History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology

by J. F. Hurst

The schism was not a success. What promised to be a great and honorable Church, like the Free Church of Scotland, with which it now stands connected, carried with it much of the prejudice and bigotry of the land. It did not identify itself with scientific progress, and paid little regard to education. Any man of piety and utterance could become a preacher in one of its pulpits. It has at present a Seminary at Kampen, with a small faculty of three professors. Its course of study will compare favorably with that of any institution in the United States. The young men of talent, who now grow up in its fold, are prejudiced against its ultraism, and stand ready at any moment to unite with some new movement which will combine the piety of their fathers and the scientific demands of the present day. The radical defects of its initial steps were narrow-mindedness and fanaticism. The Separatists utterly ignored the elements of good in the mother-church. They could have done infinitely better service by casting all their influence with Bilderdyk and his followers in the Church, instead of arraying themselves against it, and becoming an enemy from without. Some of the leaders have organized colonies, which greatly weakened the power and prestige of those who remained at home. The emigrants came to America and settled, for the most part, in the Western States.

The Groningen School. Each of the two tendencies prevalent in the Church of Holland had its decided defects. While one was zealous for theological training, it was nevertheless cold, indifferent and Rationalistic. While the other was burning with religious fervor and a practical evangelism, it was deficient in culture, scientific grasp, and a capacity to meet the wants of the time. There was a call for a third party, which would unite the best features of the two others, and develop them into a new progressive power. Hence arose the Groningen School. Its immediate origin was the attempt of Professor Van Heusde to modernize Platonism and adapt it to the nineteenth century. Hofstede de Groot, Pareau, and Muurling have been its leaders. Its organ is the periodical entitled, Truth in Love.

The characteristic of this school is, that there is in human nature a divine element which needs development in order to enable humanity to reach its destination. This destination is conformity to God. All religions have aimed and worked at the same problem, but Christianity has solved it in the highest and purest manner. Still, there is only a difference in degree between that and other religions. This is the germ of what the Groningens call the "Evangelical Catholic Theology." Conformity to God, they say, has been reached in Jesus Christ; but Plato, Zoroaster, and Confucius strove to attain to it. They failed because their task was too great for the means at command. God has fulfilled the desire of man, whom he had prepared for salvation by sending perfection embodied in Christ. We may not attach ourselves to any system or effort as absolutely true or good, nor condemn any as utterly false. All knowledge and arts are related to religion. They refine man and aid him in his emancipation from whatever is sinful and sensual.

The correspondence of ideas between Hofstede de Groot and Pareau was so intimate that they published a joint work on dogmatic theology, which contains a complete exposition of the principles of the Groningen School. Jesus Christ constitutes the centre of religion. In him we see what is God, what is man, the relations of one to the other, and how we can be so delivered from sin and its power as to become God's children by faith and love. In Christ's death we find love even for sinners, and learn that suffering is not an evil. In his glorification we perceive the aims and results of suffering. In him is the Theanthropos, not God and man, but God in man. There is but one nature in Christ, the divine-human. Jesus being the focal point of the interests of man, we must know, first, what he is outside of us, objectively; second, how he appears within us, subjectively. To know Christ we need the exegetical study of that preparation of man for Christ, which is furnished by the Old Testament. The New Testament is the fulfillment. The latter contains the sayings of Jesus and the conclusions of the Apostles. The writers of the Scriptures were not infallible, though they did not often err. Revelation is continued in the history of the church, which is the third principle of development. Augustine stood higher and went further than Paul, Luther than Augustine. If our development be partial and imperfect we must go back and begin anew.

The Groningen School is distinguished for its ethical system. How does Christ live in us? This is the question it proposes to answer. There is a distinction between the nature of man, which is divine, and his condition, which is sinful. Sin is the point where man, misusing his liberty, surrenders himself to his sensuous nature, which is not sinful in itself. God educates man by Jesus Christ in three ways; first, by revelation of truth; second, by manifestation of love; third, by education of the church. The high aim of the Church is to lead man to a consciousness of the unity of his origin and destiny, and to bring all to a knowledge and love of Christ, and of God in Christ. Christ was educated before his life on earth for the work designed for him, and he established the church by leaving his glory and leading a life full of love and truth. His death was the highest manifestation of his love and truth, for by it he showed God to man, and man to himself. His resurrection makes our hope of eternal life a certainty.

In the Groningen system there is no place for the doctrine of the Trinity. The influence of the sacraments is merely external, while Calvinism and the "blood-theology," are subjects of abhorrence. It would be unjust to place the Groningens beside the German Rationalists, though the influence of both has been similar. The former class, like the latter, have one fatal defect; they consider sin a mere inconvenience. They hold that man needs a Teacher but not a Redeemer, since all sinners will be eventually holy and happy. The Groningen tendency, as related to Dutch theology, is similar to that applied by Channing to the orthodoxy of the American church. Human nature is declared worthy of our attention and development. True humanity is pure piety. God can be found everywhere, even in the heart of man. The philosophical theology of Schleiermacher has stamped the Groningen system with its own signet. They both proceed from the same starting-point,—not reason, but the heart. Theirs is the religion of feeling.

The Groningens have done important service to the Dutch church. Their elevation of ethics to a proper position in theological instruction has been a national boon, while their unwavering zeal for the education of the masses and of children will always remain a monument to their honor. While they were the first to establish Sunday Schools in Holland, they have given a new impulse to missions. They defend religion against skepticism, and picture the latter in all its deformity.

But the Groningen system has almost totally failed of its object. It did not unite the zeal of the fathers with the science of the present day. Though opposed to Rationalism, it is more negative than positive, and is less distinguished for its doctrines than for its absence of them. It claims that the Church neither possesses nor needs doctrines. Therefore, it destroys the line of demarcation between the various confessions and that confessional Latitudinarianism, which is the direct offspring of the destructive principles of the Rationalism and Liberalism of the eighteenth century.

The School of Leyden. In no theological system had any satisfaction been afforded to the joint feeling of attachment to the old confessions and of a desire to develop them in conformity with the requirements of the age. Many rejected the Groningen school because it depreciated the formularies of the church, and did not know how to value their scope or to elaborate them for immediate usefulness. The Leyden school filled the vacancy. Taking its origin in a disposition to establish a connection between the faith of the Reformers and our own, its aim has been to unite the old traditions with the new opinions.

The father and expounder of the School of Leyden is Professor Scholten, formerly of Franeker, but now of Leyden. He is well known as the author of historico-critical introductions, and of a History of Philosophy, but his reputation has been acquired mainly by his Doctrines of the Reformed Church, a work of great clearness, profound erudition, and romantic interest. As the reader peruses its fascinating pages he is bound by a spell which he cannot easily break. The remark of Dugald Stewart, on reading Edwards On the Will, occurs to him with peculiar appositeness, "There is a fallacy somewhere, but the devil only can find it."