Foo = leet be {ieeestpes! Pekar as} SHARING IN CREATION THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS ATLANTA + SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limrrep LONDON + BOMBAY + CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltp. TORONTO SHARING IN CREA IN CAL AAD STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE WORLD “Tf Christianity needs to make itself at home, as is often said in the modern world, the modern world needs even more desperately to make itself at home in Christianity.” THE Monin LECTURES, 1925 BY W. COSBY BELL, D.D. PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, VIRGINIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1925 All rights reserved Coprriaut, 1925, Bry THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1925. Printed in the United States of America by THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY, NEW YORK. To MY WIFE ANNA LEE BELL Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/sharingincreatio0Obell FOREWORD THE JOHN BOHLEN LECTURESHIP John Bohlen, who died in Philadelphia on the twenty-sixth day of April, 1874, bequeathed to trus- tees a fund of one hundred thousand dollars, to be distributed to religious and charitable objects in ac- cordance with the well-known wishes of the testator. By a deed of trust, executed June 2, 1875, the trustees under the will of Mr. Bohlen transferred and paid over to ““The Rector, Church Wardens, and Vestrymen of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia,’”’ in trust, a sum of money for certain designated purposes, out of which fund the sum of ten thousand dollars was set apart for the endow- ment of The John Bohlen Lectureship, upon the following terms and conditions: The money shall be invested in good sub- stantial and safe securities, and held in trust for a fund to be called The John Bohlen Lec- tureship, and the income shall be applied an- nually to the payment of a qualified person, whether clergyman or layman, for the delivery and publication of at least one hundred copies of two or more lecture sermons. These Lec- tures shall be delivered at such time and place, in the city of Philadelphia, as the persons nomi- nated to appoint the lecturer shall from time 7 8 FOREWORD to time determine, giving at least six months’ notice to the person appointed to deliver the same, when the same may conveniently be done, and in no case selecting the same person as lecturer a second time within a period of five years. The payment shall be made to said lecturer, after the lectures have been printed and received by the trustees, of all the income for the year derived from said fund, after defray- ing the expense of printing the lectures and the other incidental expenses attending the same. The subject of such lectures shall be such as is within the terms set forth in the will of the Rev. John Bampton, for the delivery of what are known as the “Bampton Lectures,’ at Oxford, or any other subject distinctly connec- ted with or relating to the Christian Religion. The lecturer shall be appointed annually in the month of May, or as soon thereafter as can conveniently be done, by the persons who for the time being shall hold the offices of Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese in which is the Church of the Holy Trinity, the Rector of said Church, the Pro- fessor of Biblical Learning, the Professor of Systematic Divinity, and the Professor of Ecclesiastical History, in the Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. In case either of said offices are vacant, the others may nominate the lecturer. Under this trust the Rev. W. Cosby Bell, D.D., was appointed to deliver the lectures for the year 1925. PREFACE I have read somewhere a piece of advice to theologians to the effect that they are more fruit- fully occupied when dealing with problems within the world than when they essay to deal with the problem of the world. And, indeed, the mind works more easily and with less sense of strain at problems of practice than at the problem of meanings. But if the above advice is disregarded in these lectures, it is because of the conviction that what one shall think of the details of life and how one shall act in its particular situations depends very largely upon one’s view of the world as a whole. It is not the theologian or the philosopher, but Life itself that raises the problem of the meaning of life; it is always coming to us with the question that Jesus put to his disciples, ‘‘Whom say ye that I am?’’; and, in words or in deeds, we can not avoid giving an answer. And any attempt to find the right answer in words should be only a step towards finding the right answer in deeds. These lectures represent an effort to suggest some of the outlines of such a basic philosophy of life. , They make no special claim to originality; there is nothing in them of importance which has not been said or suggested elsewhere on an ampler scale. Nor do they represent any effort at complete- 9 10 PREFACE ness; there are many important questions visibly left to one side. Rather are they an attempt to sug- gest in the briefest and simplest fashion possible some of the main features of a view of the world that results when one attempts to bring contemporary knowledge and thought into relation with the Christian religion. And they are written in the conviction that in such commerce and interchange between what we have always known and what we have more recently learned lies the only hope of any fuller understanding of either. If Christianity needs to make itself at home, as is so often said, in the modern world, the modern world needs even more desperately to make itself at home in Christianity. Religion can get along after a fashion without a great deal of knowledge and still breed faithful and useful living in the world; but knowledge, grown irreligious and undutiful, might well become an agent of de- struction. Knowledge is power, but power is an indeterminate thing until it is settled to what ends it shall be used. And knowledge that has not learned to serve the highest ends of the world raay be no blessing but only a scourge. The lectures record the further conviction ‘Gat any better religious understanding of the world must be sought along lines openly and confessedly Chris- tian. Many of the questions dealt with are such as would have come under the old heading of “‘Natural Theology,’ understood as the effort to construct a philosophy of the world without the aid of “Revela- tion.’ But surely all that is “natural” is also revealed and all that is ‘“‘revealed” is but the very climax and culmination of the natural. And while PREFACE 11 the attempt can be made—no doubt usefully—to interpret the world as far as may be without bringing into play the characteristic Christian data, such a proceeding can not but be, for the Christian teacher and student, a highly artificial one. To discuss the purpose of the world without using the meanings that have come to us through the Incarnation, to discuss the problem of suffering without using the light that falls upon it from the cross—that is as if one sought to open the door without using the key. It might even be urged with some force, that “Natural Theology” has been an anachronism for nineteen hundred years. If Jesus Christ be what Christians think him, the Lord of all, he is also the key to all. And it can not be required of the Christian that he should try to make sense of his world without taking advantage c: what is, for him, its central Fact. Finally, it is suggested throughout the lectures that no problem of life is at present completely soluble on the level of thought alone. And this because life is actually incomplete and the world unfinished. ‘Therefore, for most of our problems, the full solutions remain yet to be worked out, and every question of theory brings us sooner or later face to face with a question of practice. In all reflection a point is always reached where, before further progress can be made, something must be done. Christianity is, indeed, neither a philosophy nor a life, but both, and both at the same time. At its center there stands not just a great idea, but a great Personality who embodies both thought and action—who is Way and Truth and Life. 12 PREFACE That Personality seeks to breed in his followers, neither a system of thought alone nor yet just a program of action, but a spirit of enterprise in which thought and action shall co-operate in the task of making the Kingdom of God. And the line of advance towards a better religious under- standing of the world lies along the line of fuller exploration of the possibilities of discipleship to Jesus. The thanks of the writer are rendered to the Trustees of The John Bohlen Lectureship whose action made the delivery of these lectures possible. They are printed as, with some necessary contrac- tions, they were delivered. Grateful acknowledg- ment is also made to the Rt. Rev. H. St. George Tucker for a careful reading of the entire manuscript and for various criticisms and suggestions made by him. Portions of it have also been kindly read by Dean Berryman Green and Prof. W. E. Rollins. My wife, Anne Lee Bell, in the course of criticizing, appreciating, typing and revising the lectures has acquired a familiarity with them not likely to be duplicated. W. COSBY BELL. Virginia Theological Seminary, © March, 1925. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH Introduction: (1) Increased knowledge of details adds to the difficulty of a study of the idea of creation; (2) but such an inquiry can not be shirked, for fundamental questions are the important ones. Moreover (3) it is our,own world that we have to understand and (4) real, if incomplete, knowledge of it is possible. I. Tue Inka or CREATION AS A RELIGIOUS TRADITION ih 2. Il. Toe REASONABLENESS OF F'arTH IN Gop AS CREATOR..... 1 In non-Christian religions—Dualism of early thought. In the religion of Israel and in Christianity: (a) References. (b) Problems raised by evolution. (c) The interpretation of Genesis chh. i-iil. , Faith in God (a) grows up out of the many-sided life-process; (b) in its Christian form, is the gift of Jesus; and (c) depends for its continuance upon the continuing experience of life with God. (d) That it should become reflective means attempts at a philosophy of faith. . Beliefs and their verification. (a) Our knowledge real but incomplete. (b) Hence initial beliefs take the form of postulates. (c) The nature of the postulation process. (d) Postulates may be in- creasingly verified as they are found (1) to interpret experience and (2) to meet the needs of life. (e) Such a process of successful verification issues in rational knowledge. 13 PAGE 21 14 CONTENTS 3. Faith in God is found rational in proportion as the idea of God approves itself a principle of Light and of Life. 4, The uses and limitations of philosophy. Ill. A JUSTIFICATION OF THE INITIAL VENTURE........... 1. A fully reasoned faith in God has to be won. 2. The initial venture, in the case of the young, commonly made on the basis of authority. 3. The study of the history of religion reveals a wider authority—the authority of Man. CHAPTER II THE METHOD OF CREATION Evolution means more exact knowledge of creation.......+..06. I. CHrisTIAN THEISM AND EXVOLUTION..........2++-+00. Three main causes of difficulty: 1. Failure to distinguish between the form and the substance of belief. But Christian faith is faith in God, not in any particular kind of process. 2. A deistic view of God’s relation with the world. But God as Holy Spirit is immanent in the natural process. 3. Confusion of the scientific theory of evolution with interpretations of it made by Naturalistic philosophy. But other—and better—interpreta- tions are possible. Evolution may be understood as the creative method of God. Il. Man’s. PLACE. Ins NATURD S $s Se a ee eee 1. The Christian view of man’s value reflected in the older science. 2. But called in question by modern astronomy and the theory of evolution. 3. Man and astronomy. (a) Twoscalesof measure- ment—quantitative and qualitative. (b) The spiritual valuation of man, (c) in a spiritual universe. 4, Man and evolution. (a) Two features of the evolutionary process—continuity and difference. PAGE CONTENTS (b) Man’s continuity with all below him. (ce) And difference. (1) Evolution is the working out of the specific possibilities of life, (2) and man is the climax of earthly evolution, physically and spir- itually. (c) Hence man fulfills the past history of the earth and seems to hold the keys of the future. 5. The evolutionary process read (a) backward and (b) forward. Man interprets Nature. 6. Man dignified by his history. 7. The moral meaning of his supremacy. TL LDBA' OF CRBATIONS es ee en Ua Pe 1. Creation a continuous process. 2. Two types of representation, (a) Emanation, (b) Creation. 3. A possible synthesis. IV. CrEeaATIon A Co-OPERATIVE ENTERPRISD......... 1. Relative independence and power of initiative in (a) Animals and (b) Man. 2. Man’s relation with God that of dependent- independence. 3. In man, life becomes raw material for art. 4, And God works increasingly with spiritual tools. 5. Creation becomes a task shared by God with man, 6. The question whether this constitutes a limitation of God. CHAPTER III THE PURPOSE OF CREATION The question raised whether the world has a central Purpose Berar PURPOSEFUL WORLD el yee oe bed aants 1. A purposeful system defined. 2. Picturization of the world-process. 3. Two features of the process: (a) progress, (b) correlated progress. 4, The process seems to be purposeful. 15 PAGE 16 Cn Il. Tue 1. 2. 3. IV. MAN AND NaTuRE 1. CONTENTS . But purpose is to be discovered as a spiritual quality of the whole, not as one physical factor among others. PURPOSH OF THE WORLD. i...2.