15-01.04.04 � Of Protestant Creeds (part 4)

SECTION IV.

Before dismissing the subject, it is proper that we should give a respectful hearing to what may be urged in favor of that which we have felt called upon to oppose. We will therefore give a somewhat lengthy extract from Archbishop Whately, an author distinguished alike for logical acumen and profound scholarship. And the reader will observe--unless we have entirely mistaken the meaning of the learned prelate--that while his conclusion is against us, his premises and his arguments are all for us.² "We are inclined to think," says he, "that if Christians had studied the Scriptures carefully and honestly, and relied on these more than their philosophical systems of divinity, the incarnation, for instance, and the Trinity, would never have been doubted, nor named. And this at least is certain, that as scientific theories and technical phraseology gained ground, party animosity raged the more violently. "The proper objection to the various philosophical systems of religion,--the different hypotheses and theories that have been introduced to explain the Christian Dispensation,--is not the difficulties that have been urged (often with good reason) against each, separately; but the fault that belongs to all of them equally. It is not that the Arian theory of the incarnation, for instance, is wrong for this reason, and the Nestorian for that, and the Eutychian for another, and so on; but they are all wrong alike, because they are theories relative to matters on which it is vain and absurd and irreverent to attempt forming any philosophical theories whatever. And the same, we think, may be said of the various schemes (devised either by those divines called the Schoolmen, or others,) on which it has been attempted from time to time to explain other religious mysteries also in the divine nature and dispensations. We would object, for instance, to the Pelagian theory, and to the Calvinistic theory, and the Armenian theory, and others, not for reasons peculiar to each one, but for such as apply in common to all. "Philosophical divines are continually prone to forget that the subjects on which they speculate are, confessedly, and by their own account, beyond the reach of the human faculties. This is no reason, indeed, against our believing anything revealed in Scripture, but it is a reason against our going beyond Scripture with metaphysical speculations of our own. One of the many objections to this is, that they thus lay open Christianity to infidel objections, such as it would otherwise have been safe from. "What the Scriptures are concerned with is, not the philosophy of the human mind in itself, but (that which is properly religion) the relation and connection of the two beings;--what God is to us, what he has done and will do for us, and what we are to be and to do in regard to him." After illustrating this point, and showing that men must, ex necessitate rei, exercise the right of private judgment to a certain extent, he proceeds to speak of catechisms, creeds, and symbols more particularly, and says:-- "This would have seemed a most obvious and effectual mode of precluding all future disorders and disputes; as also the drawing up of a compendious statement of Christian doctrines would have seemed a safeguard against the still more important evil of heretical error. Yet if any such statements or formularies had been drawn up, with the sanction and under the revision of an Apostle, we may be sure they would have been preserved and transmitted to posterity with the most scrupulous and reverential care. The conclusion, therefore, seems inevitable, that either no one of the numerous elders or catechists ever thought of doing this, or else they were forbidden by the Apostles to execute any such design; and each of these alternatives seems alike inexplicable by natural causes. Since, then, no one of the first promulgators of Christianity did that which they must--some of them at least--have been naturally led to do, it follows that they must have been supernaturally withheld from it, how little soever we may be able even to conjecture the object of the prohibition. .... That a number of Jews, accustomed from their infancy to so strict a ritual, should, in introducing Christianity, have abstained not only from accurately prescribing, for the use of all Christian churches forever, the mode of divine worship, but even from recording what was actually in use under their own directions, does seem utterly incredible, unless we suppose them to have been restrained from doing this by a special admonition of the Divine Spirit." Such are the premises, and such the arguments and seasonings of the learned Archbishop. We thank him for them; for we think they are not only true and unanswerable, but that, being such, they triumphantly sustain the position we have feebly attempted to occupy. But what is his conclusion? It is briefly this: That the Divine Spirit prohibited the making of creeds and symbols, "that all churches might be free to arrange these matters according to the circumstances or exigencies of each particular case!" And such is the conclusion of the author of the "Elements of Logic!" The Holy Spirit did not bind men to symbols of divine, that the church might be free to bind them to those of human authority! The Divine Spirit prohibited competent men making creeds, that incompetent men might be free to do so! The first Christians were "supernaturally withheld" from following the "natural" promptings of the human heart, as proof to all subsequent Christians that these "natural" promptings are right! The Spirit of God forbade the making of confessions of faith, therefore it is the privilege and duty of the church to make them! According, then, to the reasoning of our standard logician, murder, theft, robbery, drunkenness, and adultery, fall legitimately within the circle of Christian freedom. They are the "natural" promptings of the heart, "forbidden" by the holy Spirit, and are, therefore, right and proper! But it is only when the distinguished Archbishop is fettered by his own inconsistency that he is forced to make such havoc of Scripture and logic. Give him but the smallest portion of freedom--or even the semblance of it--and his mind instantly manifests its accustomed clearness and strength. For instance, speaking of the effect of creeds, had they been formed by apostolic direction,--which, we remark, is equally true, in the different parties, of those formed upon the above logic,--he says:-- "In fact, all study, properly so called, of the rest of Scripture,--all lively interest in its perusal, --would have been nearly superseded by such an inspired compendium of doctrine; to which alone, as far the most convenient for that purpose, habitual reference would have been made in any questions that might arise. Both would have been regarded, indeed, as of divine authority; but the compendium, as the fused and purified metal--the other, as the mine containing the crude ore. ..... The orthodoxy of most persons would have been, as it were, petrified, like the bodies of those animals we read of incrusted in the ice of the polar regions; firm fixed, indeed, and preserved unchangeable, but cold, motionless, lifeless. "It is only when our energies are roused, and our faculties exercised, and our attention kept awake, by an ardent pursuit of truth, and anxious watchfulness against error, when, in short, we feel ourselves to be doing something towards acquiring, or retaining, or improving our knowledge,--it is then only, that that knowledge makes the requisite practical impression on the heart and conduct." Here, again, we admire the reasoning and embrace the truths of the able gentleman, but are forced to reject his conclusion. It is as follows: "To the church, then, has her all-wise Founder left the office of teaching, to the Scriptures that of proving the Christian doctrines." This we must regard as most pernicious. It is the office of the church, we think, to teach the Scriptures,--TO PREACH THE WORD,--and not some symbols or creeds called "Christian doctrines," which every party thinks may be proved by the Scriptures. But the ground of the Archbishop is precisely that occupied by the religious world. The Scriptures are not consulted as the teacher of Christ’s religion, but to find proof of every man’s creed. And as, according to the methods hitherto pursued, almost anything can be proved by the Scriptures, they have come to mean anything, or everything, or nothing, "according to the circumstances or exigencies of each particular case." We know of no abler or more respectable advocate of human creeds than the right reverend gentleman we have just quoted. And from what he advances, we see nothing to change, but everything to confirm us in the correctness of the position previously assumed: that a standard of orthodoxy can only be made among Protestants by the exercise of the right of private judgment, and then can only be a standard by taking away that right; that, hence, we must either give up our principles in order to retain our standards,--and thus go back to Rome,--and then, after all, we must give up our standards because they do not rest upon principle, and because, not being infallible, they do not meet the requirements of the case; and thus, by another road, we get back to Rome. All of which is avoided by giving up our standards and retaining our principles, thus being Protestants in fact as well as in theory. Viewing the subject, therefore, in the light of its bearings upon the science of interpretation alone--for all we have said has had respect to this--we are constrained to believe that a consistent, satisfactory, and uniform interpretation of God’s holy book--such as meets the just requirements of the case--is dependent primarily upon the sacrifice of all human standards and symbols of faith. By this I do not mean written creeds exclusively, but all prejudice of whatever kind, and I specify written speculations and theories more particularly, because they render prejudice more inflexible and difficult of removal, and because they seem to compel men, as if by the wand of authority, to resort to those logical abuses and self-impositions which we have seen culminating in the Scholastic dogmatism of the fourteenth century.
In advocating this course, which may seem harsh and radical to some, but which, nevertheless, is believed to be the true conservatism, I have the satisfaction to know that in an analogous case it resulted in that very certainty and agreement so much needed and desired in religion. So long as the Dogmatic Method was pursued in the study of nature, there was no unanimity among men and no satisfaction in their conclusions. Every man had his cherished theory, and the object of his study was to harmonize nature with it. Hypotheses and counter-hypotheses existed without number, while the volume of nature was not asked to teach, but to confirm, to prove. The more phenomena that could be explained upon any theory just as now the more Scripture that can be expounded in accordance with some dogma--the greater the triumph. There was, consequently, no well-defined natural science until Lord Bacon induced men to abandon their theories--to give up all their idola, false appearances, or prejudices--and consult nature for truth, and not for proof. The result was an incalculable advancement in every department of science. The controversies about theories, hatched out in the study, were hushed; and men set to work to learn the laws of nature from nature itself, and not as formerly to make laws for it. As a part of the fruit of this change of method, we have the science of Astronomy in all its accuracy, wonder, and glory,--those of Chemistry, Mineralogy, Geology, Botany, and others, all resting, as far as they have been brought to perfection, upon bases of unquestionable facts, with not a voice in all the world raised in controversy against them. Nor is it deemed necessary, in order to keep out scientific heresy, to weave the conclusions thus reached into a sort of authoritative creed; for it is found to conduce to the progress of truth, and not falsehood, to leave every mind perfectly free to question, controvert, oppose, reject, or adopt them, as his reason or folly may determine; but to command respect and attention his objections must be based, like the sciences themselves, upon facts. To cavil at, or oppose these, is simply to make one’s self ridiculous and contemptible. The ten thousand subjects of controversy, which men thought could never by any possibility be settled, have all been dissipated, and everything is reduced to one single point--Are these the facts? While speculative and metaphysical theories necessarily receive a particular type, color, and modification from every individual mind, and are, therefore, as infinitely various as are the mental capacities which embrace them, facts are the same to all. We have said that by inaugurating the true method of consulting nature, Bacon destroyed the influence of dogmatism in scientific research; but he confined his labors almost exclusively to the volume of physical nature, while the old method maintained the ascendency over the volume of revelation, as it did for a long while in metaphysics.³ In the following book we shall make an attempt to show that in so far at least as they are the sources of our faith and practice, the Scriptures admit of being studied and expounded upon the principles of the inductive method; and that, when thus interpreted, they speak to us in a voice as certain and unmistakable as the language of nature heard in the experiments and observations of science.⁴

      ¹ On the mutations of human creeds, the reader will allow us to quote some remarks from Isaac Taylor. "This same period," he says, "this sixty years--which has made us so much more liberal, and, in a sense, more serious too than were our fathers, and in which refinement and discretion have done so much for us--has touched, not our creeds indeed, so as to remove any one article from them, but it has touched the depths of our convictions as to the whole, and as to several points of our belief. There is little, perhaps, in the cycle of our predecessors’ confession of faith which, if challenged to relinquish it, we should consent to see erased. But, whether we be distinctly conscious of the fact or not, there has come to stand over against each article of that belief a counterbalance--an influence of abatement, an unadjusted surmise, an adverse feeling, neither assented to nor dismissed, but which holds the mind in perpetual suspense. The creed of this time is--let us say--word for word the creed of sixty years ago; but, if such a simile might be allowed, these items of our ’Confession’ now fill one side of a balance sheet, on the other side of which there stands a heavy charge which has not yet been ascertained or agreed to. If this alleged state of the case be resented--as it will, by some--it will be tacitly assented to by the more thoughtful and ingenuous reader." Wesley and Methodism, p. 19.
      Again, page 17, he says: "The Methodism of the eighteenth century has, we say, ceased to have any extant representative among us." To this remark he refers on page 189: "METHODISM we have spoken of as that which has long ago accomplished its purpose, and has passed away; to other moods and modes of thinking it has given place; and with its nominal representative--the modern Wesleyan Methodism--we have no more to do, in these pages, than with any other existing religious body."
      So with all other isms--that which they nominally represent has passed away, and that which they now are is passing away. Shall we continue to rest satisfied with any system whose very nature is transient and mutable, when we may, if we please, find that which is permanent and unchangeable?
      ² See Preliminary Dissertations; Encyc. Brit., Dis. iii.
      ³ Sir William Hamilton, speaking of this method, says: "Instead of humbly resorting to consciousness to draw from thence his doctrines and their proof, each dogmatic speculator looked only into consciousness, there to discover his pre-adopted opinions. In philosophy men have abused the code of natural, as is theology the code of positive revelation; and the epigraph of a great Protestant divine, on the book of Scripture, is certainly not less applicable to the book of consciousness:--

      This extract, from one of the ablest men of the present age, while it corroborates all we have said of the presence of dogmatism in the interpretation of Protestants, is not less pointed in its condemnation of it.
      ⁴  We cannot refrain from requesting the reader to concentrate his attention upon the following profound and truly encouraging remarks of Isaac Taylor, to which we will add, in passing, such observations as may serve to show the connection in which they occur. This great thinker saw, as all unbiased minds must see, the necessary tendency of our imperfectly carried out Protestantism to Romanism; and he says, a time will come when "those who loathe these idolatries, and who resent this despotism, will find themselves driven in upon the only position where a stand may by any means be made, namely, the authority of Scripture; this being held as absolute, and not to be abated by admixture with any other pretended sources of belief . . . At such a time there will not remain an inch of space whereon the foot may rest between these two positions; that is to say, unless, in the most peremptory manner, and to the exclusion of all reserves or evasions, the sense of Scripture, ascertained and interpreted on a true principle, be resolutely adhered to, there is nothing gross or abominable in the superstitions of Southern Europe that must not be submitted to." He goes on to say, that this contest against "Romanism and Ritualism" will be carried on by "well-taught biblical scholars, who will feel, as we of this time do not feel, the necessity, first, of defining with unambiguous explicitness, what it is they mean when they speak of the apostolic writings as ’given by inspiration of God,’ and then of laying down, and of invariably adhering to, certain principles of interpretation." After speaking of the first of these preliminary labors, he proceeds:--
      "As to the second, it will flow out naturally from the first, and it will bear an analogy to the revolution that was effected in physical science by the promulgation of the BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY, and in accordance with that analogy it will effect the final EXPULSION OF METAPHYSICAL SCHEMES OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE; in the room of which will come the fearless THEOLOGY OF INTERPRETATION; offering to the eye, as it must, many of those breaks and ’faults’--those inferences--irreconcilable the one with the other--which are, and must ever be, the characteristics of a theology that is fragmentary and disjointed."
      Again, speaking of the coming movement under the name of "Methodism," in contrast with the past Methodism, be says "The past Methodism took to itself the belief which it found; but the coming Methodism must derive its belief anew from Scripture, by bringing to bear upon this difficult subject a reformed principle of biblical interpretation." Finally, he says: "Those who, through a course of years, have been used to read the Scriptures unshackled by systems, and bound to no conventional modes of belief, such readers must have felt an impatience in waiting, not for the arrival of a new revelation from heaven, but of an ample and unfettered interpretation of that which has been so long in our hands."--Wesley and Methodism, pp. 286 to 290; Harper’s edition, 1855.