Author: Albert C. Knudson
[p. 171]
THUS far we have dealt chiefly with the general field of theology, and our positive argument has been comparatively simple. We have defined theology as the systematic exposition and rational justification of the intellectual content of religion, and in support of this definition have argued, first, that religion has a valid intellectual content and, second, that this content in its Christian form admits, to a certain extent, of rational justification. The first position we have maintained as over against illusionism and the second as over against both an authoritarian and a romantic irrationalism. Religion, it is true, like every other fundamental interest of the human spirit, must, in the last analysis, justify itself. But selfjustification does not exclude rational justification. Rather should the two go together. If religion is self-evidencing, it ought also to find support in the common reason. And this is the view that has been represented by the main stream of Christian thought.
Some have tried to find a rational support for religion in science by transforming theology into an empirical science and thus giving to it the same recognized intellectual standing as any special science. But this attempt, as we have seen, has led to confusion and self-contradiction. Science in its traditional [p. 172] common-sense interpretation is a confused compound of philosophy and empirical science, and in its positivistic sense it excludes theology altogether. For there can be no theology without metaphysics. Religious belief by its very nature implies the metaphysical. It is only in metaphysics, consequently, that religion can find its ultimate rational basis. Such a religious metaphysics may be either ethically or theoretically grounded or both. Only the double grounding meets the needs of both the religious mind and heart.
Theology, then, stands in a close relation to metaphysical philosophy. It differs from it in that it concentrates attention upon the subject of religion. In this respect it resembles the philosophy of religion. It differs, however, from the latter in that it is conditioned by its relation to the church. Theology has grown up in connection with the church; it was its child, and to a large extent remains such. It is the servant of the church; and this relationship it cannot well disown, at least not under existing conditions. It may be conceived of as related only to a particular religious communion, as Schleiermacher did; he defined theology as “the science which systematizes the doctrine prevalent in a Christian church at a given time.” [1] Or its relation may be extended to all Protestantism or to the entire Christian Church. But in any case it remains linked up with the church. It has a place within the church, and has a function to perform there. This fact differentiates it from the general philosophy of religion.
[p. 173]
So far as the validation of religious belief is concerned, the two are on the same plane. In the past theology appealed to an external authority for the authentication of at least a large part of its teaching. It distinguished between natural theology and revealed theology. The former was made up of “mixed articles” (articuli mixti), that is, articles based both on revelation and reason; the latter had to do with “pure articles” (articuli puri), that is, articles based on revelation alone. But this distinction between natural and revealed theology has now largely fallen into disuse. The present tendency is to draw no sharp line of distinction between revelation and the natural reason, but to look upon the highest insights of reason as themselves divine revelations. In any case there is no fixed body of revealed truth, accepted on authority, that stands opposed to the truths of reason. All truth to-day rests on its power of appeal to the human mind. There is no external standard of truth. The only standard is within the human mind itself. At this point there is, therefore, no difference between theology and the philosophy of religion. Both have the same basis. But while this is true, theology, in view of its ecclesiastical associations, has its own special province. It concentrates attention upon the teaching of the Bible and the church, seeking to interpret and commend it to the modern mind, in a way that the philosophy of religion does not. It thus has its own peculiar approach to the religious problem. It comes to it from within the Christian Church. This fact gives to it a content and a character that are more or less distinctively [p. 174] its own, and raises certain questions with reference to sources and method that require consideration. It is with these questions that the present chapter is concerned.
The question as to the sources of theology was in the past closely bound up with the idea of an infallible revelation made through a divinely inspired book or church or both. This idea we no longer hold. We do not believe in either biblical or ecclesiastical infallibility. But the question of sources still has its interest and significance for us. Indeed, the problem is, theoretically at least, as vital and important as ever. If we are to determine what Christianity is and expound its doctrines, we must be agreed as to what the normative source or sources of information concerning it are; and we must also be agreed as to the method by which they are to be interpreted.
That the Bible is or should be the chief source and norm of Christian theology would probably be generally admitted. But that it should be the only source and norm is open to question. Some Protestant theologians insist that it should be, but in so doing they seem to me to reflect the influence of an earlier ecclesiastical and supernaturalistic exclusivism. One may attribute to Scripture ah altogether unique degree of inspiration without denying that Christianity has learned important truths from other sources also; and one may believe that the Protestant Reformers were justified in opposing the authority of the Bible to that of the church without denying that original and significant contributions to the deposit [p. 175] of Christian truth were made by the Church Fathers. That the great creative ideas of the Christian faith came from Scripture is no doubt true, but that they have been supplemented and developed by the creeds and confessions of the churches and by the reason and experience of believers would seem equally true. To know what Christianity is, then, we must take into account not only the teaching of Scripture, but the whole history of the Christian Church. Indeed, it is not sufficient to study the Christian Church alone. We need to extend our inquiries so as to take in the religious life and beliefs of men in general. Only against the background of other religions and in relation to them can Christianity be fully understood. To our study of biblical exegesis and church history we need, therefore, to add the study of the psychology and history of religion. All of these subjects, to which the philosophy of religion might be added, may be regarded as contributory to Christian theology.
Still, it is the Bible that in a special and pre-eminent sense is the source and norm of Christian belief. In it we have the earliest and most trustworthy record of that unique revelation of God which was mediated to the world through Jewish and early Christian history and which constitutes the foundation of the Christian faith. To this record we must go for the original documents of our religion, for its classic expression. Much might be said in favor of the unique inspiration of these documents, but entirely apart from this question they occupy historically a position of primacy from which they can never be dislodged. They are at once the earliest literary [p. 176] embodiment of our faith and the one original and authentic record of God’s special revelation of himself. In the latter respect they are properly spoken of as the Word of God and in the former respect they contain the only adequate data for scientifically determining the nature of primitive Christianity. In both respects they are unique, and this constitutes adequate ground for ascribing to the Bible a position of transcendent significance. To it, therefore, as to no other source Christian theology will necessarily go back for its material and for its validation. Of this the whole history of the church furnishes ample confirmation. The only question has to do with the exclusiveness of its authority and the limits of its normative content. On both of these points there have been historic contests.
With reference to the limits of the biblical canon there is a difference between Protestants and Roman Catholics. The latter include the Apocrypha, while the former do not. But this difference has no important doctrinal significance. So far as doctrine is concerned, there has been only one important debate with respect to the limits of the canon, and this had to do with the Old Testament. A serious effort was made in the early church by the Gnostics, and especially by Marcion, to eliminate the Old Testament from the Christian canon. It was their contention that the God of the Old Testament differed in character from that of the New. He was just and righteous, not merciful and loving like the God of Jesus, a Judge, not a Father. But what they particularly objected to in him was that he was the [p. 177] creator of the present evil world, from which. Christ came to redeem us. Such a being, they held, must in the nature of the case be imperfect, if not evil, a demiurge, not the true God. So they distinguished between the Creator-God of the Old Testament and the Redeemer-God of the New Testament. To the former they allowed no place in the Christian faith.
This attempt to limit the canon to the New Testament failed, and for manifest reasons. It ran counter to the teaching of Jesus and Paul and to Christian tradition in general. It overlooked the large Christian element in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and prophetic books. And it directly contradicted a fundamental Christian conviction with reference to the present world and its relation to God. However imperfect the world may be, it is still, according to Christian teaching, his handiwork and the field of his providential and redemptive activity. Redemption does not negate creation; it completes it. Furthermore, only he who is Creator can be Redeemer. The two offices do not exclude each other; they belong together. Such was the profound conviction of the early church, and under its influence the Gnostic teaching was rejected as heritical. Since then a hostile or unappreciative attitude toward the Old Testament has occasionally been expressed by distinguished Christian thinkers, but no attempt to dispense with it has been made comparable in vigor and range to that of the Gnostics. [2] The church as a whole has throughout its history been [p. 178] persuaded that there is an organic connection between the two Testaments, that the New is implicit in the Old and the Old explicit in the New, and that the Christian faith requires both if it is to be fully understood.
But while the Old Testament has a well-established place in the Christian canon, it is not to be placed on a level with the New Testament. At this point the old theory of biblical infallibility erred. It formally at least attributed an equal degree of inspiration and of authority to all parts of the Bible. This view runs counter to the idea of a progressive revelation, is inconsistent with the claims of the New Testament, and is completely negated by modern criticism. As the historical presupposition of the New Testament and as the independent source of imperishable religious truth, the Hebrew Scriptures have a permanent value and are properly incorporated in the Christian canon. But there is much in them that is sub-Christian or extra-Christian, and this needs to be distinguished from the Christian element. What is truly Christian can be determined only by appealing to the New Testament. It is the revelation made in and through Christ that is the source and norm of Christian truth. [3] Only in a supplementary, preparatory, and corroborative way does the Old Testament have authority for us, but in these respects it serves an important purpose. It was against the background of the Old Testament that Jesus did his work, and much of this background passed into his own teaching [p. 179] so as to form a permanent part of it. It would, then, do violence to the New Testament to detach it from the Old. The two belong together in fact as well as by the authority of the Master. Such may be said to be the considered judgment of the Christian Church.
Aside from the attempt of the Gnostics to divorce the Old Testament from the New, no serious effort has been made to reduce materially the Christian canon. Nor does any great doctrinal significance attach to the modern relegation of the Old Testament to a subordinate position within the canon. But there is at present a tendency to limit the authority of the New Testament and of the Bible as a whole to the Synoptic Jesus, or what is supposed to be “the Jesus of history,” in a way that implies a very significant doctrinal change. It is argued that the Jesus of Paul and John and the later Christian Church is the “Christ of faith,” and that as such he is the product of the Christian imagination. He never existed. It is the Jesus of history, and he only, who has authoritative significance for us. Our task, therefore, to-day is to “reconstruct our Christianity, not in the light of Paul or John, or later accepted and official beliefs, but in the light of the religious experience of Jesus himself.” [4] The most authentic picture of the historical Jesus is to be found in the Synoptic Gospels. A unique significance, therefore, attaches to them. They are the Holy of Holies of the Christian [p. 180] canon. The rest of the New Testament and the Old Testament as a whole belong to the outer courts.
This view is often set forth as though it were selfevident, a necessary implication of the historical method. But it is, rather, an instance of what the Germans call “historicism.” It puts the human process above the divine content. Indeed, it is inclined to exclude the latter altogether. It assumes that our one interest is or ought to be “the religion of Jesus.” “The religion about Jesus,” by which is meant the belief in his divinity, is treated as though it were a degenerate offshoot from the pure gospel. The fact, however, is that it was this faith that created the Christian Church and that has since maintained it. Christianity owed its origin to the impression made by the personality of Jesus upon his disciples. This impression was double. The disciples saw in Jesus and his work not simply a human quest after God, but a divine quest after man. They beheld in him not merely the perfect sanctity of a man, but the gracious advent of Deity. They heard in the message of his life and death not only the voice of man, but the voice of God. That this double impression was made upon them is not open to question. The whole New Testament is witness to it. And here it is that we have the characteristically Christian point of view. We cannot resolve it into anything simpler without dissolving it. The double impression was original and ultimate.
To construct a picture of Jesus with the divine factor eliminated and represent such a Jesus as the source of Christianity, pure and undenled, is to fly in [p. 181] the face of history. It was not the so-called “historical Jesus” on whom the church was founded, but the real Jesus, a man who had the power to awaken in others faith in himself as the mediator of the divine grace. It was this “Christ of faith” who actually existed and from whom the Christian religion took its start. The “Jesus of history,” whose significance was exhausted in his teaching and in his exemplary religious experience, is a figment of the modern imagination, a product of the naturalistic mode of thought. The truly historical Jesus was a generator of faith in himself both as the perfect man and as in some sense the incarnation of the Divine. To suppose that in the latter respect an erroneous impression was produced on Paul and John and to suppose that on so fundamental a point the Christian Church has for nineteen centuries been mistaken, would go far to discredit not only the entire Christian consciousness, but the whole religious nature of man. In any case there can be no doubt that the belief in Jesus as something more than a great teacher or a perfect moral and religious example is an essential part of historical Christianity and that to exclude this belief from the articles of our faith would involve a reconstruction of the Christian system almost as radical as that involved in the Gnostic rejection of the Creator-God of the Old Testament. As the latter movement failed because it broke with the Christian tradition and the Christian. consciousness, so we may be confident it will be with the modern movement, if such it may be called, which would discard the Pauline and Johannine conception of a divine Christ, [p. 182] and restrict the authority of Scripture to a nebulous “Jesus of history.” It is the whole New Testament, not any selected portions of the Synoptic Gospels, that is and that will remain the chief source and norm of Christian theology.
But is the Bible, either in whole or in part, the exclusive source and norm of theology? This question, to which we have already referred, has figured prominently in the disputes of the past. The controversy has taken three main forms. Some have maintained that the church, others that reason, and still others that Christian experience is a supplementary or a coequal, or even a superior source of religious truth.
The question as to the relation of the authority of the church to that of Scripture has been one of the main grounds of contention between Protestants and Roman Catholics. The latter hold that the revelational activity of the Divine Spirit is continued in and through the church, and to this there is in principle no valid objection. The inspiration of the Bible does not necessarily exclude the inspiration of the great creedal and other utterances of the church. Nor does the fact that we have in Christ the supreme revelation of God exclude other and supplementary revelations to the church. But Roman Catholics go further than this. They maintain that the church is the sole authoritative interpreter of Scripture, and that the ultimate basis for accepting the authority of Scripture must be found in the authority of the church. Here we have a sharp clash between the Catholic and Protestant points of view. The characteristic [p. 183] thing in Protestantism is not its belief in the inspiration of the Bible, but its belief in the inspiration of the individual. As over against the tyrannical authority of the church it vindicates for the individual the right and the duty to interpret the Scriptures for himself. It also finds the ultimate ground for accepting the biblical revelation in its power of appeal to the individual soul or, to use the language of the older Protestantism, in the testimonium spiritus. It thus rejects the authority of the church insofar as it comes into conflict with the conscience and the intelligence of the individual believer. But it is, of course, impossible for the individual to detach himself completely from the influence of the church. It is through the church that he comes to know the Bible, and he could not, if he would, escape the influence of the past in its interpretation. Indeed, no sane exegete would wish to do so. The church has through its scholars made important contributions to the correct interpretation of Scripture which no honest student could or would disregard, so that in spite of ourselves we see the Bible through the eyes of the church. These contributions it has made not only by philological studies, but by the new perspective it has given to biblical teaching. It has emphasized the Christian elements and allowed the others to sink into the background. The process has varied from generation to generation, reflecting the changing thought of the church. Progress has not been steady. There have been reactionary movements which could be met only by a fresh return to Scripture. But it is a radically mistaken view which sees [p. 184] in the main stream of the church’s doctrinal development a defection from the faith. It is in and through its history that Christianity unfolds and expresses itself, and it is only by taking into account its total history that we can determine its true nature. Its history thus supplements Scripture and regulates our interpretation of it. Hence the church with its creeds and confessions may properly be regarded as a secondary source of theology.
The basis on which reason is singled out as another source of Christian theology is somewhat different. We have here to do with the contributions made by theistic philosophy to the Christian faith. These contributions, derived chiefly from the Greeks, have, as we have seen, been rated very differently by Christian thinkers. Some have appraised them highly, while others have branded them as foreign importations that have done more harm than good. Naturally the latter have not been disposed to see in reason a true source of Christian theology. But the former are manifestly quite justified in doing so. For them the natural reason appears as both a supplement to and support of the biblical teaching; and that this represents the main stream of Christian thought has been made clear in previous chapters.
Reason, however, has not always been willing to serve as merely a supplementary source of Christian theology. It has at times claimed to be the sole ultimate source. In the deistic movement, for instance, it was maintained that all true religion is based on the natural reason and that Christianity is true only insofar as it is not “mysterious,” only insofar as it [p. 185] is as old as creation or a republication of the religion of nature. [5] Hegel also represented about the same standpoint, though he expressed himself differently. He looked upon the fundamental doctrines of the Christian Church not as echoes of an earlier natural religion, but as symbols of the absolute truths of reason. Christianity, he held, is true insofar, and only insofar, as it foreshadows and symbolizes the higher abstract principles of the idealistic philosophy. These two historic forms of rationalism thus virtually set aside the Bible as an independent source of religious truth and put reason in its stead. In so doing they broke with the Christian point of view. Christianity is willing to recognize reason as a supplementary and regulative or formal source of theology, but it cannot without renouncing its own distinctive character recognize it as the chief and much less as the sole ultimate source.
With respect to religious experience as a source of theology the situation is somewhat different from what it is with the church and the natural reason. The latter have both made distinct contributions or additions to the content of Christian theology. But this can hardly be said to be the case with religious experience viewed as something direct and unmediated. The mystics have claimed for themselves an immediate apprehension of the Divine, but they have admitted that while this experience has given them a greater assurance of the reality of God, it has not increased their insight into what he is. Insofar as [p. 186] the mystic experience has had a definite content, it has derived it from earlier training. This is also manifestly true of “the Christian consciousness” which Schleiermacher set up as the main source of theology. No doubt it is true that there was a Christian consciousness before the New Testament and that the New Testament was to a large extent an expression of it. It is also true that as a reaction against a dogmatic biblicism, on the one hand, and a barren rationalism on the other, Schleiermacher’s emphasis on Christian experience marked an important step forward in the history of theology, the founding of theological empiricism. But if this emphasis be construed into meaning that the Christian consciousness of to-day is independent of Scripture, it is evident that we have here a serious error. The Christian consciousness is, to a large extent, the product of biblical teaching and the society that biblical teaching has created. Apart from them, it could not, without a miracle, come into being. Its content is, therefore, derived, not original. What the Christian consciousness does is to reflect the teaching of the church. But it not only reflects it, it exercises a selective function as over against it. It picks out those truths that seem to it to be of the greatest value, and neglects others. In this way it modifies to some extent traditional Christian teaching and gives it a new direction. But it cannot be said to have added anything to its content by virtue of any transcendental experience of its own. Its function is regulative, not creative, and only in this sense can it be viewed as a source of Christian theology.
[p. 187]
We have, then, as definitive of the unique or special field of theology, one main source, the Bible, and particularly the New Testament, and three additional sources which may be described as supplementary or regulative; namely, the church, the natural reason as expressed in the theistic philosophies, and Christian experience.
The question of theological method has been much discussed during the past century. This has been due to the breakdown of the older dogmatic and rationalistic method and the failure to agree upon a method to take its place. “We hear about the “theocentric” and “anthropocentric,” the “speculative” and “empirical,” the “religio-historical” and the “religio-psychological” methods, and in the past few years the “dialectic” method has been attracting wide attention. This diversity of method is at first rather confusing, and has led some to the conclusion that the question of method is at present of fundamental theological significance, that everything, indeed, depends upon it. The one great need of the day in theology, we are told, is the attainment of a “unified and unambiguous method.” [6] In one sense this is perhaps true. The establishment of a clearly defined and commonly accepted theological method would be highly desirable. It would bring unity into what is at present a somewhat distracted [p. 188] field. But the ideal is hardly one that is likely to be realized in the near future. The reason is that method is, after all, secondary, a reflection of one’s philosophical or theological standpoint. It is not method that determines one’s theological conclusions, but, rather, the reverse. The various methods above mentioned are all the outcome of certain theological or philosophical convictions. The “empirical” and “religio-psychological” methods owe their origin to a more or less empiricistic theory of knowledge. The “theocentric” and “speculative” methods are due to the persistence or revival of the older dogmatic and rationalistic standpoints and the term “anthropocentric” is applied to any method that stresses the human conditions of religious knowledge. The “religio-historical” method grows out of the modern philosophy of history, and the “dialectic” method of Earth and Brunner is the natural accompaniment of their NeoKantian epistemology. Complete agreement in theological method is, therefore, practically impossible without agreement in philosophical and theological presuppositions, and this is 1 not likely to be attained for an indefinite time to come. Nevertheless, the question of method is one which the theological student should understand and about which he should be clear.
The fundamental cleavage in theological method is that between the “dogmatic” and what may be called the “critical” method. It was Schleiermacher who first clearly established the contrast between these two methods. The dogmatic implies an authoritative standard which is regarded as objective and more or [p. 189] less self -operative. The standard may be the Bible or the church, or even reason itself, if the latter be conceived of as involving certain definite and necessary religious beliefs. With such an objective standard the method in constructing a theology will be to systematize and, so far as possible, justify what is taught in the accepted standard without taking adequately into account the subjective factors that condition its acceptance and the actual influences that determine religious belief. These subjective and empirical factors were first developed in a thoroughgoing way by Kant in the field of philosophy and by Schleiermacher in the field of theology. Kant emphasized the moral and Schleiermacher the emotional basis of religious belief, but both stressed the practical element in religion as over against the theoretical. The doctrinal and intellectual element as represented by biblical theology, the creeds of the church and speculative theism they made secondary, an effect of religion rather than its cause. In this way they undermined the earlier dogmatic and rationalistic method and introduced in its place the “critical.”
By the critical method is thus meant the method that begins with an inquiry into the subjective conditions of knowledge or belief and that makes this inquiry basal. In its more characteristic form this method is variously called “anthropocentric,” “empirical,” “scientific,” “religio-historical” and “religio-psychological.” What all of these terms emphasize is the inductive character of theology and the human approach to it. Theology from this point of view [p. 190] finds its starting-point in faith rather than the object or objects of faith. It is a Glaubenslehre, a science or doctrine of faith, rather than a doctrina de deo et rebus divinis. The latter was the conception of theology current up to the time of Schleiermacher. He rejected it in favor of the critical method. It was this fact that Neander had in mind when, in announcing his death in 1834, he said, “We have now lost a man from whom will be dated henceforth a new era in the history of theology.”
The critical method, however, is not to be identified with that introduced by Schleiermacher, nor with any one specific period. The term might, it is true, be applied in the Kantian sense to a nonmetaphysical theology. But there is no established usage to that effect. Here the term is used in a comprehensive sense to denote any method that excludes an external and definitive authority and that takes serious account of the subjective conditions of knowledge and belief. Virtually all current theological methods do this except the purely traditional, and hence they may in a general way be described as “critical.” They renounce the idea of biblical infallibility, and are also agreed in recognizing the necessity of finding a basis for their own particular position in some sort of religious epistemology. But within this general agreement there are several important differences, two of which call for brief consideration. Reference has already been made to them. One is the difference between the anthropocentric and the theocentric methods. It has been argued by Erich Sehaeder, [7] [p. 191] and still more radically by Emil Brunner, [8] that Protestant theology was diverted into a false channel by Schleiermaeher, that the human was wrongl/ substituted for the divine standpoint, and that the hope of the future lies in a return to the theocentric emphasis of earlier times. Theology, we are told, must again become objective. The subjectivism of modern thought must be overcome, and revelation must be reinstated in its central and supreme place. Instead of fixing attention on religion or faith as a human experience we must fix attention on God. Interest must be centered in the object of faith rather than in faith itself.
For this, reaction against the anthropocentric and subjectivistic tendency in modern theology there is some justification. There is danger that religion may lose its grip on the eternal and transcendent and become purely humanistic. To meet this peril there is need of the theocentric emphasis. But taken by itself, as determinative of a whole system of theology, the theocentric method would mean a revival, in modified form, of the older dogmatism. For while it rules out biblical infallibility, it clings to the idea of revelation as an objective and authoritative body of truth. It recognizes that subjective factors are involved in the determination of the exact content of this body of truth, but when determined absoluteness is ascribed to it. And this means that theology becomes again a doctrina de deo et rebus divinis. It loses to a large degree its critical character and becomes dogmatic. It fails to see that in our day [p. 192] theology must be anthropocentric in its starting point. Otherwise it would have no point of contact with modern thought. It must, to be sure, transcend this anthropocentric point of view. In its outcome it must be theocentric, if true to itself. Both methods must be combined in any complete and adequate theology.
The second difference in modern theological method calling for attention in this connection is that between the speculative and the empirical. In its more extreme form the speculative method subordinates the concrete facts of Christian history and experience to the general ideas or truths symbolized by them. For instance, the person of Christ is said to have significance only insofar as it is the embodiment of the principle of Christianity; [9] the latter alone is absolute; and so with biblical and Christian history as a whole. Not in its concrete events or personages, but in the ideas operative in them is that ultimate truth to be found with which theology is concerned. To develop and ground these ideas is, therefore, the main task of the theologian, and hence his method must be fundamentally speculative.
The chief objection to this method is that it implies an intellectualistic conception of religion and marks a return in principle to the discredited rationalism of a century or so ago. Opposed to it stands the empirical or scientific method, which is the popular theological method of our day. Here the stress is placed on the individual instead of the universal, on the concrete instead of the abstract, on experience instead [p. 193] of reason. But experience is a vague term and is used in a variety of different senses. In seeking to determine its meaning more precisely it should first be noted that there is no such thing as “pure experience.” All articulate experience is interpreted experience; that is, it implies the activity of thought or reason. Still there is a difference between knowledge of the concrete perceptual type and abstract or conceptual knowledge; and to the former the term experience may be applied. But experience is not purely cognitive, it is also appreciative. It has not only a registering, but also an evaluating function. Then, too, there is a past as well as a present experience, and the past is irrevocable. In the case of the individual past experience may be remembered, but in the case of the race it is only figuratively that we can speak of a memory of the past. All remembrance is individual; but even when remembered the past is not experienced. It was once experienced and as such belongs to experience, but as past it is irrevocable and separated from us by a gulf which no magic can bridge. A record of it may be transmitted to us and it may within limits be recalled in memory, but as a past experience it is unrepeatable. It belongs to history. The experience that underlies or constitutes history is, therefore, different, so far as we are concerned, from present experience. We have, then, three different senses in which the term “experience” is used: the purely perceptual, the evaluational, and the historical.
Each of these different aspects of experience has been made the basis of a special group of empirical [p. 194] sciences. The natural sciences are based on the purely perceptual side of experience, the normative sciences on its evaluational side, and the historical sciences on the recorded experiences of the past. And each of these forms of empirical science has been carried over into theology. We have a type of empirical theology that lays stress on history, another type that emphasizes value-judgments, and a third that puts the stress on the perceptual character of religious experience. These three types do not exclude each other. They are often fused together with very little recognition of distinction between them. They all claim to be empirical, and in that sense anti-speculative and anti-metaphysical. But a fundamental confusion usually inheres in their conception of experience. We have seen that popular thought oscillates between a positivistic and a metaphysical interpretation of experience; and this uncertainty and confusion vitiates a large part of current empirical theology. If religious experience be interpreted in a positivistic sense, theological empiricism degenerates into psychologism and historicism. It surrenders all transcendent reality and with it the very essence of religious faith. If, on the other hand, religious experience be interpreted in a metaphysical sense, we have in empirical theology a confused compound of science and philosophy; and under the guise of this hybrid empiricism the older metaphysical types of thought are revived in a diluted or modified form. In the historical positivism of Ritschlianism we have an attenuated form of the older authoritarianism; in the Ritschlian theory [p. 195] of value-judgments we have an abbreviated form of the older rationalism; and in the perceptual theory of religious experience we have a modernized version of the older mysticism and pietism. If biblical history had in it no note of authority, if value judgments were devoid of all objective and existential reference, and if there be no such thing as a mystical apprehension of a Divine Being, the whole appeal to religious experience, past or present, valuational or perceptual, would be utterly futile. It is only a metaphysically interpreted experience that can serve the purposes of theology.
The current empirical method in theology is, then, complex and confused. But so also is present-day thought in general with reference to “experience,” “science,” and “metaphysics.” And it is to this confused state of thought that theological empiricism to a large extent owes its present vogue. It seeks to win for theology the prestige of being a recognized science without inquiring fully into what is involved in such an attempt and without analyzing, clarifying, and defining its own fundamental concepts.
The fact is that the current theological quest after a “unified” method, and particularly the quest after a thoroughly “scientific” method, is to a large degree a mistaken one. Theology is composite in character. It is partly a science and partly a philosophy; and to this composite character its methodology should correspond. To seek to reduce theology as a whole to an empirical science is as mistaken as is the effort to reduce it to a metaphysical philosophy. The latter is the error of the speculative method, and the [p. 196] former the error of the scientific or empirical method. Both methods are essential to a complete and adequate theology. Then, too, theology has a practical aim, that of meeting the actual needs of the church, and this should also be taken account of in its methodology, so that a sound theological method should be partly scientific, partly philosophical, and partly practical.
The first task of theology is to determine and expound the essential nature and content of the Christian faith. In fulfilling this task its method must be that of a normative science. It will gather together the relevant data from the various recognized sources, but after doing so it will not simply generalize on the basis of these data, as is done in the natural sciences. It will erect within the data a norm or standard by which they will be evaluated and arranged in a graded scale according to their importance. Some will be rejected as foreign to the true nature of Christianity and others as incidental elements in its history. This method will be followed in the use of Scripture as well as in that of Christian history as a whole. The accepted norm for determining what is truly Christian and what is not will be found in Jesus Christ. But what in him is actually normative? Is it his teaching? Is it the principle of Christianity embodied in him? Is it his inner life? Or is it the transcendent fact that he is the incarnate Son of God? All of these are value-judgments. To some extent their correctness can be determined by a study of biblical and Christian history. But the question to which they are answers cannot be decided [p. 197] by purely objective considerations. A subjective factor is involved in every answer to it. And so it is with the determination of practical standards everywhere. It holds in every normative science. That it obtains in Christian theology, therefore, casts no reflection upon its scientific character. Insofar as theology has the function of determining the nature and intellectual content of Christianity, and insofar as it does so by an impartial study of the relevant facts, it is a normative science in the strict sense of the term, even though it cannot altogether divest itself of subjective criteria.
But theology has also the task of establishing the validity of the Christian faith, and this it cannot do without invading the field of philosophy. It may, indeed, be said that the Christian faith is self-verifying and requires no defense, but this very affirmation is in need of justification and can find justification only in a theory of knowledge which makes it clear that the fundamental moral, religious, aesthetic and intellectual interests of the human spirit are to a certain extent independent of each other and stand in their own right so that one cannot be overthrown by the others. But theology has also the duty of elaborating the intellectual content of Christianity and exhibiting its deep inner unity, and insofar as it does this it renders an important apologetic service. For it is not only as a vague subjective conviction, but as “a profound and homogeneous system” that Christianity is, as William Shedd said, “its own best defense.” [10] Thus to present Christian belief, how [p. 198] ever, requires a high degree of speculative ability. Then, too, the Christian system needs to be brought into harmonious relation with the general field of philosophy, and this also calls for the use of the speculative method. The latter, therefore, is as inescapable in theology as is the scientific method.
A practical purpose lies back of the work of scientists and philosophers in general, but it stands especially close to the work of the theologian. For he stands within a definite organization and has the duty of ministering to its needs. This should not in the least divert him from his fundamental quest after the truth, but it should give direction to his inquiries and determine to some extent his method of exposition. He cannot cut loose from the terminology of the past nor break with the historic continuity of the faith without in a measure defeating the very purpose of his work. A sound practical method must, therefore, in theology supplement the purely scientific and speculative.
The question as to the order in which the different Christian doctrines should be treated has received considerable attention. To me it does not seem to be a question of any special consequence. One may, if he wishes, follow the psychological order in which the Christian system seems naturally to unfold itself, or one may adopt the logical order in which the different doctrines stand to each other. The latter, since it is clearer and less disputable, seems to me preferable from the pedagogical point of view. Adopting it, we take up in the present volume the doctrine of God. Then in a later volume, referred to in the Preface, [p. 199] we shall treat of the world and sin, and of Christ and redemption. These three in any case are the main topics to be considered in any and every Christian theology; and under these general heads a natural and proper place can be found for anything that needs to be said concerning the intellectual content of the Christian faith.
The Christian Faith, p. 88. ↩︎
See An Outline of Christianity, Vol. IV, pp. 339f., 365ff., where I have discussed the subject more fully. ↩︎
Cf . The Use of the Scriptures in Theology, by William Newton Clarke. ↩︎
This program is elaborated with marked ability, learning, and enthusiasm by Professor Walter E. Bundy, of DePauw University, in two interesting volumes entitled The Religion of Jesus and Our Recovery of Jesus. ↩︎
See John Toland, Christianity Not Mysterious, 1696; Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation, or the Gospel a Republication of the Religion of Nature, 1730. ↩︎
So Georg Wobbermin, Die Religionspsychologische Methode in Religionswissenschaft und Theologie, pp. VIIf. ↩︎
Theozentrische Theologie. ↩︎
Die Mystik unci das Wort. ↩︎
Cf. A. B. Biedermann, Christliche Dogmatik. ↩︎
A History of Christian Doctrine, I, p. v. ↩︎