THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH OF JESUS
I have promised the editors of the American Journal of Theology to indicate to their readers the answer I think must be given to the question, “Is the doctrine of the supernatural birth of Jesus essential to Christianity?” In addressing myself to fulfil this promise, however, I find myself laboring under a good deal of embarrassment. I am naturally embarrassed, for example, by the narrowness of the space at my disposal. Within the limits allowed me, I can hope to do nothing more than suggest a few of the considerations which weigh with me, and these only in the most cursory manner. I am much more embarrassed, however, by the infelicity of discussing the relation to Christianity, considered as a system of doctrine (that is to say, as a consistent body of truth), of a fact, the historicity of which I am to leave to others to discuss, who may perhaps reach conclusions to which I could by no means assent, whether in kind or merely in degree. I can only say that I have myself no doubt whatever of the fact of the supernatural birth of Jesus, as that fact is recorded in the opening chapters of the gospels of Matthew and Luke. I certainly make no question that additional evidence of tremendous weight is brought to this fact by its place in the system of Christianity, commended as this system as a whole is by the entire body of proof which we call the “Christian evidences.” But I do not believe that it needs this additional evidence for its establishment. And I prefer my readers to understand that I proceed to the consideration of its place in the Christian system with it in my hands, not as a hypothesis of more or less probability (or improbability), but as a duly authenticated actual occurrence, recognized as such on its own direct evidence, and bringing as such its own quota of support to the Christian system of which it forms a part.
I am embarrassed most of all, however, by the ambiguity of the language in which the question I am to discuss is stated. What is “the doctrine of the supernatural birth of Jesus”? What exactly, indeed, is intended by the main term employed? What is a “supernatural birth”? Were the births of Isaac and of John the Baptist “supernatural births”? Or those of Samson and of Samuel? Or those of Jeremiah and of Paul, whom, we are told, the Lord had selected for his own in or from the womb? Is not, indeed, the birth of every good man whom God prepares for some special work for him— certainly by influences beginning in the loins of his ancestors—in some sense supernatural? Nay, no one who believes in Providence can doubt that there is a supernatural element in the birth of every man that comes into the world. It may easily come about, therefore, that one may be found contending earnestly that the “supernatural birth” of Jesus is essential to Christianity, and yet sharply denying that that birth was “supernatural” in the only sense in which it is important to contend for its supernaturalness. What sense, further, we need to ask, is to be attached to the word “essential” here? Is the inquiry, perchance, whether the supernatural birth of Jesus constitutes the very essence of Christianity, so that in this doctrine Christianity is summed up? Or merely whether it enters so into the substance of Christianity that Christianity is not fully stated without it? The crowning ambiguity attaches, however, to the term “Christianity” itself. Is it to be taken subjectively or objectively? Are we asking whether it is possible for a man to commit his soul to Christ as his Savior without a clear knowledge and firm conviction of his Lord’s virgin birth? Or are we asking whether any statement of Christianity can be thought complete which omits or ignores this doctrine? Or if it be supposed that this question is already settled by the use of the word “doctrine,” we still have to ask what objective “Christianity” it is that we are to have in mind? The Christianity of the New Testament, or of some fragment of the New Testament, arbitrarily torn from its context and interpreted in isolation? The Christianity of the churches—the historical Christianity embodied in the authoritative creeds of Christendom; or the Christianity of a certain school of recent critical speculations—the Christianity of Auguste Sabatier, say, or of Paul Lobstein, or of Otto Pfleiderer, or of Adolf Harnack?
Were the inquiry a purely historical one, it might no doubt be soon settled. It admits of no doubt, for example, that, historically speaking, the “supernatural birth of Jesus” forms a substantial element in the Christianity as well of the New Testament, taken in its entirety, as of the creeds of the church. There it stands plainly written in both, and even he who runs may read it. Of course, it does not stand written on every page of the New Testament or of the creeds—why should it? And, of course, it may be thought a debatable question whether it has been logically or practically as important to historical Christianity as its prominent confession in the documents might seem to imply.3 That it holds no essential place in much of the “Christianity” current at the opening of the twentieth century is certainly too obvious for discussion. To the late Auguste Sabatier, for example, “Christianity” had come to mean just the altruistic temper; and nobody will imagine the “supernatural birth of Jesus”—or any kind of birth of Jesus, for that matter, natural or supernatural or unnatural—essential to the altruistic temper. Must not much the same be said also of the “Christianity” of Otto Pfleiderer, or of any form of that at present very fashionable “Christianity” which supposes the parable of the Prodigal Son, say, to contain a complete statement of the Christian religion? As there is no atonement, and no expiation, and no satisfaction, so there is no mediator, no Jesus of any kind in the parable of the Prodigal Son. And the “Christianity” which refuses to know anything but the love of God which is there revealed to us, as it has no need of a Jesus, can have no need of a “supernatural birth” for the Jesus whom it totally ignores, or for whom it makes at best but an unessential place.