It is clear that Herrmann aims to bring to the front only those elements in the life of Jesus which are likely to prove most effectual in meeting the need and winning the faith of the men of our age. He would cast into the background those elements which are likely to awaken doubt and to hinder the approach of men's souls to God. For Herrmann himself the virgin birth has the significance that the spiritual life of Jesus did not proceed from the sinful race. But Herrmann admits that a man could hold even that without needing to allege that the physical life of Jesus did not come into being in the ordinary way. The distinction between the inner and outward life of Jesus, and the declaration that belief in the former alone is necessary, has the result of thus ridding us of questions which can scarcely fail to be present to the mind of every modern man. Yet it would be unjust to imply that this is the purpose. Quite the contrary, the distinction is logical for this theology. Redemption is an affair of the inner life of a man. It is the force of the inner life of the Redeemer which avails for it. It is from the belief that such an inner and spiritual life was once realised here on earth, that our own faith gathers strength, and gets guidance in the conflict for the salvation of our souls. The belief in the historicity of such an inner life is necessary. So Harnack also declares in his _Wesen des Christenthums_, 1900. It is noteworthy that in this connexion neither of these writers advances to a form of speculation concerning the exalted Christ, which in recent years has had some currency. According to this doctrine, there is ascribed to the risen and ascended Jesus an existence with God which is thought of in terms different from those which we associate with the idea of immortality. In other words, this continued existence of Christ as God is a counterpart of that existence before the incarnation, which the doctrine of the pre-existence alleged. But surely this speculation can have no better standing than that of the pre-existence.