It was well pointed out in a recent number of this periodical (in a fragment bearing honored initials) that “Christianity is a religion of persons and facts.” This can be asserted of no other religious system. These may indeed be linked with the name, or give particulars of the history, of some celebrated individual, be it Confucius, Mahomet, or Gautama Buddha. But it is evident that the name is a mere label to differentiate them from other systems; they would be just as true, or rather as false (I speak of them as systems, and not of any fragments of morality contained in them), if some other name were appended to them, whether mythical as in the case of Buddha, historical as in that of Confucius or of Mahomet. In short, they are a tissue of theories with a residuum of sound moral precepts perhaps, though these, at all events in the Koran, notoriously stolen from the Bible. Here then is the high vantage-ground of Holy Scripture, that it presents realities and not surmises. For it is logical to meet facts with facts, as it is altogether Godlike to meet dismal facts such as sin and sorrow, pain and death, with divine facts, even redemption through a divine Person become Man. I contend therefore that on the comparatively low ground of mere reasonableness Christianity can show gain de cause over merely human systems. For how fatuous to essay to remedy facts by mere theories! It may be urged indeed that philosophy is content to explain them, or at least to make the attempt.
Be it so. Yet surely the facts of human life remain none the less dismal for the explanation. Nay, sin, sorrow, and death are not thus to be conjured. Theorizing about evil has never appreciably lessened the sum total of wickedness in the world; and it were hardly too much to say that the philosophers profited as little as any by their own polished periods, wherein they expatiated on virtue and goodness. Take bereavement again. Eloquent essays have been penned on the duty of stoical recognition of it on the ground of the universality of its sway. More truly sings the poet, “That loss is common would not make my own less bitter—rather more.” Moreover that the explanations are not very satisfactory, even to their framers, is evident. For are they not ever modifying them, as they are contradicted by opposing philosophies? So much then by way of a brief appraisement of the relative value of facts and theories.
In the next place it is clear that, if these blessed facts of revelation are duly attested, the whole question is settled. It is vain for me to reject them because they do not square with my theories, which very likely have no securer foundation than an interested will, if not a perverted mind, and a sinful heart. If the evidence be, as it is, overwhelming, what avails impotent theorizing? Alas, the evidences of Christianity are deemed inadequate only by such as refuse to behold them in what Bacon called a “dry light,” free from the mists of prejudice and dislike. It has been pertinently said by a well-known divine that “the world has never refused its assent to any other facts supported by evidence so cogent as are those of the Gospel History; it has given unhesitating assent to many a strange fact which rests on infinitely less.” This witness is true.
On the other hand, it is indisputable that no mere intellectual accrediting of God's word will save the soul or bring to God, however legitimate it be to urge the cogency of the evidence as leaving no excuse for unbelief. No doubt conscience must be reached by the action of the Holy Spirit in order to saving acceptance of the truth. The soul, thus illuminated, humbly and gratefully bows to God's word, and grows into an appreciation of its marvelous adaptation to human necessities, of its infinite loving-kindness and its illimitable grandeur. “He that believeth hath the witness in himself” (1 John 5:1010He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. (1 John 5:10)). Of this indeed the unbeliever knows nothing, though to the renewed heart, as one has said, “Christ may be as near and real as the man who touches your elbow “—and, I would add, infinitely more so. But the point here pressed is (1) the facts, and (2) the evidence for the facts, which is, as has been said, so exceeding. To sum up the contention of this little paper, without taking the high ground of spiritual evidence to which we are entitled, it is manifest that Christianity is not only a “religion of facts,” but of facts irrefragably authenticated.
One word more as to theories. Such may be excellent, or at least plausible in their own sphere. Take the fashionable philosophy of the day—Evolution. None but a foolish person would deny that there is such a principle in operation. But is it the only one? Can it account for everything? Emphatically not. Yet the majority of the scientists of the age are overmastered by it, like men so immediately under the shadow of a great building that they are unable to grasp its relative position to other buildings. Yet if this attempt at unification were limited to material things, it would be of less consequence. But now we have men like Professor Drummond trying to embrace all things spiritual and temporal in one sweeping generalization. It is plain therefore that the danger of theorizing is not merely in clinging to suppositions instead of to divine facts, but that the force of the facts themselves is weakened by speculating as to their origin. For, applying their favorite idea of development, the Bible is looked at as merely the record of a partial and rather precarious inspiration, and not as the absolute and exclusive word of God. The fatal doctrine is abroad that the Holy Spirit in the church inspires apart from that word, and that He enables men to judge what is and what is not of permanent value. I believe, I do no wrong to the new teachers; but, if not, on what a perilously inclined plane are they moving! “To the law and to the testimony” (Isa. 8:2020To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isaiah 8:20)) has ever been the divine criterion. “It is written” is the constant reminder of the blessed Lord. Truly God is jealous both of adding to and taking from that word.
Finally, to prevent misconception, it is well to say that development, in the sense that God did not reveal everything at once, is of course most true, for it was part of His purpose. Hence the saying of Augustine, “In the O.T the New is latent; in the N. T. the Old is patent.” But development of this kind is not what is meant by the new school.
R. B. JUNR.