004. III. Scientific Basis of Theology.

III. Scientific Basis of Theology.

1. Certitude a Requirement of Science.—“Science is knowledge evident and certain in itself, or by the principles from which it is deduced, or with which it is certainly connected.”^[29] Any proper definition of science will carry with it the sense of certitude. This certitude has special respect to the facts in which a science is grounded, or to the principles upon which it is constructed. There is a distinction of sciences, as intimated in the previous sentence. It is the distinction between the experimental, or inductive, and the exact, or deductive, as the mathematical. The latter are constructed upon principles. These principles are axiomatic and, therefore, certain in their own light. If these principles are taken into exact and clear thought, and all the deductions are legitimate, certitude goes with the scientific construction. The facts in which the empirical sciences are grounded are very different from such principles. They are facts to be studied by observation and the tests of experiment. They must be surely and accurately known before they can be wrought into a science. But a mere knowledge of facts, however exact and full, is not in itself a science. There must still be a generalization in some principle or law which interprets the facts, and which they fully verify. Such is the method in this class of sciences. It is no absolute guarantee against mistakes in respect to either the facts or the generalization, but must be observed for any scientific attainment. The history of science records many mistakes, and mistakes still occur; so that some things called science are falsely so called. In such cases the boasted certitude is bald assumption.

^[29]Krauth-Fleming:Vocabulary, “Science.”

If theology is to receive a scientific construction, it must possess the requisite grounds of certitude. This does not mean that its grounds must be precisely the same as in the abstract sciences, or in the experimental sciences, but must mean a measure of certitude sufficient for the scientific construction. Without such a ground there can be no attainment of science in theology. “Besides, certainty upon Christian grounds has no wish to withdraw from those universal rules and laws, according to which a legitimate certainty is formed; were it otherwise. Christian theology could be no longer represented as a branch in the series of human sciences.”^[30] The several doctrines might be legitimate to the accepted facts or grounds on which they are constructed, and also in such accord with each other as to meet the logical requirements for systemization, but without the requisite certainty in the grounds there could still be no true science of theology.

^[30]Dorner:Christian Doctrine, vol. i, p. 59.

2. Unwarranted Limitation to Empirical Facts.—Science is often so defined as to deny to theology all rightful claim to a scientific position. The definition limits science to purely empirical facts, on the assumption that only such facts have the certitude requisite to scientific treatment. “Students of the physical sciences have accustomed themselves of late to limit the word science exclusively to empirical science, and even, in some cases, to the empirical grade of physical science. Thus Professor Simon Newcomb, in his address before the American Scientific Association in 1878, said: ‘Science concerns itself only with phenomena and the relations which connect them, and does not take account of any question which does not in some way admit of being brought to the test of observation.’ This, he says, is ‘fundamental in the history of modern science.’ Even so considerate and philosophical a writer as Janet says: ‘Doubtless philosophical thought mingles always more or less with science, especially in the sphere of organized being; but science rightly strives to disengage itself more and more from it, and to reduce the problem to relations capable of being determined by experience.’^[31] This is a legitimate characteristic and aim of empirical science, but it has no right to appropriate to itself exclusively the name of science and to distinguish itself from philosophy and theology. This abuse of the word is, however, becoming common. The three grades are habitually designated as science, philosophy, and theology, implying that the two latter are not science. There is a mighty power in words, and ^[31]Final Causes, p. 117. it is an unworthy artifice for the students of physical science to appropriate to their own branch of study the name science, and to themselves the name scientists. They can justify this only by reverting to the complete positivism of Comte and avowing and maintaining that knowledge is limited to the observations made by the senses.”^{[32] [32]} Harris:Philosophical Basis of Theism, pp. 300, 301. The limitation of science to facts of observation or experience must be made upon the assumption that only such facts can be sufficiently known for scientific treatment. But sense-experience is not the limitation of thought, and thought must transcend it in order to any attainment of science. Perception transcends experience. Experience is through sensation; perception through the cognitive activity of thought. Phenomenalism is the utmost attainment of mere empiricism. All science lies beyond this limit. The relations of phenomena necessary to science are not given in sensation. Much less are the laws or principles which underlie and interpret phenomena so given. These principles can be reached only through the activities of rational thought. No scientific classification is possible without the processes of abstraction and generalization. These processes are the office of the discursive or logical faculty, not of the presentative faculty as concerned with empirical facts. The sensationalism which underlies and determines this narrow sense of science is mere phenomenalism, mere positivism, which knows nothing of substance, cause, or law. The legitimate result is an utter skepticism, and an exclusion of all the certitude of truth necessary to science.

Empirical knowledge, or knowledge acquired by observation or experience, is purely individual. This fact has not been properly emphasized, especially in its relation to this narrow limitation of science to facts empirically known. Its consequence is that every scientist is limited to the facts of his own individual observation or testing. No facts can be taken on testimony, however competent the witnesses. Testimony addresses itself to faith, not to a testing experience. This result is determined by the laws of mind, not by the nature of the facts concerned in the testimony. Hence empirical facts are no exception. If presented only on testimony they can be received only in faith. This narrow sense of science, with its fixed empirical limitations, has no place for faith, and must exclude it as openly contradictory to its own principles. Moreover, its admission would be a fatal concession to theology, in which faith has so important a function. Hence we emphasize this fact, that on the truth of any principle which determines the limitation of science to facts of observation or experience all empirical knowledge available for science is strictly individual. As the observation or experience of no one can become the observation or experience of another, so the empirically acquired knowledge of no one can be of any scientific use to another. The scientific work of each must proceed only with his own empirical acquirement and within its determining limitation.

Now, with these narrow limits let any one attempt the construction of a science—whether of cosmogony, geology, biology, or astronomy, it matters not. Is any one possible under the limitation to empirical facts as actually known in observation or experience? Especially is any one possible with the inevitable limitation to a mere individual observation or experience? Are the facts necessary to the verification of the nebular cosmogony empirically known to any single mind? Are the facts necessary to a science of geology, or to a science of biology, so known? There is no true science of astronomy without the great law of gravitation. This law, however, is no empirical truth, but a rational deduction from certain observed facts. The law of its attractive force expressed in the formula, directly as the mass and inversely as the square of the distance, is reached only in rational thought which transcends experience. Yet astronomy, with all the confidence of scientific certainty, asserts the reign of gravitation, according to this law of its energy, over the physical universe, and therefore over measureless portions which lie infinitely beyond the observed facts from which it is inferred, and equally beyond the possible tests of experience. And what shall be done with mathematics on this empirical limitation of science? Mathematics is not an empirical science. The axiomatic principles on which it builds are open only to the intuition of thought, not to the sight of the eye or the touch of the finger. They are subject to no tests. That parallel lines cannot inclose a space, and that all the radii of a circle are equal, are absolute truths for thought, but truths which can never be empirically verified. What, then, can these empirical limitationists do with mathematics? Perhaps nothing better than to go with Comte and give it a mere phenomenal character. But in doing this they should not forget that the phenomenal is purely for sense-perception, while mathematics is purely for thought, and therefore without any phenomenal quality. The only other alternative is to deny to mathematics any place in the category of the sciences. Either result utterly discredits this narrow empiricism.

Certain positions are thus surely gained. One is that the limitations of science to facts of sense-experience renders science impossible. This limitation assumes that only such facts are sufficiently known or certain for scientific use. But this assumption is inevitably grounded in sensationalism, which logically results in skepticism, and therefore excludes the certitude necessary to science. Hence, as we have seen, thought must transcend all sense-experience and be valid in its own light in order to any scientific attainment. Another is that empirical grounds are wholly unnecessary to the most exact and certain forms of science, as appears above question in the instance of mathematics. It follows that theology must not be denied, and cannot logically be denied, a scientific position simply because it is not grounded in empirical facts in the manner of the physical sciences. Science has no such limitation.^{[33] [33]} Bowne:Philosophy of Theism, p. 102.

3. Grounds of Certitude in Theology. —Here two questions arise: “What are the grounds of theology? And, Do these grounds possess the certitude requisite to a science of theology? However, it is not important to the present treatment to hold the two in entire separation. Nor do we need a full discussion of all the matters concerned in these questions. This would be quite impracticable and out of the order of a proper method. Such a discussion would involve the whole question of theism, which properly forms a distinct part of theology. It would also include the whole question of Christian apologetics, which is no necessary part of systematic theology. The first truth of theology is the existence of God. Without this truth there is no theology in any proper sense of the term, and therefore no place for a science of theology. As we have previously seen, in the broadened sense of theology many other truths are included than those relating directly to God, but his existence is ever the ground-truth, and these other truths receive their theological cast from their relation to him. The proofs of the existence of God will be considered in the proper place. In the light of reason they are conclusive and give certainty to this ground-truth of theology. In the light of reason, as reason interprets nature and man, the existence of God is a more certain truth than the existence of a physical universe as studied in the light of sensationalism—that favorite philosophy with the empirical scientists who deny to theology the position of a science. More philosophic thinkers have questioned the truth of the latter than the truth of the former. The existence of God is a more certain truth than the great law of gravitation which underlies the science of astronomy. With the existence of God, the harmony of the heavens can be explained without the law of gravitation. Without his existence, neither this harmony nor the manifold adjustments of nature can be explained.

There is a theological anthropology which deals with the religious nature of man and its manifestations in human history. Man is a religious being. He is such by the constitution of his nature. This is rarely questioned by philosophic thinkers. The purpose of infidelity to eliminate religion from human life is a thing of the past. Real thinkers of the present have no such aim nor any thought of its possibility. Naturalistic evolutionists must admit, and do admit, that nothing in the constitution of man is more thoroughly organic than his religious nature. With no other characteristic is human history more thoroughly replete. “An unbiased consideration of its general aspects forces us to conclude that religion, every-where present as a weft running through the warp of human history, expresses some eternal fact.”^[34] “No atheistic reasoning can, I hold, dislodge religion from the heart of man.” ‘‘The facts of religious feeling are to me as certain as the facts of physics.”^[35] The facts of religious feeling are facts of consciousness, just as any other facts of consciousness in our mental life, and therefore just as certain as any others. But the facts of consciousness are even more certain than the facts of physics or the properties of matter.

^[34]Spencer:First Principles, p. 20.

^[35]Tyndall:Prefaces to the Belfast Address. The facts of our religious nature, thus clear and certain in the consciousness and ever manifest in human history, must be open to scientific treatment. The certitude requisite to such treatment is above question, and fully conceded. As no facts of our mental life and no facts of physics are either more certain or more distinct and definite than the religious, we must either concede a scientific position to the latter or deny it to the former. This is the imperative requirement of consistency. Hence, any objection to a scientific treatment of the facts of man’s religious nature must be made, not against such treatment itself, but against its theological significance. Empirical scientists announce the purpose and expectation of extending the laws of physical nature over the realms of life and mind.^[36] On this assumption all phenomena, vital, mental, religious, just as the material, must proceed according to physical laws and as the effect of mechanical forces. The result must be accepted as the true science of mind, even in its highest rational and religious facts. If this aim is ever achieved the rational and religious facts of mind must yield to an empirical testing, just as the facts of physical nature. They never can be so tested. They are facts for philosophic treatment, and philosophy will never yield them to the physical realm, but ever assert for them a distinct and higher ground in spiritual mind. The failure of empirical science to bring these moral and religious facts into the order of physical phenomena neither affects their reality nor changes their distinct and definite form as facts of consciousness and historic manifestation. As such facts, they are open to scientific treatment in the light of philosophy, and have a profound significance for theology. In its anthropological sphere theology deals, not with fancies, but with what is most real and definite in the constitution and history of man.

^[36]Huxley:Lay Sermons, p. 138; Tyndall:Belfast Address, p. 55. As the Scriptures are the chief source of theology they must be grounded in truth in order to the certitude which a science of theology requires. The issue is not shunned at this point. It is not shunned in the instance of theologians who proceed to the scientific treatment of doctrines without an introductory verification of the Scriptures. In such case they proceed on the warranted ground that already this verification has been frequently and fully achieved. This is a thoroughly legitimate method, and a very common one in many branches of science. One man furnishes facts, or what he reports to be facts, as found in his own observation or testing; another accepts them as such and proceeds to generalize them in some principle or law of science. If there is no error respecting either the facts or the generalization, the result is just as valid as if one person performed the whole work. When one deals with such facts at second hand the only requirement is that they be so accredited as to possess the certitude requisite to their scientific use. This method is equally valid for the theologian. Still, he does not proceed simply upon the testimony of others, however competent, that they have thoroughly examined the evidences in the case and found them conclusive of a divine original of the Scriptures; he examines for himself, and to himself proves their divine verity before proceeding to the scientific treatment of their doctrinal contents. With the omission of this discussion from any actual place in his theology, his method is still far more exact and thorough than in many instances of scientists in secular branches, who hastily accept facts at second hand and proceed without any proper warrant of the certitude requisite to their scientific use. Further information has often brought confusion to the hasty generalizations thus reached. If the Scriptures are a divine revelation it follows, of course, that their doctrinal contents possess all the certitude requisite to a science of theology. However, in view of the facts above given we may pass this whole question with a very summary statement, especially as some points must recur with the treatment of faith in relation to a science of theology. On the ground of theism a divine revelation is possible. The only reason for asserting so manifest a truth is that it possibility of has been disputed. The question maybe appealed to reported facts of Scripture without the assumption of their truth, which, indeed, is not directly concerned in the present issue. This is claimed as manifestly true, that on the ground of theism God’s intercourse with men as related in the Scriptures is certainly possible. He could commune with Moses in all the modes related, and communicate to him all the truth claimed to have been so given. So, by word and dream and vision and inspiration, he could give truth to the prophets and identify it as from himself. They could thus be the medium of divine revelations and the unerring prophets of a far-reaching future. On the same ground the divine incarnation is entirely possible; and the Son so present with men could reveal the Father and communicate the great truths of religion which lie in the gospels. All the reported instances of his intercourse with his disciples and his religious instructions to them are possible. The promised mission of the Spirit as a revealer of religious truth in the minds of its chosen messengers is possible. The same Spirit, in the fulfillment of this mission, could secure through them the proper utterance and record of the truths so revealed. The conclusion is the possibility of a divine revelation.

Sometimes the objection to the possibility of a divine revelation takes a specially subtle form. It proceeds on the assumption that our purely subjective ideas are the full measure of our spiritual cognitions. Hence no communication from without can transcend these subjective limitations. Nothing, therefore, in the form of religious truth can be added by revelation to what we already know. The fallacy of this objection lies in the tacit assumption that our subjective state is without any possible improvement whereby we may grasp higher forms of truth given by instruction. A little testing will expose this fallacy. No such law of subjective limitation renders fruitless instruction in science or art. No such law rules the sphere of ethics or bars all improvement of moral ideas through instruction. The moral and religious instructions of the mother are not rendered powerless by any fixed limitation imposed by the subjective ideas of her child. In instances without number heathen minds have been raised to higher ideas of God and truth through Christian instruction. No such law precludes the possibility of a divine revelation. God is not bound by the limitations of our purely subjective ideas. He can communicate truth which shall marvelously clear these ideas, and, with an ever-growing power of spiritual perception, ever give us more truth and light. On the ground of theism a divine revelation is rationally probable. This proposition looks only to an antecedent probability. Hence it must not be maintained by any rational claim of the Scriptures to a divine original, but find its support in considerations quite apart from such claim. A few may be briefly stated:

God is benevolently concerned for our well-being. As infinitely wise and good, as our Creator and Father, he must care for our moral and spiritual good.

We are the subjects of a moral government of God’s own ordination and administration. The truth of this position is affirmed by the suffrage of mankind, though not always with the conception of its highest theistic ideas. The human soul, with rarest exceptions, asserts its own sense of moral responsibility to a divine Ruler. This common affirmation must be accepted as the expression of a profound reality. On the ground of theism its truth cannot be questioned. The highest moral and religious truth is profoundly important. As our secular interests render an accurate and full knowledge of nature and of the arts and sciences which concern our present well-being very desirable, so that truth which is necessary to our moral and spiritual good must be intensely desirable. This desirableness rises with the infinite measure of the interests which such truth concerns. The highest certainty of religious truth is profoundly desirable. Doubtful truths do not meet the conscious needs of the soul. “We need truth as truth is with God, and as revealing his mind and will. His mind is the only sufficient source of spiritual truth, and it must deeply concern us to know the behests of his will. Hence the desirableness of truth known to have come from God. The heart of humanity craves such truth. The history of mankind reveals this craving.

We can have no such religious truth as the world needs and craves, truth in the highest form and certainty, except as a divine revelation. The case may be appealed to the history of the race, and in view of the profoundest questions of religious interest and concern. Apart from the Scriptures, or on a denial of their divine original, we have no such full and certain knowledge as we need respecting either God or ourselves, or his will and the duties of love and obedience that we should render him, or the means of relief from the burden of sin which all hearts bear, or the graces of the purest, best life. The best minds of the race have deeply felt these wants and avowed the conviction that such truth and light could come to man only as a revelation from heaven. A divine revelation is, therefore, a rational probability. The facts just considered so affirm. On the one hand have the character of God and his relations to us; the other, our own profound need of religious truth— truth of such fullness and certainty that its only possible mode of attainment is in a divine revelation. It is therefore rationally probable that God shall in some mode above the light of nature or the resources of human reason reveal himself to men. He has placed the sun in the heavens as a light for the natural world; and has he no divine light for the moral world? Must each soul be its own and only prophet? Shall no one sent from God speak to us? Shall the heavenly Father, veiled from the eye of his children, be forever silent to their ear? Shall he never speak to the world so long waiting and listening for his voice? A revelation is possible only through a supernatural agency of God. Any manifestation of religious truth in the works of nature or the moral constitution of man may be called a revelation, but only in a popular sense. In case there is no direct communication of truth from God, but only the discovery of truth by human faculties. If we even assume a divine illumination of human minds, the result would be simply a clearing of their spiritual vision, but no other disclosure of truth than in the works of God. The true idea of a divine revelation carries with it the sense of a direct communication of truth through the agency of God. That agency must be supernatural, whatever the modes in which it works. There are doctrinal contents of Christianity which have no manifestation in nature, and therefore could never be discovered or known as truths, except as attested communications from God. We may instance the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of sin in its more distinctive facts, the divine incarnation, the personality of Christ, the atonement in Christ, Justification by faith, the mission and work of the Holy Spirit. As these central and essential truths of Christianity can be known as truths only as attested communications through a supernatural agency of God, we must accept and maintain such an agency in the original of the Scriptures, wherein we find these truths; for only thus can we secure the certitude requisite to a science of theology which has its chief source in the Scriptures. On the ground of theism such a supernatural agency has no serious perplexity for rational thought; indeed, it is open and clear as compared with any account of material and mental phenomena on the ground of purely mechanical forces. There are greater perplexities in the science of physics than in the theory of a supernatural agency of God in a revelation of religious truths. Who can explain the forces of chemical affinity, or the strength of cohesion as exemplified in the steel cables which support the Brooklyn Bridge? The reciprocal attraction of the earth and the sun across the vast space which separates them seems very simple in idea, but it has no rationale in human thought. The perplexity ever deepens as we extend the reign of this law over the physical universe. There is no seeming possibility of any such mechanical force. This is the real point of perplexity. No such perplexity besets the theory of a supernatural agency of God in a revelation of religious truth. Such an agency is not only free from valid objections, but has the support of weighty reasons. All the facts which render a divine revelation rationally probable render equally probable a supernatural agency as the necessary mode of its communication. A divine revelation must be supernaturally attested. There is here a profound distinction between its primary recipients and the many to whom they publish it. To the former it may be verified as a revelation in the mode of its communication; but this will not answer for the many who receive it on their testimony. Its chosen messengers must be accredited in a manner assuring to the people that they are messengers of truth from God. Miracles are the best, and rationally the most probable, means to this end. Prophecy is just as supernatural, and its fulfillment just as conclusive of a divine commission, but often there must be long waiting before the fulfillment completes this credential. Prophecy has great apologetic value, especially for the generations succeeding the founding of Christianity, but this necessary delay prevents the prompt and direct attestation furnished by miracles. A revelation may have the support of many forms of evidence, as the Scriptures have, while it is still true that miracles are the most appropriate credential of its messengers. There is no credulity in the ready belief that the religious teacher who works miracles in the name of God is his messenger of truth to men (John 3:2). The reason for this faith was never clearer or surer than now. Just as science establishes the uniformity of the laws of nature, so does a supernatural event absolutely evince the immediate agency of God as its cause. Hence the religious teacher by whom he works miracles must be his messenger of truth to men. On the ground of theism there is no antecedent presumption against miracles, but, rather, a strong presumption in their favor. We have previously pointed out the antecedent rational probability of divine revelation. There is a like probability of miracles as the appropriate and really necessary attestation of such a revelation. Unwise definitions have needlessly furnished occasion for objections to such a mode of attestation. While nothing of the necessary content of a miracle should be omitted from its definition, nothing unnecessary should be included. A miracle does not mean any abrogation or suspension of the laws of nature. Yet such ideas have often been put into its definitions, which have thus furnished the special ground of objection. A miracle is a supernatural event wrought by the immediate agency of God, to accredit some messenger as divinely 3ommissioned or some truth as divinely given. The divine energizing touches the law of nature simply at the point of the miracle, and in a manner to produce it, but no more abrogates or suspends such law, as a law of nature, than the casting a stone into the air annuls the law of gravitation. The raising of Lazarus leaves undisturbed the laws of nature which reign over the vast realms of the living and the dead. The agency of God in a miracle, while thoroughly supernatural, is just as orderly with respect to the laws of nature as the agency of man in the use of any chemical or mechanical force. Hence all such objections are utterly void.^[37]

^[37] Butler:Analogy, part ii, chap, ii; Mozley:Miracles, lect. i; Bushnell:Nature and the Supernatural, chap, xi; Paley:Evidences of Christianity, “Preparatory Considerations;” Mansell:Aids to Faith, essay i: Christlieb:Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, lect. v; Foster:The Supernatural Book, “Argument from Miracles.” The facts thus maintained have apologetic value, not, however, as direct proofs of a divine revelation, but specially as objections obviating leading objections and clearing the way for the full force of the evidences of such a revelation. We have not the more difficult task of facing any strong presumption against either its possibility or probability. On the ground of theism, a divine revelation is clearly possible and strongly probable, while a supernatural agency of God as the necessary mode of its communication fully shares the probability. Further, there is not only no antecedent presumption against miracles, but as the best means of attesting a divine revelation they are rationally probable. Thus the evidences of such a revelation do not encounter any balancing, or nearly balancing, disproof, so that they really prove nothing, or, at best, leave the question in uncertainty : they come to the proof of what is antecedently probable, and their whole weight is available for this end. The certitude requisite to a science of theology is thus attainable. The Holy Scriptures are a divine revelation of religious truth. On this question Christian apologetics has shunned no issue with infidelity. Against the many forms of attack the defense has been prompt and effective. The victory is with the defenders of the Christian faith. Beyond this defensive service the evidences for the truth and divine original of the Scriptures have been presented in their fullness and logical conclusiveness. The authenticity of the Scriptures is an established truth. The fulfillment of the prophecies and the reality of the miracles infallibly accredit the sacred writers as messengers of truth from God. The complete harmony of the sacred books, occupying, as they do, so many centuries in their composition, and the peculiar character of their doctrinal, moral, and religious contents unite in the same attestation. The founding and triumphant propagation of Christianity as open facts of history, together with its marvelous power in the moral and religious life of mankind, for any rational account absolutely require the divine mission of the Christ. The unique character of our Lord as portrayed in the New Testament is itself conclusive of the divine origin of Christianity. Only with a pattern from the holy mount of God could the human mind rise to the conception of such a character. In all the creative thought of the world there is no approach toward such a conception. The simple artists of the New Testament who wrought this portrait must have had the divine original before them.^[38]

^[38] On the truth of Christianity, with the truth of the Scriptures—Paley:The Evidences of Christianity; Mair:Studies in Christian Evidences; Wilson:Evidences of Christianity; Fisher:Supernatural Origin of Christianity; Keith:Demonstration of the Truth of Christianity; Bishop Thomson:Evidences of Revelation; Hopkins:Evidences of Christianity; Rawlinson:Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scripture Records; Chalmers:Evidences of Christianity; Rogers:Superhuman Origin of the Bible; Alexander:Evidences of Christianity; Christlieb:Modem Doubt and Christian Belief;Aids to Faith—Relies to “Essays and Reviews;”Bishop McIlvaine:Evidences of Christianity; Faith and Free Thought, Lectures; Bishop Foster:The Supernatural Book.

Argument from the character of Christ—Ullman: The Sinlessness of Jesus; Barnes: The Evidences of Christianity, lect. viii; Bayne: The Testimony of Christ to Christianity; Young: The Christ of History; Hopkins: Evidences of Christianity, lect. viii; Mozley: Lectures and Other Theological Papers, pp. 116-135 ; Fisher: Supernatural Origin of Christianity, essay xii ; Schaff: The Person of Christ; Bushnell:Nature and the Supernatural, chap, x; Hardwicke: Christ and Other Masters; Lacordaire: Jesus Christ; Luthardt: Fundamental Truths of Christianity, lect. x; Rowe: Lect. ii, Bampton Lectures, 1877.

Christ openly submitted the truth of his doctrine to the test of experience, not the same in form or mode as that on testimony on which empirical science builds, but an experience just as real and that just as really grasps the truth. “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:16-17). The same principle is given in these words: “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself” (1 John 5:10). These texts mean that through experience we may come to know the doctrine of Christ as the very truth of God, and to know Christ as the Messiah and Saviour. There is another mode of experience through which we reach the truth of Christianity. “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:16; Galatians 4:6). Here is the consciousness of a gracious sonship, a consciousness wrought by the Holy Spirit. This is its distinction of mode, but it is none the less a fact of consciousness, and, therefore, a veritable fact of experience. In this experience we grasp the central facts of Christianity, and the truth of Christianity itself. The certitude requisite to a science of theology is thus reached. The result is not affected by any peculiarity of the experience, as compared with that which underlies the physical sciences. The method is the same in both, and as valid in the former as in the latter. Some truths we grasp by intuition. “There are other truths that come to verification in consciousness by a process, or by practical experiment; such are more commonly called truths of experience—that is, we prove them by applying experimental tests and by realizing promised results. Such are truths of the following and similar kind. Christ promises to realize in us certain experiences if we will comply with certain conditions. It is the common law of experimental science. When we find at the end of an experiment a result, we demonstrate in experience a truth. Henceforth we know it to be a truth, because we have made it matter of experience, not because of any external testimony to it. Such is precisely the test which Christ proposes; if we do certain things we shall come to certain knowledges; if we come to him we shall find rest ; if we do his will we shall know of the doctrine; if we believe we shall be saved; old things will pass away, and all things will become new; we will become new creatures; a new life will come to us, and will evidence itself in our consciousness, and in the total change of our whole character, external and internal; for sorrow we shall have joy; for a sense of guilt we will receive a sense of pardon ; for a love of sin we will have given to us a hungering and thirsting after righteousness; from feeling that we are aliens and strangers we shall come to know that we are the children of God—the Abba, Father, will be put upon our tongues and in our hearts.”^{[39] [39]} Bishop Foster:The Supernatural Book, p. 318. The Christian centuries furnish innumerable instances of such experience. They are found among the most diverse and among the most gifted and cultured, as among the uncultured and lowly. They are competent witnesses to the reality of this experience. They know the facts of the experience as revealed in their own consciousness, and their testimony has often been given at a cost which allows no question of their integrity. The certainty of Christian truth is thus reached through experience. Further, there is here a unity of experience which verifies the truth and divinity of Christianity. This experience is one through all the Christian centuries and in all the diversities of condition. There must, therefore, be reality and divinity in the Christianity out of which it springs. The physical sciences would be impossible without a uniformity of experience. There must be a unity of experience. The objective facts must be the same for all. There could be no such unity without the reality of the objective facts of experience. This principle is just as valid in Christianity as in the physical sciences. If these sciences deal with realities, so does Christian theology deal with realities. The truth of Christianity is thus realized in Christian experience, and in the most thorough manner. “The nerve of the matter does not lie here—that both exist side by side, the outward and objective testimony and the personal and subjective spirit; it lies here—that both the genuinely objective and the subjective are brought into one, and thus into a bond of unity, by virtue of which our certainty knows itself to be grounded in objective Christian truth that makes itself evident and authoritative to the spirit.”^[40] We thus have the certitude requisite to a science of theology.

^[40]Dorner:Christian Doctrine, vol. i, p. 154.

4. Consistency of Faith with Scientific Certitude.—Theology is denied a scientific position on the assumption that it deals with matters of faith, not with matters of fact. This assumption goes beyond the truth. We have just seen that the vital facts of theology are grasped in experience as really as the facts of empirical science. Yet we admit an important office of faith in theology. It is in the mode of faith that we apprehend various truths of theology. If a scientific position is therefore denied to theology it must be on the assumption that such faith rests on mere authority, and is wholly without rational ground. Again, the assumption is false to the facts. The evidences which verify the Scriptures as a divine revelation constitute a rational ground of faith. That gratuitous assumption wholly ignores the Christian apologetics which sets forth this ground.

Faith is not a blind acceptance of any alleged fact or principle, but its acceptance on rational ground. Such ground lies in the sufficient evidence of its truth. All faith ground of that is properly such has respect to evidence as its rational warrant. It follows that faith in its proper sense is a thoroughly rational state or act of the mind. There is no exception. Faith sometimes takes the form of trust. In a profound sense of need the soul trusts in God for his gracious help. The rational ground of this trust lies in the evidences of his goodness. The case is not other even when in seasons of deepest trial there is no outer light upon the ways of God. The evidences of his wisdom and love still furnish a thoroughly rational ground of trust. It was so with Abraham in the offering up of his son (Hebrews 11:17-19); with Job when seemingly God was against him (Job 13:15); with Paul, who in the deepest trials still knew whom he believed, and in whom therefore he still rested with an unwavering trust (2 Timothy 1:12). There are mysteries of doctrine in theology. We may instance the Trinity and the person of Christ. We have no power to comprehend these doctrines; and yet we accept them in faith. It will readily be asked. How can such a faith be rational? Science is as really concerned in this question as theology. There are many mysteries of nature within the assumed attainments of science.^[41] That every atom of matter attracts every other atom of the universe, even to the remotest world, is as profound a mystery for rational thought as either the Trinity or the person of Christ. But the question utterly mistakes the nature and grounds of faith. In no case is the rational comprehension of any alleged fact or principle the ground of faith in its truth. Such ground lies wholly in the evidence of its truth. “When the evidence is adequate the faith is rational. Nor is the mystery of a doctrine in any sense opposed to the rationality of faith in its truth when the evidence is adequate. Such is our faith in the doctrines of the Trinity and the person of Christ. These doctrines are in the Scriptures; and the Scriptures bear the seal of a divine original. They are a revelation of truth from God. The proof is conclusive. God’s revelation of truth is truth itself, and the most certain truth. The principle is valid for all the doctrinal contents of the Scriptures. Thus when we reach the true grounds of faith we still find the certitude requisite to a science of theology.

^[41]Bowne : Philosophy of Theism, pp. 17, 18 The empirical sciences cannot exclude the principle of faith. Such exclusion would reduce them to the narrowest possible limits, if not render them wholly impossible. We previously pointed out that all empirical knowledge of facts is purely personal. No one can share the experiences of another. Hence the scientist, in whatever sphere of nature, must either limit himself to facts of his own observation or appropriate the observations of others. In the former case the attainable facts are insufficient for the construction of any science. This exigency constrains the use of reported observations. This use is very common in the treatment of the sciences. It appears in astronomy, in geology, in archaeology, in chemistry, in botany, in physiology, in natural history, in any and all of the sciences. The only ground of certainty in the facts so used is the testimony of such as report them. But testimony furnishes no empirical knowledge; it furnishes the ground of faith, and of faith only. Thus it is that the empirical sciences largely build on faith, and must so build. Theology has the same right, and is equally sure of its facts. We have philosophies of history, which, if properly such, must contain all that a science of history could mean. No man can be personally cognizant of facts sufficient in number for such a philosophy or science. Faith in facts as given on testimony must underlie all such work.^[42] If this mode is valid for science it must be valid for theology.

^[42]Tatham:Chart and Scale of Truth, vol. i, pp. 204-208.

There is another fact which concerns this question. It is not only true that one’s experience is purely personal to himself, but equally true that his experience is purely of individual things. In all the realm of nature no one has, or can have, empirical knowledge of any thing beyond the few facts of his own observation or testing. Families, species, genera, as known in science or logic, are no empirical cognitions, but creations of thought which must transcend experience. Yet they are necessary ideas of science. By a proper testing one finds the qualities of a specimen of metal or mineral, or of a particular plant or animal, and proceeds to a scientific classification of all like instances as possessing the same qualities. However, the principle on which he proceeds is just the reverse of the Aristotelian, that what is true of the class is true of each individual; it is that what is true of one or a few is true of all like instances. But how does he know that the many untested cases are so like the tested few as to meet the requirements of a scientific classification? It will not suffice that in appearance they are the same. The appearance is merely superficial, and may fail to give the interior facts. The qualities of the few tested cases were not given in the appearance, but found by a deep and thorough searching. There is no such testing or empirical knowledge, except in a very few instances of the great multitude assumed to be covered by the science. Thus it is that in every sphere of nature science is made to cover a vast aggregate of individuals which were never properly tested. How can empirical science justify itself in such cases? Only on the assumption of some principle that guarantees the uniformity of nature, or that determines the intrinsic identity of things superficially alike. Such science could not else proceed beyond the few facts empirically known, and therefore would be an impossibility. We are not here concerned to dispute the legitimacy of this method of science; but we may with propriety point out and emphasize its wide departure from that narrow empiricism on the ground of which the claim of theology to a scientific position is denied. The ground of this denial is thus entirely surrendered. Science itself has too much to do with matters of faith to dispute the scientific claim of theology because it has to do with such matters. There is no inconsistency of faith with scientific certitude.^{[43] [43]} Herbert:Modern Realism, pp. 357-367.

5. The Function of Reason in Theology.—The errors of rationalism must not discredit the offices of our rational intelligence in questions of religion and theology. A system of Christian doctrines is no more possible without rational thought than the construction of any science within the realm of nature. There is in the two cases the same intellectual requirement in dealing with the material out of which the science is wrought. The idea of religion as a faith and practice is the idea of a person rationally endowed and acting in the deepest form of his rational agency. It is true that a religious life impossible without the activity of the moral and religious sensibilities—just as there cannot be for us either society, or friendship, or country, or home, or a world of beauty without the appropriate feeling. But mere feeling will not answer for any of these profoundly interesting states. There must be the activity of thought as the condition and illumination of such feeling. So it is in religion: God and duty must come into thought before the heart can respond in the proper religious feeling, or the life be given to him in true obedience and worship. The religious sensibilities are natively as strong under the lowest forms of idolatry as under the highest forms of Christian theism, and should yield as lofty a service, if religion were purely a matter of feeling. The religious life and worship take their vastly higher forms under Christian theism through higher mental conceptions of God and duty. There is thus manifest a profound office of our rational intelligence in religion.

There is not a question of either natural or revealed religion that is not open to rational consideration. Even the truths Scripture which transcend our power of comprehension must in some measure be apprehended in their doctrinal contents in order to their acceptance in a proper faith.

If we should even assume that the existence of God is an intuitive truth, or an immediate datum of the moral and religious consciousness, we must still admit that the question is open to the treatment of the logical reason. We have seen that the Scriptures fully recognize in the works of nature the proofs of the divine existence. These proofs address themselves to our logical reason, and can serve their purpose only as apprehended in our rational intelligence. When so apprehended and accepted as rationally conclusive, theism is a rational faith. Such has ever been the position of the most eminent Christian theists. They have appealed the question of the divine existence to the rational proofs furnished in the realm of nature and in the constitution and consciousness of man. Thus they have found the sure ground of their own faith and successfully repelled the assaults of atheism. The many treatises in the maintenance of theism fully recognize the profound function of our logical reason in this ground-truth of religion. The idea of a divine revelation is the idea of a capacity in us for its reception. A divine revelation is, in the nature of it, a divine communication of truth, and especially of moral and religious truth. There can be no communication of such truth where there is no capacity for its apprehension and reception. Without such capacity the terms of such a revelation would be meaningless. There can be no such capacity without our rational intelligence. We admit the value of our moral and religious sensibilities in our spiritual cognitions; not, however, as in themselves cognitive, but as subsidiary to the cognitive power of our rational faculties. Many of the facts and truths of revelation, as given in the Scriptures, are cognizable only in our logical reason. Hence the idea of a divine revelation assumes an important office of our reason in theology. Are the Scriptures a revelation of truth from God? An affirmative answer must rest on rational grounds of evidence. This means that the whole question of evidence is open to rational treatment. The divine origin of the Scriptures is a question of fact. Such an origin can be rationally accepted in faith only on the ground of verifying evidence. All such evidence addresses itself to the logical reason. In experience we may reach an immediate knowledge of certain verities of religion; but all such experience is purely personal, and if it is to possess any apologetic value beyond this personal limitation, or in the mind of others, it must be treated as logical evidence of the truths alleged to be so found. Even the subjects of this experience may severally take it up into the rational intelligence and treat it as logical proof of the truths assumed to be immediately reached in experience. Beyond such experience the whole question of a divine revelation in the Scriptures is a question of rational proofs. By rational proofs we mean such facts of evidence as satisfy our logical reason. A question of fact is a question of fact, in whatever sphere it may arise. In this view the question of a divine original of the Scriptures is not different from other questions of fact within the realms of history and science. The proofs may lie in peculiar or widely different facts, but they are not other for rational thought or the logical reason. Christ openly appealed to the proofs of his Messiahship, and demanded faith on the ground of their evidence. The apostles furnished the credentials of their divine commission as the teachers of religious truth. The Scriptures demand no faith except on the ground of evidence rationally sufficient. The Church has ever recognized this function of reason respecting the divine origin of the Scriptures. Every Christian apologist, from the earliest to the latest. has appealed this question to our rational intelligence, on the assumption of proofs appropriate and sufficient as the ground of a rational faith in its truth. Such is the office of reason respecting the truth of a divine revelation. Our position may seem to concede the logical legitimacy of the “higher criticism,” with its destructive tendencies. If the Scriptures ground their claim to a divine original in rational proofs, have not all seemingly opposing facts a right to rational consideration as bearing upon that great question? Yes; and if such facts should ever be found decisively stronger than the proofs the divine origin of the Scriptures could no longer be held in a rational faith. The rights of logic must be conceded ; and Christian apologetics has too long appealed this question to our logical reason now to forbid a consideration of seemingly adverse facts in a manner logically legitimate to its own principles and method. This is conceded in the manner of meeting the issues of the “higher criticism.” Here are such questions as the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, the unitary authorship of Isaiah, the genuineness and prophetic character of the Book of Daniel—questions which deeply concern the evidences of the divine original of the Scriptures. How are the destructionists met on these and similar issues? Not by denying their logical right to raise such questions, but by controverting the facts which they allege and disproving the conclusions which they reach. In these matters logic suffers many wrongs at their hand. Nor can any legitimacy of the questions raised free much of the “higher criticism” from the charge of an obtrusive and destructive rationalism.

What are the contents of the Scriptures? What are the facts which they record, with their meaning? What are their ethical and doctrinal teachings? All these questions are open to the investigation of the logical reason—just as the contents of other books. It is not meant that the spiritual mood of the student is indifferent to these questions. It may be such as to blind the mental eye, or such as to give it clearness of vision. Such is the case on many questions of the present life. What in one’s view is proper and right in another’s is wrong and base. What to one is lofty patriotism is to another the outrage of rebellion or lawless and vindictive war. What one views as saintly heroism another views as cunning hypocrisy or a wild fanaticism. So much have our subjective states to do with our judgments. But we are responsible for these states, and therefore for the judgments which they so much influence. A proper adjustment of our mental state to any subject in which the sensibilities are concerned is necessary to the clearer and truer view of it. Such state, however, is not the organ of knowledge, but a preparation for the truer judgment. Sobriety is proper for all questions. Devoutness is the only proper mood for the study of the questions of religion, and therefore for the study of the contents of the Scriptures. Such a mental mood is our duty in the study of the Scriptures, not that it is in itself cognizant of their contents, nor that it determines the judgment, but simply that it clears the vision of our reason and so prepares it for the discovery of the truth. With such a mental mood it is the function of our reason to ascertain the religious and doctrinal contents of the Scriptures. A high function of the logical reason in systematic theology can hardly be questioned. A system of theology is a scientific construction of doctrines. The method is determined by the laws of logic. These laws rule all scientific work. Any violation of their order is a departure from the scientific method. They are the same for theology as for the sciences in the realm of nature. The method of every science is a rational method. Science is a construction in rational thought. A system of theology is such a science. The construction of such a system is the function of reason in theology. A glance at the errors of rationalism will clearly show that there is not an item of such error in the doctrine of reason above maintained. “We speak of errors of rationalism with respect to its distinctions of form rather than in view of fundamental distinctions. While varying in the matters specially emphasized, it is one in determining principle. Human reason is above all necessity and authority of a divine revelation: this is rationalism. The English deism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was thoroughly rationalistic in its around. It denied all necessity for a supernatural revelation and exalted reason to a position of entire sufficiency for all the moral and religious needs of man. Whatever he needs to know respecting God and duty and a future destiny may be discovered in the light of nature. The law of nature is the cardinal idea. In consequence of this fact this form of rationalism was often called naturalism; and, further, it was so called in distinction from the supernaturalism which underlies the Scriptures as a divine revelation. The rationalistic principles, as above stated, are the principles of the notable book of Lord Herbert which initiated this great deistic movement.^[44] There is no concession that only obscure views of morality and religion arc attainable by the light of reason. The position is rather that on these great questions reason is quite equal, or even superior, to the Scriptures. Many followed Herbert in the maintenance of like views: Blount,^[45] Toland,^[46] Collins,^[47] Tyndall^[48] and others whose names are here omitted. The titles of their works clearly evince their rationalistic ground. Some of them mean an assumption to account for the Scriptures and for Christianity on purely natural grounds. The law of nature and the sufficiency of the law of nature are the ruling ideas. There is a law of nature in the sense of a light of nature on the questions of morality and religion. Nor was this idea at all original with these deists. It is in the Scriptures, in the earlier Christian literature, and so continued through the Christian centuries. About the time of Herbert, and without reference to the deistic movement which he initiated, eminent Christian writers maintained this law. We may instance Grotius^[49] and Hooker.^[50] These eminent authors, however, were profoundly loyal to the Scriptures as a revelation of truth from God, and the only sufficient source of truth on the great questions of morality and religion. Thus the rationalistic errors of this deism were wholly avoided. It is in this manner that the functions of reason in questions of religion, which we previously set forth, are entirely free from these errors.

^[44]De Veritate, prout Distinguitur a Revelatione.

^[45]Oracles of Reason.

^[46]Christianity Not a Mystery.

^[47]Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion.

^[48]Christianity as Old as the Creation.

^[49]Rights of Peace and War.

^[50]Ecclesiastical Polity, book i.

Christian apologists were promptly on hand for the defense of the Scriptures as an actual and necessary revelation of truth from God, and so continued on hand through this long contention. It was a hundred-years’ war. These champions of Christianity are far too numerous for individual mention. We may instance a few with their works: Cumberland,^[51] Parker,^[52] Wilkins,^[53] Locke,^[54] Lardner,^[55] More,^[56] Cudworth,^[57] Howe,^[58] Butler.^[59] Varying phases of the persistent deism called for variations in the defensive and aggressive work of the Christian apologists. These variations in some measure appear in the titles of their works. While some maintained a high doctrine of reason in questions of religion, others, especially some of the later apologists, assumed a ground far too low; but all agreed, and those of the higher doctrine as really as those of the lower, in the necessity and value of the Scriptures as a revelation of truth from God. All were thus wholly free from the errors of rationalism.^{[60] [51]} De Legibus Naturae Disquisitio Philosophica.

^[52]Demonstration of the Law of Nature and of the Christian Religion.

^[53]The Principles and Duties of Natural Religion.

^[54]Reasonableness of Christianity.

^[55]Vindication of the Miracles of Our Lord.

^[56]Dialogues; Mystery of Godliness.

^[57]Intellectual System.

^[58]Living Temple, part i.

^[59]Analogy.

^[60]Gillett:The Moral System, Introduction. The German rationalism is less definite and uniform than that of the English deism, but not less real. The same supremacy of reason is maintained. An inspiration of the Scriptures is often admitted, and also that it gives to the Scriptures value for religion. But it is not such an inspiration as answers to the truth of the doctrine; nor such as can give authority to the Scriptures in matters of faith and practice. As some minds are specially gifted in the sphere of philosophy, or statesmanship, or mechanics, or art, so some minds are specially gifted in the sphere of religion. But this is from an original endowment, not from any immediate divine inspiration. There is no true inspiration, and therefore no divine authority of the Scriptures. Their contents are subject to the determining test of human reason. Whatever will not answer to this test must be rejected. What remains cannot be conceded any divine authority, but must take its place in the plane of human reason. Any value it may possess for religion must arise, not from a divine original, but from the approval of our reason. The profoundest truths of Christianity must be open to philosophic treatment and determination. Reason must comprehend the divine Trinity and the personality of the Christ, if these doctrines are to be accepted as truths of religion. The consequence must be either their outright rejection or their utter perversion through a false interpretation. This unqualified subjection of the Scriptures, with all their doctrinal contents, to the determination of human reason is the essence of the German rationalism on the questions of religion. These statements are fully justified by the best definitions of rationalism, such as may be found in the works of Wegscheider, Standlin, Halm, Rose, Bretschneider, McCaul, Saintes, and Lecky. These definitions are given at length in the excellent work of Bishop Hurst.^[61] The substance is in this brief definition: “Rationalism, in religion, as opposed to supernaturalism, means the adoption of reason as our sufficient and only guide, exclusive of tradition and revelation.”^{[62] [61]} History of Rationalism, Introduction.

^[62]Krauth-Fleming:Vocabulary.

Such rationalism leads on to the perversion or elimination of all the vital truths of Christian theology, not because they are in any proper sense opposed to human reason, but because they have their only source and sufficient ground in the Scriptures. If truths at all, they are divinely revealed truths. The ground of their truth lies in the evidences which verify the Scriptures as a divine revelation. To accept them simply on such ground is contrary to the ruling principles of rationalism. Their rejection is the legitimate consequence. That such consequence followed the prevalence of rationalism in Germany is simply the truth of history.^[63] The inspiration of the Scriptures, the Adamic fall and corruption of the race, the redemption and salvation in the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, justification by faith, spiritual regeneration, a new life in the Holy Spirit—these vital truths could not remain under the dominance of rationalism. Their rejection is simply the consequence of their inconsistency with the determining principles of rationalism, and not that they are in any true sense opposed to our rational intelligence. There is nothing unreasonable in the doctrine of a divine revelation of truths of religion above our own power of discovery; nothing unreasonable in the vital truths so given in the Scriptures. Even the truths which surpass our power of comprehension do not contradict our reason. That any revealed truth should contradict our reason would itself contradict all the ruling ideas of a divine revelation. There are rights of reason in questions of religion which such a revelation may not violate, and which, indeed, would thereby render itself impossible. “We must have rational grounds for the acceptance of a supernatural revelation. It must verify its right to teach authoritatively. Reason must be competent to judge, if not of the content, at least of the credentials, of revelation. But an authority proving by reason its right to teach irrationally is an impossible conception.”^[64] But truths of Scripture which, as the divine Trinity and the personality of the Christ, transcend our power of comprehension arc not on that account in any contradiction to our reason, nor in any proper sense irrational. The infinity of space is not an irrational idea. Indeed, it is a necessary truth of our reason; and yet it is quite as incomprehensible as either the divine Trinity or the personality of the Christ. But t:ie determining principles of rationalism, which hold the subjection of all questions of religion to a philosophic rationale, must reject these great and vital truths of Christianity.

^[63]Hurst:History of Rationalism, chap. viii.

^[64]Caird:Philosophy of Religion, pp. 69, 70. The high function of reason in questions of religion and theology, as previously maintained, is entirely free from all these errors of rationalism. It is thoroughly loyal to the Scriptures as a supernatural revelation of truth from God, and submissive to their authority in questions of faith and practice. It heartily accepts the vital truths of Christianity on the ground of their divine original. This is no blind submission of our reason to mere authority. The word of God contains within itself the highest reason of its truth. Nothing is accepted with higher reason of its truth than that which God has spoken. The Scriptures ground their claim upon our acceptance in the sufficient proofs that they are the word of God. In this they duly respect our rational intelligence. Evangelical theology ever renews this tribute. It is useless to object that the authority conceded to the Scriptures in questions of religion would require the belief of things most irrational, or even contradictory to our reason, if divinely revealed. The objection is ruled out as utterly irrelevant and groundless. Such a divine revelation is unthinkable.^[65]

^[65] Rose:The State of Protestantism in Germany; McCaul:Thoughts on Rationalism; Saintes:Histoire du Rationalisme; Lecky:History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe; Mansel:Limits of Religious Thought; Hurs:History of Rationalism; Fisher:Faith and Rationalism; Hagenbacli:German Rationalism in its Rise, Progress,and Decline.