THE JOURNAL of RELIGIOUS THOUGHT
VOLUME XXII The Journal of Religious Thought
1965-1966 NUMBER 1
Authority in Protestantism: 1890-1930
By
DALLAS M. ROARK
THE FOUR DECADES FROM 1890 TO 1930 were years in which the
church, being under attack from within and without, was forced to
re-evaluate its basic presuppositions. During this period the usual
approach to the question of authority was to accept a single principle
and develop it. The basic argument was over the question of whether the
authority in religion was internal or external (1) However,
there were writers who were not geared to this distinction. There were
those who accepted a mediating position. They were geared to a "given"
factor of an objective reference as well as internal or subjective
appropriation. This latter category would have to include those who
accepted something of a pattern of authority or discrimen.(2)
Ideally speaking, an authority should be as stable as the polar star
and should speak to every man in the same way.(3) But the history
of .doctrine shows that this ideal has never been achieved. It is
perhaps true that such
1 WiIliam D. Livingstone, The
Princeton Apologetic as Exemplified by
the Work of B. B. Warfield and J. Gresham Machen, Ph.D.
Dissertation,
Yale, (April, 1948), p. 175.
2 Robert Clyde Johnson, Authority in
Protestant Theology
(Philadelphia, 1959), p. 15. Johnson describes a discrimen as
"designating a configuration of criteria that are in some way
organically related to one another as reciprocal coefficients."
3 Soren Kierkegaard, On
Authority and Revelation, trans. Waiter
Lowrie (Prirtceton, 1955), pp. 60-61.
diiversity of opinion has never before won so prominent a place
in the major denominations of Protestantism as it did-in the period
under discussion.
It is difficult to classify the various alternate positions. Perhaps
the most useful method of approach is to move from the internal or
highly subjective to the external and objective authority. At the same
time we must maintain a separate category for the discrimen.
1. THE INNER LIGHT) OR LIGHT WITHIN
The term "inner light" can refer to anything from the light of the
Logos, who is shining in all the world to prepare the hearts of the
heathen for the preaching of the gospel, to the direct immediate voice
of the Holy Spirit.(4) Grubb, in his little work, Authority and the Light Within,
said that 'the "light within" is not identified with the conscience(5)
but works through the conscience to develop and enlighten the moral
sense.(6) He gave four uses of the term: 1) it refers to the
personal apprehension as opposed to belief as the basis of authority;
2) it refers to the perception of moral truth in which one discerns
right from wrong; 3) it sometimes refers to the individual's duty in a
particular matter, for instance, in choosing what is God's will for
one's life; 4) it refers to the knowledge of God and of life in
relation to him, which is experienced immediately.(7) Grubb was
aware that grave dangers could arise from the individualism of the
Spirit but argued that sobriety of character, moral earnestness, and
common sense plus an orientation toward scripture have saved the
movement from many excesses.(8)
One of the better known exponents of the doctrine of the inner light
was Cecil J. Cadoux (1883-1947). Cadoux's massive Catholicism and Christianity
appeared in 1928. His main thrust was against Catholicism, but he threw
a few stones at Protestant Orthodoxy in general and Fundamentalism
in particular. He denied the infallibility of not only the church and
the Bible but Jesus Himself. Cadoux argued that infallibility is an a
priori presupposition that is "void of logical cogency" and "is
inherently
4)Charles A. Briggs, General
Introduction to the Study of the Holy
Scripture (New York 1899), p. 610 ..
5) Edward Grubb, Authority and the
Light Within (Philadelphia, 1908),
p. 81. 6 Ibid.) p. 109.
7) Ibid.) pp. 64-68.
8) Ibid., pp. 70-71. cf. also pp. 39-40, 83.
unlikely to be true."(9) But when one denies infallibility, this does
not mean that one denies knowledge or certainty. The former is not to
be had, but the latter is abundant.(10) This authority and
assurance, for Cadoux, is found in the illumination of the "heart,
soul, mind and conscience" (l1) by God's Spirit, "the power in
fact which alone guarantees the Divine dignity of the Scripture and the
Church."(12) Cadoux contended that the authority of the Inner
Light is experienced prior to all objective authorities.(13) The
individual recognizes the persuasion of the Inner Light within
himself and makes the decision concerning the church or the Bible
before any submission is given to its authority.(14)
The
ultimacy of the
inner light is "evinced by the fact, that, in the last resort, it is
the individual alone who can satisfy himself as to when and where he
has found the truth."(15) Even granting the need of revelation,
it is no
revelation until it is recognized as such, which is a revelation from
God in itself. (16) Though a highly subjective answer to the
question of authority,
Cadoux expressed the viewpoint of many liberals of the era. Such a
position had its logical result in Fosdick's "changing categories and
abiding experiences." Doctrinal formulations of the past were
largely irrelevant.
II. CONSCIENCE
James Martineau (1805-1900), the English Unitarian,
was an
advocate of the conscience as the seat of authority in religion.
Martineau cut himself loose from the Reformation use of scripture as a
source of revelation. Any historic revelation to a man could not
remain
"pure and simple even for an hour." (17) The human and the
divine
become so mingled that trying to distinguish them would be
like trying to distinguish in a tree "the cells formed in a shower a
hundred years ago." (l8) That the soul had communion
9)Cecil ]. Cadoux, Catholicism
and Christianity, (London, 1928), p.
108.
10) Ibid., p. 163.
11) Ibid., p. 139.-
12) Ibid., p. 139.
13) Ibid., p. 117.
14)Ibid., p. 121.
15) Ibid., p. 166.
16)
Ibid., p. 166.
17) James Martineau, The Seat of
Authority in Religion, London:
Longmans, Green and Co., 1890, p. 129.
18) Ibid., p. 129.
with God Martineau did not deny, but it was a communion of spirit with
Spirit, silent: it "recites no history, it utters no Sibylline oracles,
it paints no ultramundane scenes."19
Where then is the source of authority for Martineau? It is the
conscience. 'There can be no external criteria for
discerning
right and wrong. The unmoral cannot find the' moral. Instead we have
"reason for the rational, conscience for the right .(20)0 These
are
the last courts of appeal. The "consciousness we have of the relative
excellence of the several instincts and affections which compete for
our will is neither more or less than conscience." (21)
The moral faculty, therefore, is not any apprehension of invisible
qualities in external actions, not any participation of them into
absolutely good and absolutely evil, not any intellectual testing of
them by rules of congruity, or balances of utility but a recognition at
their very source, of a scale of relative values lying within
ourselves and introducing a preferential character throughout the
countless combinations of our possible activity."'
Conscience, then, is the- estimating power that
chooses between two
competing instincts. Man has something of the divine nature
breathed into him and "our knowledge of God is regarded as his dwelling
in us." (23) Martineau concludes that "the word of
conscience is the voice
of God."(24) Only in this sense is it objective to all mankind.
What about the relativity of the
conscience as seen in the Borgias and
the Saints? Martineau did not claim that the conscience was infallible.
Instead, there is an evolutionary factor in the moral development
of man which is slow, but perceptible .
. In summary we must conclude
that the conscience as a religious
authority is not stable "as the polar star" and not only
undermines the once -for-all-revelation of God but introduces
relativity into ethics and doctrine. Furthermore, the conscience has no
word of forgiveness.
19). Ibid., p. 311. 20) Ibid., p. 129. 21) Ibid., p. 46. 22) Ibid., p.
46.
23) Ibid., p. 406. 24) Ibid., p. 406.
Ill. EXPERIENCE
When the subject of religious
experience is considered as an authority
in religion, it becomes exceedingly hard to organize the material. The
term religious experience has been used in so many different ways with
varying degrees of objective reference. It can mean the feeling of
dependence, peace of conscience, contrition, the test of truth by its
workability, the God-consciousness of Jesus, conscience, Christian
consciousness, and intuition. It can also refer to the testimonium
spiritus sancti internmn of Calvin (.25) The term can be used to
express
varying degrees of orthodoxy or the most extreme sort of liberalism.
There are a great many writers
who have incorporated religious
experience into their system of religious authority. William
Newton Clarke, in His Outline of
Theology, William Adams Brown, in his
Pathways to Certainty, and his Beliefs That Matter, J ulius Kaftan
in
his long article on "Authority As a
Principle of Theology,"26 Auguste
Sabatier, in his Religions of
Authority and the Religion of the
Spirit, Harry Emerson Fosdick, in his extensive writings,
Robert
Harvey Strachan, in his Authority of
Christian Experience, and John
Oman, in his Vision and Authority,
to one degree or other based their
authority in religion on experience.
For the sketch here we will
confine ourselves to a brief look at
Auguste Sabatier (1839-1901).
Sabatier's book, Religions of
Authority and the Religion of the Spirit,
like Martineau's, was a protest against the supposed infallibility of
the church and scripture; but unlike Martineau, he sought to develop a
positive doctrine of the religion of the spirit. He hailed
Schleiermacher as the messiah of the new" era ot theology and sought
to build on his approach to t:heology.(27) The religion of the
Spirit,
for Sabatier, is not based upon a doctrinal foundation
though it
has doctrines.
"
It is a religious sense, a faculty of discernment inherent
in
Christian faith, enabling it accurately to appreciate and judge
between all that in the present or past is of its permanent essence,
and all that is foreign or accessory to it." (28)
'When the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached, "there is awakened in the
25) Edwin E. Aubrey, "The Authority of Religious Experience," The
Journal of Religion, XIII (Oct. 1933), 433-449.
26) Julius Kaftan, "Authority as a Principle of Theology," The American
Journal of Theology, IV (Oct. 1900),673-733.
27) Auguste Sabatier, Religions of
Authority and the Religion of the
Spirit, trans. Louise S. Houghton (New York, 1904), p. 209.
28) Ibid., p. 361.
heart of the seeker a religious consciousness identified with that of
Jesus; it gives a consciousness of inward reconciliation with God and
divine sonship."29 Thus, this gospel though proclaimed by the most
imperfect preaching brings about the repetition of the "religious
and moral consciousness of J esus."30 The divine verities revealed in
the consciousness of Jesus impose themselves by their own virtue on the
seeker.(31)
What is this consciousness-of
Christ or the veri ties that impose
themselves on the seeker? It is a three-fold experience: "the
experience of our deliverance from evil, of our filial union with God,
and of our entrance-into eternal life." (32) In this and in this
alone is
Christ's authority supreme. By our spiritual union with him this
experience becomes ours, says Sabatier. It is when men fail to seek the
support of the Spirit that they turn for other supports; but there are
no other supports apart from the Spirit. (33) To the person who
would
protest that he could not have a subjective criterion, Sabatier
would reply that he could have no othe. ( 3) 4 To offset the danger of
anarchy and individualism Sabatier declares that the religious life is
not only individual but collective. (35) There is a certain amount of
conformity inasmuch as "dogmas, doctrines, received beliefs are nothing
else than the intellectual expression of the common religious
consciousness in a given society." (36)
We must grant that Sabatier made
a noble attempt but we must accept the
criticism of J ohnson that "filial consciousness" alone does not meet
the needs of mankind. (37) We can grant that dogmas are the products of
religious expression, but we must distinguish this from the gospel
which is based on more than experience. We must say that the
declaration of the gospel is the basis for experience. The heart and
genesis of Christian experience was a declaration, a doctrine
about a person; in essence, a gospel, a piece of good news. On this
basis there is an authority for experience.
29) Ibid.; p. 274.
30)Ibid., p. 274.
31) Ibid., p. 288.
32) Ibid., p. 294.
33) Ibid., p. 276.
34)Ibid., p. 261.
35) Ibid., p. 351.
36) Ibid., p. 357.
37Johnson, op. cit., p. 80.
IV. TRUTH
The writers who proposed truth as
the final authority also proposed
that truth must be experienced and private judgment must assent to
truth.(38) There is a subjectivity involved in the question of
what is
truth which could call for its inclusion in the category of religious
experience. But because the attempt is made to conceive of truth
as something "outside" man to which he gives assent and which should
be obvious to all men, there is some justification for
classifying it in a separate category.
This point of view was
represented by John Oman (1860-1939) who wrote
Vision and Authority. Perhaps one could sum up Oman's position
by
referring to the incident of Jesus and Peter recorded in Matthew 16
:18. After a time of discipleship, comparable to the search for truth,
Peter then gives his confession concerning the reality and truth of
Christ. Jesus then remarks that this confession has not come by flesh
and blood, secondary authorities, but from the Father in Heaven, the
giver of all insights. (39)
Oman began with the
presupposition that God is a God of truth.(40) Hence
there is a sense in which all discovery of truth 'is a religious
experience. He said, "All human experience is revelation, if the
great purpose of life is the discipline of souls and the one
unchanging guidance for all men is duty." (41) He rejected both the
concepts of an infallible Church and Bible. To insist on an authority
without, which disagrees with the authority within, not only denies the
validity of spiritual insight and discernment but human freedom
also. (42) The promised guidance of the Holy
Spirit both in the Church
and scripture is not an assurance of infallibility "but of a
living transmission. By it (the Spirit), the words of Christ
have lived on in the
practical life of the Church, a spiritual possession cherished
spiritual men."
Truth itself is something
that is grasped by spiritual insight, not intellectual acuteness.
It is
for this reason that Jesus
spoke in parables; they who had insight could understand.
the truth
of them and would become
38) Clarence A. Beckwith,
"Authority in Christian Belief," Harvard
Theological Review, IV
(April, 1911), 249-50. _
39) John Oman, Vision and Authority
(London, 1929), p,,1l9 .
40) Ibid.,
p. 23 ....
41) Ibid., p. 57 .
42) Ibid., p. 94 .
43)Ibid., p. 127; Cf. p. 93 .
44)Ibid., p. 256.
followers for no other reason than truth's sake. Any appeal to the
authority or the Rabbis was not exercised. (45) The same is true
in the
preaching of the disciples; they simply proclaimed their message and
its truthfulness was verified by God himself .(46)
One last quotation will summarize Oman's position on
authority.
"On the authority of a man's own
Divinely instructed heart and on the
authority of his Divinely interpreted experience, the word spoken
is found to be undeniably true, a word in the last remove not revealed
by flesh and blood, but by the Father in heaven. Christ speaks with
authority just because he speaks straight to the heart and experience.
For this very reason he had no need to rely on others as
authorities."' (47)
There are manifest problems with
"truth" as an authority in religion. Obviously God's truth is -the
authority. But in the human context truth
today is often tomorrow's error, and a great deal of uncertainty
enters. Oman recognized this and countered that truth is progressive.
Truth as authority posits an ideal which is not known to man but toward
which man is always striving. (48)
A basic objection is that Oman
does not do justice to the "given" in
the matter of revelation. If God reveals directly now in the quest of
truth, why not admit the authority of a historical primitive
revelation?
45 Ibid., p. 110. 46)
Ibid., p. 310. 47) Ibid., p. 107. 48) Beckwith, op. cit., p. 249.
V. A PATTERN OF AUTHORITY OR Discrimen
This category covers a
variety of points of view and combinations. It
is admitted that there is difficulty in classifying the several
points
of view suggested below. The only rationale for classifying such
diverse points of view together under one heading is that they are not
monistic regarding authority in religious matters.
The differences in points of view
can be seen by first comparing some
of the writers. In 1890 Lux Mundi
appeared with an essay written by
Bishop Charles Gore. For Gore, the church is the authority, but the
Spirit and the scriptures have their own roles to play. The order is
this: The
church teaches, the Spirit converts, the Bible edifies.(49) A
different
combination was suggested by Charles Augustus Briggs.
Briggs rejected the infallibility of the church and the Bible but
declared that the Bible contains
the Word of God.(50) The scriptures are
used by the Spirit to speak to the heart of the believer. Thus Briggs
included both subjective and objective elements in his authority.
A. E. J. Rawlinson, in his essay
on "Authority" in Essays Critical and
Catholic, argued that the Gospel is the "fundamental and primary
authority" but there are other secondary authorities in the Christian
faith.(51) But for all practical purposes the church is the
authority
entrusted with the Gospel. The New Testament presupposes the prior
existence and activity of the Church, of whose authoritative
tradition it forms a part."(52) Wilfred L. Knox in his essay
"The
Authority of the Church" in the same work develops further the thought
that scripture alone is not adequate. The scripture must be interpreted
from the standpoint of the church's tradition(3 In seeking to
answer the question as to "the source, seat and organ of authority in
the Church of Christ," Edward G. Selwyn, in the preface to the Essays,
spoke of its source as the spirit ~f God; its seat is in the common
mind of the church; its organ of expression is in the scriptures,
creeds, dogmatic formulations, its liturgical forms and phrases,
"whatever in short has nourished and borne fruit in the lives of the
saints." (54)
The most extensive work embodying a discrimen was the work by
Peter
Taylor Forsyth, The Principle of
Authority, which appeared in 1913.
Forsyth has been termed pre- Barthian and as such was a stringent
critic of the subjectivism of Schleiermacher. If Schleiermacher set the
pace for theology in the nineteenth century, Forsyth set the pattern
for the twentieth century. Because of his importance we will use him as
the principle example of the use of a discrimen.
Forsyth rejected as authorities
both conscience and experience per se .
49) Charles Gore, "The Holy Spirit and Inspiration," Lux Mundi (London,
1890), p.339.
50) Charles A. Briggs, General
Introduction to the Study of Holy
Scripture (New York, 1899), p. 634.
51) A. E. J. Rawlinson, "Authority as a Ground of Belief," Essays
Critical and Catholic (London, 1926), p. 89.
52) Ibid., p. 89.
53) Wilfred L. Knox, "The Authority of the Church," Essays
Critical and Catholic, p. 101.
54) Edward G. Selwyn, Essays
Critical and Catholic, p. xvi.
The conscience can condemn but it cannot forgive.(55) It cannot give
material for an ethic and it certainly cannot
redeem5 (6 As for
being open to the "spirit," Forsyth declared that a "religion of the
free spirit without the fixed word is nebulous and trails off in
vapours which only ascend and do nothing." (57) Experience
has no
authority, but there is authority for
experience..
The problem of authority for
Forsyth was the first and last issue of
life and particularly of religion.(58) Authority must be as
intimate as
the mystical relation and "more objective than the most Roman Church."
(59)
An authority does not limit freedom as generally conceived but is
a source of power. and individuality.(60)
Authority must begin with
"something given, something imposed." (61) We "create
neither truth nor
right." (62) But authority cannot be either
doctrine, book, creed,
or church; it must be a "communing person.". (63)
Our
final
authority "is our new Creator, the choosing, saving God Himself in
action." (64) It is not enough to say that the
authority is God. Further
definition is necessary, and Forsyth points to "the historic
mysticism of positive and redeeming revel.ation" ( 65 )
Authority has
no meaning apart from the regeneration "which is the soul's recreation,
surrender and obedience once and for all in a new creation and
direct communion with the God of the moral universe." (66)
Authority
cannot be based upon reason, for it cannot reach the holy; but by "a
miracle of revelation, of grace, the unapproachable approaches."
(67)
Because the authority is the judge, "we cannot judge Him." (68)
Although Forsyth rejected verbal inspiration, the Bible itself has a
very important role to play in the life of the church .. The Bible is
the apostolic witness of the historic fact of Christianity. Thus one
does not
55) Peter Taylor Forsyth, The
Principle of Authority (London, 1913), p. 182.
56) Ibid., p.404.
57) Ibid., p. 211.
58) Ibid., p. 1.
59) Ibid., p. 12.
60) Ibid., p. 13.
61) Ibid., p. 3.
62) Ibid., p. 3,
63) Ibid., p. 63; Cf. p. 53.
64) Ibid., p. 53 ..
65) Ibid., p. 53 .
66)Ibid., p. 59
67) Ibid., p. 6
68) Ibid., p. 19
speak of trying to separate the facts from the facts interpreted
by
faith. There are no facts presented apart from the words of the New
Testament. (69) The facts presented become a sacrament to salvation.
The
Bible "does not simply contain the Word but mediates it to our
experience by the same Spirit that put it there." (70) The Bible is not
an
obstacle moving the revelation one step away from us, but "a
sacrament ordained by the Revealer between the Revelati onan
US."71 This is so because the disciples
were not "panes of bad glass,
but crystal cups the Master filled." (72)
Forsyth rejected the popular
pragmatic approach to the Bible, which
declared that one accepts the Bible because it meets the felt needs of
the human heart. This is improbable because the Bible speaks of a
salvation for the world, which the world as a whole feels no need of
having. It is also improbable because man has no sense of his need
until it is revealed to him. He has no sense of judgment until he knows
salvation, no sense of degradation until he knows regeneration. (73)
What then is the authority of the
church? "The Church is
authoritative only as it has the power and note of the Gospel."
(74 )
When it ceases to be a sacrament for the transmission of the Gospel, it
ceases to be a church. Forsyth believed "in the Church because of
Christ, not in Christ because of the Church. The Church is
the·
historic medium, but the Spirit is the historic mediator, whose
organ
the Church is." (75) The church itself is under
the authority and judgment of the Revelation. (76)
.
What is the relation between
authority and experience? Forsyth did not
speak of the authority of experience but the authority for
experience. "It is an authority experienced." (77) The distinction he
makes is that between . having experience as the source of
authority and experience as the sphere of authority. It is the
difference also between a "monistic substance" and an "action on me of
another Will." (78) This is an important distinction that
was not always
carefully observed in the discussions of experience in
69) Ibid., p.
129. 70) Ibid., p.
135. 71) Ibid., p. 134.
72) Ibid., p. 134; Cf. pp. 20-21.
73) Ibid., p. 331. .
74)Ibid., p. 299. 75) Ibid., p. 316.
76) Ibid., 230, 253, 299. 77) Ibid., p. 75.
78) Ibid., p. 75.
this period. The authority is not in the experience, but the
experienced, not in the experience, but the content. (79)
Experience is
the product of the Gospel and experience must always refer back to its
norm. (80)
How is the revelation
experienced? By the work of the Spirit. "Apart
from the Holy Ghost, with His individualizing and time-destroying
action, there is no means of making the past present in the Christian
sense." (81) The Spirit brings the historic fact of revelation,
Christ
Himself, into the immediate present of every age. (82) One can readily
see
here the affinity of thought between Forsyth and Kierkegaard in the
matter of being contemporary with Christ (83 )
In the matter of certainty
Forsyth saw our certainty of faith in that
we are known by God. (84) Forsyth listed several reasons why one
knows he
is not living an illusion in religious matters. First, "we can note the
frequency and pertinacity of the experience in
our case ... It becomes not only recurrent but continuous and
masterful." Secondly, "we are changed, and changed in a decisive
way.
We live no more to ourselves, but we are sent to a great spiritual
servitude for life." This is the experience of regeneration. It is a
new creation "not a new experience." Thirdly, "if we know anything
about our own soul at all we know that this new life does not arise out
of our own interior, or spring from our own resources." Fourthly, "we
pass outside our own experience ... (and) find the like
experience
repeated in continuous multitudes of other people. We have a whole
historic Church, the greatest product of history resting on its
confession." In terms of numbers there has been sufficient testing to
"cancel individual variations and eliminate the mere visionary and
individual element from the living historic case." Lastly, "the chief
guarantee of the value of an experience is not given by its actual
universality, by its popularity, but by its content .... It is the
Gospel that creates the power to believe the Gospel." (85)
In summary we must applaud
Forsyth for the dynamic legacy he left us.
His perception of the problem has helped place the issue into focus.
79) Ibid., pp. 80-81.
80) Ibid., p.
122.
81) Ibid., p. 116.
82) Ibid., p. 117.
83) Cf. Soren Kierkegaard, Philosophical
Fragments, trans. D. F. Swenson
(Princeton, 1955), pp. 44-58, 74-93 .
84) Forsyth, op. cit., pp. 33, 39.
85) Ibid., pp. 24-27.
VI. INERRANT SCRIPTURE
The most objective source of
authority in Protestantism in the period from 1890 to 1930 was that of
the Inerrant Scripture. The strongest citadell for this position was
Princeton Theological Seminary where A. A.
Hodge, B. B. Warfield, and J. Gresham Machen stood for the intellectual
defense of the Reformed Faith. J. Gresham Machen figures pre-eminently
in the period under discussion. Apart from Warfield, he was, perhaps,
the most scholarly defender of inerrancy in this period. In his
pamphlet The Attack Upon Prince ton Seminary, he firmly maintained
that the scriptures "need, and are capable of, intellectual
defense."(86)
He opposed the retreat of religion in the face of science and higher
criticism. He predicted against those who retreated to their
dugout to rejoice in their Christian experience while radical
criticism was tearing the Bible to shreds that they would soon be dug
out and their experience would prove to be valueless apart from an
objective reference. ( 87)
Machen maintained that the
Christian man is a "devotee of a Book." It is_not a book that
enslaves but is "the Magna Charta of human
liberty." (88) The Bible is the only source of information about
God that
man can trust. (89) Even the church could not be trusted because
it had
succumbed to the destructive forces of relativism, said Machen
(90)
The unchanging is the Bible. Its unchangeableness comes from being the
Word of God. Machen repudiated the use of relativistic terms such
as the Bible contains the Word of God. "No, we say, in the Christian
fashion, that the Bible is the Word of God." (91)
For Machen, the Bible contained
the account of a revelation that was
absolutely new. (92) It did not concern universal eternal
truths but an
account of an act of God which brought about the redemption of
sinful man. (93)
86) J. Gresham Machen,
"The Attack Upon Princeton Seminary, A Plea for
Fair Play," printed by the author, Dec. 1927. Our use of Machen as an
example calls for an explanation concerning the period, 1890-1930. We
will be using some of Machen's works that were published up to 1936,
one year before his death. His greatest works, however, were written
within our defined period.
87) J. Gresham Machen,
"Christianity and Liberty," Forum,
LXXXV, (March, 1931), 162-165.
88)Ibid., p. 164.
89) J. Gresham Machen, Presbyterian
Guardian, (Oct. 7, 1936), p. 4 .
90)
Ibid., p. 4.
91) Ibid., p. 4. ,
92)J. Gresham Machen, Christianity
and Liberalism (New York, 1923), p.
69
93) Ibid., p. 72
The Bible is thus a "body of truth which God has revealed." (94)
It
contains the only reliable knowledge of God. It is wonderfully complete
in its fullness of revelation. (9 5)
It does
not by any means give us
all that there is to know about God. But "partial knowledge is not
necessarily false knowledge." (96)
The seat of authority for
religion is none other than the Bible. The
Book as an authority has a long history. Machen declared that one of
the attractions of Judaism to the ancient world was its possession of
an authoritative book. ( 97 )
Machen found in the Bible the only
authority for the soul of man. Any course of action, moral decision,
church regulation, all must be judged by the authority, the
Bible. (98) He
rejected religious experience as authoritative. If Christian
experience refers to the experience of the Church, then it can be
compared to a majority vote of a council. If the term refers to
individual experience, it is hopelessly diverse. (99) For
Machen,
religious experience is not only continually shifting but it could only
find stability when it is a product of doctrine which comes first in
the order of salvation. (lOO)
If the Bible is the authority, to
what kind 'of Bible did Machen refer?
He accepted a verbally inerrant, infallible Bible.
"I certainly
believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. I quite
agree ... that unless God provided in supernatural fashion that the
words of the Bible should be free from error, we
should have to give up
our conception of the Bible as being, throughout, a supernatural
book." (101)
He rejected the term "verbal" if it is limited only to the words
of the
Bible and "not also to the souls of the Biblical writers." (102)
He further declared:
94) Gresham Machen, "The
Importance of Christian Scholarship," The
Bible League, 45 Doughty St.,
Bedford Row, London, W.C.I ., pp. 6-7.
95) J. Gresham Machen, God
Transcendent (and other selected sermons),
Edited by Ned B. Stonehouse (Grand Rapids, 1949), p. 110.
96) Machen, "The Importance of Christian Scholarship,"p. 33.
97) J. Gresham Machen, The
Origin of Paul's Religion (New York, 1921),
p. 12.
98) J. Gresham Machen, The
Christian Faith in the Moderm World (New York,
1937), p. 76.
99) J. Gresham Machen, "Christianity and Modern
Liberalism," Moody
Monthly XXIII (April, 1923), 350.
100) Machen, The Christian
Faith in the Modem World, p. 79.
101) Ibid.,
p. 47.
102) Ibid., p. 47.
"I hold that
the Biblical writers, after having been prepared for their
task by the providential ordering of. their entire lives, received, in
addition to all that, a blessed and wonderful
and supernatural guidance
and impulsion by the Spirit of God, so that they were preserved from
the errors in other books and thus the resulting book, the Bible, is in
all its parts the
very Word of God, completely true in what it says
regarding matters of fact and completely authoritative in its
commands." (103)
Machen distinguished his view
from a so-called mechanical or dictation
theory of the Bible. The writers were not mere penmen without
personality. (104) The writers used sources,
questioned eyewitnesses,
referred to documents and labored in research. This is not
something Machen tacitly admits but insists on. ( 105)
Machen's
theory of plenary inspiration should not be interpreted as
referring to all parts of the Bible as having equal value. Instead the
doctrine only means that all parts "are equally true."(106)
He
rejected the distinction that the Bible is infallible in religious
matters but fallible in external matters. The Christian religion,
said Machen, began in external history and "unless the Bible can give
us knowledge of those basic events, it can be no infallible guide
for our souls." (107)
"Although Machen held to a view
expressing the Bible to "be free from the errors that mar other books,"
he did not begin with this
conviction.
"Even prior to any belief in the
infallibility of Scripture, a
scientific treatment of the sources of information will, we think,
lead the historian to hold that Jesus of Nazareth was raised
from the
dead the third day. There are many Christians who can go with
us this far, and yet cannot accept our view of the Bible .... Our view
of the Bible is not the beginning, we
think, but it is rather the end,
of any orderly defence of the Christian religion. First the general
truth of the Bible in its great outlines as an historical book, and the
supernatural origin of the
revelation that it contains, then the full
truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God, that is the order
of
our apologetic." (108)
The doctrines of infallibility and inerrancy were not, therefore, the
beginning points for a discussion with those of different
views. -
In connection with the theory of
a verbaJly, inerrant, infallible
Bible, we must consider one of the extreme limitations in the theory.
The theory
103) Ibid., /pp. 36-37.
104) Machen, Christianity and
Liberalism, p. 74.
lO5) Ibid., p. 74.
106) Machen, God Transcendent,
p. 108.
107) Machen, The Attack Upon
Princeton Seminary, p. 6.
108) Ibid., p. 7.
is not binding upon the King J ames Version or any other
translation. Machen did, however, consider the King J ames
Version a "good"
translation. The theory does not refer to anyone of the hundreds
or thousands extant manuscripts of both the Old and New Testaments.
What we
do believe is that the writers of the Biblical books, as
distinguished from scribes who later copied the books, were inspired.
Only the autographs of the Biblical books, in
other words, the books as
they came from the pen of the sacred writers, and not anyone of the
copies of those autographs which we now possess, were produced with
that
supernatural impulsion and
guidance of the Holy Spirit which we
call inspiration." (109)
Machen maintained that his view of the autograph manuscripts was held
by Jesus, the early church, the early councils, the Reformation, and
was that of the church until recent times. He took a discriminating
attitude toward those who rejected the doctrine of plenary
inspiration. He admitted that there are those who reject the doctrine
and who still deserve the name Christian. In this case they are men who
view the Scripture as reliable but not without error. In spite of
their deviation from the traditional view, they still maintain and
preach the central" message of the redeeming work of Christ. Concerning
Bishop Gore he held that Gore "might deny the infallibility of
Scripture and yet would not be classed as a 'modernist' because (his)
position was basically not one of skepticism but of genuine faith in
God." (110)
The most crucial issue in the
framework of Machen's thought comes not
in the question of the autograph manuscripts. One can conceivably grant
all that Machen has said up to this point. The crucial question
is: If God gave an inerrant, infallible, autograph
manuscript, and
inerrancy is of paramount importance, why did God not preserve it from
error? Machen's answer is really a digression from the question.
He has a long reply based on the idea that God has not left the
transmission of the Bible to chance. He argues that it was not chance
that many copies were made, that vellum came into being. He draws a
comparison between the Greek text known in his day to the texts used in
the King J ames translation which were based on inferior manuscripts.
He declared that the differences between the inferior manuscripts
and the best manuscripts were infinitesimal with what they possess in
common(.11) 1 At the same time Machen admits,
109) Machen, The Christian Faith in the Modem World, pp. 38-39.
110) Ned B. Stonehouse, J.
Gresham Machen (Grand Rapids, 1954), p. 348.
111 For further treatment of the issue- see Dallas M. Roark, "J.
Gresham M achen and His Desire to Maintain a Doctrinally True
Presbyterian Church, Ph.D. Dissertation," University of Iowa,
(February, 1963), p. 171.
"God has given us a marvelously
accurate, though not a supernaturally
accurate transmission from generation to generation, of what
those inspired " writers wrote." (112) In spite of his admission
of errors
in the present text, Machen concluded, "If the Christian
makes full
use of his Christian privileges, he finds the seat of authority in
the whole Bible, which he regards as no more word of man but as the
very Word of God" (113)
The conclusion about Machen
is this: Machen argued for an ideal
autograph manuscript which he did not have and based his case for
authority in religion upon a non-extant manuscript. He cut himself
off from those who held a similar position to his but who were more
concerned to live with the manuscript that is extant rather than defend
a position built upon a manuscript that is non-extant. Machen
attributed integrity and assurance to the present manuscripts in order
to reason to a doctrine of infallibility and inerrancy, but then
undermined his position by admitting the errancy of the present
manuscripts and declaring that if we do not have an infallible
Word we have no anchor for the soul.
VII. CONCLUSION
We can learn from those who have
sifted the issues before us. A
monistic authority is not adequate for the Christian Faith. The data of
the Christian Faith demand a discrimen. Such a structure has also been
termed a pattern of authority. (114) We must accept as
primary the
reciprocal authority of Christ, the Bible, and 'the Spirit. The
other authorities have meaning and value only with reference to these
three, particularly the last two. In other words, experience,
conscience, the inner light, and "truth" have only a derived authority.
We must accept as primary the authority of Christ. Only a person can be
an authority. Such a statement at once leads us to ask concerning the
role of the Bible. It is obvious that we would know little of Jesus
Christ if we did not have the Bible. If so, is not the Bible then the
prior authority? No!, The Bible has no purpose or authority apart from
Jesus Christ. The relationship of the Bible and Christ must be defined
in reciprocal terms. An inerrant, infallible Bible is meaningless
apart from Jesus Christ. Without the Bible, however, our knowledge of
Christ might
112) Machen, The Christian Faith in
the Modern World, p. 4.
113) Machen, Christianity and
Liberalism, pp.
75-76.
114)Bernard Ramm, The Pattern of
Authority (Grand Rapids, 1957), We
are indebted to many sources for what follows. Reference should be made
to Forsyth, Ramm, and J ohnson.
be that of an emaciated figure or a stern Judge. The Bible is the
recorded message that always stands in judgement over all perversions
of the picture of Christ. But behind the Bible stands the
authority of Christ. This is evident in the words of Jesus concerning
the Comforter who comes from him and who witnesses of him in scripture.
The Bible becomes the medium through which the authority of Christ is
expressed. It has a reciprocal authority. It becomes the medium of
confrontation. It is the Word Written through which the Logos
speaks.
The authority of the Bible, then,
is secondary to Christ. The theory of
an autograph manuscript is a convenient ideal but is largely irrelevant
to our present problem. The issue is not that of inerrancy and
certainty or even ignorance. Even Machen granted the integrity
and
authority of the manuscripts that we have. But even though we grant the
absolute inerrancy of the present manuscripts, we are helpless in
attempting to prove that the Bible is the Word of God .
In relation to the authority of
the Bible we can deal wtih the
secondary role of conscience. If conscience is the voice of accumulated
experience and teaching it can only be followed if it is taught by the
Word of God. If conscience be equated with an innate sense of
rightness, it is still trapped in the relativities of man's ethical
discriminations. But by no means can we equate conscience with the
voice of God. The Bible speaks of conscience in the realm of
accusing or excusing oneself in the presence of God. It also speaks of
conscience being seared beyond sensitivity. Conscience cannot be
the guide of man's moral life. He needs to have his discriminatory
faculties taught by an objective referent, namely, the Gospel of
Christ. The value of conscience must further be deprecated because of
the necessity of redemption which must come from outside of man. After
that it can be taught the Christian ethic and assume a secondary role.
As the Bible,
therefore, is linked with Christ, so it is also linked in
reciprocal terms to the Spirit. We must return to the conviction of
Calvin that the scriptures' are dependent upon· the testimony of
the Spirit who is given by Christ. He said: "If we desire to prove in
the best way for our consciences, that they may
not be perpetually beset by the instability of doubt or vacillation,
and that they may not also boggle at the smallest quibbles-we ought to
seek our conviction in a higher place than human reasons,
judgements, or conjectures, that is, in the secret testimony of the
Spirit.(115)
ll5) John Calvin, Institutes of the
Christian Religion, trans. Ford
Lewis Battles (Philadelphia, 1960), p. 78
"... the testimony of the Spirit is more excellent
than all reason. For
as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the
Word
will not find acceptance in men's hearts before it is sealed by the
inward testimony of the Spirit."(1l6)
Thus it is apparent that in the
same breath that we speak of the
authority of the Bible we must also talk of the authority of the
Spirit.
The Spirit is linked together with the Word. Calvin further declared:
For by a kind of
mutual bond the Lord has joined together the certainty
of his Word and of his Spirit so that the perfect religion of the Word
may abide in our minds when the
Spirit, who
causes us to contemplate
God's face,shines; and that we in turn may embrace the Spirit with no
fear of
being deceived when we recognize him in his own image,
namely, in the
Word. (117)
So standing with the express authority of Christ and the implied
authority of the Spirit the Bible becomes a living book.
In relation to
the authority of the Spirit reference should be made to
the other three authorities: experience, inner light, and truth. These
three can be placed in a derivitive position to the Spirit. The Spirit
is the authority for experience, but experience has no independent
authority on its own. Experience as an authority received undue
emphasis because it was placed in reaction to formal orthodoxy. In
religion existential involvement is necessary, but the Spirit of God is
the basis for this. Without the mediating role of the Spirit there
could be no quickening of the Spirit beyond an intellectual idea. With
the Spirit comes experience.
A similar line
of reasoning applies to the role of the Inner Light. Pushed to its
logical extreme the Inner Light concept can be associated with new
revelations and all forms of enthusiasm. The term can be
redeemed for legitimate use in the role of the Spirit as an
authority. The Spirit of God is the inner source of illumination to the
heart and mind but always with reference to the scriptural image. Even
in scripture the role of the Spirit is quite secondary to the central
person, Jesus Christ.
He is the Great Reminder of all that has taken place.
With reference
to the idea of truth as an authority we must remember
that in the Bible the Spirit is the source of truth with reference to
appropriation. The Bible declares that the Holy One is the source
of truth (1 John 2 :20). Moreover, it states that no man can call
Jesus Lord except by the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 12:3). In other
words no man can know
116)Ibid., p. 79.
ll7)Ibid.,
p. 95.
the truth of God apart from the Spirit of God. Thus, the "truth of God"
is related in an important way to the Spirit who makes known the Person
of the Bible.
Thus we must conclude that
Christ, the Bible, and the Spirit stand in a
reciprocal relationship to each other. All other authorities are
subordinate and derivitive.
There is one other proposed authority which has a relation to all three
primary authorities, i.e., the church. The authority of the church is
likewise a derived one. The church has authority only as it
preaches the gospel of Christ whose authority it has. The church
must always stand under the judgment of the Head and his expressed
written declaration. The church can, however, serve in the areas of
interpretation. We can profit from viewing the ways in which men have
sought to grasp the leading of God's Spirit as he has taught in ages
past. But this also stands under the judgement of Christ as seen
through the written Word. There is, however, the questionable entity of
men's interpretation of the Spirit's teaching. The authority of the
church is most instructive in the realm of creed making. Even Baptists
who have a bias against creeds are yet given direction by the great
historic creeds of the past and agree in essence with the great
Christological expressions of the early centuries. Without creedal
statements heresy would have made greater inroads than it did.
Certainly we need to recapture the role of the teaching church as it
has systematized the teachings of the Scriptures in its creeds and
catechisms for the purpose of building up an intelligent body of
Christ. But in all things it is yet subordinate to Christ who
speaks through the Word by the Spirit.
Our conclusion, then, is in the
direction of a structure of authorities
with Christ as the basis for the reciprocal structure. If the Bible
alone is set forth as the sole authority we tend toward bibliolatry. If
the Spirit alone is the authority we tend toward nebulous mysticism. If
conscience be the sole authority there is no escape from the
relativities of different cultures. If experience alone is the
authority there is no certainty of the objective referent. If "truth"
be the sole authority it is obvious that everyone has not yet
arrived at it. If the church is the sole authority it tends toward
authoritarianism. But Christ is the Authority who speaks through the
Bible and makes its authority meaningful and alive. His Spirit
conforms to the image of his written Word which becomes the
life and authority of the church.