DOCTRINE AND DEVELOPMENT.•
A FRENen writer has recently called attention to the fact that the theory of development in doctrine, of which we hear so much nowadays from rationalistic writers, was first formulated in defence of the Roman conception of a Church, by John Henry Newman. It is a curious instance of extremes meeting ; and the volume before us shows how easily the theory may be allowed to give its sanction to any favourite views of a writer, and may be conceived of as without any scientific law. Many who hold that Newman overstated tha conservative principle, contained in his seven tests of a true development as distinguished from a "corruption," will find the absence of any conservative principle more unsatisfactory. Sabatier and Harnack are the writers whose names are most recently familiar in connection with the subject ; and Sabatier—some of whose positions are curiously similar to those of the leader of the Oxford Movement— devoted much of his argument to those safeguards which secure unity of type between the early Christian teaching and the neo-Christianity ; while Harnack, writing from a more rationalistic standpoint, supplies materials, nevertheless, which are amply sufficient for the same purpose. In Mr. Rashdall's volume, interesting though it is, we are unable to find any principle discriminating the evolution of doctrine from its simple change or abandonment.
The necessity for a doctrine of development is well stated by him in his introduction ; and as the passage will afford us
• Doctrine and Development: University Sermons. By Hastings Rashdall, D.C.L. London : Methuen and Co. [es.]
a point of departure for the reservations which we hold to be necessary, we give it in full:—
"At times the necessity far giving up4some element of tradi; tional dogma arises from the change which has taken place in our view of the facts of Christian history; at other times the modern Christian may accept the same view of the facts, but may find it impossible to be satisfied with some explanation of the facts which sufficed to 'vindicate the ways of God to man' for past generations. Thus we can no longer accept the theory of 'verbal' or of 'plenary' inspiration, because we have discovered that the facts about the Bible are not as they were supposed to be when the theory was constructed ; on the other haze, those who believe equally with St. Anselm or with Luther, that Jesus Christ died, and died for' men, can no longer accept with out reservation their explanations as to why there was this necessity for Christ's death, because men's ideas of what is intrinsically just and reasonable are different from what they were in the days of St. Anselm or of Luther. It is necessary, then, to admit that here and there there must be some 'giving up' of accepted doctrines, that at some points the ever active process of doctrinal development has got on to wrong lines, and must make a new departure. But in such cases we shall find that we are very often simply going back to some earlier stage in the development of doctrine, though generally the old doctrine will be held with a difference. The view of inspiration, for instance, to which modern Theologians are coming round is far more like that of the Early Fathers than it is like the view of seventeenth- century Protestantism. But still it is not the same : it is impos- sible that a critical age should think exactly like an uncritical one. And in the great majority of cases there need be no 'giving up.' The defects of the development may be corrected not by going back but by going on,—by a new and larger interpretation of the old formulae. The development has simply to be carried further. A doctrine may sometimes strike the modern mind as narrow, or one-sided, or inadequate, because in its ancient form it suggests ideas, or theories, or views of the universe which have been transcended, but which do not really affect its essential troth. Indeed, the new interpretation will often discover a fuller and higher meaning in the old words than the traditional interpretation. Many theories of Inspiration, for instance, become erroneous only, when what is asserted of the Bible or of the primitive Church is denied of other books, or of the Church in modern times. It is impossible that men's theological ideas should not be continually affected by the changes which Philosophy and Science and historical criticism have produced in their ideas about other things. The process of reconstruction through which Theology is now visibly passing, even in the hands of those to whom the.idea of theological innovation is least welcome, involves no greater revolution than has already occurred more than once in the Church's progressive attempt to understand and to formulate the relation of the faith once delivered to the saints' to the continuous self-revelation of God to the human spirit."
We fully recognise the sound sense of a great deal that is contained in this passage : but what we mis in it, and, indeed, throughout the sermons, is any adequate recognition of the fact that there is much in current thought which is probably quite transitory. Hasty developments to suit the fashion of the moment, in metaphysics or in ethics, lead to no definite line of progress, no growth in Christian doctrine such as will secure a recognisable identity between the Christianity of the first century and the Christianity of the twentieth. They result in a zigzag, with lines of retreat as numerous as those of advance, in a brand-new theology, often obliterating the cruder statements of an earlier time, but giving in their place no reliable substitute,—no fresh development which might not eventually be replaced by its opposite.
The principal cause of this defect appears to us to be an indiscriminate idealisation of the Zeitgeist of the present hour. What is a permanent acquisition of human thought is not marked off from the conclusions of the moment, due often enough to temporary causes and human weaknesses. There is nothing intrinsically more stable in the worship of Hegelianism which we now see in certain quarters, than in the worship of Aristotle in days when each utterance of the Philo- sopher par excellence was regarded by the schoolmen as so literally infallible that the Bible had to be so interpreted as not to contradict it. Modern historical and critical methods are beyond question permanent acquisitions, but the conclusions to which they lead in the hands of men whose assumptions are rationalistic, are in a totally different posi- tion. They may, equally, be positive assertions of the Zeitgeist, but they are not, equally, permanent acquisitions of human knowledge. Again, the ethical sentiment of the hour may pronounce ex cathedra against such doctrines as the atonement or original sin as intrinsically unjust ; but such pronounce- ments, again, have no assured mark of a true development. They may well be due to a temporary phase of emotional development, which can claim the sanction of no law of growing advance, no relation with the gradual approach of the human mind towards further truth. Or they may be due to a false estimate of what is really involved in the doctrines condemned. Of course if we claim to see in the ethical views orther *hat they regard as " intrinsically " just or unjust—part of the " continuous self-revelation of God to the human spirit" (to use Mr. Rashdall's phrase) argument is at an end. Such a position can only be disproved when a later age makes a similar claim for opposite views. But for those who look for some objective test such sentiments of the hour have none to offer. Similarly "the Zeitgeist would make short work of the miraculous; would sweep away our Lord's divinity; would bring the Bible to a level with other works, by no means in deference to assured advance in science and criticism, but in virtue of just those temporary exaggerations and emotions against which the fixed truths of revelation were intended to be an impressive and standing antidote.
" Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell."
Unless our reverence for the original Christian revelation is very deep—so deep that we feel the great danger of losing important truths if we give up lightly any of the traditional doctrine—the theory of development, of which -we talk so glibly, will prove a doctrine of evacuation. When criticism and science have quite clearly spoken, it is obviously necessary to apply them to dogmas whose expression was framed in ignor- ance of their new information. When there is real doubt, stable conservatism is the wisest policy. Stationary life is better than the change to corruption. The great organism of the Christian Church, still in the prime of life, may need the-aid of a medicinal science in order to secure its healthy growth and to cure incidental disease. But its constitution is likely to be impaired by the repeated and fussy applications of the nostrums of the Time spirit.
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