A Rational Theology
Tests revision (and expansion) of the Maurice Lectures delivered by the Dean of St. Paul's in 1949 has much significance. The Dean is anxious that his book shall be read in the light not only of his title but of the sub-title, " An Essay on the. Incarnation." That is what in effect it is—an interpretation of the eternal message, or fact, of the first century in terms of the twentieth. " I believe," writes Dr. Matthews, " in the need for a rational theology," and in these eighty-five pages he sets himself to outline one. Within such limits it can be no more than an outline, but to be suggestive is far better . than to be dogmatic, and stimulatingly suggestive the Dean un- questionably is ; his book may well be the starting-point for new ranges of thought.
What, in brief, is the problem ? God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. That, Dr. Matthews submits, is the essential truth that emerges from the Gospels. " If we would find God, we must seek Him in the words, acts and personality of Jesus of Nazareth." The vital word here is " personality." If we are to try to understand in what way God was in Christ, Schleier- macher's doctrine of God-consciousness, developed in Jesus of Nazareth to a unique degree, may well be the key. Here the Dean calls in aid some of the accepted findings of modern psychology, particularly as to the reality of the sub-conscious, and even the unconscious. But he goes still further, with all reverence. Psycho- logists have formulated—the Dean thinks, on the whole, established —the concept of the Libido, " which is, in a general and vague sense, sexual." Could Christ be tempted at all points like as we are and yet have nothing of the Libido ? Could what is on the whole the most insistent temptation that presents itself to man be absent ? This is a searching question. Its answer, if the answer be negative, finds explanation in the conviction—or assumption—that in Christ God-consciousness was so complete that Libido was kept submerged to the level of the sub-conscious. All human instincts and impulses were there, but absolutely, even sub-consciously, controlled.
This necessarily abbreviated summary does less than justice to the Dean of St. Paul's argument. The argument must be studied in the words in which he has chosen to express it himself. It is, in fact, carried much further than I have indicated here, for it embraces among other factors telepathy and extra-sensory per- ception. These are new fields of exploration for theologians, but they demand to be explored. Dr. Matthews has pointed the way, and he would probably not claim to have done more than that. It is to be hoped that he himself, and nb doubt others, will follow the path much further. For the need of a rational theology, in this as
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