Robert Mackintosh

“ Perhaps what concerns the Christian is rather the assured revelation that God is acting in character, like Himself, and yet acting wonderfully by methods which we could not predict but must adore. The free life of personal beings is no more to be mastered by a formula than it is to be assigned to caprice. A God who is love will act neither from wilfulness nor from what is called rational but might more correctly be called physical necessity. ”

“ Schleiermacher’s treatise is highly individual. Theology is viewed as essentially a branch of church administration. True, in the theologian properly so called the scientific interest is strong; where the religious or practical interest is stronger, you get church rulers or administrators in a narrower sense. Still, even to the theologian the practical interest in church welfare is vital. Theology loses its savour when studied in a spirit of merely scientific curiosity; and it does not concern the lay Christian. ”

“ If it should come to be held that with so kind a God no redemption at all is necessary, the significance of Christ is immensely curtailed if not blotted out. Even if He should still be taken as the prophet of the divine goodwill, yet the loss of any serious estimate of sin makes good nature on God’s part a matter of course. Christianity of such a type is likely to be feeble and precarious. ”

“ If two natures, divine and human, are added to each other, what can the humanity be except one drop in the ocean of divine power, wisdom, goodness ? The biblical authorities plainly set forth “the man Christ Jesus,” but theological science failed to explain how Godhead and manhood came together in unity. Fact and theory sprang asunder; for theory had done its utmost, and was baffled. ”

“ But if it be presupposed that the purpose of Christ's mission was to deify men by bestowing physical immortality, then we must assume, first, Christ's essential Godhead, and, secondly, the fusion of His divine and human natures. Whatever be the truth in the assertion that death rather than sin is the enemy dreaded by Eastern Christianity, and immortality rather than forgiveness the blessing craved, it is difficult to take the talk about deification as anything more than rhetoric. ”

“ For Christ is viewed as bringing redemption—a conception of importance in many religions, but in none so important as in Christianity. Indeed, another possibility opens up here. Instead of being mainly a doctrine concerning God, or one concerning Christ, theology may be construed as being mainly the theory of Christian experience. Most schools of theology will concur, however, in giving prominence to a complementary point of view and making their systems a study of Divine revelation. ”

“ He tells us (Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums, 1811) that the theologian, while himself loyal to his Church, must expound, as a historian, the beliefs actually held in the branch of the Church which he represents. Oil and water do not mix. Do the unchecked individual enthusiasm of the Reden, and the loyalty to established beliefs required in the later writings, combine to form a living theology? It is little wonder if Schleiermacher attains a compromise rather than a unity. He has been one of the great ferments in modern Protestant doctrine both of the Right and of the Left. ”

“ It is never true while men live that thought is at a standstill; but, as nearly as it may be true, Eastern theology has made it so. In the West the decisions of the great councils have been accepted as a datum. They enter into the basis of theology; results attained by long struggles in the East are simply presuppositions to the West; but, for the most part, no independent interest attaches to them in the Western world. They are taken as involved in redemption from sin — in the Atonement, or in the sacraments. Belief in the Trinity is almost unbroken. ”

“ Still, this contrast enters into the meaning of divines when they say that they are at work upon a science. A religious man need no more, be a theologian than a poet need have a theory of aesthetics.
Where, then, are we to look for Christian theology? It is not the truism it may seem if we reply that we are to find it in the writings of theologians. As authorities controlling their work, theologians may name the Bible, or tradition, or the religious consciousness, or the Church, or Sources. ”

“ The rationalist wing resolve Incarnation and still more Atonement into symbols of philosophical truth. Of the two parties, the latter appears the more successful in accomplishing the task of unifying theology, although at the cost of subordinating both theology and religion to philosophy. The strength of all the idealists consists in their appeal to reason.
Schleiermacher set himself to explain what is distinctive in religion. He distinguishes religion from philosophy as feeling in contrast with thought ”

“ There is an ethical rationalism which can never be wholly suppressed in the Christian Church by the Pauline or Augustinian soteriology. One thinks one sees traces of it, though held down by other influences, in the whole of medieval theology, and notably in Abelard. It disengages itself in the 17th century as Socinianism and in the 18th as Rationalism or Deism. Secondly there is a strong side-current in the mystical tradition, which we may perhaps treat as the modified form under which the philosophical theology of the Greek Church maintained its life in the medieval West. ”

“ Even if we accept the programme of reconstructing theology from a single point of view, we may desire to criticize not merely Ritschl’s execution of the scheme, but his selection of the ruling principle. Is it enough to extricate the spirit of Protestantism from the imperfect letter of its early creeds? One set of difficulties is raised by the progress of Theology and science. science. No Protestant can deny that it is a duty for Christianity to come to terms with scientific discoveries, and few Catholics will care to deny it. ”

“ Thoroughly intellectualist, and rational, and super- naturalist, it has no one to champion it to-day, yet its influence is everywhere. Jesus, a teacher who sealed His testimony with His blood, and, raised from the dead, was exalted or adopted to divine glory, thus giving to men for the first time the certainty that God's favour could be won and eternal life enjoyed — such is the scheme. ”

“ He considers that Christianity is best defended on the basis of the doctrine that Christ is a man chosen and equipped for His task by God. But in the Eastern Church the religious interest, as he thinks, points to Monophysitism. Dyophysite orthodoxy has sterilized Eastern Christianity, or thrown it upon inferior forms of piety. Of course this does not mean that Harnack considers monophysitism nearer the historic truth, or nearer the normal type of Christian thought. On the contrary, he would hold that the scholarly tradition of Antioch more nearly reaches the real historical manhood of Jesus. ”

“ Theology is now not merely the dogma of the Divine nature or of Christ's person; it is also a dogmatic theory of how the Christian salvation is conveyed through sacraments to sinful men. On the other hand, a theology which is mainly sacramental is overtaken pretty soon by dumbness. It is of the essence of a sacrament to be an inscrutable process. ”

“ Even St Paul has been supposed, not without a certain plausibility, to teach the sinless perfection of real Christians. The West, with its theology protesting in the background, but in vain, still sings the prayer of the Te Deum: “Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.”
Such an enthusiastic temper does not lend itself to cool theory. Why should theology labour at definitions? “The Lord is at hand;” a Christian’s one wisdom is to be ready to meet him. And yet materials for theology were richly provided even during this period. That is true above allMaterial for theology. ”

“ Casting a backward glance once more over the evolution of Christian theology, we may say very roughly that at first it recognized as natural or rational truth the being of the Logos, and as special fact of revelation the Incarnation of the Word in Jesus Christ. In medieval times the basis was altered. What had been rational Natural and Revealed—the Logos. truth now claimed acceptance as supernatural mystery. Modern idealists, ill at ease with this inheritance, try to show that Christ’s Incarnation no less than His eternal divine being is a natural and rational truth. ”

“ There is no natural theology; the teachings so described are really part, or rather are the essence, of the revelation of Jesus. Atonement is a dream, and an immoral dream. Supernatural sacraments of course drop out. The Lord's Supper is a simple memorial. Baptism were better disused, though Faustus will leave the matter to each Christian man's discretion. There is not in all Church history any state- ment of doctrine better knit together. Socinus's church is a school — a school of enlightenment. He was also — like Calvin, if on more narrowly common-sense lines — an admirable exegete. ”

“ Christ's twofold obedience, (a) active and (b) passive, produces jointly a twofold result, (1) satisfaction to the broken moral law, (2) merit, securing eternal life to Christ's people. [26] There is no such full and careful theory of Atonement in any Catholic theology, and, according to so unbiassed a judge as A. Ritschl, it represents the last word in doctrine along the lines laid down by the Reformers. Could Catholics adopt it? Hardly; for the Protestant assertion of Christ's merit is shadowed, if any doctrine of merit in the Christian is brought in. ”

“ The enthusiastic view of the possibilities of the Christian life—associated, as modern and especially Western Christians must suspect, with shallow external views of sin—lent itself to belief in sinless perfection. ”

“ Athanasius’s piety is thus brought into association with the details of Logos speculation. The new type passed on into the West through Augustine, and the so-called Athanasian creed, which states an Aagus- Augustinian version of Greek dogma. There is indeed one immense change. Subordinationism is blotted out, more even than by Athanasius. On these lines modern popular orthodoxy maintains the doctrine of the Trinity. It seeks to prove its case by asserting first the divinity of Christ, and secondly the personality of the Holy Spirit. ”

“ It may be summed up in one word as the theology of free will.
Unfaltering use is made of that conception as a key to all religious and moral problems. Usually, apologists and divines arc hampered by the fact that, beyond a certain limited range, men cannot be regarded as separable moral units. A new world, after death, may be called_ in to redress the balance of the old; but anomalies remain which faith in a future immortality does not touch. Origen called in a second new world — that of pre-existence. All souls were tried once, with equal privilege ”

“ He does not fear to contrast authority with authority, upon each point in succession; the harder the task, the greater the achievement when harmony is reached! In regard to Scripture alone does he maintain that seeming error or discrepancy must be due to our misinterpretation. If throughout the middle ages Scripture is treated as the ultimate authority in doctrine, yet Abelard seems to stand alone in definitely contrasting Scripture with later authorities. Moderns will question the possibility of asserting Bible infallibility a priori ”

“ The 18th century is very differently interpreted in different quarters. Orthodox evangelicalism is tempted to view it as an apostasy or an aberration. On the other hand, not merely agnostics like Leslie Stephen but Christian theologians of the Left like Ernst Troeltsch regard it as the time when supernaturalism began decisively to go to pieces, and the “modern” spirit to assert its authority even over religion. A. Ritschl, again, claims that neglected elements of Christianity were striving for utterance, particularly a serious belief in God as Father and in His providential care. ”

“ Those who find a gospel in philosophy arc ready to dictate terms to outsiders; but those who wait upon science for its verdicts supplicate terms of peace. Just as much of Christianity is to survive as science will spare. Often the theologians in question look to, psychology as the permanent basis of religion; who is to deny that religion is a psychological fact, and the natural expression of something in man’s constitution? This strain may be recognized, mingled with others, in Schleiermacher ”

“ A startling fresh development is suggested by Harnack, while vehemently dismissed as impossible by another Protestant scholar, H. M. Gwatkin. May a reforming or inno- vating pope arise? He would find, in theory at least, that he possessed a weapon of matchless power and precision. But hitherto Roman Catholic theology has refused to conceive of any development except by enlargement of the Church's creed. Much may be added to formulated belief ; it is not admitted that any- thing has been or can be withdrawn. ”

“ While the Church thus lived upon fragments of Origen's wisdom, lovers of the great scholar and thinker, who had dominated his age, and reconciled many a heretic to his own version of orthodoxy, must submit to have him branded as a heretic in later days, when all freedom of thought was falling under suspicion. ”

“ Theology if it is to live must be henceforth at once more Christian and more scientific than it has ever yet been.
A less threatening yet important possibility of modification arises out of the scientific study of the New Testament. Augustine, Luther, the evangelical revival, went back to St Paul; can Christianity not dig deeper by going back to Jesus? A Protestant has to view the past history of doctrine very much as a succession of declensions Theology and New Testament scholarship. ”

“ Contemporaneously with the new and vivid intellectual life of an Anselm or an Abelard, the “freezing up” of traditionalism is evidenced by the preparation of volumes of Sentences from Scripture and the Fathers. ”

“ But the dislocation of religious thinking, when Christianity ceased to be a Jewish faith and found a home with Gentiles, destroyed the continuity of Paulinism and of Jewish thought working through St Paul. In later times, when Paulinism revived, the epistles spoke for themselves, though they were not always correctly understood. It should be added that, according to A. Harnack, Hellenistic Judaism had worked out the principles of a theology which simply passed on into the Greek-speaking Christian Church. ”