History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

In the German period the same method has been adopted, with the corresponding alterations suggested by modern philosophy. Not to mention the instructive attempts of the school of Kant to find a philosophy from the subjective side of religion, in the denial of its possibility if attempted on the objective, and to exhibit the limitations of the human mind in speculating on the subject of religious method; nor again to mention the bold attempt of Hegel, to which we have previously taken exception as opposing the simplicity that is in Christ, to work out this forbidden problem, and find a philosophy for Christianity on the objective side: we allude to that which has marked the disciples of Schleiermacher to find it on the subjective as a life, and fact, and doctrine, which fulfils the yearnings of the individual heart.

In pursuing a method of this kind, the appeal must be made to the inextinguishable feeling of guilt; to our personal consciousness of a personal judge; our terror at the sense of justice; our penitence for our own ill deserts; the deep consciousness of the load of sin as an insupportable burden from which we cannot rescue ourselves; and to the guilt of it which separates [pg 366] between us and God, as a bitter memory that we are powerless to wipe away.[1037] When these facts are not only established as psychological realities, but appropriated as personal convictions, then the way is prepared for the reception of Christianity. The heart, by realising the personality of God, is at once elevated above naturalism or pantheism. It feels that in Christ's incarnation it finds God near, the infinite become finite, God linked to the heart of a man; and in his atonement it finds God merciful. Its deep instinct leads it to reject the theories which would pare down the marvel of that mystery. Its consciousness of guilt tells it of an obstacle which it cannot believe to lie merely in itself, but attributes to the mind of the infinite Spirit which it wants a method for removing. No mere example of majestic self-sacrifice proclaiming God's love to man suffices to solace its sorrows. Some mighty process, wrought out between the Son and the almighty Father, is instinctively felt to be necessary, as the means by which God can be just and yet the justifier of the sinful. And when philosophy has thus prepared the heart by its appeal to the yearnings of the soul, and brought it to long for the very remedy which Christianity supplies; then the historic argument can be properly introduced, to afford the solid comforting assurance that the remedy wanted has really been given; that miracles and prophecy are divine evidences, attesting the truth of the claim that certain teachers at a particular period received superhuman aid to reveal certain religious truths. ([49])

The work of persuasion however is not yet completed; for, ere the heart can fully trust with adoring thankfulness, there are no less than three questions which must still be answered, if the object be to direct doubt instead of suppressing it, and to lead a sinner to Christ by the bands of love.

The first will be the literary one, as to the trustworthiness [pg 367] of the books of the New Testament, which are the record of this teaching.

The second, the inquiry into the fact whether the books teach, and whether the early church taught, dogmatic Christianity as the church now presents it.

The third, though of such a nature as in a great degree to be suppressed by the claim of authority already conceded to the apostolic teachers, may still rise up to harass the mind if a further answer be not supplied: it refers to the reason that we possess for believing, that if these teachers asserted such truths as dogmatic Christianity, and especially vicarious atonement, these doctrines were a real verity, and not merely a passing form under which the truth presented itself to their minds, to be explained away by after ages into less mysterious and more self-evident truths.

The first of these questions, which concerns the trustworthiness of the books, has been most thoroughly tested by the historical criticism of Germany. The data are thus presented for forming a final decision, which in the opinion of most persons will probably be widely different from that which has been arrived at by critics in that country. Yet, supposing we should meet with a doubter who accepted all the views of the Tübingen school,[1038] there are nevertheless four books of the New Testament, the genuineness of which the most extravagant criticism fully admits; viz. the Epistles of St. Paul to the Romans, to the Galatians, and the two to the Corinthians. These four would be sufficient to establish the main articles of dogmatic teaching as presented in the creeds of the Christian church, and the main outline of Gospel and Jewish history as facts on the reality of which St. Paul and his converts relied, and for which he was staking his life. Suppose the Gospels and the Acts[1039] involved in the historic uncertainty [pg 368] which these critics have attributed to them; yet we possess in the Galatians the outline of the life of Paul, the statement of the reason why Paul accepted a religion which he detested. The incomparable argument of Lyttleton[1040] irrefragably proves his honesty. He cannot have been a deceiver. Let the reader of the Galatians say if he was deceived. The two Epistles to Corinth attest the history of the early church; the Epistle to the Romans its dogmatic beliefs. If there is a doubting heart, thoroughly imbued with the most destructive criticism, unable to find historical standing-ground in scripture, he may surely find it in the study of these four works of St. Paul.

The second question, whether the great features of the dogmatic teaching which we receive, and especially the doctrine of vicarious atonement, are taught in the New Testament, admits of satisfactory settlement. The negative of this position has been asserted, in consequence of the alleged fact that this particular doctrine is rather expressed implicitly than explicitly in the earliest fathers; which is to be accounted for by the tendency, while contending against Jewish monotheism, or heathen theism, to put forward the messiahship and incarnation of Christ, in comparison with other religions, rather than his atoning work.[1041] Careful study will soon decide a question of this kind, if directed first [pg 369] to the text of scripture; and secondly, as is most important in all questions of the history of doctrine, to the fathers, as the historic witnesses at once to the teaching of their day, and to the traditions of the teaching of an older age than their own.[1042]

Supposing however that the authenticity of the books be granted, and the existence in them of dogmatic teaching, as we now hold it, be conceded; how are we to answer the final misgiving which might arise, that a doctrine like the atonement was not merely truth relatively to the age in which it was taught, to be surrendered if it conflict with the moral sense? If indeed miraculous attestation, the authority of supernatural assistance, be conceded, this doubt will be extinguished in most minds by such an admission; but how is it to be fully met, consistently with our object to point out how a doubter may be directed, who desires not to have the natural revelation in his heart crushed, and yet who does not claim, like the deists, that he must comprehend that which he believes, but only that at least he must apprehend it?[1043]

We concede the authority of the moral sense to check all dogmas that are not shown to be part of the teaching of men supernaturally inspired; and we should feel surprised if there were a direct conflict between God's voice through the apostles and God's voice through the human conscience. Probably it could be shown that no such conflict exists; but if it did, we should be inclined to ask whether the moral sense, infallible in what it forbids, is equally so in what it asserts:[1044] whether it cannot possibly admit of such improvement as would cause the difficulty not to be [pg 370] felt; or, if felt, to be cancelled by one of those mental antinomies,[1045] the existence of which is undeniable: or whether there is not still independent and contemporary evidence, to which appeal can be made, to corroborate the apostles' teaching.