The Theology of the Intellect and that of the Feelings. A Discourse before the Convention of the Congregational Ministers of New England, in Brattle-street Meeting House, Boston, May 30th, 1850. By Edwards A. Park, Professor in Andover Theological Seminary. Princeton Review, October, 1850.
The normal authority of the Scripture is one of the subjects about which, at the present time, the mind of the church is most seriously agitated. The old doctrine of the plenary inspiration, and consequent infallibility of the written word, is still held by the great body of believers. It is assailed, however, from various quarters and in different ways. Some of these assaults are from avowed enemies; some, from pretended friends; and others, from those who are sincere in thinking they are doing God service in making his word more pliant, so that it may accommodate itself the more readily, not to science, but to the theories of scientific men; not to philosophy, but to the speculations of philosophers. The form of these attacks is constantly varying. The age of naked rationalism is almost over. That system is dying of a want of heart. Its dissolution is being hastened by the contempt even of the world. It is no longer the mode to make “common sense” the standard of all truth. Since the discovery of the Anschauungs Vermögen men see things in their essence. The intuitional consciousness has superseded the discursive understanding; and Rationalists have given place to Transcendentalists. In the hands of many of the latter, the Scriptures share the same fate which has overtaken the outward world. As the material is but the manifestation of the spiritual—so the facts and doctrines of the Bible are the mere forms of the spirit of Christianity; and if you have the spirit, it matters not what form it takes. These gifted ones, therefore, can afford to be very liberal. They see in Christianity, as in all things else, a manifestation of what is real. They pity, but can bear with,those who lay stress on the historical facts and doctrinal assertions of the Scriptures. They look on them as occupying a lower position, and as belonging to a receding period. Still men can have the substance in that form as well as in another. The misfortune is that they persist in considering the form to be the substance, or at least inseparable from it. They do not see that as the principle of vegetable life is as vigorous now, as when it was expressed in forms extant only as fossils, and would continue unimpaired though the whole existing flora should perish; so Christianity would flourish uninjured, though the New Testament should turn out to be a fable.
This theory has more forms than one; and has many advocates who are not prepared to take it in its full results. Neither is it confined to Germany. With most of the productions of that teeming soil, it is in the process of transplanting. Shoots have been set out, and assiduously watered in England and America, which bid fair to live and bear fruit. The doctrine that “Christianity consists not in propositions—it is life in the soul,”1 and a life independent of the propositions, of necessity supersedes the authority, if not the necessity of the Scriptures. This doctrine, variously modified, is one of the forms in which the word of God is made of none effect.
Another theory, intimately related to one just referred to, is the doctrine that inspiration differs in degree, but not in nature, from the spiritual illumination which ordinary men enjoy. Just in proportion as the religious consciousness is elevated, the intuition of divine things is enlarged and rendered more distinct. If sanctification were perfect, religious knowledge would be perfect. “Let there be a due purification of the moral nature,” says Morell, “a perfect harmony of the spiritual being with the mind of God—a removal of all inward disturbances from the breast, and what is to prevent or disturb this immediate intuition of divine things?” P. 174.2 The inspiration of the sacred writings, resembles, he tells us, that of men of genius. The natural philosopher is so in harmony with nature that he has a sort of intuition of her laws; the poet from sympathy with his fellow-men, can unfold the workings of the human breast; and so good men, from congeniality with God, can see the things of God. Of course the trustworthiness of the sacred writers differs with their goodness. Those of the Old Testament, standing on a much lower level of moral culture than those of the New, are proportionately below them in authority. The weight due to what these writers say, depends not only on their relative goodness, but also on the subjects of which they treat. Beyond the sphere of moral and religious truths, they can have no peculiar authority, because to that sphere the intuitions of the religious consciousness are of necessity confined. The greater part of the Bible, therefore, is not inspired, even in this low sense of the term; and as to the rest, it is not the word of God. It is merely the word of good men. It has at best but a human, and not a divine authority; except, indeed, for those who repudiate the distinction between human and divine, which is the case with the real authors of this system. We are, however, speaking of this theory as it is presented by professed theists. It has appeared under three forms, according to the three different views entertained of the Holy Spirit, to whom this inspiration is referred. If by that term is understood the universal efficiency of God, then all men are inspired, who, under the influence of the general providence of God, have their religious consciousness specially elevated. This is the kind of revelation and inspiration which many claim for heathen sages, and concede to Christian apostles. But if the Holy Spirit be regarded as “the forming, animating, and governing principle of the Christian church,” then inspiration is confined to those within the church, and belongs to all its members in proportion to their susceptibility to this pervading principle. Again, if the Holy Spirit be recognized as a divine person, dispensing his gifts to each one severally as he wills, inspiration may be a still more restricted gift, but its essential nature remains the same. It is that purifying influence of the Spirit upon the mind which enables it to see the things of God. It is simply spiritual illumination granted to all believers, to each according to his measure; to the apostles, it may be conceded in greater fullness than to any others, but to none perfectly. The Bible is not the word of God, though it contains the aspirations, the convictions, the out-goings of heart of men worthy of all reverence for their piety. The distinction between the Scriptures and uncanonical writings of pious men, is simply as to the degree of their piety, or their relative advantages of knowledge. It is not our business to discuss this theory of inspiration; we speak of it as one of the modes in which the authority of the Bible is, in the present age, assailed.