A REPLY TO "FOUNDATIONS"*
MB. RONALD Kwox's formal reply to the collection of theological essays published under the name of Foundakions, is no less clever and witty, and, we may add, no less unfair, than the parody of Absalom and Ahifophei with which be greeted• its publication. Of its unfairness, as of its wit, any reader- may convince himself who will read with ordinary attention the opening chapter. For example, Mr. Knox attempts there to make fun of the claim for restatement of theological doctrine in terms of modern thought by restating the doctrine of God's Fatherhood according to the idea of fatherhood entertained by Mr. Bernard Shaw, which omits the notion of authority. That is witty enough ; but is it fair? Has any writer in Foundations suggested that the doctrine of God's Fatherhood needs restatement, or that it can be stated in any other terms than those which Christ Himself employed? However, we do not wish to dwell upon this defect, though we think that wit is best banished from theological dis- cussion, just because of its inevitable unfairness. Mr. Knox's purpose is thoroughly serious, and be makes great play with logic. Now and then we recognize that his " loose stones," impelled by the syllogistic sling, make some very palpable hits, The appendix on the psychological influence of hypothesis is an effective protest much needed by the modern school of theologians ; and the analysis of Mr. Streeter's unfortunate excursus on the Resurrection stories, a. weak point in an excellent essay, is a very clever piece of work. But that chapter illustrates at the same time the unconvincing nature of Mr. Knox's dialectic, for all its cleverness. It is a. comparatively simple task to make a logical assault upon a tentative position ; it is more difficult to supply its place with Some Loon Hlonto. 137 IC A. Hans. London: Longman and Co. Cda.11651r not) a view which shall recognize all the facts of the case, and be less open to attack. Such reconstruction Mr. Knox disdains ; nay, he seems to take pleasure in. putting forward for accept- anse the most popular views in their crudest form. Thus he concludes his discussion of the Resurrection and Ascension stories with this profession of faith :—" I believe that whatever change may have glorified the Risen Body when it passed beyond the cloud into a new mode or sphere of existence, the earth has ever since the Ascension been the lighter by so many pounds' weight, and the sum of matter in the world the less by so many eqiutre [P cubic] inches of volume." We question whether many persons not members of the Church of Rome will approve such an apologia. Certainly, in our• judgment, non defensoribus iota templet eget.
Mr. Knox's main contention is that Christian faith is a matter of a priori prepossession, not at all of verified hypothesis; and he claims that his own faith is thus secure from any attack of reason. But he has not been able to escape altogether from the modern spirit, and so his position breaks down. Among such necessary prepossessions he reckons the uniformity of nature, the providential govern- ment of the world, and the conviction of the Bible's infalli- bility, based on the assurance that God would not leave Himself without accurate witness. However, Mr. Knox would seem to have recognized, though he does not expressly say so, that the prepossession in favour of the Bible's infallibility cannot be held in the teeth of even one instance of fallibility ; and ao he substitutes as his pre- possession "a conviction of Biblical truth." But he must have logic enough to see that while he thus saves his pre- possession, he does not secure his creed, so far as it is concerned with historical facts. If he allows himself to use the despised critical faculty on the Tower of Babel, he cannot forbid Mr. Streeter to use it on the Gospel narratives. The chapter on miracles is vitiated by the prepossession of infallibility in the Gospel stories ; which is as illegitimate as aprepossessionagainstthe"miracles" in them. The writers of Foundations show neither prepossession; but they suggest that the idea of "special providencea," which leaves the uniformity of nature unaffected, covers the necessary ground. In stating his own case, Mr. Knox, to our surprise, falls into one of the commonest fallacies. Having defined a miracle as " that which traverses the law of the uniformity of nature," he ignores all that he has said in an earlier chapter about the uniformity of nature being a necessary presupposition, apart from which "science would be a nightmare," and there could not even be a hypothesis ; and on the ground that God is not a force but a person, he takes the word "law" in his own definition to mean what it means in legal terminology, and asks " Why should we suppose that God is bound by His own laws, when the King of England is not bound by his P " And, with his usual boldness, he continues: "That God should make the sun stand still over the vale of Ajalon is no more unin- telligible than the process by which an engine-driver reverses his engines." That surely depends upon whose intelligence is in question. "It is not the reason," says Mr. Knox, " but the imagination which is staggered by the idea of a miraculous occurrence." We think that if Mr. Knox had let his imagi- nation work upon the meaning and consequences of a temporary stoppage of the sun before applying to his reason, it might have given him a different answer. We are bound to my, therefore, that the value of this book lies only in its occasional criticisms, by which no doubt the writers criticized will profit.
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