HARVARD COLLEGE

LIBRARY

THE

ANDOVER REVIEW:

A RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY.

VOL. VIII. — OCTOBER, 1887.- No. XLVI.

THE ULTIMATE CRITERIA OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.

THE word criterion, from the Greek prýs, decider, judge, is defined by Webster as "a standard of judging." The criteria of Christian doctrine, then, are those standards with which such doctrine is properly compared, and to which it is required to conform. In seeking for such criteria, Protestants have been wont to point to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as "the only infallible rule of faith and practice." We see no reason to depart from this fundamental principle of the Reformation. Whatever the Word of God contained in those Scriptures really justifies we are willing to abide by as divine truth. If, for example, the words of Christ really contain the doctrine of endless torment for all who die impenitent, then that doctrine must be accepted by all Christians. Whatever the discoveries of science may render probable, whatever the Christian experience of centuries may seem to establish, whatever the longings and convictions of the most cultured and saintly souls may come to be, these, if opposed to the true significance of the Master's words, must, each and all, be cast aside as misleading, and Christians must say, Let Christ be true, and every man a liar. Let it be conceded, then, that we have in the Bible "the objective norm of faith.” Let it be conceded, also, that this criterion is ultimate in point of authority.

But a further question now arises, the question, namely, as to the true significance of the Scriptures. To some they seem to mean one thing, to others they seem to mean something very different. How is the dispute to be decided? To what arbiter shall the contending parties now appeal? They have, indeed, the ultimate criteria in the order of authority before them, but in the

Copyright, 1887, by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co.

order of procedure they must go on to something beyond, to something which shall decide upon the meaning of these criteria themselves. This difficulty arose very early in the history of Christianity. The disciples disputed concerning the meaning of Christ's words and appealed to Him for explanation. Later Christians appealed to the apostles, and Christians, later still, to those who had seen the apostles to interpret the sayings of Christ, and so settle the doctrine and practice of the churches. It was thus that the Roman Catholic tenet respecting the value and authority of ecclesiastical tradition arose. If the words of Christ were still regarded as ultimate criteria in point of authority, for all Christian doctrine, yet the doctrine itself was shaped only in accordance with the traditional interpretation of those words. An appeal was taken in every case of dispute from the words themselves to the tradition of the church. It is here that, to many minds, Romanism still seems to possess a great advantage. Rome has at least distinctly faced the difficulty of diverse interpretations of Scripture, and provided for it. At her best she made Scripture the criterion of doctrine, tradition the criterion of Scripture interpretation, and catholic consent the criterion by which to distinguish between true and false tradition. Thus in the Roman Church catholic consent was made, in the order of procedure, the ultimate criterion of Scripture interpretation, and so of Christian doctrine. This catholic consent was to be ascertained by the deliberations of her great councils and expressed by the voice of the Pope, speaking ex cathedra. Thus Rome provided for the weary truth-seeker to the very end of his quest. She did not leave him in his bewilderment with only the general statement that the Bible is "the only infallible rule of faith and practice." Luther himself plainly recognized the need of some criterion by which to distinguish between true and false interpretations of Scripture. His famous words before the Diet were, "Unless I be convinced by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare retract," etc. It would not have been sufficient or safe for him to make his appeal to Scripture only. His opponents were ready with Scripture, and also with their interpretation of it sanctioned by the traditions of a thousand years. It was absolutely necessary for Luther to meet their traditional interpretation with an interpretation of some other sort. Their interpretation was a criterion by which their doctrine would have been approved and Luther's condemned. Hence his immortal appeal from their tradition to reason. He was fairly driven to that exclamation,

and Protestantism, as a whole, has done little more as yet than to reiterate that sentence of Luther. From generation to generation it has asserted the infallibility of Scripture and the right of private judgment, the right, that is, of reason in the interpretation of Scripture. It has done but little to answer the question, Who shall decide between individuals whose reason and conscience lead them to opposite conclusions? It has persistently ignored the question, What shall be the ultimate criterion of Christian doctrine, not in the order of authority, but in the order of procedure of investigation? This question, which Rome answered so distinctly from the start, still underlies most of our theological controversy. It lay at the bottom of the dispute between Dr. Harris and Dr. Patton, the former seeking in the Christian consciousness a criterion not ultimate, indeed, in the sense of being above Scripture, but ultimate, perhaps, as an aid in Scripture interpretation and the shaping of Christian doctrine. Dr. Patton, on the other hand, seemed to assert, as though it were something opposed to the Christian consciousness, the prerogative of reason as a court of ultimate appeal for the decision of such questions. We fail to see, however, that there need be any contradiction between the verdicts of the Christian consciousness, properly understood, and reason in any legitimate sense of the word. On the contrary, each is most helpful to the other, indeed essential, if the best results are to be obtained from the use of either. This, we trust, will become more apparent from the following considerations.

First, the ultimate criteria of Christian doctrine are not found in Scripture when it is interpreted by the critical understanding alone.

This would seem to be almost self-evident. To the perception of spiritual truth man brings other faculties besides the logical. Especially helpful on this point are the suggestions made in Professor Samuel Harris's recent work, "The Self-Revelation of God." "There is," he says, "a spiritual insight analogous to that of genius, which sees into the significance of the reality revealed. In the revelation of God in the Christian consciousness the humblest mind has a vision of God, and of the universe in its relation to him, which ungodly genius, with all its powers, cannot see." 1 So Alford, in his commentary on 1 Cor. ii. 14, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, and cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned," says,

1 Self-Revelation of God, p. 87.

In the natural man "the vena, or spirit, being unvivified and uninformed by the Spirit of God. . . is in abeyance, so that he may be said to have it not," and hence cannot know the things which are spiritually discerned. Let it be carefully noted here, however, that these quotations are not made, neither were they intended by their authors, to disparage the logical faculty, as though there was some other peculiar power to know God and his truth which can dispense with reason. We are solicitous only to show that in the interpretation of the Bible, and in formulating Christian doctrine based upon that interpretation, the best possible has not been done, the ultimate criteria of Christian doctrine have not been reached, if our reliance is solely upon the critical understanding. It has its proper work-a large and most honorable one in the search for truth, but it is not to be employed as though it was the whole of man's power to know to the utmost "the things of Christ." It is the more necessary to emphasize this fact, because with the largest class of minds which concern themselves in the investigation of truth, and of religious as well as secular truth, the natural tendency is strong to exercise the logical faculty chiefly, and to rely upon its conclusions almost as though they were infallible. Hence so many systems of theology, logical and apparently complete, yet unsatisfying, unconvincing, lifeless. Into this error the successors of the great leaders of the Reformation soon fell. If the Augsburg and other Confessions were formed with due regard to reason in that large sense in which Luther had appealed to it, namely, man's whole power to know the truth, yet in the use which was made of these symbols we see how disastrous it may be to follow blindly the dictates of reason when it means nothing more than a narrow logic. Says Professor Gerhart : 1 "The symbols ruled with papal rigor. They ascended the ecclesiastical throne, and became the criteria for the sound interpretation of Scripture. Their superior authority appears in the German motto, Nach dieser Regel suchet in der Schrift.' Indeed, so sure was Calovius that he possessed the ultimate criteria of Christian doctrine, that he declared it 'impious and profane audacity to change a single vowel-point in the Word of God, and to substitute a smooth breathing for a rough one, or a rough for a smooth."" We are not surprised to learn that, with such a robust confidence as that in his own opinion of the written Word, he used daily this prayer, "Imple me, Deus, odio haereticorum!" 2