason ' and ' Revelation '. It will be admitted that on 
 all non-religious subjects our knowledge is derived from 
 Reason applied to the subject-matter which is given us in 
 Experience. Are we to hold that for religious purposes 
 this method is insufficient, and that here our knowledge 
 is derived partly from Reason, but partly also from Reve- 
 lation regarded as a ' non-rational ' or ' extra-rational ' 
 principle ? Or may we be satisfied to build up our 
 religious creed by Reason and Experience alone ? 
 
 The word ' Rationalism ' has bad associations. It is 
 associated with a spirit devoid both of delicacy and of 
 reverence : with a shallow criticism which rejects as 
 false everything that wears even the most superficial 
 appearance of mystery or contradiction. 
 
 Yet this is far from being the only sense in which the 
 term is used. ' Rationalism ' it has been said 1 'may 
 be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly 
 accepts the supremacy of reason, and aims at establishing 
 a system of philosophy and ethics verifiable by experi- 
 ence and independent of all arbitrary assumptions or 
 authority.' 
 
 Is there a single word in this statement towards which 
 theology should adopt a hostile attitude ? The suprem- 
 
 1 Advertisement of the ' Rationalist Press Association/ p. ii. 
 
 P* 
 
212 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 acy of Reason is no more inconsistent with the suprem- 
 acy of Jesus, 1 than the supremacy of Duty is inconsis- 
 tent with the supremacy of God. If then we find our- 
 selves disposed to resist such ' rationalism ' as this if 
 we desire to maintain in any form the old antithesis 
 between ' Reason ' and ' Revelation ' * we ought at 
 least to subject ourselves to a stringent self-examination. 
 Do we desire to withdraw certain doctrinal statements 
 from free criticism ?; Do we allege that we possess 
 knowledge which is not the product of thought applied 
 to the matter given in experience ? If not, what exactly 
 is our meaning ? Above all, what is our motive ? 
 
 For whatever may be the motive for this way of speak- 
 ing, there can surely be little doubt about its effects. 
 ' Our most holy religion 'says Hume with characteristic 
 irony ' is founded on Faith not on Reason.' He there- 
 fore warns those who would defend the Christian religion 
 ' by the principles of human reason ' that ' it is a sure 
 method of exposing it, to put it to such a trial as it is by 
 no means fitted to endure.' If we declare that our 
 religious knowledge arises from ' non-rational ' or ' extra- 
 rational ' sources, what is this but to justify Hume's 
 estimate of the reasonableness of our Faith by the admis- 
 sion of its defenders ? 
 
 Ought not theology then seriously to reconsider its 
 whole attitude towards Reason ? Do we not stand at 
 the parting of the ways when we ask whether our science 
 requires drastic revision, and this a revision on what 
 may be called in the best sense of the words rational- 
 istic methods ? 
 
 1 See chaps, x., xiii. 
 
 1 For a reverent and temperately-worded criticism of this 
 antithesis see Mr. Webb's Problems in the relations of God 
 Man. 
 
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 213 
 
 The question is sometimes put to those who, even in 
 the most moderate spirit, demand a ' reconstruction ' of 
 the theological fabric What has happened to make such 
 reconstruction necessary ? 
 
 The question may be variously answered. ' Kant ' 
 we might say ' has happened. Though his work is a 
 century old, theology has not yet fully taken its bearings 
 in regard to it.' Or we might mention other great names, 
 Hegel, Darwin, even Copernicus with a similar 
 comment. 
 
 But our answer might well take a wider range. That 
 great and growing interest in the Middle Ages, which is 
 one product of the Oxford Movement, has led to a general 
 development of the historical sense. We have learned 
 that the Catholicism of the Middle Ages was not precisely 
 similar in spirit to the Catholicism either of the Counter- 
 Reformation or of the Age of Councils. We have dis- 
 covered how all these forms of our religion differ both 
 from Protestantism and from Primitive Christianity. The 
 reverent study of the past has led us to perceive that each 
 one of the great Christian schools has had something of 
 value to contribute to the common stock of our religious 
 knowledge. Yet the same reverent study has instilled 
 a doubt whether the theology of any of these periods is 
 able to lead us to a standpoint from which we can ade- 
 quately judge the religion and theology of the others. 
 In this one fact alone, we have a clear and sufficient reason 
 for taking our theological bearings afresh. 
 
 Such then is the task to which the circumstances of 
 our time seem to be calling us. Are we to accept it or to 
 decline it ? 
 
 It has been well said that a man may do much good in 
 
214 RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT 
 
 the world if he does not care who gets the credit of it. 
 The same perhaps is true of a whole Church or generation. 
 About the credit that is to be gained we need indeed 
 hardly concern ourselves. We may contentedly enter 
 upon labours which, for all we know to the contrary, may 
 be absorbed entirely in the better work of those who come 
 after. Yet though it is possible on the one hand that 
 the work of this century may be mostly forgotten, it is 
 also not impossible on the other that it may be as per- 
 manent as that of the Age of Councils itself. We do not 
 know what events may occur in the future to call men 
 away to other interests and other problems than ours : 
 and it may be that, so far as our particular problems are 
 concerned, it is destined that in our light men shall see 
 light for many centuries to come. 
 
 Let us then work while it is called To-day. We stand 
 in the line of a great succession. We have behind us 
 since the time of our Saviour and His Apostles the 
 Fathers, the Schoolmen, the Reformers. All these were 
 bold and adventurous thinkers. It is right that we too 
 should have the courage to frame large designs, that we 
 should approach our task with industry and zeal yet 
 without haste and without anxiety not timidly eager 
 to avoid mistakes, not anxious how or what we shall 
 speak, since the day will try our work of what sort it is, 
 and since it is not we that speak but the Spirit of our 
 Father which speaks in us, but rather daring, in reliance 
 on that Spirit and in spite of the various criticisms with 
 which we shall be assailed, to bring out of our treasures 
 things new and old. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Absorption, barbaric doctrine 
 
 01,^192 
 Accident, Chap. XV, esp. 157, 
 
 147 note. 
 Acid, formic, 7 
 Adam de la Hale, 173 
 Adoption, doctrine of, 134 
 Aeschylus, 75 
 Agnosticism, 127 
 Alexander the Great, 169 
 Allen, Mr. Grant, 149 note 
 Ambrose, St., 71 
 Anderson, Dr., 65 
 Angelico, Fra, 169, 171 
 Anselm, St., 133 
 Antinomianism, 55, 55 note, 
 
 60 note, 104, 106 note. 
 Apocalyptic Eschatology, 67, 
 
 67 note, 68, 83, 84 
 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 22, 71, 
 
 117, 162, 163, 165, 166, 
 
 167, 168, 170, 175, 207, 
 
 xii 
 
 Arianism, shallowness of, 181 
 Aristotle, 139, 147 note, 172 
 Arnold, Matthew, 60, 67, no, 
 
 188 
 
 Asceticism, Chap. VII 
 Atonement, 198, cf. 52, 53 
 Augustine, St., 41, 90, 209 
 
 Backsliding, 106, 184 
 
 Baptismal formula, 184 note 
 Barbarism, Oriental, 166 
 
 cf. Pessimism, Absorption 
 Berkeley, 166 
 Bernard, St., 171 
 Bosanquet, Dr., 19, 164 
 Bourget, 8 
 Bradley, Mr. F. H., 144, 162, 
 
 167, 175 
 
 Browning, Robert, 8, ix 
 Buddhism, 44, etc., 56 
 Bunyan, 3, 40, 107, 108 
 
 Calderon, 41 
 
 Campbell, Dr. Macleod, 52, 
 
 53 
 
 Caribbees, the, 25 
 Carlyle, 48 
 Carmen, 149, 152 
 Catholicism, Roman and Angli- 
 can, 
 
 services to religion of, 58, 
 75, 129, 165, 201, 202, 
 207, 213, xi 
 
 and see ' Moral Theology/ 
 ' Quietism/ ' Aquinas ' 
 Charon, 155 
 Christ 
 
 divinity of, not inseparable 
 from ' pre-existence/ 19, 
 21, 138, 139, 184 
 
 215 
 
2l6 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Christ 
 
 divinity of, learned through 
 submission to His will, 
 18, 19, 109, 120-124, 
 137-140, 181-182, 186, 
 cf. 66, 82,179, xii, xiii 
 
 p re-existence of, taught by 
 
 St. Paul, 195 
 relative to purely tem- 
 poral conception of 
 God, 191 note, 192, cf. 
 185, 186 
 
 Messianic claims of, 83, 84 
 
 uniqueness of, 65, 97, 98, 
 
 193, 135 
 
 ' rationalistic ' elements hi 
 
 teaching of, 80, 93 note, 
 
 20 1 note 
 acceptance of, not dependent 
 
 on theology, 19, 105, 
 
 109, 119, Chap. XIV 
 no higher God conceivable 
 
 than, 19, 140 
 His relation to Christianity, 
 
 64-66, 82, 100-102, 103 
 
 to Protestantism, etc., 98 
 
 no world containing Him 
 
 ' Godless,' 19 
 Christianity 
 
 contrasted with other syst- 
 
 tems, Chaps. VII and 
 
 VIII 
 has worked the supreme 
 
 spiritual revolution, 59 
 its distinctive character, 55, 
 
 56, 56 note, 57-60, 63 
 Christian experience 
 
 independent of Christian 
 
 doctrine, 18, 109-112, 
 
 118-120, Chap. XIII 
 basis of theology, 19, chap. 
 
 xiv, esp. 134, 135 
 
 Christian morality, distinctive 
 
 and revolutionary, 70, 
 
 88 note 
 Christology, a high 
 
 needs reconciliation with 
 
 Monotheism, 179, 181 
 modern world has sufficient 
 
 data for, 18, 100-102, 
 
 137-140, 194 
 Chrysostom, St., 73, 157 
 Command, God's, gives stronger 
 
 assurance than His pro- 
 mise, 1 06 note 
 Contentio Veritatis, 200, xiii 
 Conversion, doctrine of, 106, 
 
 107, 124 
 Conviction of sin 
 
 Christianity unintelligible 
 
 apart from, 2, 8, 132, 134 
 Conybeare, Mr. F. C., 78, 89, 
 
 100 
 
 Copernicus, 213 
 Coquelin, 153 
 Councils, Age of, 213, 214 
 Counter-Reformation, the, 213 
 Cuckoo, the, 153 
 Cyril, St., 165 
 
 Darius, 24, 25 : 
 
 Darwin, 142, 213 
 
 Davids, T. W., Rhys, 45 
 
 Descartes, 157 
 
 Design, Argument from, de- 
 serves restatement, 
 Chap. XV 
 
 Divinity, of Holy Ghost, 180, 
 
 cf. 133, 15 note 
 of our Lord, 180, see ' Christ ' 
 of Creator, 180, cf. 20, 182 
 
 Eliot, George, 48, 186 
 Empiricism, 144, 204 
 
INDEX 
 
 217 
 
 Epictetus, 48, 76 
 Epistemology, 205 not* 
 Eschatology, see Apocalyptic 
 Evangelicalism, xi, Chaps. XI 
 
 and XII 
 Evil, problem of, 95, 156, 157, 
 
 162, 1 80, 208, 209 
 Evolution, 142, 149-153, 151 
 
 note 
 
 Faith, as an act of will, 52-61 
 contrasted with works as 
 
 ' will ' with ' deed,' 62 
 
 note 
 
 Fathers, 214, see Greek Fathers 
 Feuerbach, 186 
 Figgis, Mr., 104, 114, 117 
 Fioretti, 87, 98 
 Fitzgerald, Mr. P., in 
 Foundations, 93, 197, 207, xiii 
 Francis of Assisi, St., 86, 87, 98, 
 
 99, ioi 
 
 Frazer, Dr. J. G., 8, 44, 193 
 Free Will, 117, 190, 206, 209 
 
 note 
 
 Gardner, Prof. Percy, 74 
 Glory, hope of, xiii, see 
 
 Heaven 
 
 God, contact with, 135-137 
 defined as the ' Supreme 
 Object of Reverence,' 
 129, cf. 135 
 as Cause, 190 
 as all-inclusive, 190-191 
 Golden Bough, see Frazer 
 Golden legend, 58-172 
 Grace, doctrine of, its essence, 
 
 132 
 
 not inseparable from per- 
 sonality of God, 131 
 
 Greek Fathers, the, 20, 181, 
 
 185, 197 
 Green, T. H., 4, 176 
 
 Habituation, hereditary, se 
 
 Evolution 
 Haeckel, 3, 4, 5, 7 
 Haldane, Lord, 113, 164 
 Harmony of colours, 145-152 
 Harnack, Dr., 48, 63, 78, 79, 
 
 81, 200 
 
 Harrison, Miss Jane, 8 
 Heaven, Chap. XVI 
 Hegel, 77, 159, 160, 164, 193, 
 
 213, xii 
 Herodotus, 25 
 High Churchmen, 165, 207, 
 
 213, see Catholicism 
 Hildebrand, 147 note 
 Hume, 181, 122, 212 
 Huxley, 66, 122 
 
 Idealism, 10, 175, 176, 177, 186, 
 192, 194, 204, 205 
 
 Illingworth, Dr., 194-6 
 
 Incarnation, Chap. XVII 
 
 Inge, Dr. Ralph, 10 
 
 Innocence, attainable, 113, 120, 
 136 
 
 Innocent XI, 114 
 
 James, Prof., 126 
 
 Johnson, Dr., 6 
 
 Jupiter, 138 
 
 Justification and Reconciliation 
 
 (Translation T. & T. 
 
 Clark), 123, etc. 
 
 Kant, 2, 19, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 
 3i, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 
 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 55, 61, 
 62, 80, 90, 92, 108, 109, 
 no, Hi, xi, xii 
 
218 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Keble, 168 
 
 Kenosis, doctrine of, 188 
 
 its difficulties, 189 
 Keswick School, the, 114, etc. 
 
 Lamb, 97 
 
 Law, the moral, 2, Chaps. IV, 
 V, VI, 50-51 
 
 Law, Wm., 117 
 
 Laws of Nature, &c., 112, 113, 
 120, 121, Chap. XV, 158, 
 161 
 
 Legend of the Three Com- 
 panions, 98 
 
 Liberalism (theological) 
 merits and defects of, 208 
 
 Locke, 25 
 
 Lodge, Sir Oliver, 21, 40 
 
 Loisy, M. Alfred, 133, 183 
 
 Lotze, 3, 199 
 
 Louis, St., 135 
 
 Luther, 41, 58, 92 
 
 Lux Mundi, xiii 
 
 Lyall, Sir Alfred, 41 
 
 Lyra Apostolica, 9 
 
 Mark, Gospel according to St. 
 
 Pauline teaching in, 70-73 
 Marriage law, 202-204 
 Mason, Dr., 210 
 Materialism, 3-8, 156, 160 
 Merit, see Works ;-.* 
 Metaphysic, its value, 22, 175 
 
 personal religion not depen- 
 dent on, 130 , 
 Miracles, credibility of, 199 
 t evidence for, 200-201 
 
 religious value of, 14, 139 
 
 Christian faith not dependent 
 
 on, 15, 15 noteft 130 
 Mirror oj Perfection, 98 
 Moberly, 52, 53, 210 
 
 Mohler, 58 
 
 Molinos, Michael de, 114 
 Moody, Mr. D. L., 107, no 
 Moral theology, the Roman, 
 
 10, 1 1 8, 202-204 
 Mosheim, 37-38 
 Mozart, 168 
 Mysticism, 10, no, 129, cf. 112 
 
 Natural Selection, see Evolu- 
 tion 
 
 Nestorianism, 189 
 
 New Pilgrim's Progress, 187 
 
 Newman, 22, 90, 112 
 
 Newton, 148 
 
 theology has not yet found 
 its, 21 
 
 Nietzsche, 88, 144 
 
 Omar Khayyam, 6, 134 
 Optimism, 20, 48, 73, 155-158, 
 
 170-178, 185 
 Oxford 
 
 Bishop of, 188-189, x (i.e., 
 
 p. x of preface) 
 influence of Ritschl at, xiii 
 
 Paley, 12, 19, 80 
 Pantheism, 190 
 Pardon, conditions of, 209-211 
 Paul, St., Chaps. VII-X, etc. 
 Pearson, Professor K., 8 
 Pessimism, 170, cf. 166, also 48, 
 
 75 
 
 Peter the Hermit, 30 
 Pitt, deathbed of, no 
 Plato, 42, 93, 158-161, 190, 191 
 Pragmatism, 125, 126, 128 
 Prichard, Mr. H. A., 177 
 Probabilism, 203 
 Punishment, doctrine of eter- 
 nal, 132-134 
 
INDEX 
 
 219 
 
 Quietism, no, 114 note, 118 
 
 Rashdall, Dr., 154, 155, 178, 
 200, 206 
 
 Rationalism, various defini- 
 tions of, 211, cf. 80, 124, 
 141, see also 39 
 
 Rationalist Press Association, 
 the, 211 
 
 * Rationality of the world/ 
 senses of, 154, 155, 178 
 
 Reformers, the, 214 
 
 Renan, 76, 97 
 
 Rigorism, 118, 203 
 
 Ritschl, 17, 18, 19, 58, 121, 
 123-140, 141, 163, 178, 
 179, 184, 185, 1 88 
 not a Pragmatist, 125-128 
 not a Mystic, 128 
 
 Ritschlianism, its special 
 achievement, 130, cf. 
 138, xii 
 its limitations, 141, 184 
 
 Russell, Mr. Bertrand, 177 
 
 Sabellianism, shallowness of, 
 181 
 
 Sacraments, 201, cf. 71 note 
 
 Salvation, Christian concep- 
 tion of, 2, 58 
 
 Sanday, Dr., 195 
 
 Sankey, 104-106 
 
 Schiller, 30 
 
 Schoolmen, the, 214 
 
 Schopenhauer, 41, 170 
 
 Schweitzer, Dr., 67, 99 
 
 Sciences , Queen of the, 22, 23, 
 207 
 
 Self, the ' timeless/ 176, 177 
 
 Semple, 33-35 
 Shaftesbury, Lord, 37 
 Shakespeare, 38, 53, 97, 168 
 Shelley, 58, 186 
 Socrates, 86, 95, 98, 99 
 Spinoza, 190, 194 
 Stoicism, 45, 95 
 Stone, Mr. Darwell, 210 
 Streeter, Mr. B. H., 93, 197, 
 see Foundations 
 
 Tanquerey, 10, 45 
 Teleology, 148, 156 
 Theology, Church cannot dis- 
 pense with, 22, xiii 
 a ' free/ 179, 182 
 Toreador Song, the, 149, 151 
 Torrey, Dr., 105, 107 
 Tououpinamboes, the, 25 
 Travellers' Guide, the, 105, 106 
 Trinity, doctrine of the, 20, 
 
 Chap. XVII 
 Troubadours, the, 173 
 
 Value - judgments, 125 - 127, 
 
 131-134, 155, 157 
 ' Vital force/ 7 
 
 Wace, Dr., 195 
 
 Webb, Mr. Clement, 187, 212 
 
 Williams, Dr. Rowland, 142 
 
 Woodpecker, the green, 153 
 note 
 
 Wordsworth, 8 
 
 Works, doctrine of good, 44, 
 45 note, 49-5 1, 75, 105, 
 122 note, 201, 202 
 
 Wrath of God, 132, 134 
 
 Prfattd, tr ROBKBT SOOTT, Publisher, PATEHNOSTBR Bow, LONDON, try BXJTLZB & TABTTEB, FBOHE, 
 
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 writes well, and his book should be widely read." Guardian. 
 
 THE RULE OF LIFE AND LOVE By the Rev. R. L. OTTLEY, D.D. 
 
 " A book of great value to the parochial clergy. It is a manual of practical morality based on religion. 
 It is just what is needed as an aid to the ordinary preacher, who will find here an excellent stimulus and 
 an abundance of good material which he can shape for himself." Guardian. 
 
 THE RULE OF FAITH AND HOPE By the Rev. R. L. OTTLEY, D.D. 
 
 An Exposition of the Apostles' Creed 
 
 " It is a refreshing exposition of Christianity as the religion of the better hope, the religion of wonder, of 
 glory, of joy as not primarily a creed or a philosophy, but a life or a ' way.' " Commonwealth. 
 
 THE BUILDING-UP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 By the Rev. Canon R. B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A. 
 
 " At once the most comprehensive, the most candid, and the most Scriptural account of the Scriptum 
 and their inspiration which has been made by a modern scholar. It ought to be of immense assistance 
 to all who desire to obtain a firm footing amidst the confusions which recent criticism has produced." 
 
 The Record. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS 
 
 By the Rev. W. ST. CLAIR TI8DALL, D.D. 
 
 "A book on a subject of keen interest and great importance, and it may be relied on." Expository Ttmet. 
 " A wide survey of the religions of the world written by a real expert is most welcome. All Dr. Tisdall 
 has to say is put down with the sure touch of a real student and a great linguist." Church Times. 
 
 THE CHURCHES IN BRITAIN. Vols. I. and II. 
 
 By the Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, D.D. 
 
 " The work is full of suggestive passages, and is written in an admirably lucid style. . . . No better 
 account of the early history of the Church in Britain could be put into the hands of clergy and students." 
 
 Guardian. 
 
 MISSIONARY METHODS-ST. PAUL'S OR OURS? 
 
 By the Rev. ROLAND ALLEN, M.A., Author of Missionary Principles. 
 
 " A clear and able statement of the first principles of missionary work embodied in the New Testament ; an 
 equally clear and able indictment of the methods and principles of modern missions." Commonwealth. 
 " Mr. Allen's book is an important introduction to some problems of missionary statesmanship and 
 administration." The East and the Wett. 
 
 THE CKRISTOLOGY OF ST. PAUL. By the Rev. s. NOWELL ROSTRON, M.A. 
 
 "An original and in every way competent investigation into the Christology of St. Paul. . . . Mr. 
 Rostron has read up his subject thoroughly the literature of the Epistles and the Epistles themselves. 
 In this substantial book we find as easy an introduction to the Pauline doctrine of the Person of Christ as 
 we are likely to find anywhere." Expository Times. 
 
 THE CREEDS: Their History, Nature, and Use 
 
 By the Rev. HAROLD SMITH, M.A. 
 
 " The work is thorough all the way through, the language is simple and clear, and difficulties are always 
 fairly dealt with. For theological students, and for the clergy generally, the book provides an admirable 
 introduction to the Creeds, while teachers will find much that is helpful in it. ... Will speedily become 
 
 a recognised handbook. "^ 
 
 CHARACTER AND RELIGION. By the Rev. the Hon. A. LYTTELTON, M.A. 
 
 " A hook that ought to count. It is full of practical spiritual insight, and never swerves from its centre ; 
 while it contains thoughts of great wisdom and depth."AtAetusu*. 
 
 "A scholarly and valuable contribution towards a question about whicb, without a doubt, there Ita a 
 treat fight ahead." Tht Universe. 
 
 A UT OF AUTHORS WWTIMA FOR THE " UMARV Of HISTORIC THCOLMY." 
 TOMTffCR WITH THS TITUM OP WORKS IN MtftmMUTlOT, MIT POST HUM. 
 
 ROBERT SCOTT. ROXBITRGHE EOCSfi, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 
 

 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY