Two Recent Theological Books

SEVERAL books published the past autumn afford gratifying evidence that theological scholarship and thinking are by no means either extinct or stationary among the descendants of the New England Puritans. If in any respect the sons fall behind the fathers, it is assuredly not in enthusiastic endeavor to reach fuller truth and clearer insight. Nor is it in the breadth of culture, the poetic imagination, and the literary charm that invest their pages. Indeed, in the two volumes of which we shall speak more particularly, many a reader, eager to reach solid foundations, would perhaps be content with fewer graces of style and less many-sided culture, if the loss were offset, at crucial points, by a clearer analysis and more old-fashioned definiteness of expression.

Dr. Gordon’s work on The Christ of To-Day ¹ consists of four chapters. The first is introductory. The fourth, on The Place of Christ in the Pulpit of ToDay, is primarily addressed to Christian preachers, but is of scarcely less interest and concern to congregations. At a time when so many ministers sink the preacher in the engineer of innumerable petty machineries, while of those who lay themselves out to preach not a few are ever on the watch for ear-tickling novelties, or at best produce moral discourses that have little that is distinctively Christian in them, it is refreshing to meet with an insistence on the worth and dignity of the pulpit as a means of bringing the minds of men into contact with the mind of Christ as the revealer of God. There is nothing in the chapter to limit the preacher’s range of thought and speech, but it demands that the whole field and every part of it shall be viewed in its relation to the thought, and spirit of Christ. The heart of the book, however, lies in its second and third chapters. The former, entitled Christ in tbe Faith of To-Day, is in part a registration of the relative advances observable in current thought about Christ, and in part a vigorous and not unreasoned assertion of the insufficiency of the prevalent purely ethical conception of him, in so far as it does not include the recognition of his unique relation to God. “ All intelligent thinking,” writes Dr. Gordon, “ must recognize in the Deity an eternal basis for the nature, the advent, the career and ideal of mankind. . . . Thinkers are everywhere converging upon the conclusion that in God there is the Eternal Pattern of our race. And what is this Eternal Pattern or Prototype but the Son of Man of the Synoptic Gospels, the Only Begotten of the Fourth Gospel, the Mediator of the Pauline epistles?” etc. This is the central thought of the book, the all-sided significance of which, with reference to the prominent critical, theological, social, and philosophical theories of the day, is set forth in the third chapter. No one who knows the history of intellectual life in New England will be surprised to learn that the main part of the work might be characterized as a highly appreciative appraisal of what Unitarianism and modern scientific thinking have contributed toward a correct Christology, and wherein the result falls disastrously short of the truth. The perception of defectiveness leads, of course, to an effort to supply what is wanting ; and it is the reasoning, or some of it, used in that effort that is likely to give pause to many readers, whether Unitarians or others. “ The fundamental defect in current thought about Christ,” adds Dr. Gordon, “ is an overdone principle of identity. To-day, otherness in Christ to humanity counts for nothing-.” This declaration is clear enough, and its substance will be readily accepted by all adherents of the Nicene theology. But how demonstrate its truth to those who deny that the alleged defect is a defect ? This task the author undertakes, in the first place, by a sort of reductio ad absurdum, “ The denial of the possible supreme divinity of Jesus means the absolute destruction of all individuality.” “ If a particular man is completely understood through the concept man ; if we have nothing more to say of an Aristotle, a Shakespeare, a Cromwell, or a Beethoven than that he is comprehended under the general notion of mankind, ... we destroy the beautiful individualism of nature, we take no account of human genius,” etc. But suppose the opponent replies, My concept man is not a description of what any individual man or class of men actually is or must be, but an ideal construction of human nature generally, derived from the widest possible study of what men can be and do. It includes diversity of development as well as fundamental identity of original constitution. So far is it from obliterating individuality, or from furnishing exhaustive knowledge of the individual, that it may be essentially modified in consequence of the completer understanding of an individual. How then does the view of Christ as no more than an ideal man destroy “ the beautiful individualism of nature ” ? Besides, if there be any real difference between God and man, how can the “ denial of the possible supreme divinity of Jesus ” affect the concept man ? The divine in Jesus must manifest itself either as unmistakably transcending the human, or in terms of the human, and consequently indistinguishable from the human. The need of the author’s argument does not allow the assumption of the former alternative; the latter deprives it of all cogency. Nay, it turns it against itself ; for so far as Jesus the man, or the personality who manifests himself wholly as man, is superexeellent among men, he once for all vindicates for individuality its right to a place in the concept man. Another argument of Dr. Gordon, which does not seem quite as conclusive as might be desired, is, that the kinship between God and man, in which “faith exults in our time,” is left without adequate support unless the presence of the Eternal and Absolute in Christ be recognized, and the fact be held fast that “ his nature is rooted in the Deity, and is part of the nature of God.” There can indeed be no question that belief in the consubstantiation (to use our author’s word) of man with God has received immeasurable accessions of vividness, strength, and certainty from the life and work of Christ; but does it altogether stand or fall with the conception of his unique relation to God ? Is it not already implied in the “ image ” of God in which, according to Genesis, man is created, and still more effectively, though perhaps less formally, in the thoughts of the Hebrew prophets concerning the relations between God and Israel ? The truth seems to be that the very idea of the Incarnation, or rather its emergence in human thought, demands the previous vigorous existence of this belief.

Other criticisms might be made; but they pertain to points of no direct bearing on the purpose of the book. It is altogether more agreeable to bid it Godspeed with a hearty acknowledgment of its real and great value. Its timely aim, its broad and sympathetic spirit, its contagious enthusiasm, and above all its manly loyalty to Christ should not fail to commend it to the several classes to whom the author inscribes it, — theological students, young ministers, and “ the new generation of Christian laymen.” No one will read it without benefit. It has a power far beyond any piece of flawlessly reasoned apologetics. It is a grand outburst of the Christian consciousness, — a joyous utterance of Christian experience and spiritual intuition, immovably sure that the Christ whom it trusts is the maker and king; of the universe.

The other book to be noted is Dr. Denison’s Christ’s Idea of the Supernatural.² Closely akin in spirit to that of Dr. Gordon, it has a wider scope and a more distinctly scientific purpose. Its title is not explicit enough to suggest either its method or its range. It is not a dry exposition of how Christ defined or might have defined the supernatural, but a most attractive study of what might be termed Christ’s philosophy of the supernatural and its relations to the natural. Its primary aim is, not to convince the skeptic, but to solve the difficulties that beset thinking men, whether professed believers or agnostics, by inducting them into the thought of Christ. The best thing a reviewer, cramped for space, can do, is to say, Read it, and when you have read it study it. The author gives you neither preface nor index. The one is needed to place you at his point of view, the other to collect his scattered utterances on the same or related topics. The neglect is unpardonable, or would be in any except an English-speaking writer; but do not punish him by neglect of his book to your own loss and injury. You will find that his work — for it is not a mere book — is instinct with life. It breathes freshness and vigor from its first to its last page. The novel cast of its phraseology, however troublesome at first, will yield a clear meaning on acquaintance, You may not, after thorough study, believe all you read,— the present writer ventures to hope you will not; but one thing is certain : whether agnostic. liberal. or orthodox at the beginning, you will be a deeply interested student, intent on the great inspiring reality (or, if you will, ideal) of a divine human universe, before you finish. It is a book of a thousand, — the product of living as well as thinking ; and destined, one dares to hope, to be for many a guide out of the world of apparently discordant dualisms into the serene peace and harmony of a real unity.

Christianity, says Dr. Denison in substance,— the popular Christianity of the churches, — presents itself to modern thought with a certain air of unreasonableness. It demands belief in its revelations without furnishing demonstrative evidence of their truth. It presents the realm of spiritual things as a “supernatural” world, lying wholly outside of the category of natural forces, and therefore beyond the range of human experience. Consequently, a reasonable — perhaps it would be better to say a reasoned — faith in Christianity would require an ever recurrent miraculous attestation of its divine origin. And even then Christianity could have no real relationship with human life. It would come to men as something alien to themselves, accepted only because accredited by incontestable authority. It could never so seize the believer’s mind as well as heart as to become the vital principle of his whole being. Such is the difficulty that bars the way to free and hearty belief for the well-informed, reasoning man of the day. But the Christianity that presents this obstacle cannot be the Christianity of Christ himself. It must have failed to understand his intellectual position. For had his logic been so open to assault, his quick-witted opponents would easily have vanquished him without going to the trouble of putting him to death. The starting-point of the popular error lies in the conception of the supernatural as something wholly unrelated to the natural, excluding it and excluded by it, whereas in Christ’s thought the two are correlated parts, or rather forms, of the one universe. There is no such thing as the supernatural, in the ordinary obstacle-making sense of the word. The true supernatural is the spiritual. But this first mistake drew after it a second : popular Christianity obscured and relegated into the background that which in Christ’s teaching formed the very central idea, — “ the unity between the natural and spiritual worlds.”

It is not practicable to follow the author step by step through the course of his work. Nor would the result be intelligible. It will be more serviceable to note the most important principles to which his study of Christ’s teaching conducts him. The key that solves the problem of the universe, and that contains in germ the whole of Christianity, is “ Christ’s idea that man is the son of God.” He is a partaker of the divine, in a high, real sense, yet so as to maintain in full force the sharp distinction between God the father, the self-existent fount of supernatural life, and man the child, an embryo supernatural, whose spiritual life and development depend on constant maintenance of right relations with the life of God. This unity between God and man throws light on the relation of the physical and material to the supernatural or spiritual. For as man, the child, is not spirit only, but also psyche, soul, or sensuous life, through which he is on every side correlated with matter and immanent in it, so there must be in the father, God, a corresponding organ of correlation with matter. (Spirit and psyche, it should be observed, are not to be conceived as two, but as the higher arid lower sides or foci of the one being. In their functional relations they may be compared with soul and body, but they are forever inseparable. The destruction of the one would be that of the other. Spirit is the basic life force; psyche, the organ through which the spirit acts. The psyche is eternally connected with matter.) The psyche in God is the Logos, by which originally he formed, and ever since pervades, the material universe. The dualism of spirit and matter is thus resolved into unity. Matter itself is penetrable by spiritual force. The divine, whether in God or in man, uses it for its own creative purposes. In short, God and man are the two centres of the universe ; and as they are one, the worlds in which they move and rule, the higher or spiritual and the lower or natural, must also constitute a unity.

The cosmic, process, the biography of the universe, carries the same conclusion, and others far beyond it. The whole universe is pervaded by forces, and all these forces are under law, which unifies them. T he fundamental law is what our author calls the law of organic coördination. To begin with what we call nature : all its forces are correlated with one another. There is a kind of potential reciprocity between each and every other, which, however, is realized only through the action of some living organism, that coördinates them, harnesses them together for effective exertion. Thus,, the soil below, the sunlit air above, and the chemical elements diffused through both, all contain potential reciprocities ; but it is only the coming in of a kernel of grain, a vital organism, that coordinates them, harnesses them together, and sets them to work for a common end. This correlation of forces extends throughout the universe. It obtains not only between matter and matter, but also between matter and spirit. It takes in God himself. We have not two systems of law, one of the natural, and another of the spiritual or supernatural world, but only one. Whether we say that natural law extends into the spiritual world, or (what the author prefers, as probably better) that spiritual law takes in the natural world, the result is unity throughout the universe. Another great law of the cosmic process is that of development. There is constant evolution of higher out of lower forms ; and by the marvelous law of coordination every living organism secures, or can secure, for itself at every stage of its development the environment then best adapted to it. The final law of all cosmic movements is the development of spiritual life. For man this means the full realization of his divine sonship.

The advent of Christ was the entrance into the world of “the supreme organ of unity, the divine At-one-ment. In him God and man were coördinated. The oneness which had before been potential in him became organic.” Not that before Christ men had been without consciousness of connection with God. Nature itself is revelatory ; and the world was never without elect souls who could in part interpret its revelations to their fellows. The Hebrews in particular had their organic revelators from Abraham, through the law and the prophets, down to John the Baptist. But these were mediators of lower stages of development, with correspondingly inferior reciprocities of their own. Jesus, though he came in the humble guise of a Galilean peasant, embodied the life of God. The author, so far as we can see, does not account for him; but however accounted for, he is the perfect and complete organ of the Logos. Let us state here parenthetically that more than one reading of Dr. Denison’s bonk has failed to produce a single passage in which he clearly asserts or implies the incarnation of the Logos in Jesus. For him, the historical Christ is not the Logos, but the organ of the Logos, and thereby, of course, the organ of God. “ The question,” he says on page 56, “ whether Jesus had another and a higher form of unity with God [than that of “life and reciprocity”] is an entirely different affair, nor do I propose to take it up in this place.” We cannot find that he takes it up in any other place. Nor do we see how, as consequent evolutionist, he could have occasion for taking it up, although silence on it comports badly with his strict adhesion to Scripture. The Logos, be it remembered, is the psychic, creative, communicative side or nature of God. With this Jesus comes to coördinate men. Being full of the divine life himself, he seeks to impart the same to others. He is the vine, rooted in the life of God, and those who cling to him shall share that life as the branches share the life of the trunk. This is the great coordination which he seeks to accomplish. And the means he uses is the word of God, with which, as organ of the Logos, he is surcharged, and which he compares with seed. This word is not speech alone, but includes also whatever else manifests the spirit and radiates its force. For though the word originate in the spirit, it is uttered by the psyche, and partakes of the psychic affinity with matter.

Here we stop abruptly. Not the ideas of the book, but our space has come to an end. Only let us add that, from our author’s conception of the psychic element in spirit and its affinity with matter, taken in connection with his idea of the universe as a unity, his opinions as to miracles, the resurrection of the dead, and kindred topics may be inferred. They all shed the form of prodigies. All fall within the lines of what we ordinarily call the natural, but it is the natural perfected by complete coördination with the spiritual.

Dr. Denison professes to give the thought of Christ translated into modern speech. Of the vast difficulties that beset this undertaking he is well aware. More than once he endeavors — and, to our mind, not very successfully — to meet the objection that he is reading modern thought into Christ’s words. The athletic feats of which his exegesis is sometimes capable may be seen from the specimen on page 66, where John vi. 53 is thus paraphrased: “As the earth, by organic contact, devours the seed, and so gets the vitality out of it, thus must these [wolflike] men devour my flesh and blood that they may find the vitality of God’s spirit.” Nevertheless, we are strongly inclined to believe that he has seized the root-thoughts of Christ, and placed them in a light so strong and truth-like that no genuine grammatico - historical exegesis can avoid giving him most serious consideration. But whatever be the final verdict on that point, the book, considered simply as the outcome of its author’s own thinking, challenges admiration, and something deeper than admiration. It lifts us far above the trivialities of every form of sectarianism and ecclesiasticism into the serene heights of eternal verities. And even if it do not give us final truth, it surely indicates the road by which we must reach it.