Read Ebook: Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors by Clarke James Freeman

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? 5. The Doctrine of Essentials and Non-essentials leads to Rome.

? 6. Fallacy in this Orthodox Argument.

The fallacy in all this argument lies here--that faith is confounded with belief; knowledge with opinion; the sight of truth with its intellectual statement in the form of doctrine. Undoubtedly there is only one faith, but there may be many ways of stating it in the form of opinion. Moreover, no man, no church, no age, sees the whole of truth. Truth is multilateral, but men's minds are unilateral. They are mirrors which reflect, and that imperfectly, the side of the object which is towards them. Therefore even knowledge in any finite mind is partial, consequently imperfect; and consequently needs other knowledge to complete it.

We see, therefore, that the great master and head of Orthodoxy in the Church has himself declared every form of Orthodoxy to be transient.

These modern philosophers, it will be seen, go much farther than Paul, and lay down positions which inaugurate a universal scepticism. According to them there is nothing certain and nothing fixed. Mr. Mansell virtually teaches us that we cannot know anything of God, duty, or immortality; and that faith means, taking for granted on some outward authority. To use a striking expression of President James Walker, "We are not to believe, but to make believe." That is, we are not to believe with our intellect, but with our will. Or, in other words, we are to believe not what is true, but what is expedient. This he calls regulative truth, as opposed to speculative truth.

But this is by no means the doctrine of the apostle Paul. He teaches the certainty of substantive knowledge, but the fallibility of formal knowledge. He thus avoids the two extremes of dogmatism on the one side, and scepticism on the other. The substance of Gnosis, which is the sight of truth, is a reality, and, like all that is real, has its root in God, and shares his eternity. The form of Gnosis is subjective, relative, and transient. Everything which is seen is temporal; only that which is not seen is eternal. All that takes outward, visible form, comes under the law of change; the roots of our knowledge, fixed in God, are unchangeable.

? 7. The three Tendencies in the Church.

Large numbers in the Church have followed each of these three methods, and made each the basis of its action. One has said, "We are saved by works;" a second, "We are saved by faith;" a third, "We are saved by love."

? 8. The Party of Works.

The objection to this view is, that a religious action, without a religious thought and a religious affection behind it, is not in any sense religious. It has in it nothing of the essence of religion. Religion, regarded merely as obedience to God, implies the knowledge of God. We must know God in order to obey him; we must know God in order to love him. Knowledge, therefore, must precede obedience, and not the contrary. Otherwise obedience is an empty form, having no religious character. Unless we see the truth and justice of obedience, we are only yielding to human persuasion, to human authority, and not to the authority of God. It may be well, or it may be ill, to yield to such human authority; but there is no religion in it, or only a religion of dead works.

? 9. The Party of Emotion in Christianity.

? 10. The Faith Party in Religion.

If Churchism and Moralism place the essence of Christianity in action, and Emotionalism puts it in feeling, Orthodoxy places it in something intellectual, which it calls faith. All the sects of Christendom do, indeed, place faith at the root of the Christian life; but some make it essentially an intellectual act, others essentially affectionate, and others an act of will. Orthodoxy makes it, in substance, a sight of faith, or an act of looking at spiritual realities. Sometimes it is called a realizing sense of spiritual things. But, at all events, the sight of truth is considered the beginning and root of religion by the Orthodox party in the Church. We are saved by the word of truth; and the Saviour himself is called "the Word,"--belief in whom constitutes eternal life. Rationally, it is argued that the essential difference between the Christian and the unbeliever, or the unchristian, must lie in seeing Christ or not seeing him. The first step in the religious life always consists in looking at the truth.

? 11. Truth in the Orthodox Idea.

So that, on the whole, we may say that Orthodoxy is right in making the sight of truth the beginning of the Christian life, and the beginning of every Christian state, act, or experience. All human goodness is the reflection of God's goodness; it all has its source in the sight of a divine holiness, truth, beauty. This is the fundamental idea of Orthodoxy, and in this Orthodoxy is right.

It is no answer to this to say that man has an instinctive longing for goodness, which causes him to feel after God before he finds him. For what are these instincts themselves, as soon as they begin to act, but the voice of God speaking in the soul, showing it some glimpses of a divine truth? The longing in the soul must be aroused by the sight or knowledge of something better than that which one has or is. Consequently, we say again, that the sight of truth is that which saves the soul, and first creates in it a better life.

If we make Christianity to be essentially obedience, we make of it, at last, an oppressive form. If we consider it as essentially an emotional experience, we destroy its moral character; for emotion is both passive and blind, while the definition of morality is the freely choosing what we see to be right. Ecclesiasticism and Emotionalism both tend to demoralize Christianity. They remove from it the element of moral freedom in the interest either of Church authority or of mystical piety. Then Christianity must come anew, in the form of truth, to purify the air, and renew the moral life of society.

But, notwithstanding these inconsistencies, Protestantism has steadily given freedom of spirit to mankind. And with the awakened and emancipated intellect all the elements of progress have shown themselves in Protestant lands. In 1517, when Luther nailed his theses to the church door, Italy, Spain, and Portugal were far in advance of Northern Europe in civilization. In commerce, art, and literature, Italy was the queen of Europe. In military force, extent of possessions, and unbounded wealth, Spain was the leading power of the world. The Portuguese mariners had ransacked every sea, and discovered new continents and islands in every zone. How insignificant, in comparison with these great nations, were England, Holland, and Germany! But England, Holland, and Germany became Protestant; Italy, Spain, and Portugal remained Catholic; while France and Austria adopted a half-way Catholicism.

The result has been, in the course of three centuries, a complete reversal of the position. The last have become first, and the first last. What now has become of the terrible power of Spain, the enterprise of Portugal, the art and literature of Italy? When the element of Protestantism was crushed out of these nations by the Inquisition, the principle of national progress was also destroyed. But the northern powers who accepted the Lutheran reform received with it the germs of progress. Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Prussia, Saxony, England, and Scotland, have, by a steady progress in civilization, wealth, knowledge, and morality, conclusively demonstrated the impulse of progress contained in the Protestant idea.

So far, therefore, as this great experiment, continued during three hundred years, can prove anything, it proves the truth of the central idea of Protestantism and Orthodoxy, namely, that saving faith is essentially not emotional nor volitional, but intellectual.

? 12. Error in the Orthodox Principle.

And we, though Protestants of the Protestants, must admit that there is some truth in this. The discipline of Romanism has repressed some amount of evil which the liberty of Protestant lands has allowed to appear. But repressed evil is none the less evil, and often works a greater inward corruption than when it is allowed to show itself as it is. We may also admit that while in Protestantism there is more of TRUTH, and all the virtues which go therewith,--such as honesty, manliness, self-respect, conscientiousness,--in Catholic countries there is more of LOVE, and all the virtues which follow it,--as kindly, genial manners, ready sympathy with suffering, a spirit of dependence and trust. Still, this does not prove that there is more real Christianity among Catholics; for love which does not grow out of the sight of truth is not genuine nor healthy. Its life is weak. Protestant Christianity is an immature fruit, harsh because not quite ripe. Catholic Christianity is a fruit over-ripe, and so rotten.

Therefore we still contend that Protestantism and Orthodoxy are right in making the free and independent sight of truth the root of all religion. But the mistake of Orthodoxy has been in confounding truth with doctrine--the sight of the thing with the theory about that sight. From hence come the hardness and coldness of Orthodoxy. Pure thought is always cold, and ought to be. The sight of spiritual things is truth and love in one; but when we begin to reflect on that sight, the love drops out, and the truth becomes cold.

The defect of the Orthodox principle, therefore, is the confusion of truth with belief. Out of this mistake come dogmatism, bigotry, and all their natural consequences. It is therefore well, before going farther, to explain more fully this distinction and its importance.

? 13. Faith, Knowledge, Belief, Opinion.

But knowledge is not belief. Knowledge is the rooted conviction of the reality of certain facts or persons, derived from communing with those facts or persons. Belief is the intellectual assent to a proposition--a proposition formed by analytic and synthetic methods. We analyze our notion concerning any subject, and then arrange the results of this analysis in order, and deduce from them a proposition, a law. This we call our belief, or creed, concerning it. The substance of this belief is given us in life; the form of it comes from thinking or reasoning. But it is evident that such a belief differs in each individual according to his experience, and according to his habits of reasoning, and even according to his facility in expression. Moreover, knowledge and belief differ also in this, that knowledge places us in the presence of the reality, belief only in the presence of a proposition concerning it.

On the other hand John may not know James at all. He may never have seen him. But he has heard about him from a mutual friend, in whose judgment he trusts, or from several persons, and so he has formed a very decided belief in regard to James. He has a creed about him, though he has never known him.

We are not saved by any belief whatsoever concerning God or Christ, concerning sin or salvation, concerning duty or destiny. Belief brings us into contact with the images of things, not the things themselves. Belief has no saving power. But knowledge has. "This is life eternal, to KNOW thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

It is therefore a great mistake when Orthodoxy or Rationalism reverses the axiom of John, and instead of saying, "Life is the light of man," tells us that "Light is the life of man." Knowledge comes from life. Belief comes from knowledge, and not the contrary.

The PRINCIPLE of Orthodoxy, as stated at the commencement of this chapter , is, that there is one true system of Christian doctrine, and that all others are false. The IDEA of Orthodoxy, as stated in ? 10 of this chapter, is, that the soul is saved by the sight of truth. The idea of Orthodoxy is true--its principle is false. The sight of truth--that is, of the great spiritual realities--saves us, for only by that sight are we lifted above our feeble and imperfect selves, and enabled to partake of the nature of God. But while truth is ever one and the same, doctrine varies from age to age, varies from man to man. Each man's statement is limited by his position, his mode of thought, his power of speech. Nor can any council, assembly, conference, synod escape from similar limitations.

Let the distinction be once clearly recognized between truth as seen and truth as stated,--between knowledge and belief,--and we see the end of dogmatism, bigotry, intolerance, and superstition. We shall then see that religion is one thing and theology quite another, and that the test and evidence of a sound religious experience are not what a man says, but what he is. The sight of truth remains, as always, the source of our moral and spiritual life, but this sight of truth must pass into knowledge, by means of life, in order to renew the soul. FAITH, or the act by which the soul, desirous of good, puts itself in the presence of truth, is always the beginning of each spiritual state. KNOWLEDGE, born of this faith, through repeated acts of conscience, love, obedience, prayer, is the next step, and that which fixes the truth in the soul. BELIEF comes afterwards, resulting from the knowledge thus obtained, analyzed, and arranged by the systematizing intellect. And theory, or opinion, goes forward, like the skirmishers before an army, examining the route and opening the way, but incapable of resisting any attack, or holding permanently any position.

? 1. Meaning of Natural and Supernatural.

? 2. The Creation Supernatural.

The physical world, therefore, shows a power above itself. The natural testifies to the supernatural, the all to the over-all. The existing web of laws gives evidence of MIND, outside of itself, above itself, arranging and governing it.

? 3. The Question stated.

? 4. Argument of the Supernaturalist from successive Geologic Creations.

The supernaturalist says, God comes to us in both ways--through nature; that is, through the order of things already established; and also by new creative impulses, coming in, from time to time, from above. He contends that such a new creative impulse came into the world through Jesus Christ, adding a new substance and new forms to those already existing--a new life not before in the world, proceeding according to new laws. This new creation, as the Scriptures themselves term it, is Christianity. This is also said to be in analogy with the course of events. For, if there has been a series of creations before, bringing animals into the world, and higher forms of physical life,--if these have been created by new supernatural impulses coming in at intervals of hundreds of thousands of years,--why deny that another impulse may have come in four thousand years, or forty thousand years, after man was created, to add a new form of spiritual life to society?

? 5. Supernatural Argument from Human Freedom.

? 6. Supernatural Events not necessarily Violations of Law.

Now, says the supernaturalist, if we have all this evidence to show that God not only acts through nature, by carrying on existing forces and laws, but also has repeatedly come into nature with new creations, not there before,--and if even man himself has a certain limited but strictly supernatural power, so as to be able to stand outside of the nexus of law, and act upon it,--why deny, as incredible, that God should have made a new moral creation in Christianity? should have created a new class, order, genus, and species of spiritual beings, not represented before by any existing congeners? And why question that what we call miracles--that is, physical interferences with natural laws--should have attended this sudden influx of spiritual life? We do not claim, says the judicious supernaturalist , that miracles are suspensions or violations of natural laws; but that they are the natural modification of the agency of such laws by a new and powerful influence. Of this, too, there is ample analogy in nature. The mineral kingdom, for example, is passively subject to mechanical and chemical laws, which are resisted and modified by plants and animals. A stone obeys passively the law of gravitation; a plant resists it, rises into the air in opposition to it. Such a proceeding on the part of a plant must seem to a stone a pure miracle. If a piece of granite should write a book of theology, it would probably say that the plant, in growing up, had violated or suspended a law of nature. But it has not. The force of gravitation has worked on according to its own law; it has been dragging the plant downward all the time, only the vital power in the plant has overcome its force, and modified the result. And, again, a tree, seeing a dog run to and fro, might call that a miracle. The tree, unable to move from its place, could not conceive of the possibility of voluntary motion. But no law of nature is violated; only a higher power comes in--the power of animal life.

The Orthodox supernaturalist therefore contends that the supernatural is a constant element of life. Higher natures are all supernatural to lower natures, but natural in themselves, because obedient to the laws of their own nature. Nature, without this supernatural element, is only a machine, of which God, standing outside, turns the handle. This is a low conception both of nature and of God. As Goethe says, in one of his immortal lyrics,--

"Not so, outside, doth the Creator linger, Nor let the all of things run round his finger, But moves its centre, not its outer rim; Comes down to nature, draws it up to him; Moving within, inspiring from above, With currents ever new of light and love."

? 7. Life and History contain Supernatural Events.

And besides all this, says the supernaturalist, we have continued and constant evidences, in all history and in all human experience, of the existence of this supernatural element. Only a small minority of mankind have ever doubted it; and those are men so immersed in physical science, or so hampered by some logical manacles, or so steeped in purely worldly affairs, as to be incapable of seeing the supernatural facts which are recurrent evermore. Christianity itself has been an uninterrupted series of supernatural events. The physical miracles of Christ are nothing to the spiritual miracles which Christianity is always working. Bad men are made good, weak men strong, cowardly men brave, ignorant and foolish men wise, by a supernatural influence given in answer to prayer, poured down into hearts and minds which open themselves to receive it. The conversion of a bad man by the power of Christianity is a miracle. The power of faith, hope, love, which every Christian has experienced, coming into him, not through any operation of his nature, but simply poured into his soul from some higher sphere,--this makes all argument unnecessary to one who has had ever so little Christian experience.

This is the substance of Orthodox supernaturalism; and this seems to me to be its truth, separated from its errors.

? 8. The Error of Orthodox Supernaturalism.

Then the Church has been too apt to teach a miraculous revelation, in which the miracles are violations of law. But as God is confessedly the author of law, it has made the Deity violate his own laws; that is, has made him inconsistent, arbitrary, irregular, and wilful. Deep in the human mind God has himself rooted a firm faith in the immutability of law; so that when miracles are thus defined, naturalism justly objects to them.

? 9. No Conflict between Naturalism and Supernaturalism.

But between true naturalism and true supernaturalism we do not think there need be any war. We know that there are many men so rooted in their faith in nature, that they cannot see anything outside of it, or beyond it. To them God is law, and law only. Even creation is repugnant to them, because they see that creation is really a supernatural thing. Hence come the theories of development; the "Vestiges of Creation;" the nebular hypothesis; the Darwinian theory of formation of species by natural selection; the notion of man coming out of an ape; pantheistic notions of a God so immersed in nature as to be not its intelligent guide, but only its unconscious soul; the whole universe proceeding according to an order which is just as much above God's knowledge as above ours. Now, the best geologists assure us that there is no evidence in support of the transmutation of species. Mr. Darwin's theory of the formation of species by natural selection is this: In the struggle for life, the strongest and best adapted animal lives, the rest die. This animal transmits to its offspring its own superior qualities; so a higher animal is gradually developed. For example, the giraffe was not made by God with a long neck in order that it might browse on the leaves of high trees. But when leaves were scarce, the animal who happened to have a neck a little longer than the rest was able to get leaves. So he lived, and the rest died. His children had longer necks by the law of hereditary transmission. So, in the course of ages, animals were gradually found with very long necks. Thus the walrus has a curved horn growing downwards from his lower jaw, by which he climbs on to the floating ice. We must not suppose, however, that God gave him the tusk for that purpose; but the walrus, or seal, who happened to have a little horny bone under his chin, could climb on the ice and get his food more easily, and so he lived, while the rest died; and his descendants in the course of a few hundreds of thousands of years came, by repeating this process, to have horns, and so this species of phoca arrived.

Equally satisfactory to the intellect, to say the least, and much more satisfactory to the best human instincts, is the view of God which sees him coming evermore into nature from above nature. This view says, "God is not only order, but also freedom. He is not only law, but also love. He is in the world as law and order, but he is above the world as thought and love; as Providence, as the heavenly Father. He comes to us to meet our exigencies, to inspire our doubting hearts, to lift us into life and light. He does not set a grand machine going, and then look on and see it work; but he is in the world, and with us always. The supernatural dwells by the side of the natural. Just as a wise and good father has rules and laws by which to govern his children--rewarding and punishing them as they obey or disobey; but besides that, does a thousand things for them, taking the initiative himself; so God governs us by law, but also often takes the initiative, giving us what we never asked for, and knew nothing of."

? 10. Further Errors of Orthodox Supernaturalism--Gulf between Christianity and all other Religions.

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