Recent Theology
The Atonement in History and in Life Essays edited by the Essays in Christian Theology. By Leonard Hodgson, M.A. (Longmans. 9s.)
THE BISHOP OF CHELMSFORD tells us in his preface, that the essays gathered together in The Atonement in History and in Life 'ard tlie result of the dissatisfaction felt by a group of friends at the modern neglect of St. Anselm's doctrine of Atonement—the backbone of old-fashioned Evangelicalism.
It is a doctrine which, if it is to retain its place in Christian theology, is specially in need of reinterpretation in the terms of modern thought. At bottom, the idea of Atonement represents an attempt to solve the problem of evil—the most pressing of all problems for religious men—and explain the nature of the Christian remedy for " sin." This it does along two lines ; those of historical theology, and of personal experience. Both are represented in this book. In the first place we have careful discussions of the long history of sacrifice, and its meaning ; and of Atonement as it appears in the Synoptists, St. Paul, the Fathers, and the later Catholic and Protestant theology. Dr. Whateley's careful analysis of St. Anselm's doctrine is here of special importance. If in these discussions we sometimes feel that we are dealing with theological notions rather than with the actualities of the spiritual life, and promising lines of thought too often end in one of those hoary dogmatic formulae which the lay mind finds so very hard to digest, we may perhaps find comfort in Mr. Grensted's reminder that " The belief in an objective atonement does, in fact, imply a definite claim to understand at least in some degree the ways of God and the meaning of His creation."
Secondly, we have, especially in the essays of Mr. Grensted and Mr. Shebbeare, an application of the concept of atonement to the inner experience of the individual man—his sense of wrongness and of need ; of something which must be done to and for him, from outside himself, if he is to be harmonized ; and the Christian belief that this something it done to him, in the experience called " redemption." The valuable part of the doctrine for practical religion probably lies here ; in its realistic stress on something gone wrong with man's psychology and man's life, the need of bridging the gulf between him and Holiness. Mr. Shebbeare, in bringing these thoughts into relation with the austere transcendentalism of Karl Barth, has done a valuable piece of work along the lines in which it seems probable that Christian philosophy is destined to develop in the immediate future. His paper, and the interesting and original discussion of " Atonement and the Problem of Evil," by Archbishop D'Arcy, are the most attractive and thought-provoking essays in the book.
It is unfortunate that the term Modernism, in its application to religion, has acquired a peculiar shade of meaning and is generally held to imply a special kind of theological outlook. Hence, those using it in a general sense are liable to be mis- understood, and we are left without any useful term by which to describe such truly modern and fresh writers on Christian philosophy as Archbishop D'Arcy and Mr. Shebbeare or—moving to the more Catholic side of the theological arena—Professor Leonard Hodgson. Professor Hodgson, whose introduction to the Gospels, " And Was Made Man," stood out among the theological writings of its year, has gathered together in his new book a number of essays which range from studies of Freedom, Personality and Sin to actual problems of psychology, religious discipline, and ethics. But whether discussing apparently abstract themes or the diffi- culties of practical life, his method is always vigorous and unconventional ; and he constantly brings together the great doctrines which express the Christian ideal, and the facts of man's everyday experience. The concept of Freedom, and man's winning of it, occupies the central place in Professor Hodgson's philosophy ; he will have nothing to do with mechanistic and behaviourist psychology, or with any theory of human nature which makes man the slave instead of the master of his own instinctive life. " The spiritual life is the life of intelligent purpose." Man is placed on the frontier between two orders, and by rightly using and so increasing his freedom, may fashion for himself a personality capable of the supernatural life :
" As true freedom is only to be won through moral progress, Man has the choice either by co-operation with God to become a rational being capable of the eternal mode of reality, or to sink back into the impersonal mechanistic order from which he has come. . . Life comes to us as plastic raw material, not as finished product, and it has to be fashioned before it can be understood. It is the raw material out of which spiritual realities are to be created."
Amongst the practical questions examined in the light of this conception, is the burning problem of " Birth Control and Christian Ethics "—and this essay deserves to be read with the greatest attention by all interested in the difficult adjust- ment between Christian standards and the pressure of modern life. Reminding us that " psychological bogies fatten upon fear " and the Christian can afford to laugh at " repressed complexes," the Professor goes on to point out that the spirit of man is set towards a freedom that involves self- conquest ; and will never be content to " meet its difficulties by avoiding them." Nevertheless, his conclusion, with its frank acknowledgment of a double standard—" the highest life and the permissible life . . . the life of the honours man and the life of the pass man "—though it is, as he says, a commonplace of Catholic moral theology, will not please all his fellow-Christians, and least of all .those of his own "theological colour." Yet it is full of charity and common sense, and those who dislike it most would do well to ponder it deeply.
With the late Dr. Griffith Thomas's massive work on the Thirty-Nine Articles, we seem to move back into a religious atmosphere wholly foreign to Professor Hodgson's fresh and vigorous spirituality. Here is a monument of research and exposition, the fruit of forty years' work as teacher and thinker, in which the whole of the formal theology implied in the doctrine of the Anglican Church is set out with clear- ness, and justified from history and authority. Its value will be realized by those students in whose interests it
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