This volume is an estimate of, and a reply to, ~ Rev. R. J.
Campbell's New Theology from the standpoint of
liberal, but decided, Evangelicalism. Few scholars are
more competent to write such a reply than Mr. Walker,
as for many years he has made a careful study of the
subjects Mr. Campbell writes upon, and he has no
difficulty in dealing convincingly with them.
 PUBLISHERS' NOTE.

WHAT ABOUT
THE NEW THEOLOGY?

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE SPIRIT AND THE INCARNATION.
In the Light of Scripture, Science, and Practical Need.
Second Edition, Revised and Re-set. 8vo, 9s.
In a leading article, headed "A GREAT BOOK," in the British
Weekly, Prof. Marcus Dods writes : " It may be questioned whether
in recent years there has appeared, at home or abroad, any theological
work more deserving of careful study. He who intelligently reads it
once will inevitably read it again and again."
THE CROSS AND THE KINGDOM,
As Viewed by Christ Himself and in the Light of
Evolution. 8vo, 9s.
" We desire to speak with admiration of the good work done in this
book. It is worthy to stand beside his former treatise. Taking both
together, they form a magnificent contribution to the theological
literature of the age." — Principal Ivekach in the Expository Times,
CHRISTIAN THEISM AND A SPIRITUAL
MONISM.
God, Freedom, and Immortality, in View of Monistic
Evolution. 8vo, 9s.
" A valuable contribution to Christian thought and a real help to
Christian faith, and in all respects a work worthy of the author's
already high reputation among theological writers." — Examiner.

Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street.

WHAT ABOUT
THE NEW THEOLOGY?

W. L. WALKER

AUTHOR OF
'THE SPIRIT AND THE incarnation" "THE CROSS AND THE KINGDOM
"christian theism and a spiritual monism" etc.

Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street
1907

Printed by
Morrison & Gibb Limited
for
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH
LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED
NEW YORK I CHARLES SCRIBNER's SONS

PREFACE
Perhaps no apology is needed for this book.
I was asked to write it, but I was ready to
do so, although it is not pleasant to have to
controvert the views of a brother for whom I
have the high regard that I entertain for Mr.
Campbell. I am far from being unsympathetic
with the attempt he has made to give us a New
Theology, and we must not be too hard on
him even if we think he has erred greatly
with respect to some most important matters.
Urged by similar motives, the present writer
some twenty years ago went even further than
Mr. Campbell in some directions, although not
so far in others. But he became able in time
to work his way back to the evangelical faith
without any sacrifice of truth or consistency.
Ministers and others are often suspected of
just saying what they are obliged or expected
to say, owing to their position. Let me mention,^
therefore, that, while glad to be recognised as a
Congregational Minister, I have always sought
to follow and speak that which I believed to be

PREFACE

the truth, sometimes at considerable cost to
myself. I have no creed to uphold, no church
to please, no position to maintain, — nothing to
do but to express the convictions which have
been formed during many years of constant
thought given to these problems, and of some
experience of the practical working of more than
one form of religious belief.
I have sought to be just as plain and out
spoken as Mr. Campbell is, but I hope that not
a single unkind or unchristian word has been
written. I know that there are other repre
sentatives of " the New Theology " who speak
for themselves, but, as it has been impossible to
notice all shades of opinion, I have confined
myself to Mr. Campbell's statements. My
endeavour has been to be positive as well as
critical, and I have concluded with a brief
statement of what I think we can intelligently
believe to-day. W. L. W.
" Fernihirst," Shettleston,
Glasgow, May 1907.

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Do we need a New Theology? . . 9
II. Does the New Theology Meet our
Need? 17
III. The Conception of God. . 25
IV. The Oneness of Man with God 35
V. Jesus the Divine Man . . 43
VI. The "Eternal Christ" . . 55
VII. The Incarnation of the Son of God . 63
VIII. Divine Immanence and Transcendence . 79
IX. Immanence and Transcendence in the New
Theology . 99
X. Evil and Sin hi
XI. The Cross of Christ in the New Theo
logy . . . 125"^
XII. The Cross as Jesus viewed it 137 f
XIII. Salvation from Selfishness 153 j
XIV. "Last Things"; the Kingdom and the
Church ; Authority in Religion . . 165
XV. A Positive Faith 181
Index . 201

CHAPTER I
DO WE NEED A NEW THEOLOGY?

CHAPTER I
DO WE NEED A NEW THEOLOGY?
There is certainly a very widespread feeling
that a New Theology is needed. Perhaps,
however, what is really required is rather a
re-statement of the Old Theology. Theology
is a formulated statement of our beliefs con
cerning God in His relation to the world and
ourselves. In order to be true, it must rest
upon facts. We only know God as He
manifests Himself. The Old Theology is
based on what are believed to be the facts of
the Divine manifestation in the world and in
Jesus Christ. If anything has occurred to
warrant disbelief in these facts, or if some
wholly new aspects of the Divine manifestation
have come to light, we should need a New
Theology — just as when the old Ptolemaic
conception of the universe was proved to be
false, a new Science of Nature was necessary.
But here be it said that Christianity does
not depend on Theology. Christianity assumes

12 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
a Divine Source of our being and a Divine ideal
for it, a life which we may know ourselves
meant to realise, and which we yet fail to rise
to. The consequence of our failure is inward
discord, and disharmony with the whole and
with the Divine source of our life. When fully
awake to it, the sense of discord and disharmony
may become very painful. Christianity comes
as the means of raising us into our true life, of
removing the discord between our souls and
God and the whole. Men found in experience
that it actually did this. Hence it is known as
i'the religion of Redemption," or of Salvation.
It is the experience of salvation through Jesus
Christ that is the foundation of Christianity as
an accepted religion. Its apostles went forth
preaching salvation to men in the name of Jesus
Christ. Men, accepting the faith, experienced
salvation. Theology arises out of the facts
involved in this experience. Apart from bring
ing to men the experience of salvation (first to
the individual, and then, through individuals, to
the world at large in every aspect of its life),
Christianity is of no practical value, and we
need not concern ourselves with its Theology.
Of course, it is always interesting to speculate
concerning the source of our being, the meaning
of life, and our ultimate Destiny : the human
mind can never cease to do so. But Christianity

DO WE NEED A NEW THEOLOGY? 13
brings the answer to these questions in a
practical way — a way that attests itself by
its ability to meet our actual needs, to give us
that inner rest and fuller life we crave for, and
deliverance from the sin and selfishness that
curse the world.
Have any of the basal facts of the Old
Theology been shown to be false ? Not that
we are aware of. What has happened is that
the mode of viewing some of these facts has
become changed for many of us. While the "
idea of God remains unchanged we have been I
led to certain new conceptions of His relation I
to the world and of His mode of working therein.
Certain beliefs associated with the great central
facts of Christianity can no longer be held in
the same form. Some things that were deemed
certain are now felt to be open to question.
We feel that there is need to distinguish
between the things that we know, and those ,
concerning which we cannot be absolutely^
certain. During the nineteenth century science itself
was compelled to drop certain beliefs concerning
the world which were universally held in the
days of Copernicus and Newton. The doctrine
of evolution has changed our whole outlook on
the universe. But it has not been necessary to
formulate an entirely new science; only to

14 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
modify the old so as to take up into it the
new conception. No more does the doctrine
of evolution, with the widened view of the
universe, and of the unceasing process of
development which it brings us, necessitate a
New Theology. The Old Theology can be so
modified as to take up into it the new conception
without affecting any of its central or basal facts.
Again, the criticism that was first applied to
ancient history has in the last century been
increasingly applied to the Scriptures, and as a
result we are compelled to regard the Bible in
a new light. We can no longer go straightway
to anything that happens to be within the
boards of the book, and quote it authoritatively
as "the word of God." We know that, not
only has the Bible had a history, but that all
that is in it has necessarily come through man,
and has therefore a human side, which may be
found to be in some respects mistaken. But the
word of God was never, and never could be,
anything else than the word of Truth ; and to be
thrown back on the question, not merely of
what is written but of what is true, ought to be
no loss to any man. Moreover, doubt has not
been cast on any one of these great facts of
Scripture which are the foundation-stones of
the Old Theology.
Once more, the growth of knowledge and

DO WE NEED A NEW THEOLOGY? 15
of more humane sentiments (which are surely
the more God-like) has rendered incredible cer
tain beliefs for long associated with the Old
Theology : such as the creation of man solely
for "God's glory," the arbitrary selection of
some to eternal life and the reprobation of
others to eternal damnation, the doom of
eternal damnation itself as one of hopeless
irremediable torment after all the sufferings of
the earthly life, the resurrection of the very
flesh that filled the grave, the literal coming
of Christ on the clouds of heaven, the scenic
representation of the last judgment. Such
beliefs have become simply impossible for
many, in the old form at least, even though
they should be formally professed.
The same increase of knowledge and growth
of human sentiment have made it impossible to
rest satisfied with any Theology which seems to
represent God as essentially at variance with
His human children, as regarding them in
wrath merely, watching to mark their sins,
and waiting to condemn them. Nor can we
be content with a religion which thinks of the
other world merely, or even chiefly, and leaves
the conditions of human life in this present world
untouched. We cannot believe that justice
and social equity are to be wholly relegated to
a world to come, or that theonly salvation that

1 6 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
men need is one from what threatens them
beyond the grave. There is a new sense of
the solidarity of mankind (of all life, indeed),
and of equality of man as man, which we
cannot but regard as Divinely inspired.
But nothing in all this is contrary to, or in
any way affects, the basal facts of the Old
Theology. What these are will come out in
the course of our discussion better, perhaps,
than in any formal statement of them. They
rest on facts of Divine manifestation and of
human experience, and we repeat that we
know of nothing that has touched them in the
least degree.
At the same time, we not only grant, but
urge, that we need such a re-statement of
Christian Theology as shall make it more intel
ligible, as shall commend it to the reason and
consciences of men to-day, as shall direct it
to its proper ends with respect to both the
individual and society. In our criticism of
the New Theology this need will be kept
constantly in view, and we shall conclude by an
attempt to give a brief statement of what can
be accepted to-day as a positive faith.

CHAPTER II
DOES THE NEW THEOLOGY
MEET THE NEED?

CHAPTER II
DOES THE NEW THEOLOGY MEET THE
NEED?
With the best of motives, the minister of the
City Temple has come forward with such a
Theology as he believes is adapted to meet the
present need. However much we may differ
from him, we cannot but admire his courage
and ability. His action has created a much
needed interest in matters of religion, the out
come of which is bound to be good. We are
not to turn away from it, even if it be new.
Christianity itself was once very new, greatly
opposed and looked down upon by the ecclesi
astical authorities of the day. The sole question
ought to be, Is it true} The apostle bids us
"despise not prophesyings," lest we quench the
Holy Spirit of Truth, but "prove all things,
hold fast that which is good, and reject all that
appears to be evil." It is in this spirit that
we desire to consider this " New Theology."
In his opening chapter Mr. Campbell says
19

20 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
much that is true. But we cannot help believ
ing that he caricatures the preaching that is
heard in our churches, taken as a whole. The
present writer holds no brief for the churches,
and there is much in our ecclesiastical systems
that is far from the Christian ideal, but surely
the preaching of to-day, as a whole, is at least
intended to touch human life. There may be
many indifferent persons attending our churches
as a mere matter of form — the more shame
to them — but whatever may be true of "the
average man," it is surely not true that the
average church-goer looks upon " the proposi
tions he has been taught to regard as a full and
perfect statement of Christianity," as having
"little or nothing to do with his everyday ex
perience " ; certainly it is not true as regards
many who belong to our churches.
But one cannot fail to sympathise with Mr.
Campbell's aim to "give a re-statement of the
essential truth of the Christian religion in terms
of the modern mind," to provide "a driving
force which will enable the churches to fulfil
their true mission of saving the world ; or, to
put it -better still — to bring mankind back to
real living faith in God and the spiritual mean
ing of life"; or, as elsewhere, "to bring in the
\ Kingdom of God." This is just what is wanted.
; But is the New Theology fitted to do this

DOES NEW THEOLOGY MEET THE NEED? 21
much needed work? One thing must bej
acknowledged at the outset, — Mr. Campbell
sees what is wanted to make religion more
effective in its social bearing, and has made a
brave endeavour to get at it. For personal
religion also, it is certainly the realisation of
our true relation to God as He is revealed in
Christ, and as His Spirit is moving within us,
that is the great desideratum. If the New
Theology can help us more fully to this it will
be the means of reviving religion amongst us.
But this is just what it fails to do. The present^
writer was startled and surprised by Mr.
Campbell's earlier utterances as they were re
ported in the newspapers ; he could scarcely
believe that they meant what they seemed to
say, and he waited for the appearance of Mr.
Campbell's book before forming any decided
opinion concerning this Theology. He took
up the volume with every desire to put a
favourable construction on what so stimulating
and helpful a preacher as Mr. Campbell has
been might really have to say after reflection,
and with that regard for him personally which
all who have come into personal contact with
him have been led to entertain. But failure
and disappointment to no ordinary degree have
to be confessed.
It seemed impossible to distinguish his earlier

22 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
utterances, as reported, from present-day Unit-
arianism. Mr. Campbell, however, earnestly
repudiates the identification of his teaching with
that most unpopular system, which has been
upheld by many most earnest and self-sacrificing
men. "It is not a surrender to Unitarianism,"
yet he acknowledges that present-day Unit
arianism is preaching with fervour and clearness
the foundation truthoL the New., Theology,,, the
fundamental unit&jsf, God "and mari. There is
not, therefore, the same dividing line between
them as that which Mr. Campbell declares to
exist between the popular Evangelism and the
New Theology.
Mr. Campbell is not a Unitarian. He
believes in the Trinity, and in the Divinity
of Jesus, although not in His Deity in the
strict sense of the term. No special exception
need be taken to the distinction as he states
it. But there are expressions in his book, now
widely familiar, such as " Jesus was God, but
so arejve," that tend to make the meaning
of the assertion of even "the Divinity" of
Christ somewhat uncertain to the ordinary
reader. The unique Incarnation of God in Christ is
affirmed, and, while the physical miracle is
rejected, the fact itself is said to be a spiritual
effect. But it is by no means made clear how

DOES NEW THEOLOGY MEET THE NEED ? 23
the humanity of this one man became fitted
to be that special manifestation of God, and/
"last word" concerning Him, that He is
declared to have been. Why also, we cannot
but ask, — although the question applies not
so much to Mr. Campbell as to some others
who have spoken in the name of the New
Theology, — why should there be any hesitation
to affirm the moral perfection, or sinlessness,
of Christ if He is reajly held to be Divine?
To associate sin with God, or with one who .
was as truly Divine as human, would surely
be monstrous.
These matters are thus briefly referred to
here, because they are not to be made the
burden of our criticism. They are meant as
a warning from one who "has been there,"
and they imply nothing disrespectful to Unit-
arianism, however far we are obliged to depart
from it.
The importance of the subjects dealt with
by the New Theology, not merely intellectually
but as they affect the spiritual well-being and
salvation of men, and so also the purpose of
God in His creation, and of Christ in His
sacrifice of Himself for our sakes, compels one
to lay aside all personal feeling and desire to
say pleasant things, and to speak with entire
honesty and straightforwardness with respect

24 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
to the system which Mr. Campbell has placed
"before us. To speak quite plainly indeed, we
must say that, while there is much in his book
that is true and deserving of attention, and
much that indicates far greater capacity for
dealing with "the deep things of God" than
Mr. Campbell has always received credit for,
what he has placed before us is so full of
inconsistencies and contradictions that it cannot
be called "a system," and so based on an
unethical conception of God that it cannot
^be regarded as a Theology.

CHAPTER III
THE CONCEPTION OF GOD

CHAPTER LII i
THE CONCEPTION OF GOD

The radical error of the New Theology is an
underlying unethical (non-moral) conception of
God, or at least the want of a thoroughly
ethical conception of the Source of our being,
consistently maintained throughout. Not that
Mr. Campbell means to give an unethical con
ception of God, or that God is nowhere ethically
conceived — this is one of its many inconsis
tencies, but none the less there is an unethical,
imperfect conception of God underlying the
whole system, and it is this that vitiates it as a
Theology. This appears in many ways. Every
man, even Haeckel and the "blankest material*
ist," is said to believe in God. But what is
the God that such men can be said to believe
in ? Certainly only a mere Power, unethically
conceived. " When I say God," says Mr.
Campbell, " I mean the mysterious Power
which is finding expression in the universe,
and which is present in every tiniest atom of the

28 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
wondrous whole." But he will tell us immedi
ately that this is not God, that God is much
more than that. " The real God is the God ex
pressed in the universe, and in yourself" — " He
is myself." True in one sense, but most untrue
in another. He himself will tell us ere long
that God is not yet expressed in the universe
.as a whole.
To answer the question, why there is a
universe, our author goes back to ancient
Eastern theosophy and affirms the universe
to be "one means to the self-realisation of
the Infinite." How can an all-perfect, infinite
Being possibly need so to realise Himself?
As such He is, and must be in Himself, the
primordial Reality. A God who needs, in
this sense, to realise Himself — in order, Mr.
Campbell says, to know what is in Himself —
is no God at all : we are only using a word
when we call Him God. The illustrations
which are given from finite beings are quite
beside the mark.
In order to realise Himself, we are told,
He must limit Himself. But how can He
limit Himself unless He previously existed in
complete unlimited form ? There come thus
to be, we are told, "two modes of God —
the infinite, perfect, unconditioned, primordial
being, and the finite, imperfect, conditioned,

THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 29
and limited being, of which we are ourselves
expressions." There is a great truth under-;
lying this statement ; but it is only in this
limited, imperfect, finite form that God is in
the world ; it is only of this limited, imperfect
form that we are to any extent the expression.
"It is with the immanent God we have to
do," says Mr. Campbell, but by his own con
fession this is not really God as He is in
His perfect Being; therefore it is not really
God at all.
Similarly, the universe is said to be "the
vehicle of the self-expression of God," while
yet God is affirmed to "be infinitely more than
the universe." " I start," says Mr. Campbell,
" with the assumption that the universe is God's
thought about Himself"; "the highest of all
selves, the ultimate self of the universe is God " ;
"my God is my deeper self, and yours too"; "the
whole cosmic process is one long incarnation
and uprising of the being of God from itself
to itself." The spirit in us (as distinguished
from the soul) is at once our being and God's.
This was true of Jesus, therefore it is true of
all. " When our finite consciousness ceases,
there will be no distinction whatever between
ours and God's." In all this there is a strange
obliviousness of that ethical perfection which is
the distinctive quality of God, and which haa

30 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
^been affirmed by Mr. Campbell to characterise
/the Divine Being. If the world, as it has
existed in the past, and as we know it to-day,
be a part of God's thought of Himself, or of
, God's self-expression, or progressive Incarna
tion of Himself, then we must say that it is
a very unsatisfactory and a most unethical
conception of God that it gives us. If the
spirit that has animated many men be really
the Divine Spirit, we cease to marvel at the
devil- worshippers of India. Of course, they
naturally adopt such worship, but we ought to
know better than to attempt to base Christian
Theology on what is practically Hindu philo
sophy, and, indeed, that which has given rise
, to all kinds of idolatry. Mr. Campbell himself
'says that "a crocodile is a much less true
expression of God than General Booth." But
can a crocodile be said to be an expression
^of God at all? We know that the ancient
Egyptians thought so, and worshipped
the crocodile along with the cat, the bull,
and other animals. But we thought we
had really left such ideas for ever behind
us.
r The world, while in one aspect it manifests
God, has in another aspect often been in direct
.opposition to the God it points to. As Dante
said when asked whence he derived the ideas

THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 31
for his Inferno : " I found the origin of my hell
in the world I lived in." Surely there must be
entire forgetfulness of both the history of the
earth and of man before it can be said that
the universe is the self-expression of God,
or God's thought of Himself. To Christian^
thought the world is not God's self-expression,'
but only the gradual progressive expression of
His creative thought — of the Divine Reason and
Will, fundamentally one with the Divine Love, (
hindered and opposed by the separate self which i
is necessary to constitute man in the image of j
God, or to give him permanent value in the j
creation. In its fulness, of course, the thoughtl
of God in His creation cannot be less than that
of Himself, realised in the essential truth of His,
being in finite forms. But to say this — to affirm \
that the world is the scene of the self-realisation '
of God as He goes out from Himself to become i
the principle of its life — is a very different thingf
from saying that the world is " the self-expres-|
sion of God." The Divine thought can only J
be progressively realised or expressed. The
world, at any stage of its history till we come
to Christ, is imperfect at the best. Only when
we come to Him who could truly say "He that
hath seen Me hath seen the Father " can we
behold the self-expression of God in the world.
And it is only as that is in some degree reached

32 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
by us that God gains anything like adequate
self-expression in the world. Why else all the
earnest endeavour of the New Theology to
conform men to Christ, and to make the world
the Kingdom of God ? If the world is through
out the Divine self-expression, or God's thought
about Himself, such endeavours on our part
must seem impertinent, and are in any case quite
.uncalled for. Logically, we should ultimately
experience the same paralysis of thought
and action which a similar conception of the
relation of God to the world has produced in
India. Whether this mode of thought is rightly
described as Pantheism need not be argued.
Mr. Campbell disclaims Pantheism, and we are
sure that he means what he says.
f The universe is said to be "a Divine experi
ment without risk of failure." How there can
be an experiment with no risk of failure is
difficult to see. But if it be such, why
should we, any more than God, "bother"
about it.
Here we must point out the influence of
that unethical conception of God we have
referred to in the way in which Mr. Campbell
speaks of the relation of God to that which to
the Christian mind is sin.
"According to the received phraseology,
this God is greatly bothered and thwarted by

THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 33
what men have been doing throughout the few
millenniums of human existence. He takes the
whole thing very seriously, and thinks about
nothing else than getting wayward humanity
into line again. To this end He has adopted
various expedients, the chief of which was the
sending of His only-begotten Son to suffer and
die in order that He might be free to forgive
the trouble we had caused Him." Apart from
the misrepresentation in this last sentence, is not
the very purpose of Mr. Campbell's book to
induce us all to take things more seriously, to
impress on us the enormous evil of selfishness
and the need of getting rid of it, and so to "get
wayward humanity into line" with truth and
right? Does God really not take His worlclj
seriously ? Is sin a less serious matter to
God than it ought to be to us ? Strange that
such questions should be called for. "Why
God should be the injured party in all the
miseries that have ensued is still less clear " (on
what is said to be the evangelical conception of
the world) "than why He created it?" But if
selfishness be an injury to man, it must be still
more so to God, who loves His human children. (
If God be really immanent in the universe,!
how can He fail to feel its sin and misery? If/
He is the perfect Love — the Heavenly Father,!
is man's selfishness and ingratitude no pain,!
3

i-rs

34 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?

b

no real injury to Him ? Was not old King
Lear right when he cried —
" Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou showest thee in a child
Than the sea monster !
Sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child."
This philosophy, however, leads to that
assertion of "the fundamental oneness of man
with God " which is really the newest and most
sensational thing in the New Theology, and
therefore to this we shall now devote our
attention.

CHAPTER IV
THE ONENESS OF MAN WITH GOD

CHAPTER IV
THE ONENESS OF MAN WITH GOD
The unethical conception of God leads to the
unguarded statement of "the fundamental
unity of man with God." We can scarcely
think that Mr. Campbell really means to assert
what his words convey, but we must take his
statements as they are given us, and, as already
noted, we have here the really new and
distinctive thing in this Theology. If the
meaning we take out of the assertion be not
intended, there is nothing really new in this
so-called "New Theology."
Without doubt a great truth underlies the"
assertion. In a very true sense all conscious
ness, all life, all power is one. There is a true
spiritual Monism as well as a false Pantheistic
Monism. There is only one God, "of whom
are all things," one Power, one Life, one
ultimate Substance, one Infinite Being, the
Source of all possible being. Man's life,
moreover, as a self-conscious spiritual being,

38 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
is identical in its nature as such, and in its
ultimate destiny, with the life of that God who
has made Himself known as the Father of
men. If we are really "His offspring" we
must to some degree share in His life. If our
ideal is sonship towards God, our true life
must be the same in kind as His own, although
presently finite in its form, and although we
may not as yet have risen to it in its fulness.
It is highly desirable that this should be
realised, but the identity that Mr. Campbell
affirms is incredible. Oneness with God is
something to be realised. A human child
shares in the life of its parents. But he does
not at once partake of all that his parents are.
He has to become what they are. He is not
at once even a moral being. So man may
participate to some degree in the one life, yet
be far from being one with God. The ideal
of his life may be sonship to God, yet he may
be far from that sonship in reality. We have
to ask, what is God? What kind of life is
His in its truth and fulness? God is not mere
being, but Ethical Being — the all-perfect
Ethical Being. Nothing less than this can
stand for the idea of God. While, therefore,
\we, in common with other creatures, share in
life and consciousness, we can only be really
one with God in ethical unity of heart and soul,

THE ONENESS OF MAN WITH GOD 39
1 of mind and will. Mr. Campbell quotes Christ's
' sayings : " He that hath seen Me hath seen
the Father," and " I and the Father are one,"
and affirms that they ju^-^pplicahle- to all men
(here is the newness). But Jesus only spoke
as He did because He was in complete ethical
unity with the Father — such unity as He
prayed that His disciples might also be brought
into, — and until a man stands in the same full
ethical unity with God, such language (even if
it be metaphysical only) is little, if anything,
short of blasphemy. Imagine a Nero or a
Caesar Borgia, or any wicked or self-deluded
man, speaking thus ! Yet he is a man, and, if
such language be appropriate to man as man,
_jiny man ought to be able to use it. _
This idea of the oneness of man with God
is said to be founded in a "Philosophical/
Idealism," elsewhere described as a " Monistic
Idealism," according to which there is only one
Consciousness, in which we all share. But Mr. |
Campbell shows that he has sadly misconceived
even this Monistic Idealism. We are not to
criticise it at present. But we cannot help
asking, what a bare consciousness without any
content can possibly be ? Consciousness must
be consciousness of something. What is that
Consciousness which God is? Do we really
all share in that} The lower animals also

40 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
share in consciousness. Are they therefore
also "one with God"? So far as the mere
sharing in consciousness is concerned, there is
indeed a unity of all conscious life. But how
short a way does this carry us towards real
"oneness with God." Mere consciousness is
in itself nothing distinctive of man. God's
Consciousness of Himself is a perfect ethical
consciousness, and only when ours is the same
in kind can we truly be "one with God."
On the ground of the unity of all conscious
ness we have the unfortunate statement,
"Jesus was God, but so are we." But how
meaningless is this, however sensational it
may be ! Surely such a statement was never
before made by any one believing in the Deity
or Divinity of Christ in the Christian sense.
All that it amounts to is simply this : God is
Consciousness, Jesus shared in Consciousness,
we share in Consciousness ; therefore Jesus and
we alike are God — because God is essentially
Consciousness. But, so far as mere conscious
ness is concerned, any animal, if it could speak,
could say precisely the same thing.
But, of course, the New Theology becomes
here self-contrqduiory. It cannot hold to this
its new foundation doctrine. "Sin," we are
told, " is the divisive separating thing in our
relations with one another and with God, the

THE ONENESS OF MAN WITH GOD 41
Source of all, and so the assertion of our oneness
with God involves getting rid of sin " ; it
involves " the realisation of our true self" ; " the
passing from the life of selfishness into that
life of love which is the life of God," etc.
Where is the newness now ? We all believe
and affirm this. Such statements clearly imply
that in a very real and most important sense'
we are not one with God, but that the unity is
something that has to be realised by our be
coming other than we are as yet.
It ought to be pointed out that this is the
constant teaching of the late Mr. T. H. Green
of Oxford, whose name is mentioned by Mr.
Campbell in connection with his doctrine, and
who is generally regarded as the chief English
representative of the philosophical or Monistic
idealism on which Mr. Campbell says he bases
his system. In order to prove how differeru?
the teaching of Mr. Green was from that of
the New Theology we shall give one or two
brief extracts from his two "Lay Sermons,"
posthumously published in a small volume
entitled The Witness of God and Faith. " God,"
says Mr. Green, "is for ever perfect light and
love. It is for us, under the limitations of a J
petty human life, to take such personal hold on
this perfection as may fit us for its fuller

42 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
communication, when in His good time these
limitations are taken away " (p. 39). " Our
rational self-consciousness, the very presence
of which within us assures us of there being a
Reality, one, complete, and absolute, does this
for us ; — it keeps before us an object which
we may seek to become. It is an element of
identity between us and a perfect Being, who is
in full realisation what we only are in principle
and possibility, ... it moves us to seek to
become like Him, to become consciously one with
J4im, to have the fruition of His Godhead. In this
sense it is that reason issues in the life of faith "
(p. 85). " It is still our sins and nothing else
that separate us from God" (p. 42). It will
be noticed that our consciousness is here said
to be only " an element of identity " between
us and God ; our life is in this respect the
same ; in other words, all spiritual life is of
the same nature. But this by no means
warrants the assertion of "the fundamental
unity of man with God." There is much
more in God than consciousness. He is, in
Mr. Green's words, "a perfect Being, who is
in full realisation what we only are in prin
ciple and possibility."

CHAPTER V
JESUS THE DIVINE MAN

CHAPTER V
JESUS THE DIVINE MAN
The best chapters in Mr. Campbell's book are
those which deal with that which he describes as
"the greatest subject which at present occupies
the field of faith and morals — that of the
Personality of Jesus, and His significance for
mankind." To our own mind the importance
of His Personality culminates in His work as
Redeemer, but we shall come to that shortly ;
and what Mr. Campbell says is certainly true
and good, as far as it goes. The place given\
to Jesus in the chapter on the Divine man is )
very high. It seems at first sight almost all;!
that could be desired, if at the same time it
raises some questions that are not satisfactorily j
answered. The uniqueness of Jesus and of'
Christianity in its continuous dependence on
Christ is not only admirably stated, but most
successfully vindicated. His Divinity as ex-1;
pressing "the innermost of God " is maintained,
although His Deity, in the sense of possessing j
45

46 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
["the all - controlling Consciousness of the
universe," and all that belongs to the Infinite,
cannot be affirmed. No thoughtful theologian
will attempt to do so : most find relief from the
necessity by maintaining some form of Divine
Kenosis or self-limitation. That there were
not two different natures in Jesus, Divine and
liuman, will also be widely accepted. That " in
Him Humanity was Divinity and Divinity
Humanity" is a good statement of the fact.
Not to multiply quotations, Jesus is affirmed to
be "very God." In our opinion, Mr. Campbell
is also right when he says that Jesus is not to
be accounted for as the manifestation of Deity
self-limited and assuming humanity in time.
We must go beyond time for the explanation.
Specially refreshing is it to meet the affirmation
of the continued presence and influence of
jCJirist. "Christianity draws its sustenance
from the belief that Jesus is still alive, and
impacting Himself upon the world through
His followers." "Other great religions trace
their origin to the teaching and example of
some exceptional person ; Christianity does the
same, but with the added conviction that
Jesus is as much in the world as ever, and that
His presence is realised in the mystic union
between Himself and those who know and love
Him." " Christianity without Jesus is the world

JESUS THE DIVINE MAN 47
without the sun," — we are very grateful for
this. Still, one does not feel satisfied with the state
ments in this chapter. Mr. Campbell believes
rightly enough that, "although contrary to the
actual statements of the creeds," there has been
a tendency to speak and think of Christ as
if He were in some sense separate from
Humanity, and in his laudable endeavour to
correct this error he shows a tendency on his
own part to ignore the very real distinction
(not " difference ") between Christ and all
others. Jesus, we are told, expressed fully the"^
love of God, and is therefore Divine ; so are all
others in their measure who do the same. Is
there nothing more to be said than this ? Does
it really meet the Christian conception of Christ ;
to say that the difference between Him and !
General Booth is only one of degree in this
respect ? " ' God is love ; and he that dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.'
General Booth is Divine in so far as this is
the governing principle of his life. Jesus was
Divine simply and solely because his life was
never governed by any other principle." This
is without doubt true, so far ; but does it cover
the whole case ? If Jesus was so completely
unique as He is affirmed to have been, there
must have been some reason why He was so.

48 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
Time has run on into the twentieth century
after Christ ; man has during that period made
enormous strides forward in knowledge and in
intellectual and moral development, yet Jesus
Christ stands as truly unique and alone as ever
He did, unapproached and unapproachable.
This fact clearly marks Him off from all other
men, and, since there can be no effect without
a cause, there must be some reason for it.
Since there can be no life-building without an
: adequate foundation, there must have been
'something in Jesus originally or organically that
I distinguished Him from all others, while it did
not separate Him from Humanity nor make
^Him in any sense less genuinely human. Mr.
Campbell says that he "does not make Jesus
:'' only man,' but ' the only Man,' — and there is a
difference. We have only seen perfect man
hood once, and that was the manhood of Jesus.
The rest of us have not got there." But this
seems to carry all that we are contending for.
Why, during all the centuries of human life and
amongst all the millions of human beings —
belonging too to that humanity which is said to
be God's self-expression — has there been but
this one only man? If we have only seen
manhood once, the rest have not been even
truly and fully men. Surely we have here a
very real distinction — that between man truly

JESUS THE DIVINE MAN 49

)liesi

and others not yet truly men. It certainly implies
a real fundamental distinction of some kind
Jesus is said to have possessed "a true
human consciousness, limited like our own."
But, manifestly, in some respects it could not
have been so limited. We know that in
respect of openness to God it was not so limited.
He had at least an insight into the Divine as
yet unparalleled. He had a God-consciousness
such as nq one else has ever pretended to have. j
(Mr. Campbell says later on that He had a
consciousness of being "the Eternal Christ."}
All this indicates a very real distinction. Mr.
Campbell says that His special insight was
due to the moral perfection of His nature, not
to His metaphysical status. But again, it is
just this solitary moral perfection of His nature
that has to be accounted for, — His freedom
from that something, call it sin or selfishness
or anything else, that retards all other men,
and at some point marks and mars their
character. His "constant expression of God,"
as distinguished from the broken and im
perfect, even to some extent opposing,
character of all other lives, demands ex- *
planation. Mr. Campbell says that, according
to Theology, He alone existed before the ages,
He alone was Eternal to begin with, — and that
this, if true, constitutes a gulf between Him
4

So WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
and all others. But if we have all, in some
real sense, pre-existed in God, there need be
no such gulf. Does not Mr. Campbell himself
tell us that Jesus had the consciousness of
being "the Eternal Christ." But this is really
no mere verbal question as between " tradi
tional Theology " and the New Theology. It
is a vital question going to the heart of the
subject. If the Person of Jesus Christ was not
Eternal in the sense that He was the manifes
tation in the flesh of a " Person " in God — a
V Person" in the theological sense, not in
the numerical or individual sense of the
word — what manifestation of God do we have
in Jesus at all? "God is Love"? But how
did men come to know this ? Solely because
they believed that Jesus was Himself God
manifest in the flesh. If He was not such, if
God was not so in Him as to constitute Him —
Jesus Christ — God in human form, as truly as
man in complete union with God, it is a misuse
'; of words to call Christ Divine as well as human.
Tt implies something much less than men
(believed they had seen in Christ. When we
call Jesus Divine we are not using the term in
the New Testament sense ; and if we believe
that that was a mistaken sense, we had better
say-so, if we are to be thoroughly outspoken.
[Jesus, Mr. Campbell says, was "very God."

JESUS THE DIVINE MAN 51
The crux of the whole matter lies here. " Was
He really such ? " " Very God " ! — can that be
truly said of any other man? If not, why
not? Again, He is said to be, according to the
oldest and the youngest Christian thought, " God
in man, God manifest in the flesh." " God in:
man is by no means adequate where God is
affirmed to be in all men ; it must be God,
as man, or the God-man. The real testing
question is this : Was Jesu^ God incarnate ;
or only an incarnation of God ; or, was God
personally present in Christ, so that Christ was
not merely a product of the creation, but the
incarnation of a " Person" (in the sense before
indicated) in the Being of the Creator in human |
form? If He was not this, He was not "very
God" as Christianity has hitherto understood the
term ; if, on the other hand, He was this, then
there was such a real and abiding distinction/
between Him and all other men as is not recog-
nised by Mr. Campbell, but is essential to'
Christianity. It is affirmed that in the end what is true of
Christ will be true of all men ; He came to
show what we potentially are. If the distinc
tion before mentioned be kept in view, there is
no reason to find fault with this statement. It
is scriptural and true. Jesus is " the first-born

52 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
among many brethren." Still, He is the first
born, and, according to the Scriptures, He in
whom all others have their being and ideal of
life. He is not only the first-born, but also the
Source of the Sonship of others ; and it is this
that has to be accounted for. If it be a Divine
ultimate mystery — for confessedly " great is the
mystery of godliness " — better to leave it so
than to give such an explanation as, while not
intended to do so, really seems to bring Christ
down to a lower level than that on which He
has hitherto stood for us. There is a danger
in levelling up as well as in levelling down.
: We need something that will lift us higher, and
that shall for ever lift us higher than we are.
When we are lifted up to the same level as
Christ He loses His uplifting power. It is all
very well to exalt humanity, but, Mr. Campbell
being witness, our humanity is a very poor
affair as we know it in general. It is highly
"desirable that we should recognise the revelation
of our true selves in Christ. But it is equally
necessary that we should see the revelation to
be given in one who is in Himself more than
man as we as yet know man. Man, as we
know him even in the earthly Christ, is not yet
the final word of God for us. The Infinite is
before us in Him who has united our humanity
to it in His own person, who truly "came from

JESUS THE DIVINE MAN 53
God and went to God," who has " carried our
humanity into the Godhead," from whence its
potency originally proceeded. We are not
pleading for going backward, but for going
forward as the Divine human Christ would lead
us. There is something higher and better yet
to be learned than the newest New Theology
can teach us. Other theologies have been
tried, and their futility proved.

CHAPTER VI
THE "ETERNAL CHRIST

CHAPTER VI
THE "ETERNAL CHRIST"
In Chapter vi. of The New Theology Jesus is
represented as the manifestation of the Eternal
Christ. In God there is a "side of His being
which can only be described as the ideal or
archetypal manhood," "the archetypal, eternal
Divine Man, the source and sustenance of the
universe, and yet transcending the universe."
This " idea of a Divine Man, the emanation of
the Infinite, the Soul of the universe, the
source and goal of all humanity, is, " we are told,
"ages older than Christian Theology," — going
back even to Babylonia, and coming down to
Apostolic times through Greek thought and
Philo of Alexandria. It has been "variously
described in the course of its history. It has
been called the Word, the Son, and, as we have
seen, the Second Person in the Trinity." " For
various reasons," says Mr. Campbell, " I prefer
to call it — or rather Him — the Eternal Christ."
Now, of course, "the Son " is the term which is

58 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
characteristic of the New Testament, and which
has been adopted by Christian Theology.
What is to be gained by departing from it ?
'The Son in God is a perfectly intelligible
conception, and is the source and ideal of our
Sonship. It does not mean a Person in God in
the individual or numerical sense, as when we
speak of two human persons, but a mode or
aspect of the Divine personal existence. The
Son in God as the Eternal Father. It was
this Sonship that was incarnated and manifested
jn Christ.
"The Eternal Christ" is open to grave
objections. "The Christ" was an historical
Person. Doubtless there was ever in God all
that was manifested in the Christ of history.
But must there not be more in a Divine Person
than can possibly be manifested in a finite
human personality ? The innermost nature of
God as infinite love can, indeed, be so mani
fested, but does not exhaust all that we have
in view when we speak of "a Divine Being."
He must be in Himself Infinite Being, and it is
this Infinite Being that we must see to be with
us in finite form in Christ. The very fact that
the form is finite makes it certain that the Being
so manifested must be more than is expressed
in the finite human form of "the Christ."
(The same objection lies against the ascription

THE "ETERNAL CHRIST" 59
of manhood to God. It is said that "we are'
justified in holding that, whatever else He may
be, God is essentially man." We must think,
therefore, of "an archetypal Divine man."
Now, of course, there must be that in God
which finds expression in man as we see man
in his highest humanity in Christ. But because
God is the source and fountain of our humanity,
and is even, in His mode of Sonship, the ideal
of our life, we have no right to apply to God
the limited conception of "manhood" as we
know it even in Christ. God is the Infinite
Being, and man is not that yet, at least man as
revealed, even in Christ, has the infinite still
before him. Man, as the son of God, may yet
prove to be capable of the infinite, as we believe
Christ the Representative of our humanity has
already entered into that life. Manhood, there
fore, as we have ever yet seen and known it, is
a limited conception, altogether inadequate for,
God. There may be in the infinite the potency
of many forms of being greater than manhood.
Mr. Campbell says that in these conceptions,
we have the key to the Christology of Paul.
Several German theologians have affirmed this,
but the affirmation rests on the slenderest of
grounds. Its chief basis is the statement in
1st Corinthians, "the second man is the Lord
from heaven.'' But this by no means implies

60 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
that Paul believed that He who in His humanity
showed Himself to be "the second Man"
possessed a prior manhood in heaven. It was
not to this shadowy ideal man that Paul was
devoted, but to the spiritual, risen, and glorified
Christ, as distinguished from a Christ regarded
in His earthly form of manifestation merely.
The only advantage which these very dubious
conceptions — to say the least — give the New
Theology, is that they seem to give greater
force to the attempt to lift our ordinary human
ity up to the same level with Christ. "As we
have come forth from this fontal manhood, we
too must be, to some extent, expressions of this
Eternal Christ ; and it is in virtue of that fact
that we stand related to Jesus, and that the
..personality of Jesus has anything to do with us.
l' Fundamentally, our being is already one with
that of the Eternal Christ, and faith in Jesus is
faith in Him." Now, here again we have that
ignoring of the ethical which is the radical error
. running through the whole of this Theology.
This is said of man as man. But it was solely
in virtue of the ethical quality of His Life that
Jesus was "the Christ," and the incarnation of
God. Fundamentally, our being is already one
with Him, only as all who possess the life, etc.,
that proceeds from the one only source are
one with all that proceeds from that source.

THE "ETERNAL CHRIST" 61
To be fundamentally one with Christ means,
not merely to possess life from a common
source with Him, but to have the same life in
us. All life is by no means the same. To be
one with Christ is to have the holy, ethical
spirit of Christ as the spirit of our life — the
basis of our character and of our higher being,
and this man as man shows he does not
possess. Again, when it is said that Jesus is the
fontal or ideal man who contains and is ex
pressed in all human kind, we have the same
ignoring of that ethical quality which constitutes
the Christ. " Christ " is by no means expressed
in all human kind, although one day He may be
so. The evil in all this style of speech is that
the ethical is constantly in danger of being lost
sight of and confounded with the merely natural
or even with the physical.
Once more, if Jesus be indeed "the fontal
or ideal man who contains and is expressed in
all human kind," if He is "central for us, and
we are complete in Him," this surely implies a
very real and most important distinction between
Christ the Fountain and those who only find the
springs of their life in Him.

CHAPTER VII
THE INCARNATION OF THE SON
OF GOD

63

CHAPTER VII
THE INCARNATION OF THE SON
OF GOD
In the next chapter of The New Theology the
terms "the Eternal Christ," etc., are wisely
dropped, and the chapter is headed " the Incar
nation of the Son of God." But at the outset
we have again that overlooking of the ethical
which we have had so often to point out, and
which in this connection throws a doubt even
on the nature of the conception of the Incar
nation as held by the New Theology. " We
deny nothing," it is said, "about Him (Jesus)
that Christian devotion has ever affirmed ; but
we affirm the same things of humanity as a
whole in a differing degree. The practical
dualism which regards Jesus as coming into
humanity from something that beforehand was
not humanity we declare to be misleading.
Our view of the subject does not belittle Jesus^
but it exalts human nature. Let this be
clearly understood, and most of the objections
5

66 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
| to it will vanish." It would seem, rather, that it
is just this that raises the objections. Does not
such a statement as we have just quoted really
point to "a universal Incarnation," instead of
¦to that unique Incarnation which has been
[already affirmed of Christ. "We affirm," it is
jsaid, " the same things of humanity as a whole."
I True, it is "in a differing degree." But if we
J look at humanity as a whole, where shall we
I behold any thing really to be compared with what
\ we see in Christ ? We witness certain members
of the human race manifesting some of the
same qualities which show Christ to be the
Incarnation of God. There is doubtless also,
as Mr. Campbell says, in all, something good
I — some sparks of love and capacity for self-
[ sacrifice — which certainly proves that the same
' spirit that animated Christ is in some degree
present in all men. But that is a very different
I thing from being able to "affirm the same
things of humanity as a whole, in a differing
degree." If the life of " humanity as a whole "
had been a Christ-like life, although in a lower
t degree, the affirmation could have been made.
But any one who reads history, or who looks
i abroad on the world to-day, knows how far
V that is from being the truth.
It is here that we have the very unfortunate
} saying, " Jesus was God, but so are we," which

THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD 67
is given as a brief summing up of the position^
True, it is followed by the statement : " Jesus
expressed fully and completely, in so far as a
finite consciousness ever could, that aspect of
the nature of God which we have called the
Eternal Son, or Christ, or Ideal Man who is
the Soul of the universe and the light that lighteth
every man that cometh into the world ; we are
expressions of the same primordial Being." BuT
this primordial Being is in Himself, and, as
manifested in Christ, essentially a holy, loving,
ethical Being. We are not expressions of that
Being in His essential truth unless we are like
Him in our spirit and character, which we are
not, as a whole, at any rate. " Fundamentally,
we are all one in this Eternal Christ." This is
true with respect to the source, the ideal, and
the potency of the life that we share in ; but its
actuality is something to be realised by us,
something that man has to become. The self
in man is a growing reality, and it can only be
truly one with "the greater self," of which Mr.
Campbell goes on to speak, as it takes up into
itself the qualities of that greater self, and
becomes conformed to God in His truth.
When it is asked, " Why should we not speak-
in a similar way about any other human con
sciousness " — as we do about the consciousness
of Christ, whose earthly limited consciousness

68 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
"did not prevent Him from being really and
truly God ? " the answer is plain and obvious.
It is, because the limited consciousness of
[Christ was none the less, even under its limita
tions, that very ethical consciousness that God
is, and other consciousnesses are not by any
means always such.
We are at one with Mr. Campbell in his
endeavour to show that Jesus truly belonged
to our humanity, and is one with it in its ideal
truth. If we understand him aright, it is quite
true to say that Jesus did not " come into
humanity from something that beforehand was
not humanity," except, indeed, that He came
originally from God the source of all, and was
the manifestation of God — the very presence
of God in our humanity. He is right also in
saying that "the greatness of Jesus and the
value of His revelation to mankind are in no
way either assisted or diminished by the manner
of His entry into the world."
It is true that many, if not "most," reputable
theologians "have now given up the Virgin-
birth," and it is, alas ! true also that it is still
" a stumbling-block to many minds." This is to
be greatly regretted, for a reason which Mr.
Campbell does not mention, but which those
who deem it necessary still to uphold the
Virgin -birth as essential should lay to heart.

THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD 69
We shall state our position with respect to this
much discussed question immediately. But
meanwhile it is worth pointing out that the
Gospel narratives of the Virgin-birth do not teach
the Incarnation of a pre-existent Divine Being,
as is commonly supposed, but merely the intro
duction in a miraculous manner of an entirely
new being — by the direct creative act of God.
It was for this reason, St. Luke tells us, that
"the holy thing that shall be born of thee
shall be called the Son of God." Whatever
may be the truth concerning the Incarnation
of the pre-existent Son of God, as Christianity
came later to understand it, that fact is not
implied in the narratives of the Virgin-birth.
It is most probably for this reason, and not
for that commonly given by those who reject
the Virgin-birth, that Paul and the later writers
of the New Testament do not refer to it : they
held a higher conception of Christ. To them
He was a Divine Being entering the world,
and they could scarcely have thought of Him
as doing so in the mode indicated by these
primitive narratives.
The present writer, however, still believes
(what he affirmed eight years ago in his work
on "The Spirit and the Incarnation") that we
are not in a position to dogmatise on this
subject, or to totally reject the idea of the

70 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
miraculous conception, as Mr. Campbell says
he feels now compelled to do. While it cannot
be upheld as the means by which the pre-
existent, Eternal Son entered the world, and
is not, as commonly regarded, necessary for
the Incarnation of God in Christ, we are not
warranted in absolutely denying it. If once
we see that the complete Incarnation of God
in Christ was not something effected in the
birth of the little Child of Bethlehem, but was
a gradual work in Him who "grew in grace"
and was "perfected through suffering," we can
also see that, while the humanity was prepared
in Mary, a Divine spiritual fecundation of that
prepared humanity may not have been impos
sible, but may even have been necessary in
order to provide the organic basis of that life
which, while truly human, was to be such a
complete manifestation of God — the uniqueness
of which is so evident, and is generally acknow
ledged. The power of faith is very great —
"All things are possible to him that believes."
Auto-suggestion is increasingly recognised as
having a most powerful influence on the whole
bodily system. Strong faith joined to ex
pectancy may have been the medium of the
Holy Spirit in bringing about in a prepared
humanity that which seems to us such a won
derful result — as Mary is recorded to have

THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD 71
said, "According to Thy word be it unto
me." Mr. Campbell, arguing for the reanimation
of the Body of Christ, says that the denial of
its possibility "presumes an essential distinction
between matter and spirit which I cannot admit.
. . . Monistic idealism recognises no funda
mental distinction between matter and spirit."
Does not the same thing apply here in the
very same way ? If spirit can be influential
to reanimate a dead body, might it not also
(much more*, surely) be influential to start the
development of a living germ ?
But without insisting on this, leaving it
meanwhile an open question, there is certainly,
as Mr. Campbell says, a great truth contained
in the idea of a Virgin-birth. "Jesus was of
Divine as well as human parentage. We do
not account for Him merely by saying that He
was the Son of Joseph and Mary, and the
descendant of a long line of prophets, priests,
and kings ; we have to recognise that His true
greatness came from above." We are not
sure, however, whether Mr. Campbell fully
grasps the truth that underlies the narratives
of a birth through the Holy Spirit. It is just
this truth, even apart from special Divine action,
that leads us to that something more which we
have said is necessary to explain the appearance

72 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
of Christ as belonging to our humanity, yet
God incarnate — as truly human and yet truly
Divine. What is contained in it is said to be "the
truth that the emergence of anything great and
beautiful in human character and achievement
is the work of the Divine Spirit, operating
within human limitations." It is compared to
the early narratives of the Creation, in which,
according to Babylonian version, " the sun of the
heaven impregnated the virgin matrix of water
with the seeds of cosmic life." fi Better still,
surely, the Genesis narrative, where the Spirit
of God is represented as brooding " dove-like "
over the face of the deep. " This idea," he says,
" became spiritualised in a much higher degree.
The religious mind came to regard the physical,
mundane, or distinctively human principle as
the matrix upon which the Spirit of God
brooded, bringing to birth a Divine idea." So,
"a Divine element, a spiritual quickening is
required for the evolution of anything God
like in our mundane sphere : it is a virgin-
birth. Lower acting upon lower can never
produce a higher. It is the downpouring and
incoming of the higher to the lower which
produces, through the lower, the Divine man
hood which leaves the brute behind." " The
Divine manhood is gradually, but surely, mani-

THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD 73
festing on the physical plane . . . every moral and
spiritual advance is therefore of the nature of
a virgin-birth, a quickening from above . . . ' Ye
must be born anew,' or literally, ' quickened from
above.' " " Every man who deliberately faces
towards the highest, and feels himself reinforced
by the Spirit of God in so doing, is quickened
from above." All this is good and true, but^
would it not have been simpler and more in
keeping with the accepted Christian mode of
speech to say that the Holy Spirit, whose
child Christ was on the one side, is the Source
of all the spiritual development of humanity, J
and that this reached its culmination in Christ, j
The Incarnation of God in man is the result of a
process originating in eternity, running through
time, and realising itself in Christ. And it is the
result, as Mr. Campbell himself here bears wit
ness, not of what is immanent merely, but of the J
action of the Spirit of God on man. No one,
could show more clearly than he does that it
could never have come about as the outcome
of what was originally immanent merely.
" Lower acting upon lower can never produce a
higher." There was, therefore, Divine trans^
cendent action all throughout, and the truth
of the Virgin-birth may be summed up as
follows : Christ was the child of the Holy
Spirit, His appearance was the result of Divine

74 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
creative action — of the spiritual on the physical.
This was exercised, not in one moment of time
merely, but throughout the whole history of
the race.
f But we are now brought back to the radical
error of the New Theology. The truth of the
Incarnation, we are told, must be "read on a
/larger scale. All human history represents the
' Incarnation, or manifesting of the Eternal Son,
I or Christ of God. The Incarnation cannot be
limited to one life only, however great that
life may be. It is quite a false idea to think
of Jesus and no one else as the Son of God
incarnate ? " Now, see what confusion and
.contradiction we have here ! Have we not
just been told that Jesus is wholly unique in
the world ; that we have only seen manhood
once ; that in Him alone we can behold a
complete manifestation of that which God is,
etc. ? Is it not just because this is so that
we speak of the Incarnation of God in Christ?
, How, then, can there be others who are Incar
nations of God as truly as He is ? What is
true is, that the process which culminated in
Christ is one which was (and is) working itself
^gut in humanity as a whole ; and just as the
flower belongs to the plant, and with the seed
is the culmination of its process of development,
so Jesus belongs to humanity and is its crown.

THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD 75
But just as the whole plant does not develop
into the flower, no more does the whole of
humanity, or each member of it, become actual
incarnations of God. It was a real process in
humanity, but in its actual working out it did
not spread itself over the whole race, but like
all evolution worked onwards and upwards in
one definite line till its goal was reached. This
is the method of all development. Man crowns
the animal creation, but the whole animal life
before humanity did not rise into manhood.
The principle of development kept on working
in one special line, till man was reached. So,
in that spiritual evolution which realised itself
in the entrance of Jesus Christ into the world,
the Spirit of God operated in some measure in
all, but found its line of definite, progressive
advance in that Hebrew race which we there
fore speak of as "the chosen people of God."
It was in that one line that the Divine spiritual
working in humanity proceeded till its purpose
was realised in Christ. Therefore He was, on
the human side, "of the seed of David," and
born of Mary of Nazareth. It is for this reason
that Christ stands forth unique, the Son of God
and the Head of humanity, and there can be
no more two Incarnations of God in this world,
and so two Heads of humanity, than there can
be a normal man with two heads. We must

76 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
be content to be only members of that Body
of which Christ is the one true Divine-human
Head. In Him humanity reaches a higher
stage of its life — the purely spiritual, and it is
through Him that the same result is to be
realised in the race.
As already said, it was not merely in the birth
of Christ that God was incarnate, but as the
result of the life that rose upon that foundation.
God was only fully incarnated, when His Holy
/Love found its full manifestation in the com
plete self-sacrifice of Calvary. And from that
moment Christ became the Spirit and power
lof that life of God in man which had been
{realised in His Person, and which it is meant
fthat all should find in their measure. " The
fsame Christ," says Mr. Campbell, "is seeking
expression through every human soul " ; and
Jesus, he has told us, is this Christ. "He is
on the throne, and the sceptre is in His hand.
We can rise towards Him by trusting, loving,
and serving Him." All this is true, but, if so,
surely this Christ, this " Jesus on the throne,"
is high above us all, as the king is above his
subjects, although He calls us not subjects
merely, but His brethren, which in the realised
truth of our life we are. This Christ, we have
been told, is "very 'God." But, the New
Theology adds, " by doing so we shall demon-

THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD 77
strate that we too are Christ the Eternal Son."
Yes, when "we too" become incarnations of
God in the same fulness as Christ was ; but it
is to be feared that this is something a long
way off for the most of us. Not that we should
despair of ever reaching a full sonship towards
God after the image of Christ. Let this be
our ideal ; let us earnestly aspire after it ; let
us be certain that this is the ultimate meaning
of life ; let us see how it makes all life sacred,
all suffering worth enduring, death itself but an
instrument in the great work : but let us not
imagine that it is ours till we really are con
formed to Christ.
It is true that there is "no life, however*^
depraved, which does not occasionally emit
some sign of its kinship to Jesus and its
eternal sonship to God." But it is both foolish
and wrong to say, as does the New Theology,
that wherever you see this manifested you;
see "the Spirit of Christ incarnate." You do
nothing of the sort ; you see something 0%
that Spirit, no doubt, but it may be amidst!
such immoral surroundings as are quite con-j
tradictory to "the Spirit of Christ." A bad!
man may at some moments manifest something'
of the spirit of self-sacrifice ; but you cannot
therefore say, surely, that in him the Spiri
of Christ is incarnate. Let us hope, wit

78 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
\Mr. Campbell, that some day that Spirit will
• truly be in possession of us all — incarnate
in us all. But let us remember that it is only
jjby a painful process — a process illustrated
by that Cross through which alone even Christ
found full self-expression — in which "the old
| man " must die that the Christ-man may live
I in us — that such a result can be attained,
I whether in time or in eternity.

CHAPTER VIII
DIVINE IMMANENCE AND
TRANSCENDENCE

79

CHAPTER VIII
DIVINE IMMANENCE AND
TRANSCENDENCE
"The New Theology," says Mr. Campbell, "is
an untrammelled return to Christian sources in
the light of modern thought. Its starting-point
is a re-emphasis of the Christian belief in the
Divine immanence in the universe and in
mankind." This is the note of all our modern
"progressive" Theology. "The fundamentals
of the Christian faith," it is said, "need to be
rearticulated in terms of the immanence of
God." The Divine transcendence is verbally|
acknowledged, but it is formally left aside, and the \
whole stress laid on the immanence of God. "It
is with the immanent God that we have to do.^J
There is, of course, a great truth in the
Divine immanence rightly understood, and not
separated from the Divine transcendence. We
all believe in the "Divine immanence" rightly
stated ; but what does it mean ?
It is in general very vaguely conceived, and
6

82 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
in practical . life it is almost quite uninfluential.
In a recent American story a bright and in
telligent wife asks her cultured but indifferent
husband : "Is it true that God is immanent in
us all ? " "I suppose so," he answers ; " but it
does not greatly matter." It concerns us very
much, however, to endeavour to understand a
subject of which so much is made in the New
Theology, to recognise the actual truth there is
in it, and its bearings on Christian doctrine and
life. We must therefore deal somewhat fully
with this matter, endeavouring to be as plain as
possible for the sake of readers unfamiliar with
the subject.
The New Theology evidently believes that
in its affirmation of the Divine immanence in
the universe and in man it has that which is
most in consistency with "modern thought."
It is to be feared, however, that it is here
making a great mistake — one that will prove
fatal to its permanence. The immanence of
God is not a principle of modern thought outside
this Theology itself. Immanence of some kind,
in other words Evolution, is so, but this does
not necessarily imply that "modern thought"
asserts the immanence of God. (Cf. Otto, Natu
ralism and Religion, chap. xii.).
/"""Immanence is often confounded with what
lis really transcendence. Of immanence, an

DIVINE IMMANENCE 83
eminent preacher has recently said : " It is the'
truth that the Holy Spirit is directly concerned
in every human personality, so that, wherever
there is a human being there God is, not
identical with the being, but a distinct, present,
indwelling power, working upon the human
will, wooing and winning the human person
ality." That we cordially assent to. But it is/
not the immanence of the New Theology ; it
is not the immanence of "modern thought" ; it
is as truly transcendence as it -is immanence,/
The Holy Spirit that thus dwells in, works on(
woos and wins the human personality, must
be transcendent to the personality which it sq
indwells and seeks to influence. ^x"
That such "immanence of God, once clear of
the moral confusion of Pantheism, and made
intelligible to the consciousness of all," we
heartily agree with Dr. Horton, "may well be
the starting-point of the New Theology." But,
unfortunately, this is not the immanence which
Mr. Campbell makes his starting-point, for that
is simply the indwelling of God in the universe
and in man, while transcendency is by his
theory practically ignored.
Let us ask what is meant by the terms
"Immanence" and "Transcendence." The
literal dictionary meaning of immanence is
"remaining within, inherent, indwelling." It

84 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
is defined in Chambers's Twentieth Century
Dictionary as "the notion that the intelligent
and creative principle of the universe pervades
the universe itself, a fundamental conception
of Pantheism." Transcendence means "rising
above, surpassing, extending beyond." In
theology it denotes the all-environing Presence
of God as the Infinite Spirit, around and above,
and, in some measure, within, all that is in the
universe, God, according to Christian Theo
logy, is at once immanent and transcendent.
The Divine transcendence which Mr.
Campbell imperfectly describes as " the obvious
truth that the infinite Being of God must
transcend the infinite (finite ?) universe " — is
said to have "been perverted in such a way as
to amount to a practical dualism, and to lead
men to think of God as above and apart from
the world." God is certainly above the world,
but He is by no means apart from it, and it is
only a perversion of the great truth of the
Divine transcendency that would lead any one
so to think of Him. The Divine transcendence
is a truth of which all Scripture is full, one
which all religion must acknowledge, apart
from which there could be no religion, no such
.Being as God, no such thing as "the imman
ence of God in the world." Wherever we see
• immanence we at the, same time witness trans-

DIVINE IMMANENCE 85
cendence. Neither is ever found acting or \
existing singly. ^
The statement, that it is a re-emphasis of the
doctrine of Divine immanence that is called for,
implies that at one time it was specially pro
minent and influential in Christian Theology.
But we know of no period at which immanence
was emphasised at the expense of the Divine
transcendence. It would take more time and space than are
available at present adequately to trace the
history of the idea of Immanence. It entered
into much of early religious thought in the
form of Animism. It dominates Hindu think
ing, and it played a part in ancient Greek
philosophy. For its most influential source in the stream '
of thought that has come down to us we may
perhaps go back to Plato's idea of a Soul of
the World and to Aristotle's immanent forma
tive principle. But both Plato and Aristotle
affirmed a transcendent, spiritual Being as the
source of all that operates in Nature and in
Man. In the Stoic philosophy the immanence
of God made Him, in general, merely the Soul
of the World, so that, for the most part, God
was lost in nature and man in physical dis
solution. The " Platonising Fathers " of the
Christian Church (who are often referred to as

86 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
having introduced the idea of Divine imman
ence into theology), while they maintained the
presence and influence of the Logos or Divine
Reason in the world, firmly opposed any identi
fication of God with the world and maintained
the Divine transcendency. To Clement, God
is exalted above all space and time. Yet
"every stimulus of good comes from God.
He employs those men who are peculiarly
fitted to guide and instruct others as His
organs to work on the greater part of man
kind." Origen, in particular (the first great
Christian theologian), in his reply to Celsus,
repels the idea that God and the world are
one. While holding, like the Stoics, that there
is "a Soul of the World," he did not, with
them, make this to be God. God was to him
"pure Spirit," incorporeal, invisible, spaceless,
the "Author of the World," apart from whom
nothing happens. God was not contained in
the world, but rather containing all. In His
spiritual transcendency nothing could be really
separate from Him ; as Christ taught, said
Origen, "not even a sparrow could fall to the
ground without our Father." Evil had no part
in God, for man's will was free.
In Western Christianity the Divine trans
cendency was no doubt often in danger of
being perverted into a tendency to remove

DIVINE IMMANENCE 87
God to a distance from the world and man.
This was corrected in a wholesome way by the
various Pantheistic thinkers who arose -from
time to time ; and under the influence of
Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, and others the
idea of immanence came to play a very im
portant part in both philosophy and religion.
The scientific doctrine of evolution or
development necessarily implies it. As
already said, it has been the dominant note
in much of recent progressive theology,
although the endeavour has usually been
made to maintain at the same time the Divine
transcendency. Some recent developments, however, in more\
than one quarter, indicate a danger of the idea
of Divine immanence being held or stated in
such a way as would repeat the old error of the
Stoics, and, in giving us a merely immanent >
Deity, leave us without any real God at all.
An exclusive emphasis on immanence has
always been inimical to religion. Thoroughly
carried out, it issues in a Pantheism which J
identifies God with Nature and with man. It/
may be a desirable corrective to that perver
sion of the idea of transcendence which makes
it seem to mean a God at a distance from us.
But the idea of immanence, as commonly pre
sented, is extremely vague and indefinite, and

88 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
it is very desirable to try to get at the truth
concerning it.
Is God, or a Divine Being, really immanent
in the universe and in man ? To get a definite
and decisive answer, let us ask what is meant
by God, the universe^ and man. We have
already seen the meaning of immanence. God
is the Infinite, Eternal, Omnipresent, Omni
scient Spirit, the all perfect Ethical Being.
The universe is practically the same thing as
the creation, something proceeding from God.
Whether or not we regard it as the expression
or manifestation of God, it cannot be identified
with God Himself. Man is the highest form
of life that we know in the universe or the
creation. Now, if we remember these defini
tions — which we think are virtually correct —
'now can we seriously believe that God, the all-
perfect Ethical Being, is actually dwelling in or
personally present and acting in the universe
and in man till we come to Christ. If God
be personally in the physical universe, then
everything that happens therein is the direct
acting of His personal will ; for certainly there
_is no other will in the physical universe. But
if we think of the things that happen therein —
of, say, those recent terrible earthquakes with
their ruthless destruction of human life, how
can we attribute such things to the direct acting

DIVINE IMMANENCE 89
of an all-perfect Ethical Being ? If we think
of the animal creation, with all its fierce, savage
instincts, and what are often cunning and cruel
actions, we cannot possibly believe it to be
personally indwelt by a God of Love. As
Principal Rainy wrote in reply to Professor
Pfleiderer's insistence on the Divine imman
ence : " The immanence of God, assumed and
granted, does nothing to shed new light on the
world of nature or man, nor are the difficulties
which have always beset natural theology in
the least alleviated by it. For example, in this
presence of His, God upholds all forces and
tendencies, alike the conservative and the
destructive. He -is immanent in the serpent
and the tiger, as much as in the dove and the
lamb. And, in regard to man, He maintains
our powers when we are using them well, and
when we are using them ill, — both alike as
far as the doctrine of immanence is concerned,
— not less truly immanent in us in the time
of our errors and . our sins than at any other
time." (Lecture on The Supernatural in
Christianity. T. & T. Clark, 1904.)
If we go to man, and review his history frorn^
the primitive cave-dweller on through the
bloodshed and cruelty of ancient civilisations,
down through the egoism, war, and strife of
the centuries, to the selfishness which Mr.

90 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
Campbell truly says is the source of almost
all our worst evils to-day, we shall find it
equally impossible to believe that a holy and
loving God dwelt, or can possibly have dwelt,
l in man as man.
\ "That there can be nothing outside the
Infinite " is certainly true ; but the converse,
that the Infinite is personally inside of every
thing, is with equal certainty false. Else God
would be personally present in every rock and
stone, — in short, in every object in the creation.
e is personally present to everything ; nothing
can be really separated from Him ; all things
are in God as the infinite transcendent Spirit ;
nothing can happen wholly apart from Him ;
He is, in some measure, in every thing and
being : but He cannot be personally present in
anything, nor in any being, till there is a being
present in the world capable of containing and
expressing Him in His essential truth, and that,
we repeat, we do not have till we come to
Jesus Christ.
f" Yet there is a real and most important truth
in the doctrine of Divine immanence. There
may be immanence without personal presence.
A man's thought, purpose, even his love, may
be immanent in a machine that he constructs
to do some useful work, but certainly the
man himself is not immanent in his machine.

DIVINE IMMANENCE 91
So the thought, purpose, love, Divine ideal |
may be immanent in the world and in man :
without the actual, personal presence of God
therein. Of course, the world is not a mere
machine. There is more than the Divine ^
thought, etc., immanent in it, — there is a prin- \
ciple of life in virtue of which it goes on I
developing. But this does not involve the j
actual indwelling of God. There are different
degrees or grades of life, and it is long before
that ethical life which is God's can make its
appearance in the world. There is a Divine
thought, purpose, power, deepest of all in the
world ; but that does not mean the actual,
personal indwelling of God.
We get our best conception of immanence
and the " modern " idea of it from what we
witness in the case of an organism, which
through gradual development realises itself.
It may be a flower, an animal, or a man. In
every organic being there is an immanent life-
principle, which is at the same time the ideal
and potency of the organism, that which shall
gradually clothe itself with the appropriate form
and appear in the completed development, — in
the case of animal life, it appears as the con
scious self. We have it in every seed, in every
egg and germ.
Now, the world, or the universe itself, is but

92 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
a larger organism. It, too, has its ideal and
life-principle. It is this that is immanent, not
a personal Being. Just as in the individual
plant or animal, Life is immanent, but the
entire Universal Life is not there, so is it with
respect to the world, which also is only one
of an indefinite number of worlds. As with
each organism, it had its original immanent
principle, which has dominated its development,
and will in the end realise itself. But its self-
realisation has been a very gradual process,
and as it proceeded there has always come to
be a fuller measure of that which was ideally
and potentially contained in it actually in the
^?orld. The complete thought and full potency
of the evolving world was at each stage trans
cendent to that which was evolving. If we
look back on the world's history we shall see
this plainly. There was no man or animal
in the beginning, only certain forces working
rationally in a material embodiment. Under
their influence the world gradually developed,
the earth took shape, became fitted for the
abode of life, and in due time life showed
itself. There was an immanent principle
gradually realising itself; but there was not a
personal God dwelling in the original fire-mist —
the fiery, revolving globe, the ice-covered earth,
or in any form of the evolving world. To

DIVINE IMMANENCE 93 l
say so would be, to use Mr. Campbell's word,
"nonsense." As the result of the increasing
evolution of the immanent principle, man at
length was reached, and in man there was far
more of that which was potentially in the
world - principle, now actually in the world.
But man, in order to be man, became a
separate self; and, while the immanent Divine
would raise him into ever higher life, this
separate self may cling to the lower life, and
refuse to be so uplifted. In man, till we come
to Christ, God was not personally in the world.
His Spirit was everywhere present, and as
the result of man's development came to be
operative on, or even indwelling the human
spirit. But God Himself could not possibly be
in the world as a personal Being till there was
a human person capable of giving expression
to that ethical character which alone gives us
God. This is the very meaning of the incar
nation of God in Jesus Christ.
Moreover, apart from transcendent influences,
the development which we witness, whether
of the world or of man, could never have taken
place. We may see this well illustrated in the
case of a seed. It has an immanent life-prin
ciple, in virtue of which it will, under due
conditions, grow into the plant or flower or
tree. But apart from the transcendent influ-

94 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
ences of the soil, the air, the moisture, and the
sunshine, no such development could ever take
place. So, for the world itself, apart from
transcendent forces, we cannot so much as
even imagine a start given to it. Such forces
have been operating on it throughout its history.
Man has an immanent life-principle — a will to
live, which comes to shine also as an ideal
within him, and to command him in the name of
righteousness ; but, apart from the transcendent
social and other influences that have played
upon him, he never could have become man,
with the immanent rational and moral con
sciousness he now possesses. Its presence in
him is wholly due to transcendent influences
falling on and combining with what was up
to that point actually immanent. So again,
ever since the moment that he believed in a
God and in an unseen spiritual world, transcen
dent spiritual influences have entered his life,
and it is to these that the immanent religious
nature that now characterises him is wholly
IcTue. If we go to the heathen world, and note
the dense ignorance of God in His truth in
which millions of human beings are left to
dwell, and the horrid cruelties that are prac
tised, often in the very name of religion, we
shall find a most convincing refutation of the
idea that God is immanent in humanity. The

DIVINE IMMANENCE 95
immanence of God in man is a growing reality, \
and we never see it in its truth till we behold
the glory of God as it shines in the face of
Jesus Christ. -*'
Deepest of all, there is the Divine Ideal and
potency of life. But just as in any organism,
this can only gradually appear and realise
itself. God's thought of Himself in the form
of Sonship, is the ideal principle of the world's
life. It was this that declared itself and was
realised in Christ, and which still seeks through
Him to realise itself in us all. But this, again,
is through the transcendent influences which
come to us from and in Christ as God's self-
realisation in that form in this world.
Belief in a transcendent God is essential to
anything that can be called religion. Even
deepest of all in what may be described as
pantheistic religions, the yearning of the human
soul has always been for communion with a
Divine Being or with Divine Beings, above
and beyond itself. This, indeed, is a proof that
the life that is immanent is of God, has its
ideal in Him, and can only realise itself in
union with God in His transcendent fulness.
If we go to Biblical religion in particular, we
shall see that its God was always conceived as
a transcendent Being. Jehovah of Israel was
outside of and above the people. If He was

96 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
amongst them otherwise than symbolically, it
was as a Person apart from themselves, yet
by no means distant from them. The more
highly developed thought of God was that of
a Being who, while He filled heaven and
earth, and was near to His worshippers, was
above the world, "sitting upon the circle of the
earth," to whom men prayed and looked up,
to whom they offered sacrifice and worship, and
(m whom they trusted. Such also was "the
God and Father" of Jesus Christ. He was
immanent in the growing flowers, in the grass
of the field, and by His Holy Spirit in His
own and in His disciples' hearts. But He was
also the Heavenly Father, to whom He prayed,
and in whom He trusted, the Father who was
with men in secret, and should openly reward
^H.is true worshippers/before whom the very
hairs of our head are /umbered, and apart from
whom not even a sparrow could fall to the
ground. The God of Paul was this trans
cendent Father. It is a strange misconception
of his famous saying at Athens when it is made
to support immanence instead of transcendence.
" For in Him we live and move and have our
being " is surely a declaration of the transcend
ence of God. He was speaking in the presence
of Epicureans and Stoics who identified God
with the world and its objects, and it was

DIVINE IMMANENCE 97
expressly a supramundane God, a Creator of
the World, Ruler and Judge of men, that he
declared to them, yet One who " is not far from
each one of us." So, in the most highly de
veloped form of Christianity in the Fourth
Gospel, God is Spirit — the Father from whom
Jesus came and to whom He returned — the
Father "who is greater than I." He certainly
did not return to a merely immanent Deity.
God was immanent in Him, but He was also
transcendent. Christ's whole life was lived iiT
communion with this Heavenly Father, who in
His transcendent Spirit visited Him and dwelt
in Him. When He spent whole nights on the
lonely mountain-side in prayer, He was not
simply communing with His own higher self,
or with a merely immanent Deity, When He
pleaded in Gethsemane that the cup that was
given Him to drink might pass from Him, if
possible, it was to a truly transcendent God and
Father that He appealed ; and His cry from
out of the darkness of the Cross was certainly
sent up to a God who was transcendent. If, i
therefore, we are to go by Christ, if He is j
really "the last word concerning God," it is,\
not with an immanent so much as with a j
transcendent God and Father that we have^
to do.
God in His transcendency is never absent
7

98 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
from His world or distant from His children.
He is the all-containing Infinite Spirit, " in
whom we live and move and have our being,"
who is "not far from each one of us." If we
would revive religion and make it real, if we
would bring the Kingdom of God to the earth,
what we have to do is, not to preach such an
immanence of God as neither the Intellect nor
the Conscience will bear witness to, which the
plain, and sometimes awful, facts of Nature and
Life contradict, to the inadequacy of which
[Heathenism with its horrors is the standing
witness, but to clear away the misconceptions
which have gathered around the Divine trans
cendency, to proclaim God anew as Jesus
preached Him, as the spiritual environment
of our life, as the Father who is ever near us,
and by His Spirit in some measure within us,
coming in that Spirit's fulness in Christ, who
in His Love is yearning over us, who has come
in His Son to save us, who seeks by His Holy
Spirit to possess us wholly, to make us His
true children and co-workers with Himself in
the world.

CHAPTER IX
IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE
IN "THE NEW THEOLOGY"

CHAPTER IX
IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE IN-
THE NEW THEOLOGY
Immanence is said to be the Master-Key of the
New Theology, while Transcendence vs. formally
ignored. " It is the immanent God with whom
we have to do." A merely immanent God,
however — to whom we need not pray, and who
could not possibly help us — would be but a very
poor substitute for the all-holy, all-wise, all-good,
transcendent God and Father of Jesus Christ,
who in His holy and loving Presence is ever
with us. It is virtually a return to that teaching |
of the ancient Stoics which failed to save the
world. In the same number of the Hibbert
Journal which contained Mr. Campbell's article
on the New Theology, one appeared (not in
any opposition to Mr. Campbell) showing this
to be the case. Why should we go back to
that old teaching, the inadequacy of which was
proved ? Although there were elements of
truth, and even of grandeur in it, Christianity is

102 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
surely a great advance upon it. As we have seen,
it was not an immanent Deity that Paul pro
claimed to the Stoics when he got the chance
of addressing them at Athens, but a trans
cendent, yet near, Creator and Judge of men,
who called all men to repentance, and who
had come in Christ to save them.
Mr. Campbell suggests that his doctrine is
the same as the " Higher Pantheism " of
Tennyson. But it is not even that :
" For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel ' I
am I'? ... .
Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit
can meet —
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and
feet."
That is not an immanent but a transcendent
Deity, or at least transcendent as well as
immanent. What the New Theology forgets is that
there are degrees of immanence ; that God
can only be truly present in the world as
there are forms adequate to His self-
expression. To quote again the illustration
of General Booth and the crocodile, — if a
crocodile is a much less adequate expression
of God than General Booth, that surely
means that God is in General Booth in a
much higher degree than He is in that

IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE 103
repulsive and dangerous reptile. The im
manence of God is an increasing reality in
the world. God can only be truly dwelling
in man when the Holy Love that He is
becomes the fully received Spirit of man's
life. Till then we have always something less
than God, and, whether shining as ideal upon
us, or moving by His Spirit within us, God is
still transcendent to ourselves.
Now mark the inconsistencies of this
Theology of immanence. While we are
assured that the immanence of God is the
great truth that can give a right theology,
and save the world, we are at the same time;
told that creation or divine self-expressionl
is only possible by means of Divine self-
limitation. Is it not manifest, therefore, that
it is only as He has limited Himself that God
is in the world and in man, not as He is in
Himself? In this sense there is truly some
thing of God in everything — in every stone
and insect, bird and beast, as well as in man.
But this is a very different thing from the im
manence of God. Mr. Campbell himself makes
the difference emphatic. There are, we are
told (as we have already seen), " two modes of
God — the infinite, perfect, unconditioned,
primordial being, and the finite, imperfect,
conditioned, and limited being of which we

104 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
'are ourselves expressions." It is, therefore,
only this "finite, imperfect, conditioned, and
limited being" that is immanent. And how
can we ever, through the unfolding of this
immanence merely, behold the complete expres
sion of God in the world ? Mr. Campbell
sees the difficulty, and says: "Yet these two
are one, and the former is the guarantee that
the latter shall not fail in the purpose for
which it became finite." But this is to fall
back on the Transcendent as that which
shall really secure the fulfilment of the Divine
purpose in the world.
It need not be a surprise, therefore, if we
show now that in all that is most important
in Mr. Campbell's book, it is not really
immanent action, but transcendent influences
that are brought into play. To our own
mind, indeed, it seems self-evident that if
God be the infinite, all-perfect Spirit, and
man a finite, spiritual being in, or in relation
to, that infinite Spirit, God must at every
stage of man's life transcend man. He is the
spiritual environment of our being, influentially
present in His Holy Spirit, in whatever way
the influences of that Spirit may be mediated.
It is simply impossible to advocate religion
apart from reference to a transcendent God
and transcendent influences.

IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE 105
Therefore we find even Mr. Campbell, after all
that he has said of immanence, not only affirming
the Divine transcendent influences, but reveal
ing that much of what he ascribes to immanence
(and the higher immanence in man itself) is
really due to those transcendent influences which
he formally ignores. He speaks, for example,
of that "downpouring and incoming of the
higher to the lower, which produces, through
the lower, the Divine manhood which leaves]
the brute behind." "The principal factor int
man's evolution " is said to be " the incoming \
of the Divine Spirit." " The sacrificial life and
death of Jesus have meant the inpouring of a
new Spirit into human affairs, such as had never
been known in the same degree before." If
words have any meaning, those " incomings "
and " downpourings " are not immanent but
transcendent influences. So again we read of
our being " reinforced by the Spirit of God,"
of the "help of the Holy Spirit," of being!
"born from above," of the impossibility of the
lower " of itself becoming the higher." Christy
as the complete expression of God, with the
influences that go forth from Him as such,
Jesus, "the last word about God," "the very
Christ of glory who is seeking expression
through every human soul," is surely transcendent
to ourselves. These, and other similar stated

106 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
ments, inconsistent with the basis laid down in
immanence, show the confusion that reigns in
this New Theology, and that the most important
influences that have operated in human life
have been due, by Mr. Campbell's own asser
tion, not to what was immanent, but to what
was transcendent. But, indeed, is not Mr.
Campbell's own appeal to men, throughout his
Book and in his earnest addresses, an illustra
tion of the reality of the transcendent, and of
the impossibility of making any advance what
ever save through the operation of transcendent
influences ?
Note. — Since the subject is so fundamental
to the New Theology, we notice Mr. Campbell's
statement of immanence in his Glasgow address
as reported in the Christian Commonwealth. It
is said to mean "literally, the indwelling of
God in the creation and in the human soul."
But it has been differently explained. There
are said to be three conceptions of immanence.
(i) Pantheistic — all is God. This is rejected
because we have some power of choosing our
own course in life, and we judge and condemn
others according to the way that choice has
been made.
(2) The popular view. " In some real sense
He indwells humanity, but it is impossible to
tell where the Being of God leaves off and that

IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE 107
of man begins." " God and man are not one,
and never can be." It is said that this theory
has never been able to show what the im
manence of God really means without the
tendency to topple over into Pantheism.
This, we should say, must be true of it, if
it " cannot tell where the Being of God ends
and man's begins." It is with the separate
self, which stands in relation to God as
transcendent. (3) His own view./ " We are individually a^
separated portion of the Divine essence. We\
have no being that is not Gods." (Italics ours.)'
We cannot see how this differs from Pantheism.)
The Divine essence seems to be even physically
conceived. It might be true if we were able
to hold the ancient emanation theories. But ,
it is impossible to entertain these in the light \
of our modern knowledge of evolution. This
shows us that whatever man is, he has become.
Whatever there is in him, whether you call it
"God" or "man," is the result of slow, often
painful, development, of a rise from a much
lower form of being, in which we could
not possibly speak of the actual indwelling
of God, and is the result of transcendent
influences. Again, if we are "a separated portion of the
Divine essence," how can sin be possible to us ?

108 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
iThe Divine essence, whether separated or not,
\is the Divine essence. Sin is just the effort,
[ or the tendency, to live for the separate self,
f apart from God and the whole. But the
" Divine essence," which is Love, could not
possibly have any such tendency. Therefore
the individual self is not the Divine essence in
whole or in part, but simply and solely ourselves,
so made to arise by God.
There is another doctrine of Immanence,
which Mr. Campbell does not notice, which is
really that which Science or " modern thought "
warrants, and which Religion can accept, namely,
the immanence of a Divine life-principle which
gradually unfolds itself, the nature of which
becomes manifest in its highest manifestation
and self-realisation in Jesus Christ.
In the same address reference is made to the
One going out into the many, in order that the
many may come again into unity with the One.
This is true, but in the way in which it is
stated we note the old obliviousness of the
ethical. The One who goes out is essentially
an ethical Being, and it is only in ethical life
that the return can be made. Moreover, while
the One so goes out into the creation, He is
in this very fact constantly maintaining His
Life of Love. It is an eternal process in
which God is for ever, at the same time tran-

IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE 109
scendent, for ever returning to Himself. It is I
as such transcendent Being that He stands in I
the closest relation to the separate selves of
" the many " when once they have become
such. The ideal is always transcendent to that
self, whose ideal it is.

CHAPTER X
EVIL AND SIN

CHAPTER X
EVIL AND SIN
We pass now to what may be termed the more
practical portion of the New Theology, the
statements concerning evil, sin, and salvation,
embracing what seems to our mind the most
mfportatit matter of all, the Cross of Christ or
Vfhfer Atonement."
Mr. Campbell's discussion of the problem of
evil is bold, but most unsatisfactory, and he
has' allowed himself to be carried into state-
ments cbncerning sin, now familiar to all, which
are to be greatly regretted. If there is one thing
more than another which a preacher seeking to
serve God and man ought not to do at the present
time, it is to say anything that would seem in
any measure to lessen the sense of the reality
and evil- of sin or selfishness. What is needed
more than anything else is a deep conviction
of the evil and of the necessary doom of the
sinful, or merely self-centred, life.
. According to the New Theology " Evil is?

114 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
j a negative, not a positive term." On the
contrary, it is both. It is negative with respect
to the true life, but positive with respect to
the lower, false life — often cruelly so. Good is
.said to be "being, and evil not-being." Good
is rather true and permanent being, but evil
is also very real, though it is false and im
permanent being. " Finiteness," we are told,
i" presumes it" ; "nothing finite can exist with
out it." See then where we are landed : Evil
fmust be ascribed to God Himself, who, we are
told, limits Himself to the finite in the creation.
This is a New Theology with a vengeance.
But is it not, at the same time, its reductio
ad absurdum or self-refutation ? Limitation,
imperfection, are by no means identical with
evil. In our present existence, evil is "necessary,"
it is said, " in order that we may know there is
such a thing as good." Now, no doubt good
implies the possibility of evil ; but it does not
necessarily involve its actual existence.
i We must utterly deny that it is necessary for
IGod actually to experience evil in order to
know Himself as Good or to be able to
manifest His love.
The perception of evil "is the concomitant
of your expanding consciousness of what is
good. The moment that you see a thing to be

EVIL AND SIN 115
wrong, you have affirmed that you know, how
ever vaguely, what is required to put it right."
But this is growth in the knowledge of goodness,
and therefore in that of possible or actual evil
as contrary to what is good. It is surely
possible, even for a finite being, to have the
knowledge of his true relationship to other
beings, without being taught it through the
experience of evil. Take Mr. Campbell's illus
tration of the shadow on the pavement cast by
"the row of houses between your vision and
the rising sun." The shadow is not real, we
are told; it never did more than "show the
place that needed to be filled with light." But
there was a positive element there all the same.
The shadow was caused by " the row of houses
between your vision and the rising sun." It
was caused by something that hid the light,
and surely that was positive enough. So sin
is caused by that lower nature which is allowed
to hide the light of Duty or of Love which would
otherwise fill the soul. Or take another simple
illustration : " Black is the absence of all
colour " (the quotation is made from a current
scientific paper). Black, therefore, may be
described as negative merely : it is only the
absence of light. But why? Because (the
quotation is continued) "it absorbs all colour."
Therefore the negation arises through very

116 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
positive action. It is the same in man's
jjature. Mr. Campbell has a friend who described the
devil as a vacuum. But his friend would find a
vacuum sufficiently positive to destroy his life
if he were to put his head into it. Not long
since, if we mistake not, there was a claim
made for damages to a carpet owing to an
improperly used vacuum - cleaner which had
sucked all the pile out of it ; and the claim was
successful. So we greatly fear that if the soul
of man suffer itself to be long enough exposed
to that vacuum which evil is, all the good, and
ultimately all real, life, may be sucked out of it,
and we shall get no damages; "for what shall
a man give in exchange for his life, or soul ? "
We shall not stay to discuss what Mr.
Campbell says about pain and suffering. No
doubt they are inevitable, in whatever way we
may try to explain the great problem they
{""present. We are concerned now about sin, and
j shall proceed to show how very positive it is as
| represented by Mr. Campbell, in spite of his
j theory of negation. On page 5 1 he asks the
i question, " What then is sin ? " and he answers
1 " Sin is the opposite of love." Is that not
^positive enough ? " Everything we think or
'pay or do is in one or other of these directions."
How can we think, say, or do anything if it be

EVIL AND SIN 117

not something which we positively think, say, j,
or do ? " We are either living for the self at ;
the expense of the whole, or we are fulfilling f
the self by serving the whole." But if we are'
living for the self, we are acting quite positively, .
as others may find to their cost. " Sin, there
fore, is selfishness " ; and, from this point, the i
best thing in Mr. Campbell's book is his earnest
polemic against selfishness. Here, however,
we come once more on the underlying unethical
error. Sin is selfishness, and selfishness is sin.
But Mr. Campbell seems to understand selfish
ness merely in its relation to other human beings,
and not at all in its relation to God. It is well
that selfishness in relation to our fellow-mefi
should be emphasised as the very essence of
sin in its manward aspects ; but surely man ha§
also a direct personal relation to God. There
may be a clinging to self, a maintenance of
self-will, an inward opposition of the self to
God, quite apart from the manifestation of
selfishness in relation to man. Only when
selfishness is defined as including, not only our
relation to one another but to the higher self that
claims us and to God, can selfishness be said :
to be equivalent to sin. But take it as Mr.
Campbell states it— if sin is selfishness (and it;
is so), that makes it something very positive.,
Selfishness means a clinging to self, a living

118 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
for self, instead of for the whole. It is negative
as respects the good, and as regards the true
life of the whole, but very positive as respects
the separate individual life, or even as regards
the lower nature, which is a positive element
in man. In this very chapter it is said that
"modern civilisation contains plenty of callous
selfishness, gross injustice, and abominable
cruelty " — which are " relics of our brute ancestry
— universally deplored, which society recognises
to be inimical to its well-being, and seeks to
get rid of." What an absurdity is it to speak
.olsuch things as " negative " only !
But sin is also said to be "actually a quest
for life, but a quest which is pursued in a wrong
way. The man who is living a selfish life
must think, if he thinks about it at all, that he
can gratify himself in that way, that is, he can
jget more abundant life."/ It is indeed "a quest
for life," and, as such, surely positive enough.
Whoever heard of a negative quest ? But all
life is by no means the same in kind. It is
only a quest for a distinctly lower form of life.
Sin is elsewhere described even as " a quest
for God," although a blundering one. We know
what Mr. Campbell has in his mind ; but sin is
nothing of the sort, and no words can be strong
enough to reprobate such a statement. It is a
quest for the lower self-life, — we would say for

EVIL AND SIN 119
the merely animal life, if man in that quest did
not often actually sink lower than the animals, j
which of course generally know no better. It is '
not a quest for God, but one for the satisfaction:
of that entirely lower form of life which Mr.
Campbell himself assures us we must leave be- ¦
hind us if we are to rise to God. How can that-
be a quest for God} The man himself knows
perfectly well that it is nothing of the kind. The
heartless roue" who goes out to wallow in sen
suality is simply seeking to gratify his own lower
animal self, in opposition to both God and man.
It is a positive, reckless, sinful pleasing of a posi
tive evil self, in direct (and often in conscious)
opposition to God and to the whole. And we
deny that anything that represents it otherwise.
has any right to the title of " Theology."
Mr. Campbell goes on to speak of the " Fall,"
and we must very unwillingly say that he grossly
caricatures the views of the average Evangeli
cal preacher of to-day. There has been no fall,
but a rise, we are assured. We are all familiar
now with this statement. Sir Oliver Lodge is
nearer the truth when he says there were both.
Man fell from his "paradise of innocency "
when he " ascended to the notion of good and
evil, and perceived that certain things degraded
him. But this sense of degradation would not
beTelt amongst the lowest among mankind — it

120 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
would only be the highest of men who, at first,
would feel that. It is a sign of a rise in the
" scale of existence " — but "it is also a fall, be
cause the highest state, of course, would be to
know good and evil, and not to do the evil "
(Address to the Whitefield Men's Meeting).
;No one will assert nowadays the literal truth
/of the Genesis narrative ; but, as Mr. Campbell
•himself says, it contains a truth. And truly
jit is an amazing "truth" that is drawn out of
'it Dy our preacher. It is nothing short of a
Fall in God ! " The coming of a finite creation
into being is itself of the nature of a fall — a
coming down from perfection to imperfection."
This is where an unethical, metaphysical coh-
eption of God and the Universe leads us —
back to a kind of Gnosticism. The primal
action of the Divine Love in giving itself to
become the life of others is a sort of fall that
can be illustrated by the narrative of the Fall
of man in Genesis ! And yet we are told that
it is just thus that God realises His Life as
the all-perfect Love. It is difficult to hold
one's pen in the face of such a travesty of
Creation ; so we shall abstain from using any
words on the subject.
No doubt, as Mr. Campbell points out, Paul
teaches that the sufferings of the creation are to
be only temporary, which implies that they are

1=

EVIL AND SIN 121

inevitable in the process of creation. But this
by no means warrants such statements as we
have just quoted.
The source of sin, we may say in a word, is
the fact that we possess a separate self, which
has risen from a semi-animal condition. The
animal nature is essentially self-centred, and is
necessarily such. To the animal it is no sin ; it
only becomes sin when the light of the higher
life shines upon us.
Here we must notice the needless difficulty
which Mr. Campbell's unethical philosophy has
landed him in with respect to the freedom of
the Will, and how he must therefore minimise
human sin. He deals with it in a previous
chapter (p. 35 seq.), but also refers to it here.
"In strict logic," he says, " I can find no place
for the freedom of the Will. I will defy any
one to do so if he knows much about the laws
of thought." He may well say this on his
theory of the relation of man to God. But this
only shows that his theory is a false one. If
the will be not free there is no .use of talking
about sin or guilt, or selfishness, or even about
man as a being higher than the mechanism of j
nature. Therefore, we are told, we must'
"over-leap logic." But have we any right to,'
do that? It means not merely over-leaping^
" logic " as a science, but refusing to accepf

122 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
what your own reasoning leads you to. That
is the leap that has to be taken. At the same
jtime, we are assured "that no argument will
convince us that we have not some power of
individual self-direction and self-control." But
who needs any argument on the subject, save
those who have entangled themselves in a
false doctrine about the relation of man to
God? If we have really, in any true sense, a
separate self, if there can be such a thing as the
selfishness Mr. Campbell speaks so strongly
against, there must be a separate will. Other
wise self-will, selfishness, clinging to and acting
for self, would be sheerly impossible. " By the
very constitution of the human mind we are
¦compelled to take for granted a certain amount
of individual initiative and self - direction "
(p. 41). Better stick to "the constitution of
jhe human mind." It is more likely to be truly
grounded than the philosophy that contradicts
its universal utterance. \ " Perfect freedom " is
another matter altogether.
Nor, in order to maintain the reality of the
human will, is it necessary to suppose, as Mr.
Campbell says in the chapter on the Nature of
Evil, " some thinkers who account themselves
' progressive ' do, that a special act of creation
took place." The will is the man in his proper
self-hood, and this self, this will in man, is a

EVIL AND SIN 123
product of continuous evolution as surely as
every human faculty is such. Man is not, as it
were, a bit cut off from God, but still in some
mysterious way one with Him, as the New
Theology seems to think. The Divine principle*1
of the Creation has gradually risen in its working
till in man a separate self appears, which can
know itself as such over against the Source of
its being, while at the same time it knows that
its true life is to be found in coming into
voluntary ethical union with God. That is
what we are created for. «-_— -
" Our wills are ours, we know not how ;
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine."
Finally, let us note how Mr. Campbell is
compelled, not by facts but by his theory, to
minimise the departure of the human will
from the central Divine will. There are only
such "tiny aberrations," as have to be taken
into account in the mariner's compass, which
"are no real hindrance to the sailing of the
ship, and the compass itself cannot run away "
(pp. 41, 42). Every sinner's conscience: will
condemn this. If this be so, why speak of- the
enormous evil of sin as selfishness ? t Hqw can
one possibly take such "Theology" seriously?^
We have already referred to what is said
concerning God's attitude towards sin.

CHAPTER XI
THE CROSS OF CHRIST IN THE
NEW THEOLOGY

CHAPTER XI
THE CROSS OF CHRIST IN THE NEW
THEOLOGY
When we come to that great subject which
is, admittedly, central to all Theology, whether
Old or New, namely, the Cross of Christ, we
find the underlying unethical conception of
God strikingly exerting its baleful influence.
Three chapters of Mr. Campbell's book, and
a large portion of a fourth, are occupied by
a discussion of "the Atonement." It is ad
mitted that human nature needs an Atonement,
but the ordinary Christian view of what the
Atonement is is strongly repudiated, and its
statements are sometimes, we regret to have
to say, coarsely caricatured. If indeed any
accredited Christian preachers set forth the
views which Mr. Campbell affirms they do,
it is high time that they learned to know God,
Christ, and man in some better way.
But Mr. Campbell's own view of the Cross
is far from satisfactory, and robs it of its vital

128 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
saving power. Although the word "Atone
ment " is not, as he seems to admit, a correct
rendering of any of the Biblical terms, he takes
the English word " Atonement " in the sense
of At-one-ment, and, of course, quite easily
makes it fit into his theory of the " fundamental
oneness of man with God." For the origin
of this idea he goes back to that view of
ancient Semitic sacrifice which some scholars
maintain, as that of joyful communion with the
tribal or national God, with no sense of sin
entering into the matter at all. Quite so ;
but has he not already taught us that we are
not to take our conceptions of things from
their first rude and imperfect beginnings, but
from their later and highest developments ?
f It is easy to understand how primitive
peoples, with very imperfect conceptions of
their deities, would eat and drink with them
joyfully, without any sense of sin. The sense
^of sin was a later and a slow development.
He admits that it became "a concomitant,"
but he is bent on minimising it and on bringing
us back to that unethical conception of the unity
of divine and human life which characterised
these rude Eastern peoples, whose gods did
not "bother" about sin, and whose sacrifices
"did not necessarily mean that the worshipper
thought he had done anything to be ashamed

THE CROSS OF CHRIST 129
of and which required to be put right." Happy
days ! when sin was no burden, when man was
" naked and not ashamed." No need of a
"fall" from that, but great need of a "rise."
But will such teaching tend to raise or redeem
the life of this twentieth century ? Can it do
anything to save us from that hydra-headed
selfishness which we are truly told is the curse
of the world ? Will it not rather tend to rivet
our fetters more firmly than ever, words and
appeals notwithstanding ?
"Atonement" in the Old Testament is
certainly associated with sin, although it does
not mean "making amends for." The worcT
rendered "Atonement" means in some sense
a covering for sin, a means whereby a sinner
could remain in, or be restored to, the favour
of his Deity — although, as to the modus operandi,
all Old Testament students are not in agree^,
ment. Here we come into quite a different
atmosphere of thought and feeling, in which,
to quote the words of an Old Testament
scholar who will not be deemed an "ob
scurantist," "the ideas of atonement and
cleansing for sin replaced in a large degree
those more peaceful and joyous feelings of
communion with God which govern the con
ception of sacrifice in Israel's earlier codes."
(Dr. G. A. Smith in Modern Criticism
9

130 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
and the Preaching of the Old Testament,
p. 169.)
In like manner Dr. Stevens, who refuses to
accept the ordinary evangelical view of the
atonement as truly as does Mr. Campbell,
writes, after criticising the various opinions
on the subject : "In the Levitical code the
sacrificial system has a special connection with
the confession and forgiveness of sin. There
can be no doubt that certain offerings were
particularly designed to emphasise the reality
and guilt of sin, and to keep alive in the people
the sense of God's displeasure toward it."
( The Christian Doctrine of Salvation, pp. 1 5,
16.) This atmosphere becomes constantly more
and more ethical, till it reaches its Old Testa
ment culmination in that grand conception of
atoning vicarious sacrifice through human
suffering for the sins of others which we have
[in the 53rd of Isaiah. There can be no doubt
that at the opening of the Christian era sacri
fices were regarded as having an "atoning"
efficacy. // is along this line that we must
come up to Christ if we wish to understand
jhe Cross.
^""Atonement, Mr. Campbell says, represents
[ the unit or individual giving himself to the
? whole ^and to God. This is said to be the
principle of all atonement. We need not

THE CROSS OF CHRIST 131
hesitate to accept this, if only God and man's
relations to God and the whole be ethically
conceived. It surely implies that there is some
real opposition to God which needs in this way
to be healed. / Atonement would otherwise be
uncalled for and impossible. What was that
opposition which had to be healed by the
sacrifice of Christ ? Why did He have to give
Himself up for the sake of the whole ? We
are not here dealing with an ordinary person.
By Mr. Campbell's own assertion, He was
unique in the world, the only man, the one man
who stood in complete union with God, and ,
was therefore "the last word of God" to us. |
His act cannot therefore be rightly (or even!
reverently) compared with that of the individual!
who at the cost of his own life saves another!
from death or from some quite unethical and tem
poral calamity — with that of the sailor "oftener
in the public-house than in the church," or with
Mr. Keir Hardie's praiseworthy endeavours
for the labouring community in the House of]
Commons. The spirit that animates to the
action may be the same, but the acknowledged
uniqueness of Christ, not to say His equally
acknowledged incarnation of "very God," 1
forbids such comparisons.
Mr. Campbell views the death of Christ
from the human side merely, and affirms that

132 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
it is only from that side it is to be viewed. So
viewed, it was, of course, an enormous crime,
and it came about "quite naturally." But if
God was in Christ, as He is said to have been,
or, indeed, if there be any God at all save the
"imperfect" immanent one, there must have
been a Divine side to the necessity for the
death of Christ as truly as a human one. In
a way, no doubt, Mr. Campbell would acknow
ledge this. It was necessary to manifest the
complete love and self-sacrifice which is "the
innermost of God." " God," he says, "allowed
wickedness to do its worst, and thereby made
the disinterested nobleness of the character of
Jesus all the clearer." " Supernatural inter
ference would have dimmed the moral beauty
of the faith, courage, and perfect self-devotion
of Jesus." So this is the whole meaning of
the Cross of Christ. " Once more we come to
the last word of the Cosmos (of 'the Cosmos,'
be it noted) — manifestation by sacrifice ; and
the experience of Jesus is the sum and centre
of it all." "It is therefore that the name of
Jesus has such power in the world," — "because
a perfectly noble and unselfish life was crowned
by a perfectly sacrificial death." " The life and
death together were a perfect self-offering, the
offering of the unit to the whole, the individual
to the race, the Son to the Father, and

THE CROSS OF CHRIST 133
therefore the greatest manifestation of the
innermost of God that has ever been made to
the world." "At Calvary perfect love joined
issue with perfect hate, perfect goodness with
perfect wickedness, and became victorious by
enduring the worst and remaining pure and
unchanged to the last." But after Calvary
"the world had still to reckon with God" — the
resurrection proved the Divine victory. " When
all seemed lost, this buried life arose in11 power
in other lives that up till then had never fully
known its Divine greatness and spiritual beauty.
This is the truth about the death of Jesus, and
nothing needs to be added to show how great
an event in the dealings of God with men it
must have been. Theological word-spinning
only serves to obscure its true significance.
Show to the world the real Jesus : tell men
how it came about that He had to die, and
they cannot help but love Him."
In justice to Mr. Campbell, we have given
his statement of the Cross somewhat fully, j
We have here some of the best sentences in;
his book. However far they may be from j
stating the full truth concerning the death ofl
Christ, they certainly present us with one]
important aspect of the many-sided Cross,
But, of course, they are in entire opposition to]
what Mr. Campbell has elsewhere laid down. I

134 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
Why should there be such dire opposition to
God in the world? Why should the world
crucify its immanent real self when it stood
embodied before it? Why should the world
have, after its "murderous" deed, to "reckon
with God," if God was expressing His very
life in the world itself?
Mr. Campbell's view of atonement is
necessarily vitiated by his one-sided conception
of selfishness, as mainly affecting our human
relationships, but not our relationship to God.
" How can sin injure God?" he asks. But if
it injures man, it surely at the same time injures
Him who is the Father of men, the Guardian
of humanity, the Judge of all the earth ? What
kind of God would He be who was indifferent
to what so greatly affects His creatures? God
is Love, but because He is Love He is also
Holiness and Righteousness, and after all our
earthly relationships have been exhausted we
shall yet find that, to use a phrase of Mr.
Campbell's, we have to "reckon with God."
And if God does take knowledge of sin, the
atonement must have some relation to God in
view of sin.
Note. — In the Glasgow address it is very
evident that atonement is chiefly regarded as
affecting the relations between man and man

THE CROSS OF CHRIST 135
only. All possible activities of the soul are
said to lie between two poles, — self on the one
hand, the common good on the other ; self on
the one hand, God on the other. But rebellion^
against God is simply selfishness, — "living fori
self instead of living for others." But surely j
this is not all. There are the two poles within \
the soul, a higher nature which shines upon us j
as ideal, and seeks to win us, the will of God in !
some real measure made known to us, which i
our own will may refuse. A man's life may I
go out in unselfishness to others, while yet in 1
relation to the higher ideal of the inner personal
life it may cling to what is lower than the truly
Divine as seen in Christ.

CHAPTER XII
THE CROSS AS JESUS VIEWED IT

CHAPTER XII
THE CROSS AS JESUS VIEWED IT
What we want are the facts concerning the
Cross ; not theories, certainly not either old or
new "theological word-spinning." We need not
go to Paul or to the other Apostles for their
interpretation of the Cross, for to the New
Theology they are not authorities on the
subject ; it knows much better. But what Mr.
Campbell has failed to do is to ask, How Jesus
Himself 'viewed His Cross, how He regarded the
necessity for His death in relation to God, and
for the fulfilment of His mission to bring in
God's Kingdom. This is the primary question
apart from theories altogether. If we would
understand the Cross we must see how Jesus
regarded it. He did not say much about it,
but He said enough. A careful, independent
reading of the Gospel narratives leaves us in
no doubt respecting the answer. And it is one
that can be very simply stated, if only we care
so to state it. Jesus viewed His Cross as a)

140 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
^necessary sacrifice in view of sin, in order that
the Kingdom of God which He had preached
might come in power into men's hearts. The
Cross was in Christ's view a sacrifice for sin, not
. to make amends for it by suffering (which, we
tjf-^ateaemoitJlift-rfMB-'Connecti'on^ but because
of sin, and in order to do away with it.
We must be brief; but the subject is one
of supreme importance. It is the acceptance
of death by "the only man," the incarnate
Son of God, He who was " very God." Only
think of it ! — we cannot surely deal lightly with
such an amazing fact.
What the Gospels show is this. When Jesus
saw that He was doomed to meet death instead
of ascending the throne of a spiritual Israel,
it was a solemn and mysterious experience
to Him. What could be its meaning? He
had no consciousness of sin, — why should
He have to die? His own words show
us that He accepted it all in the light of
the Old Testament (His Bible), "that the
Scriptures might be fulfilled," "as it was written
of Him." Therefore He regarded it all as
coming in the will of God, His Father. His
death was to be "a ransom " for others. He
felt that, in some sense, it came even directly
from the hand of the loving Father, as is shown

THE CROSS AS JESUS VIEWED IT 141
by the saying which He quoted : " / will smite
the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered
abroad." Therefore also His prayer in Geth- "I
semane, that, if it was possible, that cup might
pass from Him, "nevertheless not My will, but
Thine, be done." He accepted His death as
that sacrifice through which alone salvation
could come to men.
Although the great picture of vicarious
sacrifice, with its redeeming results in the
53rd of Isaiah, may have had no direct reference
to Jesus personally (as Mr. Campbell some
what needlessly argues), in no one did the ideal
there presented find such complete fulfilment.
According to St. Luke's Gospel, in a saying
which a hostile criticism has as yet vainly
endeavoured to shake, Jesus quoted from it
a passage bearing on His death : " For I say
unto you, that this which is written must be
fulfilled in Me ' And He was reckoned with the
transgressors ' ; for that which concerneth Me
hath fulfilment." He must have interpreted
His death in the light of what was "written"
of His great prototype ; "He was wounded for
our transgressions, he was bruised for our
iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was
upon him, and with his stripes we are healed ;
the Lord hath made to light on him the
iniquity of us all. When thou shall make his

142 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
soul (or life) an offering for sin (a guilt-offering)
[or if his soul should present a guilt-offering]
he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days,
and the pleasure (or purpose) of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the
travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied, by the
knowledge concerning him shall my righteous
servant justify many (or make many righteous) ;
and he shall bear their iniquities."
Nothing was more fitted than this to explain
to the human mind of Jesus the meaning of
His death, and to create within His soul the
confidence that He expressed to His disciples
that after and by means of it, the Kingdom of
God should surely come. " When His soul
(or life) should be made an offering for sin,"
then only should the purpose of the Lord
prosper in His hand, then and then only
should the Kingdom come in its spiritual, saving
power. But, indeed, however much we may choose to
ignore it, Jesus explained the purpose of His
death to His disciples in terms which for them
could have had but one meaning, and which we
find not only in the Gospels but also in St. Paul.
In the words of Professor Harnack (who will
not be judged an "obscurantist ") : " That Jesus
at the celebration of the Lord's Supper described
His death as a sacrifice which He should offer

THE CROSS AS JESUS VIEWED IT 143
for the forgiveness of sin, is clear from the
account of Paul." The phrase " for the forgive
ness of sin " is indeed liable to be misunderstood ;
we should say, rather, "in connection with the
forgiveness of sin." He compared His body
to that of the lamb that had been sacrificed in
Egypt, under cover of the blood of which their
forefathers had been preserved from the doom
that fell on the Egyptians, and which was the
prelude to their redemption. And His Blood,
He said, was that of "the Covenant," the
New Covenant, "poured out for many." St.
Matthew adds, ' ' for the remission of sins. " Both
the Paschal Lamb and the Covenant Sacrifice
contained a cleansing (or atoning) element in
relation to sin. The New Covenant -was founded
on forgiveness, and guaranteed the coming of
God to dwell in His people. It was the same
thing as the coming of the Kingdom of God,
and His Blood was that which should ratify it
and make it effectual.
His death therefore was in His own view a
necessity laid on Him by God for the spiritual
redemption of His people, and it had a relation
to the coming of the Divine forgiveness to men
with saving power. / Now, what did death mean
to Christ ? To the Jew, nurtured on the OIcT
Testament, it was the doom of sin. To
Christ, all evil, all suffering, was due to sin.

144 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
Therefore when He healed He said, "Thy
sins be forgiven thee." It was "Satan "who
had " bound the poor woman these forty years."
Sickness and death were the result of sin. But
He had no evil — no consciousness of sin ; there
fore the death that He saw approaching Him,
instead of the throne, could not be because of
evil on His own part. He must be meant to die
for the sins of others, "on behalf of" others, as
He said, that through His death for them they
might be saved, as was the case with the
servant of God in Isaiah. He had preached
the Kingdom ; yet it had not come in its
power. He had proclaimed the forgiving love
of God ; yet scarcely any had believed in it, —
there was something standing between man
and God, keeping back the Kingdom. It was
(sin. Man's sin must be acknowledged and
removed ere the Divine forgiveness could come
to men with saving power. The death that
was the doom of sinful man must be set forth
in His Person, and bowed to by Him in man's
name, before even men's own consciences would
suffer them to believe in Divine forgiveness,
or that forgiveness come to them so as really
to bring the Kingdom of God into their hearts.
This must be the meaning of that coming of
death to Him over whom it had no claim. It
was that which should make the new Covenant

THE CROSS AS JESUS VIEWED IT 145
effectual, and bring in the Kingdom in its
spiritual power.
The death that He had thus to face was not
merely the bodily dissolution that comes to all
embodied beings, to animal as well as to man,
to saint as truly as to sinner — that which we
have come to call "physical death." No; it
was just death, with no hint of resurrection save
for the righteous. There might be existence
in Sheol, but there was no life. " The main
point is," says Professor A. B. Davidson (with
respect to "Death" in the Old Testament),
"that the relation between the dead person and
God is cut of-. This is what gave death its
significance to the religious mind. Fellow
ship with God ceases. ' In death there is no
remembrance of Thee : in Sheol who shall
give Thee thanks ? For Sheol cannot praise
Thee ; they that go down into the pit cannot
hope for Thy truth' (Is. xxxviii. 18)." (Art.
" Eschatology " in Hastings' Diet, of the Bible.)
It meant separation from God — to the sinner,
or the man after the flesh merely, it meant
exclusion from the Kingdom of God.
If Mr. Campbell had thought of this he would
not have spoken so rashly and unwisely of the
"pious nonsense" that has been written con
cerning Gethsemane. If "death" meant to
Christ what that most competent scholar whom

146 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
we have just quoted tells us it meant in the
Old Testament ; if separation from God was
involved in His acceptance of death in our
name, we can surely understand why Jesus
.-.hould not only have recoiled from it with
Lorror, but have endured such agony of soul
and sent up such pleadings to the Father as are
recorded in the Gospels. Yet — and here is the
greatness, the completeness, the full atoning
and redeeming power of the sacrifice — even
this uttermost sacrifice of Himself He was
prepared to make, if it was the Father's will ; if
only thus men could be saved from sinfulness,
and the Kingdom of God come in power. He
was willing in this most literal sense " to lay down
His life," that life which in its communion with
God meant so much to Him — "for us all."1
Nothing, we believe, has done more to
obscure the unique significance of the death
of Christ and the greatness of His sacrifice,
to hide the real and necessary doom of the
sinful life of the flesh, — the selfish life which
must die, which cannot inherit the Kingdom
of God, which, as Mr. Campbell tells us, is
the source of all evil, and is necessarily " death -
1 We have what are to some extent corresponding and illus
trative instances in Moses, who was willing to be blotted out
of God's book if only the people might be forgiven ; and in
Paul, who was willing to be made anathema (separated from
God) for his brethren's sake after the flesh.

THE CROSS AS JESUS VIEWED IT 147
ward " in its tendency, — and so to weaken the
sense of the need of the great salvation which
God has provided in Christ, than the way we
have got into of thinking of physical death
merely as that which Christ had to meet, or
as the doom of sin. Christ's experience on
the Cross confirms the interpretation we have
given ; for did He not then, if only for a
moment, actually experience that separation
from God which is the last, bitterest drop in
the cup of doom? If God was really in
Christ, if up to that moment He had enjoyed
the sense of that Presence which He was then
left without, no other explanation of it seems
possible. Nor is there anything marvellous or un
reasonable in the fact that such death or
separation from God should be the doom of
sin. Sin, as Mr. Campbell assures us, is
death in its very nature. Sin, most certainly,
cannot be suffered to enter heaven, or to
perpetuate itself anywhere eternally. If man
cannot be saved from sin, this must be its
doom. The lower, animal, self-centred life
cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. In the
very nature of things it cannot do so. Either
sin must die in the sinner, or the sinner must
die. That there may be possibilities of salva
tion beyond this life is in no contradiction to

148 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
this, for, according to the Christian conception,
this also is through the Cross of Christ.
Physical death — bodily dissolution — is not
in itself a doom at all, but a necessary, an
inevitable, a beneficent fact — apart from which
none of us would have been here to-day.
The purpose of this sacrifice was certainly
not to propitiate God personally, as if God
were like an angry man. While we cannot
sympathise with the light, and we must say
irreverent, way in which Mr. Campbell speaks
of the relation of God to human sin, we are
at one with him in repudiating as un-Christian
the representations that have been made of
the world as lying under the wrath and curse
of God, and of God Himself as mainly con
cerned "to mark iniquity." While not only
Paul, but Christ Himself, taught that there
was that in the nature of God and in the
constitution of His world which has been
described as "the wrath of God against sin,"
that wrath only goes forth because God is
Love, and because sin is that which injures
His children and is opposed to the purpose
of His Love. Certain it is that the sinful,
self-centred, animal man cannot be at one
with God, cannot be truly a Son of God,
cannot inherit His eternal kingdom. But to
Christ (and to Paul) God was ever the loving

THE CROSS AS JESUS VIEWED IT 149
and forgiving Father of men. Jesus came1
proclaiming the Divine forgiveness. Yet the
result made it clear that that forgiveness could
only come to men so that they could become 1
assured of it, and saved from sin and self,
through the Cross. It was God Himself that
gave up His Son to that death for our sakes^/
Not only was this so to Christ's own con
sciousness, but it is the distinct teaching of
both Paul and "John." The great gospel
text is : " God so loved the world, that He
gave His only-begotten Son." It was God
who made the sacrifice, and, instead of that
sacrifice in any sense making or inducing God
to forgive, it was the supreme proof of His
forgiving love.
But, all the same, .it might have a very
necessary relation to the justice and holiness
of God, which are the outcome of His love,
and with which He in His love is one. Mr.
Campbell decries the idea that " Justice must
be satisfied before mercy can operate." There
is, of course, a wrong and misleading way of
stating this. Justice and mercy in God are
never in antagonism. But what would mercy
be apart from justice? It would be unmerci-
fulness, as well as injustice, to some. It is
God's justice that guards His worlds. Sin
forgiven out of harmony with justice would

150 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
be impossible, and were it possible it would
be no boon to the sinner, and could not possibly
save him. God has so made us, or, as Mr.
Campbell would say, is so immanently in us,
that we cannot take such a forgiveness with
confidence to our hearts. Mr. Campbell's
friends of the Labour Party will quickly (and
rightly) tell us that it is not Mercy they want,
but Justice. Justice in the actual practical
world of personal life (while one with love)
hiust ever be supreme.
"Justice conquers ever more,
Justice, after as before, —
And he who battles on her side,
God, though he were ten times slain,
Crowns him victor glorified —
Victor over death and pain."
Christ became " crowned with glory," because
He stood for righteousness, for justice, even
to the uttermost sacrifice of Himself for its
sake. It was such an acknowledgment of sin on
the part of Him who was the one true man, the
sinless Head and Representative of a sinful
humanity, as was necessary — not before God
could forgive sinners, but before His forgive
ness could go forth so as to save them from
sin to that righteousness which alone could
bless them either in time or in eternity. [For-

THE CROSS AS JESUS VIEWED IT 151
giveness, apart from that manifestation of
righteousness in view of the sin of the world,
would not have saved men, nor could it have
been confidently believed in by them. ^
It was all in order to save men from sin and
selfishness, — to bring the Kingdom of God into
our hearts and into the world. The man who
clings to the Cross for a merely selfish salva
tion entirely misapprehends its purpose, and is
not saved. The Cross was truly designed to
make men "at one with God and with the
whole." Christ in His perfect offering of Him
self there in our name did bring man as repre
sented in Himself into full ethical unity with
God and the whole. This was the atonement
in His Person. But it could only be such by
His acknowledgment of our sin, and it was
meant to save us from sin, and to bring each
one of us into the same ethical unity with God
and with the whole. If we consider now how
this salvation can be effected, we shall see the
necessity there was for that death of Christ in
relation to sin, and how entirely inadequate the
New Theology is to effect that which we most
of all need, and which it says it comes to*clo. ,,
Note. — There are few more competent
scholars or more "advanced" theologians than
Professor Harnack. Let us therefore quote a

1 52 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
few sentences concerning the Cross as a sacri
fice from his What is Christianity ? " No
reflection of the 'reason,' no deliberation of
the 'intelligence,' will ever be able to expunge
from the moral ideas of mankind the conviction
that injustice and sin deserve to be punished,
and that everywhere that the just man suffers,
an atonement is made that puts us to shame
and purifies us. It is a conviction which is
impenetrable, for it comes out of those depths
in which we feel ourselves to be a unity, and
out of the world which lies behind the world of
phenomena. Mocked and denied as though it
had long perished, this truth is indestructibly
preserved in the moral experience of mankind "
(p. 162).

CHAPTER XIII
SALVATION FROM SELFISHNESS

CHAPTER XIII
SALVATION FROM SELFISHNESS
Salvation, according to the New Theology,
is rightly (although inconsistently and im
perfectly) described as salvation from selfish
ness to the life of love — the life of self-sacrifice
— the life of God within us. But is this a
simple or easy matter? Is it not just the
greatest practical problem in the universe ?
To save a man from himself, — just think of it !
True, there is a deeper, truer self which each
man is potentially ; but it is the other, lower,
self-centred self, that is in possession, and the
problem is how is that higher, Diviner self to
become the actual living self of the man, in
stead of the lower self. There is nothing more
deeply rooted than self, in the sense in which
we need to be saved from it. There is nothing
more difficult to get wholly away from. Man,
in order to live on the earth, amidst his
physical and animal surroundings, in order to
have and hold his footing in the world that he

156 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
entered — in order to appear at all, in fact — had
first of all to be deeply rooted in that lower
animal nature of "the flesh," and then to be
raised out of it to that higher life of God in
man. How can it be effected? Man is first
of all a sharer in an animal nature, which is
essentially a self-centred nature. The self
which is the source of the sin that is the divisive
element in his life is not merely what is de
scribed (not altogether correctly) as " the
remains of the brute inheritance," but is the
/very central principle of the lower life. /If a
higher principle is to dominate the life there
imust be an actual death of the lower self-
principle. That is why " the wages of sin is
death." Selfishness cannot be the principle
of the life of God in man ; the self-centred
life is doomed to die. It was this that was
bowed to in our name by Christ, in our
flesh, on His Cross — that necessary doom of
the self life, in order that we might thereby be
saved from that life and its doom, and that the
Kingdom of God might come into our hearts
and into the world. It was in order that the
complete oneness of humanity with God there
represented in His Person might be realised in
\us all. It was no mere scenic display, nor
juridical transaction, but a great ethical act
and manifestation which, seen by men in its

SALVATION FROM SELFISHNESS 157
truth, should become the power of God unto
their salvation. It was meant to become, not
merely the Cross on which Jesus was crucified
for our sakes, but the Cross by means of which
the lower self in every man must be crucified.
But how is this to be brought about ? It is when
a man sees and acknowledges the desert of sin
(or selfishness) as set forth in that Cross of
sacrifice, when he sees and acknowledges the
evil and the evil desert of sin, and homologates,
as it were, Christ's representative act, it is
when he believes on that " Son of God who
loved me and gave Himself up for me," and
through experience of the Divine forgiveness
has "the love of God" there revealed "shed
abroad in his heart," that the self -principle
receives its death-wound, and the new principle
of love is quickened in the soul. It may take
long to die, but by this means the process is
begun. Self is a much more subtle principle in man
than Mr. Campbell and the men who are to
save the world by means of the New Theology
seem to suppose. Truly was it written that
"the serpent was more subtle than all the
beasts of the field," and it is only death to self
that can save a man from that "old serpent"
within him.
To be saved from self means very much")

158 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
more than to be self-sacrificingly enthusiastic
in the cause of social reform. A man may be
a sincere and ardent Socialist, not merely in
words but in practice, and yet be in some
aspects of his life a most selfish man, an enemy
to the happiness of others, to the higher life of
his fellows, and in himself unfit for the King
dom of God. So, of course, may a theologian,
whether of the old type or of the new. It is
very easy to deceive ourselves, and it is hard,
hard work to get rid of self. When we seem
to accomplish it in one aspect of our life, the
throne may remain firmly established in another.
The love that God is, and which would fain
live in us, seeks to find its manifestation in
many other ways than in devotion to social
reformation, desirable and even essential as
(that is. We need to be "at one with the
/ whole " in more than the merely earthly
aspects of life, at one with God and with
His purpose to make men not only to live
happily here, but to become "partakers in the
Divine Nature," and the heirs of an Eternal
Kingdom, apart from which a Kingdom of God
in this world only would have no meaning
^ojr ultimate value either to God or to man.
The coming of the Kingdom of God means
very much more than the establishment of a
perfect external social system, were it possible

SALVATION FROM SELFISHNESS 159
for such a system ever to be established from
without merely. If, as Mr. Campbell has said,
"the Church has nothing to do with preparing
men for heaven," then we must say, not only
that "Christ has died in vain," but that God
has created us in vain, for nothing is more
certain than that all that is of the earth merely
must at length come to nothingness.
If now we turn for a moment to the results
which followed the death of Christ, we shall
see the necessity that there was for His sacrifice,
and its efficacy to save men, — its high place
in the wisdom and love of God ; we shall see
the Cross to be in truth the great deed of God
in Christ for the salvation of the world. It
did make " the New Covenant " effectual ~ it did
bring the Kingdom of God into men's hearts
in spiritual power. Mr. Campbell himself shall
be our witness here. "The immediate effect
of the life and death of Jesus upon His
followers," he says, " was to make them more or
less like Him, and to fill them with a similar
desire to get men to live the life of love which
is the life of God. They felt themselves
inspired by the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit of
truth and love, and exalted above all fear for
their own safety and all desire to live for them
selves alone. They loved their Lord so much
that their lives became one with His in the

1 6b WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
work of saving the world." Was not this
something wonderful which was thus witnessed
in these men ? What a deliverance from selfish
ness ! Surely St. Paul was justified in describing
it as a new creation. Although God had long
been working towards it, we have here the
manifestation of a new stage in the evolution
of His purpose in humanity ; a new epoch in
the life of man. A study of the "social results
of early Christianity" (as, for example, in
Schmidt's handy volume) will show how the
new spirit spread itself till the whole of life was
influenced by it. This was the result of the
life, and especially of the death, of Jesus on the
Cross. But how did these men regard the Cross ?
This is the crucial question here. Without ex
ception — notwithstanding these varieties of
modes of statement which Mr. Campbell has
been at the pains to exhibit, — without exception,
we say, that Cross was for them the ackowledg-
ment of man's sin, a sacrifice for sin, a mani
festation of God's righteousness and of His
judgment on sin. And it was for their salva
tion. Here we have the needed psychological
dynamic, in an appeal to that self which,
although not the only element in our nature, is
undoubtedly the strongest and the most deeply
rooted. Here we have the manifestation of
the Divine Wisdom in this great provision for

SALVATION FROM SELFISHNESS 161
the salvation of men from self to the life of
Love. That Cross of Christ by its appeal to
the self has at the same time the marvellous
power to save men from self and to quicken
in them the life of the true children of God.
It is, we repeat, the conviction of sin that thaf
Cross is designed to create, the manifestation
of the forgiving love of God therein, and the
acceptance of that Cross as representing the
death which I, as a man after the flesh, or the
lower self merely, must die, to save me from
which Christ died, that become within the soul
"the power of God unto Salvation." Self, it
is true, rebels against such a humbling view oF
the Cross, its ambassadors may sometimes feel
ashamed to preach it, so very contrary is it, at
first sight, to the likings of the natural self ; it
has always been an offence to many, and by
some has been counted " foolishness," but at the
same time it has always proved itself to be
that "foolishness of God which is wiser than
men, and that weakness of God which is
stronger than men." It is, we believe, a revolt
from the Cross so conceived that is the real
foundation of all this New Theology, as well as of
the readiness to listen to it ; but for this very
reason it must in the long-run share the fate
of every system that has preferred the wisdom
of men to that of God as expressed in Christ
jj

1 62 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
and His Cross, as a Sacrifice in view of Sin and
for men's real Salvation.
/""" No right - thinking person can fail to
(sympathise with Mr. Campbell in his denun
ciation of selfishness wherever it is to be found,
and in his desire to bring in the Kingdom of
[God — the reign of all Justice and Righteous-
mess and Love to the world. It must be
| confessed that Evangelicalism has too greatly
failed to give right direction to the love which
its Gospel can undoubtedly kindle in the heart.
Whatever has tended to lead men to imagine that
" Salvation " is something that can be selfishly
enjoyed, instead of being essentially Salvation
\ifrom self, needs to be removed. But we need
to be careful lest at the same time we put out
the fire that alone can kindle the new life, in
the heart. The New Theology provides nothing
' that can uproot selfishness, and, if it be not
uprooted, we might have the most complete
emancipation from social injustice and the most
perfect outward form of society imaginable,
and yet men would still be miserable, and the
need of salvation as clamant as ever. If God's
own remedy for sin — the Cross of Christ
rightly viewed and applied — cannot destroy
selfishness and bring His Kingdom here, it is
vain to imagine that any appeal that man can
make to man can ever accomplish it.

SALVATION FROM SELFISHNESS 163
It is highly desirable that we should re-\
cognise "the fundamental unity of all life,"]
in its Divine source and in its ideal ; that
in the very gift of Life there is something of
God in us all ; that, deeper than the animal
self, there is a Divine Self that would fain
possess us ; that the ideal of our life is sonship
towards God, conformity to Christ, and, there
fore, brotherhood towards one another. But
you may appeal to men in the name of
Immanence merely, as earnestly as you will,
and you may point them to the glorious
example of Jesus as the Prince of martyrs
to the cause of Truth and Righteousness,
yet you will never thus move their souls to
their depths so as to save them from that
self which is the seat of sin •] you will never thus
bring them into that unity with God and man
that Jesus stood in, and which He calls us to
share ; you will never thus establish that real
Kingdom of God, which is meant indeed for
the earth, but which can only find its fruition
in the eternal sphere. It is because we (in
common with many others of those of whom
Mr. Campbell speaks somewhat disdainfully)
are as anxious as he can possibly be to see
God's will done on the earth, and men made
partakers of a spiritual and eternal salvation,
that we feel bound to point out how entirely

1 64 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
inadequate is this New Theology to do this
fgreat and needed work. While recognising
[fully the need of theological reconstruction,
and believing that what Mr. Campbell aims
[at, and, we think, surely really means, is good,
yet we cannot regard this New Theology, as
\ it has been stated, as a step in the right
| direction. It is a retrograde movement to
j be deplored, not a forward one to welcome
(and rejoice in. At the same time, the very
extremeness and (in our opinion) erroneousness
of its statements, have called wide-spread
attention to it and so to religion itself, and
in the long-run the truth will shine forth
clearly. For "we can do nothing against the
Truth but for the Truth," and it is always
the Truth that serves God and that makes
men free.

CHAPTER XIV
LAST THINGS"; THE KINGDOM
AND THE CHURCH; AUTHORITY
IN RELIGION /

165

CHAPTER XIV
"LAST THINGS"; THE KINGDOM AND
THE CHURCH ; AUTHORITY IN
RELIGION
Having now discussed the chief matters
involved in this New Theology, we shall deal
very briefly with Mr. Campbell's concluding
chapters. These represent far less departure
from what is commonly held by thoughtful
Christians — although some unfortunate phrases
are still to be met with. There are a few
points, however, that may be noted, and we
must also consider the question of the
"Authority of the Scriptures" as it is dealt
with by Mr. Campbell, before concluding with
an attempt at a positive statement of what we
can reasonably believe to-day.
It is well that we should recognise that
Salvation, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell, are
primarily spiritual conceptions and experiences ;
that salvation is not from mere future punish
ment, but from self and sin ; that Heaven must
be in us if we are to be in Heaven ; that we
167

1 68 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
'form our own Heaven or Hell as we form our
own characters. It is most true that "what
soever a man sows that shall he also reap " :
" The tissues of the life to be
We weave in colours all our own ;
And in the field of destiny
We reap as we have sown."
It is true also that Forgiveness does not
mean the remission of all penalty. But it does
mean the removal of that which is the most
serious consequence of sin — the removal of the
sense of separation from God. And this re
union with Him ensures that whatever we may
suffer shall be made to work for our good.
Mr. Campbell is always in danger of falling
back into what are really unethical conceptions.
He does so when he says that "an unselfish
desire to minister to the common good " is " the
true salvation." Surely it is much more than
that. A man may have a perfectly unselfish
desire so to act, but in his own soul be far
from oneness with the Ethical Source of his
being, or God. He has an ideal self of his
own to realise quite apart from the common
good. It is true that he cannot realise that
higher self in separation from the common
life ; but he may be fully interested in seeking
" the common good " while comparatively in
different to the moral and spiritual qualities

"LAST THINGS" 169
that ought to characterise his own proper
self. Mr. Campbell himself goes on to show
that "salvation" or "conversion" has "often"
meant something much more pronounced than
this." But if so, where those deeper elements
were lacking, " salvation " must have been
superficial and incomplete.
It is surely also going too far to "say frankly
that there is no such thing as punishment [in
the usual sense of the word, of course], no
far-off Judgment Day, no Great White Throne,
and no Judge external to ourselves." This looks
very much like saying that there is no God
over all. We must conceive these matters
differently, but they stand for realities. Again,,
universal salvation is dogmatically affirmed.!
Although a man may prepare for himself "a
harvest of pain, sooner or later the Divine life
within him, the truer, deeper self, will assert
itself against the divisive efforts of sin." How
does he know? Is the Divine life really in
the man ? Here once more we seem to fall
to the unethical. But there is no room for
doubt about the matter we are assured. "It
is just as impossible for a man to go on'
eternally living apart from the universal life, j
as it is for a sand castle to shut out the ocean. "'
This may be true in a sense that Mr. Campbell'
does not think of. But is the separate self

170 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
only like "a sand castle." Is there no more
individuality in man, and no more power of
resistance than that? Well, then, it must be
said that man is a very poor thing, hardly
worth saving at all ; certainly not worth all the
travail of creation and the sufferings of Christ.
" The returning tide will sweep down the puny
barriers and destroy everything that tends to
separate between the soul and God." When
shall it do so ? and, Why does it not do so
now? What "returning tide" is to do this
great work? "For, after all, what is our life
but God's ? " Where, then, the need for creating
us, and of passing us through all the painful
discipline of time ? Again we are down to the
unethical. Mr. Campbell speaks of " the deeper
self" as if it were a thing or an entity in the
man, and sure to be in him for ever, altogether
apart from the conditions of life. When the
man who has in life rejected this deeper self
dies, where is it ? Nay, where is he — the man ?
Inevitable immortality and a perpetual relation
to God are taken for granted. But have we
any right to do so ? Is it all so certain as
jthis ? /Mr. Campbell quotes Paul's saying,
"Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also
reap." But why stop there ? "He that
soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap
corruption!' Does not Mr. Campbell himself

LAST THINGS" 171

assure us that selfishness means death. Yet
it is said to be certain that after he has reaped
this harvest of corruption, he shall sow again,
this time to the Spirit ? How does he know ?
We hope so ; but is it wise or kind to men to
assure them of what we really do not know}
We know the way to " life " : better urge them
to take it now. This was what Jesus did. To
the man who asked, "Are there few that be
saved," He answered " Strive you — ' Agonise '
— to enter in at the strait gate, for many, I
say unto you, shall seek to enter in and shall
not be able." This does not exclude a hope^
beyond; but He who was "the last word"
about God, spake no other word to men than
this. Would it not be best to follow His
example ? If assured that all must come right
at last, how much will men care? Shall we
hope thus to save the world from selfishness ? j
We are just as honest as Mr. Campbell is, and
because we desire to be honest we cannot hold
out as a certainty what is only a hope. *J
But we must pass on — leaving much that is
interesting and suggestive concerning Death
and the life beyond, and the Resurrection and
Ascension of Christ unnoticed, to speak of the
Kingdom of God and the Church. With much
that Mr. Campbell says here, we are personally
in sympathy. Its limitations have been already

172 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
to some extent referred to. He tells us that
what Jesus meant by "the Kingdom of God
was something much too simple for the
theologians," who "have endeavoured to twist
and torture it out of all recognition." The
poor theologians! /Well, what was it? "The
meaning of Jesus is perfectly clear and simple.
, It is that if a Kingdom of universal brotherhood
| is ever to be realised on earth it can only come
by the operation of universal goodwill ? " We
fear that this is much too simple even for Jesus.
Let any one read the Gospels and say honestly,
was this all that Jesus meant by the Kingdom
of God ? Was it not rather the reign of all that
God is, first in the individual heart and then in
the world, with its fruition in Eternity in lives
that had proved y& for the Eternal Kingdom?
Paul's interest was also centred, it is said,
in the coming of an outward Kingdom on the
earth. But is it not Paul who says that "the
Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking,
but righteousness and peace and joy in the
Holy Spirit " ? This is very much deeper than
the Kingdom of the New Theology ; and it is
this that the soul, awakened to reality, craves
for, and will not be satisfied without. To offer
such souls an outward Kingdom is to proffer a
stone for bread.
Mr. Campbell says truly that the Church,

LAST THINGS" 173

using the word in its primitive sense, exists
"to save the world," "to help to realise the
Kingdom of God by preaching and living the
fellowship of love." This is true ; but in order
to this, must not those who compose this Church
be first of all "saved" themselves? Mr.
Campbell sneers at the idea of " snatching men
as brands from the burning," and getting them
"ready for a future heaven." He is right in
repudiating the conception of the world in
relation to God which has too often been
presented by evangelical preachers — that of
"a ruined world, which has somehow baffled
and disappointed God, a failure of a world,
which, when the cup of its iniquity is full will
be utterly destroyed at a general judgment."
But if sin, that is selfishness, be the deadly
thing that he says it is, we cannot surely be
too much in earnest in seeking our own salva
tion and that of others from it ; and that, too,
for the sake of the world. It will probably be
found that it has been the men who have been
so "saved" that have been the real salt of
the earth and the truest " saviours of others.^,
When he says that the Chuch has sought " to
persuade as many as possible to believe some
thing or other in order to secure salvation in
a better world," he must surely know that he
is caricaturing what some of the best men who

174 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
have ever lived, and the truest friends to "the
whole" in this present life, John Wesley, for
example, have sought to do. No intelligent
Christian preacher has ever told men that they
can be saved by merely believing something.
The Church may have been too anxious about
its Creeds, but it has never, as a whole, said
that mere belief in them saved men.
/Mr. Campbell admits that the world is a
better place to live in because of the gradual
and cumulative redemptive effort of the Christian
Ecclesia, the Church of Jesus. But on the
whole it has failed in its mission "to make the
world better and gladder and worthier of God."
And yet the world is God's own self-expression !
/It can only be made better and gladder and
| worthier of God as it is saved from the sin that
! separates from God and our fellows, and this
[the Church as a whole has sought to do for
jmen. But the Church, we are told, in a sentence
j we have already referred to, has " nothing
/ whatever to do with preparing men for a world
/ to come " ; its real mission is to men in relation
to this present world. Does he really believe
that to shut out all pressing relation to a higher,
purer, and better life above and beyond the
present, to deal with men as if they were
superior animals merely, with but felicity as the
goal of their life, will help to save and bless

"LAST THINGS" 175
this present world? He knows history and;
human nature better than that. Such utter
ances may please a certain section of the public,
but they will not pass, even with them, for
Christianity. Jesus, indeed, had no other
Gospel than that of the Kingdom of God. But
the Kingdom of God meant much more to ,
Jesus than it does to the New Theology. ^J
But the churches have failed because "our
modern civilisation, with all its boasted advance
on the past, is still unchristian. It puts
a premium on selfishness." " Modern in
dustrialism is cruel and unjust, and directly
incites men to self-seeking. The weak and
unfortunate have to go to the wall." This is
sadly true. Although "the Church" cannot
be held wholly responsible for this, she has
been too indifferent to it, and has in no small
degree belied the Gospel of Divine Love she
has preached. There have been more words
than deeds, and even the words have too often
been addressed to the wrong persons. The
Church has too greatly cared for itself and left
the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed too
much to care for themselves as best they could.
But this is not because the Church has not
preached love, but because the love has not
received proper direction. While we cannot
agree with Mr. Campbell that it is "our

176 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
business to show that the religion of Jesus is
primarily a gospel for this life and only
secondarily for the life to come," we do agree
with him that the Church itself needs in many
respects to be christianised, and to set itself
more earnestly than it has ever yet done in
modern times to christianise Society — in a
word, to be saved from itself.
We shall not touch on Miracle or Prayer,
with neither of which subjects Mr. Campbell
deals fully ; but we earnestly endorse his re
mark that " one thing that urgently needs to be
done for the young people in our Sunday
Schools and various Christian Societies all over
the world, is to issue a series of well-written
manuals, presenting in a succinct form the best
results of biblical criticism." We are certainly
missing great opportunities in our Sunday
Schools. "The way the Bible is taught to
young people at present is most regrettable, for
in after years it leads them to doubt and dis
trust the very foundations of Christianity."
We know that there are honourable exceptions
to this ; but, all the same, what Mr. Campbell
says here needs to be laid to heart.
/""This leads naturally, in the last place, to the
subject of the Authority of the Bible. Mr.
Campbell is right, we think, in saying that there
( has been far too much reliance placed on merely

" LAST THINGS " 177
external authority, and too little on the witness
to truth within our own souls. The appeal to
the letter of Scripture has indeed much to
answer for. Sometimes it is not even to the
actual letter of Scripture, but to a misleading
translation of it, and sometimes to what has in
its original setting quite another meaning. The
instances which he cites: "These shall go
away into everlasting punishment," and " The
soul that sinneth it shall die," are apt illustra
tions of what is really an ignorant and misleading
use of Scripture, and for its commonness
preachers must take blame to .themselves for
not more courageously instructing their people.
But we think that Mr. Campbell goes to the"
other extreme when he says absolutely, "the
true seat of authority is within, not without, the j
human soul." The true seat of authority is'
surely in the Truth, ultimately in God. It '
becomes authority for us as Truth in so far as
we are able to discern it to be Truth. But
while all Truth is ultimately one, it does not
follow that it is all at any time present to the
human soul. Man has grown in capacity for 1
perceiving Truth just as he has grown in other'
respects. The Truth is forever above us all,
but some natures are more fitted to perceive it
than others. When it is said that "the real
test of Truth is the response that it awakens

f

178 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
(within the soul," it must not be forgotten that
;that response depends in a large measure on
(the nature and condition of that particular soul.
Those who have perceived the truth can state
what they have seen and so enable others to
perceive it also. Or, to borrow an illustration,
just as a man near the speaker can hear what
he says, and repeat or interpret it to the crowd
behind him, so the soul that is near to God
may hear His voice more distinctly than his
fellows, and, in turn, speak it forth, so that they
also may hear the same voice. This is the
function of the inspired man or prophet, and
prophecy was not limited to Old Testament
| times, nor has it ceased to-day. This is why a
special deference ought to be paid to the Bible
^writers. The large human element in the Bible
is to be distinctly recognised. It is true that
" God inspires men, not books " ; but if the
books were not written, how should we know
anything about such inspiration? Besides,
while St. Paul and the other New Testament
writers viewed things through the medium of
their intellectual furnishing, and could not
possibly have done anything else, they stood in
immediate relation to that spiritual "down
pouring " which, it is acknowledged, visited the
world in Christ ; they were the recipients of the
Holy Spirit's inspiration in all its pristine fresh-

LAST THINGS" 179

ness and power, and therefore their word matters
much more to us than that of those who lived
in later times.
Therefore it will not do to say, " Never mind
what the Bible says about this or that, if you
are in search for truth, but trust the voice of
God within you." God indeed speaks to us
to-day as truly as to the men of old, and there j
is always a danger of putting the Bible between!
our souls and the living God. God must be\
my God, not the God of Bible writers merely —
all to me that He was to them. But to believe
that God speaks to me is to believe that He
did actually speak to them. And it is certain/
that God cannot contradict Himself, or say
something to me quite different from what He
said to them. While, therefore, I must dis
tinguish what in the Bible is merely human
from what is Divine, if God speaks to man at
all, I must believe that the real truth and
substance of what He said to others cannot be
contradicted by what He says to me. Other
wise, what warrant have I for saying that God
speaks in any way to men at all ? And to
know what that real truth and substance is, I
must exert myself and use every means within
my reach for its discovery, including a sincere
desire not only to know but to do the will of
God, and earnest prayer to Him, of whom it

180 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
has been truly said, " If any of you lack wisdom
let him ask of God, who giveth to all men
liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be
given him. We have not because we ask not."
Each man has God Himself to go to, and we
are not left to the mercy of any man or of any
Theology.

CHAPTER XV
A POSITIVE FAITH

CHAPTER XV
A POSITIVE FAITH
There is naturally a strong demand on the part
of many to-day for a positive statement of what
we really can believe in the present state of
our knowledge. Of course, anyone can only
attempt to give this as his own personal belief.
In the foregoing criticism I have sought to be
constructive as well as critical. I trust that
I shall not be accused of lack of modesty if
I here adopt the first person singular, and
endeavour to set forth briefly what I, as one
who has sought to follow the Truth at any cost,
regard as a reasonable Christian faith, one
which I believe others also might find, on due
consideration, to be such.
I begin by again placing in the foreground^
the fact of salvation through faith in God's
reconciliation (or Atonement) of the world to
Himself in Christ and His Cross. I do so
because this is really what distinguishes Chris
tianity, and because it has been so abundantly
183

1 84 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
attested in experience. I believe that there has
been no better attested fact in the world's
history. It has proved itself during all the
Christian centuries, and amongst all varieties of
peoples, to be able to give rest to the soul, truer
and fuller life, a consciousness of " oneness with
God and the whole," and has thus shown itself
to belong to the Divine order of the Universe,
to be that which man needs to lift him out of
the lower, self-centred life into that life of love
which is the life of God in man.
This faith, I would next point out, does not
rest primarily on any Scriptures. The New
Testament was the product of this faith, not its
foundation. There was no such Book in the
hands of the earliest Christians. But there was
in them a glowing enthusiasm of love for God
and for humanity, kindled by simple faith in
Christ and His Cross. This Christian spirit
and life have come down to us, not merely as
inscribed on the pages of a Book, but as
written in the hearts and lives of men and
women, "living epistles known and read of all
men." While, therefore, the Scriptures are to
be prized in the manner already pointed out,
our faith does not depend on them, and no
criticism can touch it. Give criticism the freest
play : it cannot harm the faith.
Of course, this experience implies certain

A POSITIVE FAITH 185
facts which have made it possible. But these
facts may be at first merely (consciously or
unconsciously) assumed, or accepted tradition
ally (that is without question) as true. So
accepted, they are found to do for us what it
is affirmed the Gospel is able to effect. If,
when that Gospel is put to the test, we find
it to be true in experience, — if, for example,
through faith in God, as He is believed to have
revealed Himself in Christ and His Cross, the
burdened Conscience finds a peace which it
could not otherwise find, and at the same time
a new, liberating, uplifting, and unifying power
enters the life, it becomes almost impossible to
doubt that that which has so verified itself in ex
perience is of God. It is that higher influx of
life which we needed. And if afterwards, when
doubts arise, we betake ourselves to rational
consideration of the facts, and find them to
abide in the light of all the knowledge we can
reach, we come to stand on a basis of certainty
which cannot possibly be stronger, and we
become able so to relate all our new knowledge
to these facts as to find them only illustrated
and made clearer to us.
To those who may not have had as yet the
experience, the facts must, of course, be pre
sented in such a way as to invite their rational
acceptance. This is the need for a rational

1 86 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
theology. The basal facts of Christianity are
these three : ist, The fact of God in a certain
relation to the world and ourselves ; 2nd, The
fact of the Incarnation and supreme revelation
of God in Jesus Christ ; and 3rd, The fact of
Christ's representative act on the Cross as the
Son of God and the Head of our Humanity.
1. Belief in God. — We do not all believe in
God in the Christian sense, but no man can help
believing in a Being or Power that is the
Source of the Universe and of ourselves, or the
Ultimate Reality. What that Source is, is so
far revealed in the Universe and in ourselves.
The world in which we dwell is a wholly
rational or law-ordered world. Reason in
ourselves is the irrefutable witness to this fact ;
for it can only have been derived from the
world around us and the experience of the race
therein. The most advanced Evolutionists,
even those of the school of Haeckel, assure us
that our rational nature is but a reflection of
the Universe in which we dwell. But, if so,
the rational Universe which makes us rational,
must itself have been constituted by a Reason
prior to and above the Universe and- our
selves. Again, every man knows that he ought to
speak the truth and do what is right. This
conviction has been wrought into our nature in

A POSITIVE FAITH 187
the course of the evolution of our humanity,
and is therefore a witness to the nature and
will of the Power which has slowly made us
what we are. And, once more, every man
knows that the supreme law of his life is Love.
Whether he obeys it or not, he knows that it is
this that ought to command him. In this we
have the highest revelation of God in ourselves,
and a little reflection will show us that Reason,
Righteousness, and Love, are one. These are
not attributes of " matter," but of Spirit,
answering to the revelation of spirit in ourselves.
We are thus led to believe in God as the
Infinite Spirit, the perfect Reason, Righteous
ness, and Love, in whom we live and move
and have our being, who is also so far immanent
in us all, both as the deepest principle and ideal
of our life and by the influences of His Holy
Spirit, which comes to us in its fulness in Jesus
Christ. God is thus ever near us, and in some
degree within us, seeking wholly to possess us
and to make us His own — "one with Himself
and with the whole." No man can deny that
such a spirit so reaches him, moves within him,
and claims him for its own.
2. Let me state next how we can reach
belief in Christ as the Supreme revelation of
God, His incarnation in the world, at once
Divine and human, God and man, and therefore

1 88 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
the supreme medium of the Spirit of God to
men. We cannot do this by simply affirming "the
miracle of the Incarnation." We cannot reach
an intelligent and vital belief in the Incarna
tion in the old way, of supposing that at some
moment of time God contracted His Being so
as to be born a little child in Bethlehem. He
did, in a very true sense, enter the world in
that Child, but for the understanding of it we
must go back to Eternity.
We can only reach the Divine and human
Christ along the lines of the onward working
of God in our humanity. Only thus can we
get a Christ at once truly human and truly
Divine. The highest revelation of God to us
can only be given in our humanity, and it is in
the humanity of Christ that we must perceive
His Divinity. Since God is in Himself the
perfect ethical Being, He can only become
incarnate in our midst as the result of a process
by means of which the ethical qualities of His
Being become inwrought in our humanity.
There are many to-day who cannot believe in
"the miraculous," the most stupendous mani
festation of which the Incarnation is supposed
to be. But it is not really a question of the
/miraculous at all. Let the miracle be ever so
) firmly believed in, by no conceivable miracle

A POSITIVE FAITH 189
merely could a Divine ethical Being appear as
a genuine human being, save as the consum
mation of an ethical process in humanity itself,
beginning at the beginning and gradually
realising itself. In affirming this we do not
require to deny the miraculous. It may be,
true, or not. The point is that, not only do
we not need to believe that a Divine Being in
a moment of time reduced Himself to the
limits of a human child, but we can see that the
mere entrance of such a child into the world
would not be the incarnation of that Eternal
ethical Being that God is.
I must here bespeak the patient attention
of those who may take this little book into
their hands. We have reached a critical time
with respect to the faith, and it is not without
some earnest intellectual effort that we can
hope to pass from the old way of viewing the
Christian facts to that new mode of conceiving
them which it seems imperative to adopt, if
we would still hold a really vital faith in them.
We cannot expect that such subjects can be
set forth as with the facile and pictorial pen
of the novelist, or that they can be grasped
by the mind with the same ease as we take
in the daily news of the world. The subject
is serious, and if we would really know how,
under the changed conditions of our thought

190 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
to-day, we can still confidently affirm the real,
unique Incarnation of God in Christ, then we
must be prepared to take a little trouble in the
matter. It is well worth while.
We reach the Divine and human Christ along
the lines of, not merely the physical, intellectual,
and moral, but also of the spiritual develop
ment of humanity. God was never absent
i from the world. He never needed to enter
it as if by an irruption into our humanity.
He was always in some measure immanent
in it. Its ideal from the first was none other
than the realisation of Himself in finite
(human) form. With the rise and progress
of spiritual and ethical life in man, the real,
actual immanence of God in our humanity
was ever growing in fulness. God was in this
way entering ever more and more fully into the
life of man. It is really this increasing Divine
entrance into our humanity — this growing
Incarnation of God in human form — that the
Bible bears witness to, and its culmination
was reached in Christ. If the illustration will
not be misunderstood, we may say, — just as
the gain of the past on the intellectual side
blossomed into a Plato, so that on the moral
and spiritual side flowered in the Child that
was born of Mary of Nazareth. It was there
fore that Jesus was "the Child of the Holy

A POSITIVE FAITH 191
Spirit," and that He became the complete
manifestation and incarnation of God in the
world. His humanity was not different from
ours, but it was ethically and spiritually full
and complete. And, as such, that which was
the Eternal Divine Ideal of our life appeared^
fully expressed in Him. The thought, "th^
Word," "the Eternal Life which was with~tne
Father " as the Ideal and potency of the world,
was "manifested in Him," so that His Apostles
could say, "We have seen it and declare it
unto you, that you also may have fellowship
with us." In His complete oneness with God
He was the revelation and incarnation, not
only of the immanent Ideal, but of the tran
scendent Father, in a life of perfect Sonship,
at once Divine and human.
Let me put it in this way. If the world be
God's creation it must exist for the realisation
of the Divine creative thought. But if God
be the all-perfect Being, that thought cannot
be less than the thought of Himself realised
in finite form — in the form of Sonship
towards Himself. It is this in God that is
the Ideal of the world's life. It is the power
of this Divine thought that is its life-principle
and the potency of the world's development.
And it is this that appears in its full truth in
Christ. Therefore it is God as Son that we/

192 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
behold at length fully incarnate in Jesus
Christ, and it is for this reason that we speak
of Sonship as well as of Fatherhood in God.
That which was the deepest and the Divine
principle of the world's life, stands declared in
Him in whom it formed its complete ex
pression. It is the very same thing that we
see (in, of course, a much less degree) in the
seed that we sow in our gardens. The flower
is ideally and potentially contained in the
seed, and its nature is declared when we
behold a perfect bloom.
In order to create, God must go out from
Himself, so as to become the immanent
principle of the world's life. It is here that
| we have the Divine self-limitation. That
'^principle will gradually realise itself, as every
Uife-principle does, whether in plant or animal
pr man, by a gradual process of development
An an environment of transcendent influences,
'apart from which the development could not
take place, any more than a plant could grow
'apart from the soil and the sunshine. Those
transcendent influences which met the im
manent in man and constantly tended to
raise him, as they were responded to by him,
were those which are described in biblical
terms as the influences of The Holy Spirit.
And, while Jesus represented in Himself

A POSITIVE FAITH 193
organically, the highest that had previously
been reached by humanity, the complete in
carnation of God in His Person and life was
only realised through His life as it was lived
in relation to God, the transcendent spiritual
Father. In the complete self-sacrifice of the
Cross, the complete Incarnation of God in
man was manifested — Love which was truly
infinite was declared. While, of course, the
whole of the Infinite Deity cannot be in
carnated in any finite form, the Holy Love,
one with Truth and Righteousness, which God
essentially is, can be so expressed, and wasl
expressed in the Divine-human Christ.
I have used the phrase " the self-realisation
of God," but it is not in the sense of the
New Theology, as if God needed to realise
Himself for the first time. On the contrary,
it is in order to spread abroad His true and
perfect life — to impart it to others caused to
arise in His likeness ; to gain for Himself sons
and daughters innumerable, who shall share
in the Divine life and blessedness. If we ask,
why there should be a creation at all ? the
answer is, Because God is Love. Perfect Being
is perfect Love, and just because God is such
He cannot keep Himself to Himself, content
in the blessedness of His perfect Being. The
very nature of perfect love is to impart itself
x3

194 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
to others, even though this involves, in one
aspect, sacrifice. Thus God as the perfect
Being is for ever giving Himself to be the
life of His creation. But He is always, at the
same time, and in this very act, maintaining
'His life as the perfect Love; and, while He
becomes the immanent life-principle of the
world, the world has its being in, and develops
through the transcendent influences of, His all-
jenvironing Spirit. In Goethe's words : "He
fosters nature in Himself, Himself in nature."
In Jesus Christ, the immanent, as it has risen
in man through the transcendent influences of
:the Holy Spirit, meets and is wholly one with
jthe transcendent God and Father. Thus God
is manifested as having proceeded from Him
self into the creation, and as having again
returned to Himself in the consummation. In
Christ, therefore, we have very God in the
truest sense conceivable — a being manifested
in Time, but belonging to Eternity — true man
arising out of Humanity, but as such also
true God proceeding from God, the very
source of humanity. He is the Son who
can say, " I came forth from the Father and
came into the world. Again I leave the
(world and go unto the Father." He came
forth, not in a moment of time, but in eternity,
i "before the world was." It is no mere being

A POSITIVE FAITH 195
of time who can speak thus, but one who,|
as the incarnate Son, eternally in God, has!
realised the Divine life in the world in the
form of man, has become the Head of a new
Spiritual Humanity, " God and man in one
person for ever." As such He becomes th
source of those spiritual influences (of the Hoi
Spirit) which can raise all men into the lif<
of Sonship that was realised and manifested i
Himself. 3. The chief medium of the Divine tran
scendent saving influences is the Cross of
Christ. Can we find a simple and satisfactory
conception of the meaning of the Cross. This
is what many are asking for at the present
time. I have sought in Chapter xn. to set
forth the significance of the Cross as it appeared
immediately to Christ Himself. But the Cross
has proved itself to be so many-sided, so truly
Divine, that it is impossible to give a complete
definition of it. This is just a proof of its
Divineness ; it touches human life and meets
human need in countless ways. It has often,
indeed, been wrongly viewed, just as the creation
itself has been. But the mists are lifting, ancf
we are coming to see the Cross as the necessary
culmination of the life-work of Jesus. We are
being led back to Himself for its explanation.
If we come to Christ as He appears in the5

196 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY ?
fGospel pages, we shall be assured of one most
illuminative truth : the Cross was not intended
to operate on God, but on man. It was God's
appointment, God's will, God's sacrifice, God's
great deed in time for man's salvation, reveal
ing the Eternal Heart that is the centre of the
universe and the Eternal Sacrifice of which
Creation itself is a manifestation.
Christ came preaching the Kingdom of God,
declaring the Divine forgiveness, pleading with
men to believe the Gospel and become God's
true sons and heirs. But it was all in vain, so
far as the people were concerned. Sin was too
deeply seated in the heart. One portion of the
people were too oblivious of its reality, too
well pleased with themselves and their legal
righteousness ; the others, who did realise their
sinfulness, could not believe in the free Divine
florgiveness that Jesus proclaimed. The holy
I life that was the condemnation of sin must
I perish. Jesus saw that Death awaited Him,
f instead of the throne of a spiritual Israel. It
! was God's will for Him, and it must therefore
be necessary to bring in the Kingdom, or in
other words to save men. He was "the Son
of man," the Head and Representative of the
I people — of humanity. He was sinless, and
death had no claim upon Him. But it had a
claim on the sinful humanity which He

A POSITIVE FAITH 197
represented. For their sakes He would accept
that Death, and it should be the means of
saving them. I do not know that we are
warranted in defining it, as it appeared to
Christ, more closely than I have attempted to
do. But we can see its Divine meaning and
purpose from its effects. It convicted the self-
righteous of their sinfulness ; it led men to
seek repentance ; it enabled them to believe in
the Divine forgiveness ; it brought them into
conscious reconciliation with God, and gave
them "peace with God" within their souls; it
kindled an answering love to God in their
hearts ; it lifted men and women out of the
self-centred life into the life of love to all
mankind. But it was always the Cross on
which Christ died, in some real sense, because
of our sins and for our salvation ? Is it V
necessary to seek to reduce it to some set j
formula? I do not think so. We should j
inevitably omit something, or perhaps bring in
something of our own merely. Better to stand
reverently in the presence of that Cross. The
Cross of the sinless in a world of sin speaks for
itself, and, in spite of all denials, it will continue
to speak to the consciences of men. It is 1
enough to say that the Cross on which Christ
" tasted death for every man " was the Divinely
appointed means whereby God's forgiving/

198 WHAT ABOUT THE NEW THEOLOGY?
JLove went forth to men so as to save them
/from sin and self, and therefore also from the
/consequences of the merely self-centred life.
L- - 4. The other Christian beliefs follow naturally
and necessarily. If God cares for us like that,
He must be all and more than any earthly
father can be unto his children. As the source
of our being He is our Father, and the ideal of
our life is full participation in what He is, —
in finite form, yet one with the infinite. If God
cares for us, as the Cross of His Son declares,
we have a real value to Him. Our destiny
cannot be the merely earthly life which bodily
dissolution brings to an end for all, and which
must some time come to an end for the whole of
humanity. There would be no ultimate mean
ing in the creation, thus : that this is not so,
the Resurrection of Christ declares. I do not
think that we are tied down to any particular
theory of the Resurrection. That Christ was
risen, the first disciples were sure, — how He
rose is an interesting but an entirely subordinate
question, which, like the Virgin-birth, we are not
yet able to determine decisively. As risen He
lives, and it is possible for us to come into such
communion with him as our Lord and Saviour,
Teacher and Friend, as to be ourselves assured
of the fact. And when once we are assured
that Jesus Christ lives — " He who was dead

A POSITIVE FAITH 199
and is alive for evermore," and know that in
the Holy Spirit of God and of Christ we have
God and Christ for ever with us, nothing,
whether in life or in death, in time or eternity,
need greatly trouble us. The only thing we
need be anxious about is to "seek first the
Kingdom of God and His righteousness," to
try to cherish the Christ-spirit, to live the
Christ-life, to labour so as to fulfil the Divine
purpose of making all men God's true children,
and of establishing His Kingdom in the world.
For a fuller statement of these subjects I
must refer to my books : Christian Theism and
a Spiritual Monism ; The Spirit and the
Incarnation; The Cross and the Kingdom.
(T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh.)

INDEX

Atonement, 127, 128 ; in O.
Test., 129, 130 ; the prin
ciple, 130, 131 ; miscon
ceptions, 148.
Authority of the Bible, 176-180.
Being of God, 28, 38, 42, 88, 108,
168, 193.
Christ, "The Eternal," 57, seq. ;
objection to, 58.
oneness with, 60, 61.
as incarnation of God, 73, 93,
95, etc. See Incarnation.
sayings applied universally, 39.
very God, 194.
the living, 46, 198, 199.
See Jesus, Cross, etc.
Christianity, independent of The
ology, 12 ; the religion ol
salvation, 12, 184 ; basal
facts, 186.
Church, The, 172 ; mission and
failure, 174, 176 ; needs sal
vation from itself, 176.
Consciousness in God and man,
39, 40, 42.
Creation, 192, 193.

Criticism and the Bible, 14, 184 ;
need of popularising re
sults, 176.
Crocodile and General Booth, 30,
102.
Cross of Christ in "The New
Theology," 127, seq.
viewed on human side, 131 ;
contradictions, 133 ; viti
ated by view of sin, 1 34 ;
in Glasgow address, 134,
135-
as Jesus viewed it, 139, seq. ;
high importance, 140 ;
what the Gospels show,
140, seq. ; vicarious sacri
fice, 141, 142; His own
explanation, 142-145;
death, 145 ; illustrative
instances, 146 (note) ; pur
pose of, 148 ; relation to
justice and holiness, 149-
151; to forgiveness, 150;
to save men from sin
and selfishness, and their
necessary doom, 151, 156,
157 ; seen in its results,
159-161.

202

INDEX

Cross of Christ, fact and meaning of,
I95-I98 ; supreme medium
of Divine influences, 195 ;
many-sided, 195 ; back to
Christ for explanation, 196;
not to operate on God, 196 ;
God's great deed, 196 j its
power, 197.
Davidson, Professor A. B., on
death in O.T., 145.
Death as doom of sin, 145-147 ;
meaning for Christ, id. ;
physical, 148.
Devil worshippers, 30.
Divine essence, 107.
Egyptian worship, 30.
Ethical being of God, 27, 38, 108,
168, etc.
quality of Christ, 61.
Evil and God, 114.
and sin, 113, seq. See Sin.
Evolution, its influence, 14, 82,
107 ; mode of working, 75.
Spiritual, of humanity, 75, 94,
190.
Experience, the foundation of
Christianity, 12, 183-185.
Experiment, a Divine, 32.
Faith, a positive, 183, seq. ; the
fact of salvation, 184; rela
tion to Scriptures, 184; ex
perience, 185 ; basal facts,
186 ; belief in God, 186-

187 ; in Incarnation, 187-
195 ; in Cross of Christ,
195_I97 > other Christian
beliefs, 198 ; the repose of
faith, 199.
Fall, the, 119.
in God, 120.
Forward, not backward, 53.
Gethsemane, 145, 146.
God, in relation to man, 15.
the conception of, 27, seq. ;
belief in, ib., 186; ethical
Being, 27, 29, 38, etc. ;
self-realisation of, 28, 31,
193 ; limitation and self-
expression, 28, 29, 67 ;
and sin, 32-34, 134;
and man, 37, seq'. ; man
hood in, 58, 60 ; relation
to the world, 148, 173;
a present, living, 179 ;
grounds of belief in, 186,
187 ; self-giving love, 193 ;
fatherhood, 198 ; our value
to Him, ib.
Green, T. H., his ethical teaching,
41, 42.
Harnack, on Christ's explanation
of His death, 142 ; on
sacrifice, 151.
Holy Spirit, the, 71, 73, 97, 98,
178, 192, 195, 199.
Humane sentiment, influence of,
IS-

INDEX

203

Idealism, philosophical or "mon

" the Divine man," 45, seq. ;

istic,'- 39.

not two different natures,

Idolatry, source of, 30.

46 ; presence of, 46 ; not

Immanence and transcendence,

"difference,'' but "dis

81, seq.

tinction," 47, 51, 61 ;

Immanence, vaguely conceived,

uniqueness, 48, etc. ; His

82 ; and modern thought,

consciousness, 49 ; the

82, 108 ; misconceived,

crucial question, 50, 51 ;

82 ; meaning, 83, 84 ; in

belongs to humanity, 68.

Christian theology, 85 ;

See Incarnation, etc.

history of, 85-88 ; of God

(?), 88-91 ; in Christ, 90,

" Kingdom of God," What ? 158,

91, 95 ; as in an organism,

171, 172; how to bring,

91,93; and transcendence,

163 ; death of Christ in

93. 95-

relation to, 140, 142, 143,

and transcendence in The New

etc.

Theology, no, seq. ; de

Knowledge, influence of growth

grees in, 102 ; inconsist

of, 14.

encies, 103 ; really trans

cendence, 104, 106 ; in

" Last things," 167, seq.

Glasgow Address, three

" Lear," King, quoted, 34.

views, 106.

Life, all not the same, 61, 91, 92.

in relation to Incarnation, 192.

Lodge, Sir Oliver, on Fall and

Immortality, 198.

Rise, 119.

Incarnation of the Son of God,

65, seq. ; unique, or uni

Man, " Oneness with God,"

versal ? 66, 74-76 ; a pro

37, seq. ; need of uplifting,

cess, 73, 188 ; the com

52 ; not the final word, 52,

plete, 70, 76, 193.

53 ; history, 89. See One

how we reach the Incarnation

ness.

of God in Christ, 187-195 ;

a Divine archetypal, 58, 60.

and miracle, 188 ; in Christ

Manhood in God, 59.

"very God," 194.

Modern civilization, 52.

Infinite, the, 90.

Modem thought, 13, 108.

Monism, true and false, 37, 38.
" Jesus was God," etc., 22, 40, 66.
" Mystery of Godliness," 52.
204

INDEX

New Theology, the, inadequacy,

Salvation, the fact of, 12, 183,

19, seq. ; radical error, 27,

184.

etc. ; contradictions in, 28,

from selfishness, 155, seq. ; a

33. 40, 48, 74. lOS-^S.

difficult problem, 155 ;

118, 122, 133, etc.

through the Cross, 159-

162 ; more than social

Oneness with God, 37-40; the

reform, 168.

underlying truth, 37, 163 ;

universal, 169-171.

only ethically realised, 38,

need of seeking, 173.

41, 61, 67, 93, 191, etc.

and belief, 173, 174.

with Christ, 61.

Scriptures and the faith, 184. See

One, the, and the many, 108,

also Authority.

109.

Self, 93, 117, 121, 135, 156-158,

Origin, and Immanence, 86.

170.

the greater, 67.

Pantheism, 32, 87, 107.

Selfishness, 117, 134, 162, etc.

" The Higher," 102.

Self-realisation of God, 28, 31,

Paul — "the second Man," 59, 60;

193-

and transcendence of God,

Sin, acknowledged, 40; need of

96.

sense of, 113; negative

Potentiality of man, 51.

and positive, 1 14-1 16, 1 18 ;

Preaching, present-day, 20.

and selfishness, 117, 134;

quest for life and God, 118,

Quest for life and for God, 118,

1 19 ; and atonement, 128.

119.

source of, 121.

Smith, Dr. G. A., on sacrifice in
Rainy, Principal, on Immanence,
O.T., 129.
89.
Spirit of Christ, " incarnate in
Religion, how to revive, 97, 98.
all," 77-
Re-statement of Theology needed,
Spiritual conceptions, need of, 167.
16, 20, 185.
Stevens, Dr., on sacrifice in O.T.,
Resurrection of Christ, 71, 198.
130.
Stoicism and the New Theology,
Sacrifice, primitive, 128; in O.T.,
87, no.
129, 130; vicarious, 141;
Suffering, 116.
in creation, 194.
Sunday schools, 176.
INDEX

205

Tennyson, "The Higher Pan

Unitarianism and the New Theo

theism," 102.

logy, 21-23.

Theology, Old and New, 1 1 ;

Universe, why a, 1 93.

basis, u, 16, 183, 184;

change of view, 13-16; re

Vacuum, the Devil a, 116.

statement needed, 16, 20.

and evil, ib.

need of a rational, 185.

Virgin-birth, the, 68 ; the prim

Thought, appeal Tor, 189.

itive narratives, 69 ; not to

Transcendence, 84, 95 ; not dis

be dogmatically denied, ib. ;

tance, 84, 97, etc. ; import

how may be possible, 70,

ance of, for religion, 95,

71 ; spiritual significance,

98 ; in the Bible, 95 ; with

71-74-

Christ, 96, 97 ; Paul, 96 ;

for revival of religion, 98.

Will, freedom of, 121-123.

in the New Theology, 101, seq. ;

World, as " God's Self-expres

affirmed in all most impor

sion," 29-32.

tant in it, 105.

in relation to God, 15, 148,

and the self, 109.

173-

Truth, authority of, 177.

what it exists for, 191, 193.

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SOMETHING ENTIRELY NEW. NEVER ATTEMPTED BEFORE.
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A DICTIONARY OF
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