III.
It seems to us also that some of the criticisms on the treatment of Inspiration in Essay VIII, which shall be presently dealt with, have been due to the same forgetfulness of the writer's aim, and of the general aim of the whole book. Our traditional belief in the Bible is at the present time confronted with a body of critical literature which claims to overthrow a great many of the accepted opinions about the Old Testament Scriptures. The criticism is at least grave and important enough to claim attention, to necessitate that we should come to a more or less clear understanding of the relation in which our faith stands towards it. The writer of the essay did not write as a biblical critic but as a theological student and teacher, bound to give a candid consideration to a criticism which bears directly upon the sacred books of our religion. His object was not to discuss and determine questions of biblical criticism, but to explain, as it appears to him, the relation which theology is to take up towards them. And he wrote 'in the mind of those who have felt the trouble in the air:' he wrote to succour a faith distressed by the problems criticism is raising. That faith is very widely distressed by them, and that not merely in academic circles, does not admit of question. Nor did it seem to him to admit of question that the best way to deal with this distress was not to attempt to solve problems, which, because of the immense area over which discussion ranges, do not admit of ready solutions; but to attempt to state the main conclusions criticism is claiming to have arrived at, as the critics themselves would have us state them; to show that our Christian faith is not vitally affected by them; and so to divert an anxious mind from problems which it cannot solve, at least at present, and fix it on the central truths of our religion, helping it to feel how, if it be once grounded on these central truths, the issue of the critical discussion can be awaited, with keen interest indeed, but without alarm. But this assurance of mind in face of the critical controversy is only possible if we see that the critical positions are in fact compatible with the real inspiration of Holy Scripture. Now the best way to give reassurance on this point seemed to be for the writer to make it plain that he himself felt the great force and appeal of the critical case, and that his conviction that the real Inspiration of the Old Testament was unaffected by it, did not depend upon its being underrated. Had the main purpose of the writer been to help to determine critical positions, he would have been bound to write both at greater length and also with more exactness and discrimination. But on the other hand, the purpose of reassurance would have had less chance of being successfully accomplished—as in some cases we have reason to believe with thankfulness that it has been accomplished or assisted—if the writer had been more reluctant to accept, at least hypothetically, what are claimed as critical results. We all know by experience that freedom and happiness in our attitude as Christians towards problems not easily solved, or even easily brought to crucial tests, are most readily secured if we can feel that our faith is, at the last resort, independent of the exact solution arrived at. Thus our object was to give to anxious enquirers, of whom there are surely an immense number most deserving of any help which can be given them, a freedom in regard to Old Testament problems as wide as the Catholic faith seemed to warrant.