Protestantism, according to Scherer, has a right to free inquiry. Once give it the Bible as authority, and you drive it back to Catholicism. This is what has already been done by Protestants, whose religion has numbered its days. Authority has been its ruin, and now it has no liberty. The Evangelists contradict each other in many instances. The Apostles failed to quote the Old Testament correctly. Their gross errors are sufficient of themselves to overthrow all the claims of Scripture to authority. It is not certain that the Gospel of John is authentic; that the discourses of Jesus are correctly reported; that Jesus taught his consubstantiality with the Father; that the divinity of Christ involves his omniscience; that Christ had any intention to decide questions of criticism and canonicity; that he believed in the inspiration of the Old Testament; that he acknowledged the divinity of the Canticles and Ecclesiastes; or that, if he sanctioned the inspiration of the Old Testament, he did the same thing concerning the New.
The New Testament, says Scherer, is full of errata. It contains different records of the same facts. Take as an example the conversion of Saul, of which there are three accounts in the Acts. The discourses of Christ are described in different contexts; the same discourses are not related in similar words; and there is no exactness in the narratives. There are differences in the Gospels, affecting the ideas and actions of Jesus, which sometimes amount to positive contradictions. They exist also between the first three Gospels and that of John. The last Evangelist gives a very different account of many points in the history of the passion and resurrection of Christ, especially in respect to the last Supper and the chronology of the whole passion-week. Christ announced his second coming as near at hand. Hence he, or the Evangelists in reporting him, were grossly in error. There are, in a word, serious objections to accepting the New Testament as authoritative; because we find in it the use of the Septuagint; quotations from the Old Testament in a sense not intended in the original; influence of Jewish traditions; Rabbinical arguments; uncertainty in reports of the discourses of Christ; contradictions between different accounts of the same facts; errors in chronology and history; and Messianic hopes and expectations not in accordance with external events. What right have we, therefore, to accept as infallible that in which we find such an admixture of error? It is the duty of religious science to reconcile revelation with the growing requirements of human thought, and to smooth over the transition from the dogma of the past to that of the future. Dogmatic exegesis does this by separating the substance from the form, faith from formulas, and by distinguishing and pointing out the religious element under the temporary expression which reveals it.
What then is the Bible which Scherer's exegesis presents to us? Faith in it rests on two bases; first, the inspiration and canon of Scripture; and second, the subjects or organs of inspiration. The first is untenable and false, for the stand-point of authority has already spoiled everything in our theology. Authority determines beforehand what we must believe, whereas reason alone should perform that office. There is a communicated revelation to our own minds which should claim the high office of authority. The Bible, in an objective sense, is a divine book, because it contains the remembrance of the most important events in the religious history of the world. Judaism and Christianity are there in their completeness. The Bible is therefore more than a book; it presents us with the living personality of those who founded Christ's Kingdom on earth. Inspiration, such as we find in the Scriptures, is not confined to them, for it is immanent wherever there is intelligence. The spirit of the Bible is the eternal spirit of God; but it is the same spirit which has inspired all good men in past Scriptural periods,—the Augustines, St. Bernards, Arndts, and Vinets. It is a falsehood of theology against faith to deny these men the same kind of inspiration which we find in the Scriptures. Biblical inspiration differs in different writers. They wrote from diverse stand-points. The chroniclers of Scripture told all they knew, but not much could be expected of them. Who would dare to speak of the inspiration of the books of Samuel, Ruth, Kings, and Chronicles?
But let us hear what Scherer says of the miracles of Christ. No evangelical facts should be taken as points of departure in testing Christianity. It is absurd to speak of Christ's miracles as being designed for manifestations of his divinity. Conceding them to be prodigies, they are far below those of Moses and Elijah. Christ did not work miracles in attestation of his power. He performed them in connection with his own words or expressions of other persons. When he gave miraculous power to his disciples, he simply did it as a means of beneficence. Miracles, in their true sense, are opposed to both the Jewish and Christian notions of them. Those of Christ are not the attestation and recommendation of his ministry; they are acts of that ministry; acts which have not their value exterior to themselves; whose value is not in their argumentative character, but in their own intrinsic nature. They constitute an integral part of the gospel, but nothing more. Christ's cures are not solely the symbol, they are the counterpart of the spiritual redemption brought by him unto the world. The authenticity of miracles is another question, and belongs altogether to exegesis.[106] Taking the Scripture narrative as a whole, we greatly err in attaching any authority to it. Mohammed and the false prophets should be placed side by side with Moses and Jesus Christ; for the religion of Christ is a purely human one, like that of Buddha and the Arabian prophet. The Mosaic account of creation is evidently absurd; for man was at first a monkey.
M. Larroque contends that the time has now come for a total departure from the last pagan tradition. Christianity has passed itsallotted time, and is now in its death-pangs. Material interests claim minute attention. All we want is the assertion of a pure, rational religion. It was a great misfortune that Marcus Aurelius did not popularize the theism which he expressed in his writings. It would not then have been possible for Constantine to establish the Christian religion, and the world would have been spared the irruption of the barbarians, and the many subsequent periods of darkness.[107]
M. Rougemont adheres to the accommodation-theory. It is the only method of relief in this day of darkness. God, in revelation, has only addressed himself to the physical man. He communicated his spirit—not the Holy Spirit—to the prophets. But that was exterior action. The sacred volume is the historic witness of revelation, and is merely a relative necessity. The Church has existed before the Scriptures, and could still live if they were extinguished.[108]
M. Colani is prominent both as preacher and writer. A pastor of Strasburg being sick, he was urged to supply the pulpit for a few Sabbaths. Though he accepted with great reluctance, he was successful in pleasing the congregation. He was chosen permanent pastor, and has continued the functions of his office, together with the chief editorship of the Revue de Théologie. His opinions are to be found in that periodical, and in several successful volumes of sermons. He professes to be neither satisfied with Rationalism in its destructive sense, nor with orthodoxy. He is confessedly one of the champions of the Critical School. Skepticism, he contends, is perfectly legitimate. We are authorized to doubt; our opinions are fallible; we must be prepared to change them whenever we think we can find better ones. The Bible is intended to reveal to us a life, not a dogma. We find in it no effort to describe dogmas; no theological criticisms; no system of morality.[109] Religious inspiration is nothing but an extraordinary kindling of the divine spirit inherent in human nature. The Scripture writers are imperfect and limited by their own intelligence. The only way to reconcile religion and science is by history. We must study man not as an individual or nation, but as to his human nature. By doing this we will not take a characteristic for the man himself. Man is, by the testimony of history, a religious being, and history reveals his destiny.
Immortality is accepted. We have a personal life going into the infinite. Humanity develops itself by the action of the individual genius, and the individual only successfully unfolds himself by not breaking the bond which unites him to the general development of his species. We must consider the Bible as a collection of documents, over which criticism has absolute rights. We must distinguish between the thought of Christ and that of his historians. They insisted on what seemed to them miracles. Christ is in open conflict with the principle which would make miracles the necessary sign of a true revelation. He has taught the world to recognize God in the regular operation of natural laws. He never lays down any dogmatic conditions, and does not make religious character dependent on the reception of any class of doctrines. We must have faith in him alone, and not in his words. To be a Christian is to participate in the general life of the Christian church, and to take part with others in the labor of the Christian mind.[110]
M. Pecaut affirms that the present position of the French Protestant church is no longer tenable, for its principle of doctrinal faith restrains free examination. It is, however, in a transition-period, and there is an indication of progress in the present interest in great questions of theology. For the doctrines of Protestantism we should substitute a pure, simple Deism; we should substitute philanthropism for morality. The Bible is not entitled to authority, for it has no trace of inspiration. There is no such thing as mediation. We must not attach too much importance to the Messianic idea, for this would imply a special revelation. The Gospels rest on a very insecure basis. The theses of Paul betray a continued oscillation between the mystic and Jewish conceptions. As a whole, the Bible is not divine, and we should at once discard faith in its authoritative character. The only way by which Christ now acts upon persons is by the force of his example and ideas, just as Moses, Mohammed, and Socrates now influence men. Religious faith is not necessarily faith in Christ. He was not free from sin in a moral sense; he had a natural sinfulness by virtue of his humanity.[111]