The Churches and Modern Thought: An inquiry into the grounds of unbelief and an appeal for candourPhelips, Vivian
Religion
The Churches and Modern Thought: An inquiry into the grounds of unbelief and an appeal for candour
Phelips, Vivian
Rationalism
These criticisms are, I repeat, the work not of anti-Christians,
but of Christians, who have devoted themselves to Biblical research,
and who are among the greatest living experts in that sphere of
knowledge. Canon Cheyne, one of the two editors of the Encyclopædia
Biblica, has now written a volume on Bible Problems and the New
Material for their Solution, in which he appeals to Churchmen and
scholars and all who are interested in Bible criticism for thoroughness
of investigation. There can be no doubt that there is a crying need for
this thorough investigation, which at present is being shirked. While
the main results arrived at by the Higher Criticism are, it is true,
largely accepted by enlightened divines, the usual policy so far has
been not to disseminate such knowledge. On this I shall have more to
say in the concluding chapter of this book.
Dr. Harnack in Germany, and M. Loisy in France, may be cited as types
of liberal theologians who proclaim their acceptance of the Higher
Criticism. They both detach Christianity from mere narrative, and
seek to appreciate it as a spiritual reality, which appeals to the
imagination, the emotions, and the soul. Dr. Harnack is the Professor
of Church History in the University of Berlin, and member of the Royal
Prussian Academy, and a book called What is Christianity? is an English
translation of sixteen lectures delivered by him in the University of
Berlin, 1899-1900. In this book the effort to prove that the Gospels
though unhistorical are yet historical, that Christianity though untrue
is yet true, is strongly in evidence to any impartial reader. Take his
remark on the "Miraculous Element" in Lecture II.; we find the same
kind of specious argument on which I have already animadverted in the
chapter on Miracles. He says: "Miracles, it is true, do not happen;
but of the marvellous and the inexplicable there is no lack--that the
earth in its course stood still, that a she-ass spoke, that a storm
was quieted by a word, [70] we do not believe, and we shall never again
believe; but that the lame walked, the blind saw, and the deaf heard,
will not be so summarily dismissed as an illusion." Why? Because,
after all, these may have been accomplished by the operation of
a natural law with which we are as yet unacquainted! "Although the
order of Nature be inviolable, we are not yet by any means acquainted
with all the forces working in it and acting reciprocally with other
forces. Our acquaintance even with the forces inherent in matter,
and with the field of their action, is incomplete; while of psychic
forces we know very much less." He gives the whole situation away,
however, by making excuses for the Evangelists, such as "we know that
the Gospels come from a time in which the marvellous may be said to
have been something of almost daily occurrence," and "we now know
that eminent persons have not to wait until they have been long dead,
or even for several years, to have miracles reported of them; they
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