04 - Doubt as an Aid to Belief

THE SPIRIT OF HIGHER CRITICISM "And what remains of the Bible, Beloved, is divinely inspired."

It is related as a fact that a parishioner of a higher critic kept note of the Bible books criticized by his pastor, and cut from his Bible the portions criticized till nothing was left but the empty covers, which he presented to the minister. Higher criticism, if followed, leaves the world without hope in the morass of sin.

IV- DOUBT AS AN AID TO BELIEF THE tendency of modern science is to eliminate old methods; that of modern philosophy, to discard antique theories; that of modern Christianity, to use modern science and modern speculative philosophy to subvert, annihilate, "the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints." Jude 1:3, A. R. V. The horse is being supplanted by the automobile, the steam engine by the electric engine, and the telegraph by wireless. In like manner, not to be outdone in the process of substitution, modern ministers, in many churches, are producing numerous volumes in every country in a Herculean endeavor to give us an up-to-date religion, a Christless Bible nay, - a Bibleless Christianity.

Man has become so skilled in art, so successful in science, so potent in war, that his pride revolts at the thought or suggestion of there being anything beyond the wonderful scope of his progressive, versatile, adjustive, or creative genius. To hint at a limitation of his achievements is to insult his ability; to criticize his methods is to malign his morals; to disagree with his conclusions is to flout his genius; and to deprecate his emasculated religion is to traduce mankind. In the overweening pride of his progress, man is rearing a lofty intellectual Tower of Babel. Like the tower on the plain of Shinar, its top is designed to "reach unto heaven"- in sooth, to God Himself. But let man beware lest his modern Babel share the fate of the ancient tower; for "the secret things belong unto the Lord." Through the veil of the Infinite, man cannot penetrate. Here the daring of his speculation is the measure of his folly. Here the bowed head is the highest wisdom, and silence the noblest eloquence. The world is being filled with pleasing fables, wooing man from the stony upward path of virtue to the flowery, easy highway of gratification, luring him to pleasant dreams of Oriental languor in Elysian palaces of bliss. Honest truth-seekers thus encompassed with a seducing salvation of enrapturing ease, find their minds often clouded in perplexity, and their souls shrouded in darkness. The world in general is tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, without anchor, without compass, without chart, and without Captain. This, in an ever increasing degree, is the work of the new theology.

Once the attack upon the Bible was from without. Once the devastating criticism was led by a Voltaire. A century ago, a Paine was mightiest in hurling invectives at Christianity. Nay, only two decades ago, an Ingersoll or a Bradlaugh held highest the banner of Bible criticism. Then the friends of the Bible knew its enemies, for they were open and avowed. But to-day the divine stories upon which our parents were nurtured, around which their affections entwined, and by which their faith was supported, are declared by the theological professors of many of the greatest colleges in the world to be not only untrue in some parts, but false in every particular - the myths of a superstitious and ignorant people, generated in an age of darkness.

Thus has the banner of infidelity been wrested from the Paines and the Ingersolls, and held aloft by religious leaders. I feel with grief and write with sadness that the foundations of our faith are thus ruthlessly torn away, not by men who, like Gibbon and Voltaire, are the declared enemies of Christianity, but by the world’s renowned professed believers. Thus is the Bible smitten by hand of a friend. Thus is it betrayed, like its Master, with a kiss. The modern religious teachers and leaders not only adopt the old infidel arguments, but enlarge them; not only endorse the conclusions of the most rabid infidels, but strengthen them; not only repeat the old infidel slogans, but invent new ones even more revolutionary. The violent unbelief of Voltaire has been baptized, and rechristened higher criticism, or new theology, or liberal Christianity. In the doubting minds and the sordid hearts of the scoffing skeptics of a century or more ago were planted the seeds of the rampant unbelief which, under the sedulous cultivation of learned divines, is opening into full bloom in the devastating higher criticism of to-day. Fallacies and frauds advanced a score of times in the past, and a thousand times exploded, are by the higher critics gravely repeated as new and important truths. The higher critic’s maxim, that the Bible must be studied like any other book, is the basis of all present criticism. And this theory has led to its corollary that the Bible must be like any other book. They denounce Christ’s teaching that "Thy word is truth," because it contradicts their own. But either the Bible is true or it is not. It is the word of God or a delusion. It is absolutely reliable or not at all reliable. It is, either infallible or utterly untrustworthy. There is no middle ground. One must take his position either with Christ, Paul, and John, or with Paine, Voltaire, and Ingersoll. But the higher critic is trying to manufacture a middle ground. He endeavors to be at once both infidel and Christian, and succeeds in being only infidel. That I have not exaggerated; that the higher critic is a doubter first, last, and all the time; that doubting is not only a pleasant pastime, but a serious business with him, is easy of proof. A religious instructor in the Wesleyan University wrote in the North American Review for April, I900, as follows:

"In every sphere of investigation, he should begin with doubt and the student will make the most rapid progress who has acquired the art of doubting well. . . . We ask that every student of theology take up the subject precisely as he would any other science: that he begin with doubt. . . . We believe that even the teachings of Jesus should be viewed from this standpoint, and should be accepted or rejected on the grounds of their inherent reasonableness."

Doubt is the means by which unsanctified reason always works. Self is its mainspring, and self its goal; self its element, and the worship of self its result. But "0 thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" Matthew 14:31. "Neither be ye of doubtful min (Luke 12:29); for "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23), and "without faith it is impossible to please Him" (Hebrews 11:6), while on the other hand, "all things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23). The wisdom of the higher critic is dangerous; for "the world through its wisdom knew not God." 1 Corinthians 1:21, A. R. V. All these theological exalters of reason should obey the urgent words of Paul counseling them about "casting down reasonings, . and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5, A. R. V., margin. In face of these scriptures, the fact that "the art of doubting" is actually-- taught as the most essential qualification for learning religion in a divinity school, is a most appalling condition of affairs, and is significant of the trend and effect of all the teaching of the new theology. Its foundation is doubt, and its object is to promulgate doubt. Doubt is its essence, infidelity its sphere, and atheism its result. The destructive critic has the advantage over the constructive scholar. The critic, having no house of his own, can without risk, set fire to his neighbor’s. And of course the burning of a house attracts more attention than the building of one.