Chapter 1

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The Things Which Remain

_An Address To Young Ministers_

By

DANIEL A. GOODSELL

A Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church

_CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE_ _NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS_

_Copyright, 1904, by_ JENNINGS AND PYE

PREFACE

This little book contains the larger part of an address I have delivered at several Annual Conferences on the occasion of the admission of probationary ministers into full membership. At the suggestion of some who have heard it when delivered and whose assurance that it would be useful in print I am bound to respect, I have consented to its publication.

Matter not directly relating to the theme, but of sufficient importance to accompany it in addressing an Annual Conference, is here omitted, that all possible space might be given to the discussion of the question, "How much Christian doctrine will still remain, though much of the most radical criticism be accepted?"

Preface

It will be understood that concessions made for the sake of the argument by no means represent my own views of that which must be ultimately yielded to the critical spirit.

Already some opinions which threatened the authority of Gospels and Epistles, and which have had wide acceptance, have been modified or withdrawn. My aim in this address was not to scout criticism, from which much of the highest value to faith is to come, but to steady the wavering young minister; to sustain his preaching power by helping him to a definite message, and to encourage him to a slow and guarded acceptance of critical opinions destructive of "the faith once delivered to the saints."

CHATTANOOGA, TENN., December, 1903.

The Things Which Remain

The followers of Him who said "I am the Truth" can never afford to hold or propagate that which is false. No man can preach with power unless he strongly believes. Teaching force depends on Faith.

[Sidenote: Doing and Knowing.]

[Sidenote: The Divine Call.]

[Sidenote: Conditions of the Call.]

Thus far our ministry has had teaching power because it has been founded on and inspired by a Christian experience. Our Church has always emphasized that essential Christian statement, "If ye do ye shall know." At every ordination we have demanded of every candidate a declaration of his persuasion that he was "called according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ" to the particular office to which he was then to be advanced. By this we do not mean a mediate call through the order of the Church or the judgment of the Bishop, but an immediate call by the Holy Spirit from Christ Himself. This call is antedated by that personal surrender to Jesus Christ; that blessed acceptance by Him of the self-surrendered; that witnessing Spirit as to sonship which brings the consciousness of pardon, renewal, and justification known as "a religious experience."

[Sidenote: Evidence of the Call.]

Those who possess this know something. Whereas they were "once blind, now they see." They know they have "passed from darkness to light" through the changed love which now controls. However the persuasion reached them, it is a persuasion; not merely a hope. It is a conclusion borne in upon them by satisfactory evidence, and is a lasting certainty while the faith which brought it abides in its original measure.

Thus to-day we have a pulpit substantially in doctrine and force what our pulpit always has been. Even in some cases where doubt has entered, it would appear that this Christian experience has steadied the wavering head by the full and regular impulses of the believing heart.

[Sidenote: New Problems in Theology.]

[Sidenote: The Modern Skeptical Temper.]

It is, however, to be admitted that the years to which we have come bring with them problems which our fathers did not have to solve. Doubts of which they knew nothing throng our atmosphere and crowd upon our consciousness. The attacks on Christianity are no longer the ribald jeers of the unlovely and the vile. They come in the name of honest investigation, historical veracity, and scientific accuracy; and are projected by characters apparently truth-loving, reverent, and candid.

[Sidenote: The Sources of Advanced Criticism.]

This may be said for most of them, but on occasion it is hard to believe that all the German critics are wholly and exclusively truth-loving and candid. So extreme are the positions of some, so evidently tinctured with overreadiness for criticism and unbelief, that they must be excluded from the "most" above described.

I speak of the Germans because they, chiefly, are those capable and active in original research. Most of our American "advanced critics" are merely translators and adapters of German work. Their volumes add nothing to the controversy to those who know the German originals. Not a few Americans have obtained reputation by the expansion of the note books they made at the feet of German professors.

[Sidenote: The English Disciples of the German School.]

[Sidenote: Love of Novelty.]

This also is largely true of the English critics. Many of them are well furnished for Greek criticism. The number of Greek Englishmen is still very large. But these seem also to fortify, at least, their own conclusions by the opinions of the original German investigators. It is hard to believe that, in the contests for German professorial position, as well as in the justification of the incumbent when the position is gained, the desire to attract attention by some critical novelty of method or result has not been in some cases, at least, as influential as a simple love of truth.

[Sidenote: Some Questions as to Style.]

There is always the question also, which I profess seems to be one not easy of answer, whether the literary judgments as to style when men are dealing with another language than their own, and especially with Greek and Hebrew, can be as worthy of acceptance as their authors and many others hold them to be; whether, in short, their opinions may not, like those of experts in handwriting, come to be so colored by their personality, or their interests, as to be of little evidential value. On this point it seems to me that not enough allowance has been made by these critics for the difference in style when men write familiarly or didactically, or when they are engaged in narration or exhortation.

[Sidenote: Foundation of Belief Unsettled.]

Whatever may be the truth as to these matters, the present state of faith is due to the unsettlement of the foundation of belief by scientific and critical scholarship.

[Sidenote: A New Foundation to Emerge.]

This unsettlement, admitted on every hand with difference of opinion as to extent, is either to increase until faith in Christianity, except as an ethical and humanitarian system, is dead, or abide until faith revives by a perception that the Church has maintained an erroneous basis for faith and that a new and stronger one is emerging from the sea of discussion. This last I believe to be the truth in the matter. I hold, therefore, that faith is not dying, but suffering in some minds from a kind of lunar eclipse, where a shadow diminishes, temporarily, the radiance, but does not extinguish the planet itself.

[Sidenote: The Authority of the Scriptures Weakened.]

When we ask what foundation is weakened, the answer is: The authority of the Scriptures as the sole rule of faith and practice. Some claim that only a few of the books are genuine and almost none authentic. If this is to be the final judgment of the learned and the sincere, it is plain that we must seek another foundation for faith than the word of Scripture. It is no more a "Thus saith the Lord" for us.

[Sidenote: Critics not yet Agreed.]

[Sidenote: Archæology and the Bible.]

[Sidenote: Personal Standpoints.]

But we are very far from seeing that final agreement among the critics which warrants us in discarding a single book. If any one has been fought about, and fought over, it is the Gospel of John. "It used to be said that this was not a history at all, but an idealizing of tradition in the interest of a speculative idea;[1] now theologians are mostly agreed that if John is the most speculative, he is, at the same time, the most personal of New Testament writers." No other book has been finally overthrown. Archæology has confirmed Paul, and also some Old Testament writers, especially those who speak of widely separated settlements of the Hittites. I get a strong impression that the New Testament writers are sometimes attacked because they teach what the critics do not wish to believe. Thus it would appear that Harnack scouts the early chapters of Matthew and Luke because he doubts the virgin birth, and would hold that belief therein is no part in authority or value of the Christian religion.

[Footnote 1: Denney. Studies in Theology.]

[Sidenote: Bible Appeal for Verification.]

[Sidenote: Gracious Ability.]

[Sidenote: Huxley's Passionless Impersonality.]

[Sidenote: Gracious Conditions for Belief.]

[Sidenote: Ethical Conditions for Faith.]

I now wish to declare my own confidence that the verification of the truths contained in the New Testament was never intended to rest upon an absolutely inerrant record or on an inspiration which dictated to a personality rather than expressed itself through a personality. The Bible presupposes a power in man to test and verify its statements and doctrines. It makes its appeal to this steadily from the earlier books to the later; the appeal growing in content as the soul has developed its power of recognition. This is the familiar law of knowing and doing, of proving by practice, of perceiving the leadership of Jesus Christ through the leading of the Holy Ghost. As to doctrine, there is left in man the power to make the beginning of a faith. On this beginning devotion builds a belief in the greater mysteries. Thus reason deduces a First Cause, then the unity of the First Cause. This is as far as reason can go. Huxley, looking out on the universe with this power, said: "There is an impassable gulf between anthropomorphism, however refined and the passionless impersonality underlying the thin veil of phenomena. I can not see one tittle of evidence that the great unknown stands to us in the light of a Father." Nor could he. Religious truth is conditioned in a way in which the apprehension of physical truth is not. There must be a certain condition of the heart, conscience, and will to see the truth of the Godhead of Christ. One may resist this evidence.[2] Only a living Christian is competent to look at the subject--"unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God." In physics "nothing is needed but open eyes and a sound understanding."[3] Moral character has nothing to do with it, except as vice may affect vision and deteriorate the judgment. But in a soul's relation to the Christian religion, the ethical element is that which is fundamental. "The pure in heart shall see God." The foul soul has no vision for the eternal purities. In the days of idolatry "there was no open vision." So in the heart of sin there is no light of spiritual truth. The higher verities appear fully founded to the Christian consciousness only.

[Footnote 2: Cf. Denney.]

[Footnote 3: Cf. Denney.]

[Sidenote: Natural Ethical Canon.]

Yet, let us remember that below this Christian consciousness lie the substrata of reason and ethical canon common to all men. Religious truth rests on these in its first revelations. Above the first and simplest revelation, truth rests on Christian experience as to those matters for which reason and natural ethical canon are insufficient.

[Sidenote: General Calm of Methodist Episcopal Church.]

[Sidenote: Wesley's Advanced Views.]

This having been the teaching of the Methodist Episcopal Church from the beginning, she has been little disturbed by the critical school. While holding that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, she has not committed herself to any one theory of inspiration. She has not believed the Scriptures because they are written, but, being written, she has found them true. She has believed in the supernatural power of the Gospel because in her sight its leaven has wrought in the individual and in society what it claims for itself. John Wesley believed that there were God-breathed teachings outside of the Bible. He believed this because of his feeling that the Divine Fatherhood must have spoken to other than His Jewish children. Inheriting from our founder these thoughts, we have kept a high degree of calm in these later days of inquiry and doubt.

[Sidenote: Wide Range of Unbelief.]

[Sidenote: Natural Immortality.]

[Sidenote: Reward and Punishments.]

We have already admitted that the present tendency to unbelief has wider range and fresher foundations than our fathers knew. The belief in the natural immortality of the human soul whether of Platonic or Christian origin is shaken to an extent not known in a century. The doubts of Huxley, the denials of Hæckel had a purely scientific basis. The suspension of consciousness by sleep, by accident, by drugs, the decay of mind by old age and by disease are freely put forth as proofs that mind can not exist without the mechanism which supports and manifests it. If this last be true a doctrine fundamental to Christianity must be abandoned. The doctrine of immortality through Christ does not meet the new objections. The scheme of redemption and the doctrine of future rewards and punishments are involved in the fate of the doctrine of natural immortality. We have thus shadows of doubt thrown upon two great doctrines, the virgin birth of Christ and natural immortality. The miracles, Resurrection, and Ascension must be added to the shadowed list.

[Sidenote: Some Influential Facts.]

[Sidenote: A Great Mistake.]

[Sidenote: Doctored Heathenism.]

Whatever relation the fact may have as a cause, it is noteworthy that as to time, this new era of doubt largely coincides as to its beginning with the movement to revise the New Testament. The variations of the manuscripts, the interpretations, the comparatively late date of the oldest manuscripts were before this in possession of scholars only. The daily press have made them the possession of the Christian world. The shock to traditional confidence through this was very great. The Congress of Religions at Chicago had a similar effect. The mistaken liberality which permitted Christianity to appear on the same platform with the ethnic and imperfect religions contributed largely to doctrinal indifference. The taking and uncandid misrepresentations of these religions convinced many that there was at least no better foundation for Christianity and no better content therein than for and in the false and imperfect faiths. Many of these were defended by men who had had an English education and had come into contact with Christian vocabulary and civilization. They did not hesitate to read into these religions ideas wholly Christian and wholly foreign to the original teachings.

[Sidenote: What Remains?]

These and other considerations lead me to ask what remains that we may and do believe? While far from admitting as finally proved the radical conclusions reached by some as to authorship and inspiration of the Bible and Divine authority for doctrines deduced therefrom, it must be profitable for us to ask, "What remains if some of these conclusions stand?"

Recall that I do not admit all these for a moment, or any of them as final. Some are probably true. But taking the worst and most iconoclastic as true, are we compelled even then to surrender our Christian faith?

[Sidenote: The Apostles' Creed.]

Let us take the separate articles of the Apostles' Creed and see how they stand affected:

[Sidenote: The Fatherhood of God.]

"I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth."

[Sidenote: A Christian God.]

Surely this remains untouched and in full force. Huxley, to requote what has before been quoted, says: "I can not see one tittle of evidence that the great unknown stands to us in the light of a Father." What a contradiction is here! He knows that the great unknown can not be proved to be our Father. Then he must know of the great unknown the negative aspects so minutely as to be sure that no Fatherhood is in the great unknown. Then he knows the great unknown much better than he is willing to admit, better than an agnostic ought.

[Sidenote: An All Pervasive Spirit.]

[Sidenote: His Commandments.]

[Sidenote: The Divine Ideal.]

Yet that the idea of God may remain in power and not as a "passionless impersonality," it must be less interpreted by the teachings of Moses and more by the teachings of Christ. Human tempers and passions must be eliminated from our Divine Ideal. He must not be made an angry and jealous God as men count these. He must not be thought of as a vindictive personality, never so well pleased as when scaring His children into panic. In the thought of the Church He will be an all-pervasive Spirit whose nature is unfolded by the universe He has made. In that universe He will be felt to be immanent as the power of development, order, and destiny. All ages show Him to be "the power which makes for righteousness." The commandments are not only His because they are found in the Bible, but because they are perceived to be necessary laws of conduct proceeding from such a Being as we know God to be for such beings as we know men to be. Thus we perceive them to be the Divinely authorized bond of society and the guarantee and obligation of the Divine Ideal of humanity. All nature and all history are scrutinized for traces of the Supreme. These being found to coincide with the Christian Revelation of Him, men will read with new reverence those wonderful books which make up the Book, and which beyond all others anticipate the latest results of scientific inquiry and natural ethical canon.

[Sidenote: Advantage of Newer View.]

Out of this will come such a sense of the Divine Presence as the Church and the individual Christian have not hitherto known. Moral distance from God will be the only distance. "In Him we live and move and have our being" comes to full interpretation through this thought of God. Humanity is immersed in Him.

[Sidenote: Transcendent.]

[Sidenote: Huxley Against Hume.]

But this immanent God is also seen to be transcendent. He is in nature and far beyond it. Vast as nature is, it is limited. God is the unlimited. Within this region of transcendence is room for all His gracious activities as distinguished from His natural activities; room for marvel and miracle if He will and we need. When Huxley abandons Hume's _a priori_ argument against miracles it is not worth while for others to use it. Fewer doubt the existence of a God, I believe, than at any time since men sought to prove that He does not exist. The Fatherly in God is proved both by His work in nature and by those works of grace which the student of nature alone can not see. God is a spirit. The human spirit refined, purified, sees Him in proportion to its purification.

[Sidenote: Modern Christology.]

[Sidenote: Former Limitations.]

[Sidenote: Ritual Statement.]

[Sidenote: Aim of Christianity.]

[Sidenote: Likeness to God.]

In respect of "Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord," it may, it must, be said He remains in full and glorious vigor as the Redeemer of mankind. The marked difference between our time and a half-century ago with respect to Christ is in the extension, rather than the diminution of His relation to salvation and the extension of the idea of salvation itself. In the former days men's eyes were almost wholly fixed on His death and its relation to salvation in the future life. Seldom indeed was the value of the following text taken into consideration: "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by His life." There is less disposition to dogmatize as to theories of the atonement. Most, I think, come to feel that no one view contains the full significance of Christ's death. Have you noticed how the Ritual puts it in the order of the Lord's Supper? "Didst give Thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our Redemption; who made there [on the cross] by His oblation of Himself once offered a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." The men who wrote that struggled to interpret His death by every possible phase of its meaning. In our time we have come to see that the aim of Christ and Christianity is to develop character and that this must be gained in time that we may be ready for eternity. Thus the death of Christ as the ultimate of self-sacrifice persuades us to the death of sin in us that we may live renewed in God; "rise from our dead selves to higher things." His life persuades us as the condition and example of growth to move on from the first self-surrender into the habit and fact of constant obedience and therefore "into the likeness of God's dear Son."

The consciousness, well-nigh universal, of the nobility of self-sacrifice is that which gives vitality and vogue among the masses to the doctrine of the atonement. Self-sacrifice becomes more rare as wealth and refinement modify men and women. He that has much is loath to lose or leave it. Hence the rich generally fight in security. The poor meet the bullets first.

Bad as is the conduct of some trades-unionists, it is among these toilers that great deeds of sympathy and generosity are done. How they tax themselves to help each other! How their women work for each other when one is unable to care for herself or her children! Their doctrine that "an injury to one is a wrong to all" has much that is Christlike in it. Let us who believe in an atoning Christ rejoice that as long as men honor bravery--self-sacrifice unto death for country, home, or the life of dear ones; as long as they build monuments to generals, soldiers, firemen, physicians who die for others, so will the world be slow to disbelieve the doctrine that "Jesus Christ tasted death for every man."

[Sidenote: John's Logos.]

[Sidenote: An Anthropomorphic God.]

More, too, is made of His life before the Incarnation. The pre-existence of Christ is an essential element in Christianity. "His eternal relation to God is the only way of conceiving Him which answers to His real greatness."[4] The Christ was present and active in the creation. John's use of the word "Logos" is right. "Logos" is not merely a result but a Force. It is not only the speech, but the speaker. Let us admit once for all that the fact, much belabored of the critics, is a fact. Let us not be afraid of the word which expresses it. God must be anthropomorphic if He exists. We can come nowhere near to thinking out any other kind of God. Christ has the value of God to devout Christians because in the fullness of His moral perfections He expresses God so far as we can know Him and man so far as man can hope and grow.

[Footnote 4: Denney. Studies in Theology.]

[Sidenote: How Son of God.]

Is His Sonship different from ours, or only an expansion of the fullness and perfection of our sonship? This last seems to me a most important question. If He was born as we were born--that is, as to the beginning of His earthly life, there can be no pre-eminent sense in which He was the Son of God. He was either a happy accident of natural birth or a "sport" in evolution.

[Sidenote: The Virgin Birth.]