RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY BY HENRY CHURCHILL KING PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN OBERLIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY SECOND EDITION Pork: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO.. LTD. I9OI All rl[htt reiervcd COPYRIGHT, 1901 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped, January, 1901 Reprinted October, 1901 J. HORACE MCFARLAND COMPANY HARRISBURG PENNSYLVANIA LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CAJJF SANTA TMRHAtt; PREFACE A NEW constructive period in theology, it may well be believed, is at hand. This book has been written with the earnest de- sire and hope that it may contribute some- thing toward the forwarding of a movement already going on a really spiritual recon- struction of theology in terms that should bring it home to our own day. The book aims first, to show that such a reconstruc- tion is needed and demanded, because of the changed intellectual, moral, and spiritual world in which we live ; and then, to char- acterize briefly, but sufficiently, this new world of our day ; and finally, to indicate the influence which these convictions of our time ought to have upon theological con- ception and statement, especially in bring- ing us to a restatement of theology in terms of personal relation. The intention has been, not to make a (v) vi PREFACE large book, but rather a book as brief as was consistent with a clear and adequate treatment of the points discussed. Many points it has seemed possible to discuss quite briefly, because, although important, their bearing when once seen would hardly be disputed. Other questions could not be so treated. The influence of modern science upon theology, including the question of miracle and of the special bearing of evolu- tion, and the influence of the historical and literary criticism of the Bible have been most fully discussed. The latter question, involving that of the higher criticism of the Old Testament, is, at present, so difficult a one for the great body of the church, that it has seemed necessary to treat it with pe- culiar fulness, if the aim of the book was to be accomplished. For it has been a con- stant desire of the writer to help intelligent laymen, as well as theological students and ministers, to a more thorough and sympa- thetic understanding of the great convictions and scholarly movements of the day, that PREFACE VU they might themselves feel the need of the spiritual reconstruction of theology, which is quietly going on, and might value it at its true worth. It, at least, ought to be possible in America and Great Britain to avoid the great breach between the scholars of the church and its membership, such as con- fronts Germany to-day. The results for the- ology of the fullest facing of modern thought, in all its aspects, certainly do not seem to the writer to be revolutionary of anything that is vital to the highest Christianity, but rather to show a distinct trend toward a deeper appreciation of Christ's own point of view. That deeper appreciation, this book con- tends, will bring theology to cherish as its ideal a fully personal conception of religion, and a thorough and consistent statement of doctrine in terms of personal relation. If the book has any special suggestiveness for other workers in the field of theology, this, per- haps, lies chiefly in this contention and its grounds, and in some points in the discussion of miracle and of evolution. Vlll PREFACE Parts of this volume have been printed before, but nothing is here given that is not felt to have vital connection with the theme. The book is intended to be a unity. Thanks are due to The American Journal of Theology for kind permission to use the writer's article on "Reconstruction in The- ology" (April, 1899), most of which is re- tained in different portions of this book; to The Bibliotheca Sacra for two articles (July and October, 1900), substantially republished in the last two chapters; and to The Advance for the article on " The Spirit Needed in Theology To-day." HENRY CHURCHILL KING. OBERLIN COLLEGE, January, 1901. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PAGE THE SPIRIT NEEDED IN THEOLOGY TO-DAY i I. The Temporary Task of the Theologian r II. The Need of Knowledge of the Age 4 III. The Value of the Great Creeds 5 IV. Frank Recognition of Difficulties 7 V. Helps to Mutual Understanding 9 VI. How Truth Comes to Be 12 RECOGNITION OF THE NEED OF RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY CHAPTER I THE EVIDENCE OF THE FEELING OF THE NEED OF RECON- STRUCTION 15 I. The Evidence Itself 16 II. The Points of Criticism 20 CHAPTER II THE REASONS FOR THIS FEELING OF NEED OF RECONSTRUCTION . 23 I. Not a Rationalistic Spirit in the Church 23 II. Not the Reaction on the Church of an Anti-Relig- ious Age 24 III. But the Influence of the New Intellectual, Moral and Spiritual World 28 (ix) X CONTENTS THE NEW WORLD CHAPTER III PAGE THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF THE MODERN AGE 31 I. In Religion 32 II. In the State 33 III. In the Intellectual Sphere 34 1. In Philosophy 34 2. In Science 36 3. In Historical Criticism 38 CHAPTER IV THE CORRESPONDING MORAL AND SPIRITUAL CHANGES .... 42 I. The Moral and Spiritual Convictions of Our Time . . 42 II. The Inevitableness of their Influence 46 THE INFLUENCE OF THIS NEW WORLD ON THEOLOGY CHAPTER V SCIENTIFIC INFLUENCES 48 I. The Principle of Freedom of Investigation 48 II. The Relation of Theology to Natural Science .... 52 1. Science's Threefold Restriction of Itself 54 2. The Universality of Law 56 CHAPTER VI MIRACLES IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN SCIENCE 61 I. Mechanism Universal in Extent, but Subordinate in Significance 61 II. A Question of Fact 62 CONTENTS XJ PAGE III. A Miracle Not an Isolated Wonder 68 IV. God's Relation to Persons 71 V. God's Relation to Nature 73 VI. The Evidence of the Larger Dominant Spiritual Order . 77 CHAPTER VII THE SPECIAL BEARING OF EVOLUTION 81 I. The Need of Precision in our Thought of Evolution . 81 II. The General Gains of the Evolution Point of View . . 88 III. As to the Detailed Application of Evolution to Theology 91 IV. Conclusion upon Miracles and Evolution 96 CHAPTER VIII THE INFLUENCE OF THE HISTORICAL AND LITERARY CRITICISM OF THE BIBLE 109 I. As Concerns the New Testament 109 II. Definition of the Higher Criticism in III. The Inevitableness of the Historical and Literary Criticism of the Old Testament 114 IV. Dangers in the Transition to the New View of the Bible . 118 V. General Results of the Critical Study of the Old Testament 122 VI. Reasons for Confidence in the Final Outcome. The Abiding Significance of the Old Testament . . . 126 VII. Gains from the Historical and Literary Criticism of the Old Testament 141 1. General Gains, Chiefly Intellectual 142 2. Gains in View of the Fact that Christianity is Biblical 144 3. Gains in View of the Fact that Christianity is Historical 145 XII CONTENTS PAGE VIII. The Present Positive Results for Theology 149 1. As to the Purpose of the Bible 150 2. Fuller Recognition of Progress in Revelation . . . 151 3. Individual Reflections of a more or less Common Religious Experience 153 4. As to the Use of the Bible 154 5. A Restatement of the Doctrine of Inspiration. The Difference of Biblical from Post- Biblical Inspiration 155 CHAPTER IX THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE VALUE AND SACREDNESS OF THE PERSON 169 I. The Unity of the Ethical Life in Love 169 II. The Recognition of the Whole Man 171 III. The Exclusion of the Mechanical 173 IV. The Rejection of Sacramentalism 176 V. The Quickening of the Social Conscience 178 VI. The Increasing Emphasis on the Ethical 180 VII. The Practical Test of Doctrine 182 CHAPTER X THE INFLUENCE OF THE RECOGNITION OF CHRIST AS THE SUPREME PERSON OF HISTORY 185 I. Christ as the Supreme Revelation of God 187 II. God as Father the Ruling Conception in Theology . . 188 III. Emphasis on the Humanity of Christ 190 IV. The Question of a Social Trinity 191 V. The Practical Lordship of Christ 194 CONTENTS Xlll THE RESULTING RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY CHAPTER XI PAGE RELIGION AS A PERSONAL RELATION 199 I. Guarding the Conception 201 II. The Laws of the Christian Life, those of a Deepening Friendship 210 III. The Subordinate Analogy of Growing Appreciation of Any Sphere of Value 213 IV. The Basis of the Divine Friendship 216 V. The Conditions for Deepening the Friendship .... 222 CHAPTER XII THEOLOGY IN TERMS OF PERSONAL RELATION 227 I. Theology must be Stated in Personal Terms 228 1. Religion, a Personal Relation 231 2. The Philosophic Trend 231 3. We Know Personal Relations Best 233 4. The Present Strong Recognition of the Personal . 235 5. The Psychological Emphasis on the Entire Man . 236 6. The Problem of Life, the Fulfilment of Personal Relations 237 7. The New Testament Conception 239 II. The Principle Applied to the Conception of Christ . . 241 INDEX 251 RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY INTRODUCTION THE SPIRIT NEEDED IN THEOLOGY TO -DAT "TREATISES in systematic theology," says Principal Fairbairn, "are not so common as they once were, nor are they so easy to write or to read." But if the task of those working in theology to-day is unusually difficult, there is the more reason why they should be neither needlessly discouraged nor needlessly divided. It may not be useless, therefore, to recall certain more or less obvious considerations which, if kept in mind by religious leaders and writers as well as by the church, would greatly lighten the task of theological workers and insure a better understanding, a higher courage, and a larger progress. THE TEMPORARY TASK OF THE THEOLOGIAN In the first place, it would help much both the theologian and his critic if there were a A (0 2 RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY clear recognition of the temporary task of any given theologian or system. The days of great theological systems are doubtless past ; not because the great truths do not abide, but simply because the task is differently conceived. That has happened here which has happened in philosophy. No man who really understands himself aims to produce the final philosophy or the final theology. Workers in both these fields are coming gradually to see that they are related to one another somewhat as are workers in natural science. Theology must grow as science grows. The task is endless. Each worker may hope to contribute something to the developing system of theological truth, and he welcomes every contribution of another; but he does not hope to reach the final system. In one respect it is even less possible for the theologian than for the scientist to re- gard his work as final, for it belongs to the very nature of spiritual truth that each age must be its own interpreter in spiritual things. Each age has its own favorite analogies and modes of conception and of statement. Truths, therefore, that are to be vital to it require re-statement in these terms, and this THE SPIRIT NEEDED IN THEOLOGY TO-DAY 3 re-statement is not to be deplored, but re- joiced in as an unmistakable sign of interest and life. That a generation should be con- tent to say over again precisely as its prede- cessor any form of truth would mean that that truth was not a living one for them ; that they did not care to translate it into living thought and language. The task of the theologian, therefore, is, indeed, to make such contribution as he may to the growing theological truth, but chiefly, probably, to make real to his own generation the great abiding truths of Christianity. As Sabatier puts it: "To satisfy the expectation and the quest of spirits at the very moment living and troubled, to give them the means of justify- ing to themselves their faith and their hope behold the principal merit and supreme praise of every genuine theology." 1 In this case, the task of the theologian is plainly temporary. He knows that in the nature of the case his statement cannot re- main a final one, and, so far as he is to con- tribute to the growing theological truth, his task is limited. But if the task is more modest he can attack it with better understanding and more courage. 1 Quoted by Garvie, The Ritschlian Theology, p. 23. 4 RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY THE NEED OF KNOWLEDGE OF THE AGE But if it is the chief task of the theologian to make real to his own generation the abid- ing truths of Christianity, he must have as a prime equipment for his work a sympathetic knowledge of his age. It is not enough that he should know it he must know it sympa- thetically. It is a considerable part of the task of the following pages to help to just this needed sympathetic knowledge of our own age. Every teacher knows that there are two ways of answering the questions of a pupil ; one way is simply to attack the posi- tion of the pupil, to make points against it, to turn the position into ridicule. It is not difficult with superior knowledge to close his mouth. But all this may be done and his real difficulties remain quite unrelieved. He cannot repel your attack, but he is still inwardly not convinced. The other way is to take the point of view of the pupil, to feel his difficulty, to endeavor to meet just that difficulty as you would reason with your- self in that condition, or better still, as you did reason with yourself when you were in his state of mind. It is worse than useless simply to bombard our age. No man can THE SPIRIT NEEDED IN THEOLOGY TO-DAY 5 greatly help it who is not willing to take the time and pains to feel its difficulties sym- pathetically to understand it. When the task of theology is so conceived, each worker is more able to find in every other, not a system that excludes his own, but suggestions that may help him to make his own presentation more perfectly adapted, and therefore more convincing, to the thought of the age. The great aims are here the same. The laborers ought to be able more truly to supplement one another. THE VALUE OF THE GREAT CREEDS In this desire to meet sympathetically one's own age, however, it is possible to react unduly and mistakenly against the older state- ments of the church. To make real to his own age the great truths of Christianity requires that the theologian should have the broadest conception of what those truths are. Not less earnestly, therefore, than he studies his age, will he study the ages, and value the great creeds of the church. He seeks thus, for the sake of his age, to correct the inevi- table limitations both of the individual and of the age. He seeks to enlarge his own 6 RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY view by sharing the views of the great minds of the Christian centuries. He is certain that back of every statement for which the church at any time has contended strenuously even those which seem to him most perverse in their putting lies some real truth of Chris- tian life and experience. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. And it is the business of the theologian here to discern the treasure, to preserve it in his own state- ment, to reveal it, and to hand it on. Even if he could reach independently a better state- ment, this in itself would not be enough. It is a distinct loss in the work of the theologian himself that he should be so out of sympa- thy with the church of the past, as to lose the sense of the continuity and community of the Christian generations. And, moreover, the new sense of reality of the Christian truths which he would bring to his generation loses much of its persuasiveness and convincing power, if it seems to be only his discovery, and to be out of harmony with the trend of the Christian thought of the past. It is easy here to make one's protest against the old creeds so strong as seriously to weaken the hold of all Christian truth. An isolated Christian confession is a self-contradiction. THE SPIRIT NEEDED IN THEOLOGY TO-DAY 7 4 FRANK RECOGNITION OF DIFFICULTIES It would greatly help to a genuine prog- ress in theology, moreover, if there were on all sides a franker recognition of difficulties. Socrates thought that his superior wisdom consisted in a knowledge of his ignorance. The professor of theology is not a professor of omniscience. He does not expect to pack away in any single neat formula the complexity of life and its constant paradoxes. The psychological and ethical problems are less simple for him than they were for his predecessor. We have less knowledge than we thought concerning many of the refine- ments of theological speculation. We need less than we thought. A Christian revela- tion, we should not forget, does not aim to satisfy our curiosity on all possible points. There are many questions of interest and importance to which Christ makes no answer. We reach an answer, that we believe Chris- tian, to these questions only by somewhat uncertain inference. Yet we are bound to work out, for our own mental peace, "a Christian view of God and the world;" but in this necessary task it were well that we should be careful both not to be wise above 8 that which is written, and to make a sharp separation between our own added specula- tions and the direct teachings of Christ. And the differences in the added specula- tions should not be magnified into funda- mental differences. These difficulties exist for all, of all schools. We cannot evade them, we cannot wholly solve them and we may well welcome all earnest Christian attempts at solution. In particular it is well to recognize the existence of the paradoxes in the great church creeds. As in the perennial problem of divine sovereignty and human freedom, the creed is often content with simply affirming both sides of a great truth, without showing how the two can be brought together. The presence of these paradoxes in the creeds is quite justified, for our well-founded convic- tions must often outrun our power of com- plete intellectual expression of them. We are more than intellect. But the theologian nevertheless cannot be content to leave them simply as paradoxes. He must do his best to think the relation out, to bring the two into a real unity, and in this difficult task, he may well welcome assistance. Here is room again for intelligent, cooperative labor. THE SPIRIT NEEDED IN THEOLOGY TO -DAY Q HELPS TO MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING In a cooperative working out of these paradoxes and difficulties, in preserving and revealing the treasures of the past, and in meeting our own age with the best-adapted statement of Christian truth, much depends upon religious leaders and thinkers under- standing one another. In the nature of the case this clear understanding is much more difficult in theology than in natural science. It is the more necessary for fruitful coop- eration, therefore, that all avoidable sources of misunderstanding be eliminated. A few suggestions, only, are possible here. In the first place, it would help to patience and mutual understanding, if it could be rec- ognized that differences in statement often point only to differences in temperament. The seeming conservative, for example, who chooses the old form of statement, may nevertheless really have thought its whole meaning and be able to translate it into the thought of his time. The seeming radical, who prefers the fresh statement and never uses the old form, may nevertheless keep the old meaning. The theoretical temperament cares chiefly in his theological thinking for a IO RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY consistent, all-inclusive, intellectual formula- tion, and is ready to believe the whole struc- ture endangered by the loss of its least part ; yet practically he may recognize the great differences. The practical temperament in his theologizing thinks mainly of the bear- ing of the truth on life, and is not always careful as to complete theoretical consist- ency; but his real beliefs may still be much sounder than they logically ought to be. There is also special need in theological discussion of the recognition of the limita- tions of language. One is suddenly surprised to find that language that seems perfectly clear to him, as he uses it, and is well under- stood by those moving in his circle of ideas, is nevertheless capable of an honest but much different interpretation on the part of a critic. The history of theology is full of these misin- terpretations. To take a single illustration: much (not all) of the recent criticism in both England and America of the Ritschlian school gets its point from misinterpretation. This danger of misinterpretation is much increased from the psychological tendency of us all to what Professor James calls *old- fogyism" "Every new experience must be disposed of under some old head. Hardly THE SPIRIT NEEDED IN THEOLOGY TO-DAY II any of us can make new heads easily when fresh experiences come." It is consequently easier to place an old label on any new con- ception in theology than it is really to put one's self at the new point of view and think the new conception through. It is so much easier, for example, to dub a thoughtful but unfamiliar statement of some doctrine Unitarianism than it is to take the trouble to see what the statement really means. There would be not only less hasty misjudgment, but also more valuable assistance, if we were really at pains to understand one another, and so to enrich our stock of conceptions. It would help to mutual understanding and intelligent cooperation, moreover, if we could hold to two further sharp distinctions. First, we would do well to distinguish be- tween a denial of a doctrine now stated in an analogy, and an earnest, though perhaps inadequate, attempt to master the analogy and to state, as exactly as language will allow, its real meaning. And it would prove a real safeguard to genuine Christian thinking to- day if we made a sharper distinction, also, between speculative thinkers who are quite willing to keep the old theological phrases, but mean something very different by them 12 RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY from what the Christian view can allow (as is true, for example, of several Neo-Hegelian writers), and those truly Christian thinkers who honestly reject old forms of statement because they believe them inadequate to express the truth they were meant to contain. There is a singular and widespread disposi- tion to-day to treat the former as orthodox and the latter as heterodox. HOW TRUTH COMES TO BE Finally, as to the real and vital differences between Christian thinkers, which still remain after the completest mutual understanding, it would be a help to every worker in the- ology if it were more widely recognized how truth comes to be. In our modern vision of the many-sidedness of truth and of the neces- sary partialness of one's own view, there is danger of "over-sophistication," that we shall lose all real convictions and paralyze every earnest striving for the truth. One of the greatest dangers of the educated man is to be found in his ability to defend more or less successfully any position. He finds it easy, therefore, as Fichte puts it, to "go on subtilizing until he loses all power of recog- THE SPIRIT NEEDED IN THEOLOGY TO-DAY 1 3 nizing truth," and readily persuades himself either that what he wants is true, or that all convictions are about equally justified. Yet indifferentism is neither breadth nor true tolerance, but the death of all advance in the truth ; and the man who is able to see a matter from many points of view, while he resists any return to a spirit of intoler- ance, must, then, still urge with himself that truth comes, not through the silence of all, but by each declaring honestly and earnestly his best. In no other way can progress in the truth be brought about. It is, therefore, a direct interest of the church to encourage, not to deprecate, honest thoughtful expres- sion by its thinkers, though not forthwith to adopt every latest statement. Only out of the conflict of earnest and honest thinking can the highest Christian truth emerge. Each thinker, therefore, recognizes that his own view must be partial, but he puts it forth with all energy and earnestness, for it is the truth for which it is given him to stand. He expects its partialness to be corrected by conflict with the thought of other equally earnest and honest thinkers. It is exactly this untrammeled field for the strenuous struggle for existence that truth covets. 14 RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY Truth has nothing to fear and everything to hope from such a struggle. This means that even in the field of their manifest dif- ferences, the aim of all honest thinkers is still the same: not their truth, but truth the resulting truth. With this consciousness, it ought not to be difficult to keep an open mind toward all fellow-workers. RECOGNITION OF THE NEED OF RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY CHAPTER I RECONSTRUCTION in any living thing is constant, but it may still have its marked stages. To affirm, therefore, that there is need of reconstruction in theology is not at all to overlook the fact that such recon- struction has been constantly going on, that there have been many formulations by indi- vidual men more or less satisfactory: but it is simply to say that there is much to indicate that we have reached a point where our great inherited historical statements are quite generally felt to be inadequate, and where conditions, long at work, are so culminating and combining as to give promise of a somewhat marked stage in the development of theology. Nor does the recognition of the need of (15) l6 RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY reconstruction in Christian theology reflect a feeling of dissatisfaction with the Christian religion. On the contrary, the need of recon- struction is perhaps felt most strongly by those who have themselves gained a new sense of the absoluteness of the Christian religion, and call the old theological state- ments in question, because these statements make this absoluteness so little manifest. Obviously here the dissatisfaction is not with the Christian religion, but with our intellectual expression of its meaning. And it ought not to surprise or trouble us that this intellectual expression must change from time to time with other intellectual changes. I. THE EVIDENCE ITSELF There is abundant evidence that the need of reconstruction in theology is widely recog- nized. In his recent History of Christian Doctrine, speaking simply as a historian, Pro- fessor Fisher says: 1 "It is plain to keen ob- servers that, in the later days, both within and without what may be called the pale of Calvinism, there is a certain relaxing of con- fidence in the previously accepted solutions 'Page 551. THE EVIDENCE OF THE NEED 17 of some of the gravest theological problems. This appears among many whose attachment to the core of the essential truths formulated in the past does not wane, whose substantial orthodoxy, as well as piety, is not often, if it be at all, questioned, and who have no sympathy with agnosticism, in the technical sense of the word." In illustration of this statement, Professor Fisher quotes from two late revered relig- ious leaders in England, Dean Church and Dr. R. W. Dale. Dr. Dale's statement is explicit. The method of the Reformers, he says, "was still powerfully influenced by the decaying scholasticism. There were other causes which gave to their work a provisional character. Indeed all work of this kind is necessarily but for a time ; it has to be done over again whenever any great changes have taken place in the intellectual condition of Christendom. Such changes have plainly been going on very rapidly during the last three hundred years. ... If the intel- lectual revolution is approaching its term, the process of reconstructing our theological systems will soon have to be gone through again." To the same import, Beyschlag, the New 1 8 RECONSTRUCTION IN THEOLOGY Testament theologian, speaks of "our tradi- tional church and doctrinal systems, concern- ing the insufficiency of which our age, with all its other differences, is pretty unani- mous;" and adds, "my conviction is that a renovated expression of our church doctrine is one of the most urgent duties of the time." 1 Systematic theologians themselves are cer- tainly not blind to this trend of the times. Dr. D. W. Simon intends to give the testi- mony of a conservative when he says: "We do not deny, nay, we are quite aware all theologians worthy of the name are aware that the efforts hitherto put forth to build up such a science of systematic theology or, as it might be termed, of Christianity or of the Christian religion, have been only very partially successful." 2 From a somewhat dif- ferent point of view, Fairbairn appeals to the common consciousness of theologians on this point: "We all feel the distance placed by fifty years of the most radical and penetrat- ing critical discussions between us and the older theology, and as the distance widens the theology that then reigned grows less l Ne