92

Chapter II

To sum up: The external criteria of Divine Revela­
tion are of greater apologetic value than the internal
signs for the following reasons.
1. They manifest the divine origin of an alleged
revelation with greater certainty than the internal cri­
teria.
’
As stated above, under certain circumstances, the posi­
tive internal criteria beget certitude; but they exert this
influence only on those who, by reason, of their greater intellectual powers, are able to examinethe cônientof the doctrine m till'it^'aspects and properly to evaluate it. On the
other hand, there is always the danger that va&rÇs judgment
of a given doctrine, especially as regards its sublrmity and
its capacity for satisfying the innermost needs of man, may
be toosubjective, The positive external criteria, on the
contrary, can b'e appreciated by all, even the ignorant and
unlettered, because they rest upon historical facts which are
easy to ascertain. For the same reason (namely, because
there is question of objective facts) the danger of deception
is practically excluded.43

2. They can be known also more easily.
In applying the external criteria it suffices to investigate
a few historical facts, whereas the application of the in. ternal criteria demands a careful analysis of the entire
1 content of the doctrines said to bè divinely revealed. It is
obvious, however, that the more varied and comprehensive
the subject-matter to be examined, the easier it is for error
to creep in.
3. The fact of Divine Revelation can be known more
quickly_by means of the external criteria.
This is plain from the fact that, instead of the many
truths which constitute/the subject-matter of an alleged
revelation, only one needs to be considered, that is, the
question relative to the Fact of Divine Revelation. Once this
has been proven with certainty by the application of the
external signs, there can be no doubt as to the divine origin
of the content of the Revelation. The whole inquiry is
focused on the question of the credibility of the witness
48_) J. Brunsmann, S. V, D., Lehrbuch der Apologetik. St. Gabriel
bei Wien. 1924, I: "Religion und Offenbarung”, p. 149; English adap­
tation, "A Handbook of Fundamental Theology", by A. Preuss, St.
Louis, Mo. 1929, Π, p. 71.

The Subjective Criteria of Protestantism

93

of the alleged revelation, that is to say, the divine mission
of the legate and the divine origin of his message.43
At the same time, however, it must be admitted that
the internal criteria, per se, are in many respects
superior to the external signs.
They lead the inquirer into the essence of the subject
in question, and are calculated to awaken a more joyful
mood or attitude, since they demonstrate not only that
Christianity is a Revealed Religion, but also open up its
intrinsic value and its content of truth. Moreover, they
are perhaps more congenial to the character and mentality
of the “m oderiiTman, who"l^êdïïcated in the thought of
natural science1and wr whom Miracles are, often enough,
a difficulty and an obstacle rather than an aid to Faith.
Nevertheless, despite these advantages the application of
the external criteria may not be dispensed with. For their
proving force is far more conclusive. The sublimity of the
doctrine and the world renewing power of Christianity do
not disclose its divine origin so palpably as Miracles do,
since it is very difficult to establish the precise measure of
achievement, which the power of man, relying on his native
resources alone, can attain in spiritual and moral respects.
Therefore, the proper method to be employed is' that
which seeks to combine the external and the internal cri­
teria into a harmonious unity.44
Chapter III
THE SUBJECTIVE CRITERIA OF PROTESTANTISM

From the earliest Christian times to the present, there Historical
Retro·prêt.
have been advocates of an internal proof “of spirit and
power” for the truth of Christianity, based on a higher
intuition and an experience of the_fegart The external
proof oT fact—namely, Àüracles and Prophecies—, so it
has been said, ought either to be wholly abandoned or48
48) Brunsmann, S. V. D; ibid., I, p. 149; Brunsmann-Preuss, ibid.,
II, pp. 71, 72.
44) Fr. Sawicki, Die Wahrheit des Christentums. Paderborn. 1920
(4'ed.), p. 342; cf. Ad. Tanquerey, Synopsis theologiae dogmaticae.
Romae, Tornaci, Parisiis. 1922 (19’ed.), I, PP- 134-137.

94

i

i
1
1

ί
lj
’
ί

>|
j
i

Chapter III .

relegated to a subordinate position. Christianity must
manifest itself, above all else, as a religion of salvation
and a saviour religion for the inner man; it must prove
itself, by means of a spiritual vision, and an emotional
bliss,. As such, it'must1"autheÎ?f
StT"îts
*
u''cïm^^fôr'uhiim
who does not yet believe, but far more for the believer
who lives by Faith and experiences its truth within him­
self. Thus, theaprimapv of value belongs to the subjective ,
and the mystic criteria.
'
T”m”My9tfc>.
There is hardly a more ambiguous term than the word
* “mystic”. In general, it denotes something hidden,, mysferious. In the objective sense we call everything mystic,
which by reason of its nature or origin is mysterious,
whether relatively, that is, for this or that person, or abso­
lutely, for each and every person. In the subjective sense
all activities are' termed mystic, which are mysterious.
Thus, we speak of a mystic life of man, a mystic vision,
feeling, striving, a mystic vital operation, accordingly as
that .life is enigmatical or mysterious in its quality or.
cause, whether it be natural, diabolical or, supernatural. ..
In the matter under discussion, the problem is whether
there is a natural mystical experience, which may serve as
the medium for arriving at the1 supernatural/ Whether
there is an intellectual experience of the supernatural, or
an emotional and volitional experience of. the satisfying
power and efficacy of the supernatural, which may function
as an internal subjective criterion of its objective truth.1
Rjstor^ testifies that the different tendencies, which
have sprung from the attempts to demonstrate the truth
of * theT Christian Religion’by means of “these mystical
criteria, have issued either in a kind of Rationalism, in
that they have made the content-of Christianity the sub­
ject of a natural intuition and an emotional experience
of the spiritual man, thus appearing as theosophical
Gnosticism, a higher empiricism, or have ended in an
exaggerated Supernaturalism, which sought to accredit
the content of Christian doctrine by means of an internal
testimony of God, thus anticipating the future bliss of
the life to come.
ϊ) Al. v. Schmid, Apologetik als speculative Grundlegung der
Théologie. Freiburg i. B. 1900, pp. 174, 175.

Protestantism

95

In direct opposition to these tendencies we note an­
other tendency, which has -also been active from the
earliest Christian ■ times to the present, and which has
sought5'to preserve, unimpaired'the spiritual "Mysticism
of Christianity., It likewise strove 'for a proof of .the
Christian Faith on ..internal mystical intuitions and ex­
periences, but carefully avoided the extremes of Ration­
alism and an exaggerated Supernaturalism.2
"
Space, will not permit.us to review all these divergent
tendencies.3, We.-shall restrict our study to three modern
applications of these subjective, mystical criteria, which
the apologist .may not ignore, namely, the Protestant,
Pragmatist and Modernist evaluation.
' ·
PROTESTANTISM

*

From the very beginning of the so-called Reformation,
orthodox Protestantism-made-light of and, to a certain
extent, even repudiated the objective, especially the ex­
ternal, criteria-of Divine-Revelation. It championed a
subjective and senrimentaj .apologetics»I. Luther did not indeed absolutely reject the external E«îy Reforme»,
criteria, but he did look upon “such vain, trifling and almost
childish tokens” merely as signs for 'the ignorant and' urn­
believing crowd, for whose sake they have still to be per­
formed. But the. faithful, who already .know them, .have
no further need of them. Miracles are wrought for the
benefit of the heathens; but Christians require higher and
heavenly sighs in comparison with which visible Miracles
are still earthlyi It is not surprising, then, that such signs
have ceased, now that the Gospel has been preached every­
where. Those who were ignorant of God had to be drawn
and enticed to Him by means of external signs, just as one
2) Schmid, ibid., p. 175.
'
?
·) For the Patristic Period the student might consult Schmid,
ibid., pp. 176-180; also Chas. M. Sauvage, art.. “Mysticism”, CE. X,
p. 664; for St. Augustine’s position cf..Erich Przywara, S. J.,Religionsbegründung. Freiburg, i. B. 1923," pp. 258 sq. For the Middle Ages cf.
Schmid, ibid., pp. 180-186. For the Post Middle Ages up to the twen­
tieth century, cf. ibid., pp. 186-194 ; also J. Pohle, Natur u. Übematur,
in RCK, I, pp. 393-397. For. the Modern Period, cf. Schmid, i6id., pp.
194-200.

t

96

Chapter III

casts “apples and pears” before children, in order that God
might be able to perform within them the really exalted
Miracles, that is, the spiritual wonders. We, on the con­
trary, ought to praise and extol the great and glorious
miraculous deeds, which Christ performs daily in His
Christianity, in that if overcomes the power and might of
the devil, and snatches so many souls from the jaws of death
and Hell. For Christians and believers these are the really
great Miracles, which Christ’s divine and almighty power,
namely, preaching, prayer, baptism, etc., effect unceasingly
in Christianity. These Miracles are the casting out of
devils, the chasing away of serpents, the speaking with
new tongues, of which we read in Mark xvi, 20.
*
This same viewpoint recurrs in the Lutheran dogmatic
theologians of the early Reformation period.5

Starting with the basic conception that fallen man
finds himself in a relation of contradiction as regards
supernatural and Christian Revelation, orthodox Prot­
estantism, both Lutheran and Reformed, ^concludedJhat
Ar-^man is, for the most
natural knowledge^of^credibility, and unable to acquire
a fides humana, wlucJlUrm andrela­
tive to the divine origin of Reveïæ ion and of the Sacred
Scriptures, as the documents of God’s revealed message.
But neither does man require such a natural knowledge,
since he is able to arrive at a fides divina in God’s Reve­
lation and in the Holy Scriptures (both being generally
regarded as identical) upon the testimonium Spiritus
Sancti. For, when man hears the consoling and blissful
word of the Gospel, that is, the glad tidings that he is
able to find justification (forgiveness of sin), regener­
ation and divine sonship by Faith alone, or by a simple
trust (fides fiducialis, specialis), he can look upon that
experience of salvation as the testimony of the salvific
spirit of God, and thus acquire a certain Faith, free from

Teettmonfum

sJwti.'

*) Luthers Werke, ed. Erlangen, XII, Abtl. 1, pp. 218-221; cf. XII,
Ablt. 2, pp. 235-238; ed. Weimar, X, Abtl. 3, pp. 144-147; cf. also
Bretschneider’s summary of these teachings in “Luther an unsere
Zeit”, p. 197 sq.
δ) Quenstedt, Theol. didactico-polemica, I, p. 97; Baier, Compen­
dium theol. positivae. Lipsiae, 1680, p. 106; Gerhard, Loci theol. 23,
c. 11 (vol. XI, p. 319 sq.)

Protestantism

97

doubt, regarding the divinity of the content and origin
of the Sacred Scriptures. Thus, for the individual, the
objective ground, of. justifying failli (ultima ratio propter
thp Holy Spirit ; the
s ubj ectiye gr o uiiamBrfiï^t^^mmzmystm^g^^^Îcq , of
this testimony?

Accordingly, the early Reformers looked upon the
rational substructure of Faith, which had hitherto been
so strongly emphasized by traditional apologetics, as
absolutely useless. The divine origin of Revelation was
now held to be knowable solely through the divinely in­
spired Scriptures, and the divine inspiration of the
Scriptures was said to be discernible upon the internal
testimony of the Holy Spirit, Who, when we read the
Bible, recognizes His own work.7 Therefore, the thread
binding objective Revelation with the subject who re­
ceives it, is again a supernatural Revelation. This thread
between the believing soul and objective Revelation ’ can ?
•not be spun by human reason ; for reason is utterly inca­
pable of performing such an act. Indeed the Reformers
stigmatized, as godless and wicked, the thought that
things spiritual and divine (hence, Faith also) can be
acquired through human activity. “The reason is obvi­
ous; namely, because, according to them, the hereditary
evil (original sin) consists in an obliteration of the di­
vine image from the human breast : and this is precisely
the faculty capable of co-operating with God. Accord­
ingly, they teach, that map remain
and
God is exclusive! vaehvpJ f8 For in man', everything in an
upward (lirecfion,Tn religious matters, is dumb ; there is
no voice that speaks for God; nothing bears witness to
Him. Hence, the teaching that, if a religious voice is audi­
ble within man, it is the voice of God and the parallel
e) Al. v. Schmid, Apologetik, p. 210.
7) cf. D. Fr. Strauss, Die christliche Glaubenslehre. I, p. 354.
8) John A. Mohler, Symbolik. Regensburg. 1921 (10’ed. by F. X.
Kiefl), p. 107; English transi. “Symbolism” by James Burton Robert­
son. London. 1906 (5’ed.), p. 88.

98

Chapter III

teaching that the Sacred Scriptures, of themselves alone,
are the norm and judge in matters of Faith.9
Calvin writes : “The Scripture exhibits as clear evidence
of its truth, as white and black things do of their color, or
sweet and bitter things of their taste . . . Let it be con­
sidered, then, as an undeniable truth, that they who have
been inwardly taught by the Spirit, feel an entire acquie­
scence in the Scripture, and that it is self-authenticated,
carrying with it its own evidence, and ought not to be made
the subject of demonstration and arguments from reason;
but it obtains the credit which it deserves with us by the
testimony of the Spirit ... We seek not arguments or
probabilities to support our judgment, but submit our judg­
ments and understandings as to a thing concerning which
it is impossible for us to judge”.10
Luther’s antipathy to the co-operation of reason'in
matters of Faith is too generally known to require elab­
oration.11 If, nevertheless, there arose among Protes­
tants a rational theology, and, the catch-word * ‘ pure doc­
trine” came into vogue, it was largely due to the efforts
of Melanchthon.12
9) A. Gisler, Der Modernismus. Einsiedeln. 1913 (4’ed.), p. 243.
10) Institutiones, I, c. 7, nn. 2, 5 ; English transi. "Institutes of
the Christian Religion" by John Allen. Philadelphia, Pa. 1841 (3’Amer­
ican ed.), pp. 77, 79, 80.
11) Luther (In Genes, c. xix) delighted in comparing fallen man
to a pillar of salt, a block, a clod of earth, incapable of working with
God. He sarcastically calls reason “Lady Hulda, the mad fool” from
Mount Venus (Luthers Werke, ed. Weimar, XXIV, p. 516; ed. Erlan­
gen, XXXIV, p. 138) ; “the clever prostitute, whom the heathens fol­
lowed, since they wished to be most wise” (ibid., X, p. 295, reap. XVI,
Abtl. 2, p. 532) ; “the devil’s harlot”, that can do nothing save blas­
pheme and dishonour everything that God says and does (ibid., XVIII,
p. 164, resp. XXIX, p. 241).—Luther’s spirit gained so complete a vic­
tory that his views, nay his very expressions, were adopted into the
public formularies^ For example, Konkordienformel, Solida Declaratio,
I, De peccato originis (ed. C. A. Hase, Lipsiae. 1827, p. 640; English
transi. "The Book of Concord or the Symbolic Books of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church", by Henry E. Jacobs, Philadelphia, Pa. 1912, p. 542),
states: “That we all have by nature inherited from Adam such a heart,
feelings, and thoughts as, according to their highest powers and the
light of reason, are naturally inclined and disposed directly contrary
to God and his chief commands"; II, De libero arbitrio (ibid., p. 657,
resp. p. 553) : “The more diligence and earnestness they (namely, who
do not yet believe) employ in order to comprehend, with their reason,
these spiritual things, the less they understand or believe, and before
they become enlightened, or taught of the Holy Ghost, they regard this
only as foolishness or fictions”.
12) Gisler, ibid., p. 243; cf. Mohler, ibid., 44, 59, 66.

Protestantism

99

The Lutheran and Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century systematized this fundamental conception of
their founders. The le^mox^^^the^Holy^Spi^iyaud of His
interior, mystic experience together wilh the
* power of be­
getting certitude, exterffisvaccording to them, first, to the
consoling article of justification by Faith alone in the exclu^•^me^s^f^}irist
~^^ÎhT^hief^onteri^ô^.thê^acrÆd
*

then reaches out also to all the remaining content of the
Bible, according as this content is interpreted by the sym­
bols of both the Lutheran and Reformed confessions;
moreover, it .jembrac^g all
in the Sacred Scriptures, a:
iHREwaffarii
divine revelation, in the Bi
atxoï^Oh^acré^S^^tÏÏ^^^f'^^a^ prmcrpIFoFtÎhrîstmrTFaiti?). IiL'the minds of many, this divine inspiration
of the Sacred Scriptures extended not only to the content
{real inspiration), but also to the very last syllable and
point in the text {verbal inspiration), as well as to the
origin of the canonical, divinely inspired Scriptures.
Upon the foundation of such a Faith- rested also the
science of Faith or Theology. To reason was conceded only
a formal, instrumental use (usus organicus, instrumentalis) relative to the truths of Faith. Consequently, the
basis of Faith and of Theology was a kind of mysticism, and
from this coin of vantage the early theologians sought to
combat all pseudo-mysticism. They looked upon the power
and efficacy of the Holy Spirit as joined to the word of
the Sacred Scripture and bound to it, precisely inasmuch
as the word of the Bible appeared to them to be true and
genuine in the light of the interpretation set down in the
symbols of Faith. They regarded the word of the Bible, thus
interpreted, as a weapon of defence, to combat the pseudo­
mysticism of the so-called enthusiasts and the theosophical
mysticism of Valentin Weigel, J. Boehme, J. G. Gichtel and
others. On this mystic foundation of the testimony of the
Holy Spirit was reared the Pietism of a Spener and a
Franke, with this difference, however, that Pietism, in con­
trast with orthodoxy, regarded a pious life operative in
charity and good works, and an interpretation of the Holy
Scriptures in harmony with such a life, as the essence of
Christianity, without holding strictly to the letter of the
formulated confessions. It was only at the turning-point of
the eighteenth century that this conception, which made
Divine Faith rest upon the mystic basis of the testimonium
Spiritus Sancti, was abandoned, and in its stead was intro­

Teaching sy·-

100

sumimrjr.

7
γ/

Criticism.

Chapter III

duced, through the school of Wolff and Storr, a rationalhistorical, or a biblico-historical, foundation.13
To sum Up ; Orthodox Protestantism either under­
estimated the value and power of external Miracles, as
compared with the spiritual Miracles wrought by God
in man’s heart, or, in place of the criteria always in
vogue in the Church, appealed rather to a new mystic
testimony, which can.,be termed an internal criterion only
in that it manifests itself, not through an external, but
rather an internal Miracle. Moreover, since the Miracles
of Christianity bear witness solely to the Church, Prot­
estants denied all extra-evangelical Miracles and, in their
polemics against the Church, were obliged to invoke 4 ‘ the
interior testimony of the Holy Spirit”, “the interior
experience of the individual”, and similar mystical cri­
teria.14 Thus, for the early Reformers the credibility of
the mysteries of faith signified their aptitude for belief,
inasmuch as under private inspiration they appear as
divinely revealed.1516
*
It is, indeed, true that external physical Miracles
possess less value and power than internal spiritual
Miracles; however, the latter cannot prove the divine
origin of Revelation, since/they are invisible. The ques­
tion at issue is : Whether this interior testimony is really
the testimony of God, or merely .the testimony of a wicked
spirit, or of our own spirit. Hence, we must judge whether
the interior experience is a divine inspiration, or simply
the expression of our own subjective feelings. And so,
after all, we are obliged to appeal to another criterion.
Moreover, as we shall show in detail below, this testi­
mony of the Holy Spirit, this internal experience, is a
very indefinite and dubious concept.18
13) A. v. Schmid, ibid., pp. 210, 211; IDEM, Untersuchungen
Uber den letzten Gewissheitsgrund des Offenbarungsglaubens. Mün­
chen. 1879, pp. 111-131.
14) Gutberlet, Lehrbuch der Apologetik. Münster i. W. 1904 (3’
ed.), II: “Von der geoffenbarten Religion”, p. 100.
16) P. Fr. Reg. Garrigou-Lagrange, Ο. P., Theologia Fundamen­
talis secundum S. Thomae Doctrinam. Romae et Parisiis. 1918, I, p.
519; (3’ed.), p. 269.
16) Gutberlet, ibid. II, p. 100.

Protestantism

101

2. This theory of credibility leads to false conse­
quences. For, in the first place, if it is an internal reve­
lation of the Holy Spirit, which enables one to recognize
an external revelation as divine, the court of last appeal,
and the highest principle of supernatural truth and cer­
titude, is not Revelation, but rather this same internal
testimony of the Holy Spirit. Thereby every vagary of
visionary mysticism would be justified and religious
truth, stripped of its objective dignity, would be at the
mercy of every fantastic opinion.17

Thus, George Fox, the founder of the Society of-Friends
(Quakers), taught, as the central dogma of his sect, the
tenet of “the inner light”, which is supposed to be commu­
nicated to the individual soul directly by Christ, “who enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world”. To walk
in this light, and to obey the voice of Christ speaking within
the soul, was for Fox the supreme and sole duty of man.
Creeds and churches, councils, rites and sacraments, were
discarded as so many outward things. Even the Sacred
Scriptures were to be interpreted by the inner light.18

Secondly, apart from this questionable immediatë in­
ternal revelation of the Holy Spirit, the divinity of this
17) Hettinger-Weber, Lehrbuck der Fundament alt heolo g ie oder
Apologetik. Freiburg, i .B. 1913 (3’ed.), pp. 190, 191.
18 ) cf. James F. Loughlin, art. "Society of Friends", in CE. VI,
p. 305 sq. Robert Barclay, one of the ablest apologists of the society,
writes: “Unum addam argumentum ut probem hanc internam imme­
diatam et objectivam revelationem solum esse immobile et certum fidei
fundamentum. Illud, ad quod omnes christianitatis professores ultimo
recurrunt, cum ad extremum pressi sunt, et cujus causa certa omnia
fundamenta commendantur et creditu digna habentur, et sine quo
rejiciuntur, oportet esse solum, certissimum, immobile fundamentum
omnis fidei christianae. Sed interna immediata Spiritus revelatio illud
est; ... ergo est solum certissimum immobile fundamentum”. (Apologia
theologiae vere christ., thes. 2. London. 1676); cf. Confession of the
Society of Friends, Commonly called Quakers, A. D. 1675, in Phillip
Schaff’s "The Creeds of Christendom", N. Y. 4’ed. revised and enlarged,
vol. Ill, pp. 789, 790 ; also Mohler’s Symbolik, p. 492 sq., English transi,
by Robertson, p. 390 sq. Neither Barclay nor Wm. Penn have been able
to explain successfully, in what respect the “inward light” differs from
the light of reason; neither have they been able successfully to recon­
cile the doctrine of the supreme authority of the “inner light” with
the “external” claims of the Bible and the historic Christ. In fact, these
doctrinal weaknesses were the fruitful germs of dissensions in later
times.—For the modern viewpoint, cf. Rufus Matthew Jones, "Why I
am a Quaker", in "Twelve Modern Apostles and Their Creeds", N. Y.
1926, p. 110 sq.

102

Chapter III

testimony has, as its witness, something or other in the
human spirit, namely, either the feelings or thought.
Modern liberal Protestants, championing the former al­
ternative, Have substituted for this private inspiration
the criterion of the natural religious sense, with the con­
sequent naturalistic disintegration of the content of his­
toric Christianity. On the other hand, if thought or rea­
son is made the witness, the lapse into Rationalism is
not far removed.19 Therefore, the definition of credibil­
ity proposed by the early so-called Reformers, while
minimizing the rights of reason and materially exagger­
ating the supernatural character of faith (pseudo-super­
naturalism), actually leads to Naturalism and Rational­
ism20
Modwn
Π. As the older orthodox Theology of the Lutheran
and Reformed confessions, so, too, Protestant Theology
of the past century, which took the field against vulgar
and speculative Rationalism, sought to ground the Chris­
tian Faith and its science chiefly upon a mystic basis,
but partly also upon a biblico-historical foundation. Here
we are concerned only with the former of these ten­
dencies, as championed by some of its principal repre­
sentatives.
Difference be­
First, however, let us outline the characteristic differ­
tween Early and
Modern Protes­ ences between Protestant Theology of the last century, in
tent Theology.
so far as it seeks to ground the Christian Faith through
the medium of an inner, mystic experience, and the ortho­
dox Theology of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The older Theology answered the question: Why do you
believe?, by the statement: Because the Holy Spirit bears
witness to, and guarantees the truth of the content of the
Sacred Scriptures. Modern Protestant Theology, on the
other hand, has come to realize that one cannot make the
testimony of the Holy Spirit the ground of the certitude
of Christian Faith without, at the. same time, assuming and
holding as true the genuine divinity and credibility of that
testimony; in other words, without a petitio principii.
Hence, it recognizes that this certitude can be obtained only
by means of an inner experience, which is perceived
ie) cf. D. F. Strauss, Die christliche Glaubenslehre, I, p. 136.
20) Garrigou-Lagrange, Ο. P., ibid., I, p. 519, (3’ed.), p. 269.

Protestantism

103

through the blissful impressions or effects exerted upon
our emotional and volitional life. Therefore, modern Prot­
estant Theology proclaimed, as the ultimate ground of the
certitude of Christian Faith, the impressions of consola­
tion and joy experienced within the soul, which the saving
Gospel message produced in the individual. Through these
impressions the individual becomes aware of. God, as the
primal source of these feelings, and thus the truth of God’s
testimony is rendered credible by means of the testimony
of one’s inner spiritual experience. Thereby the doctrine of
fiducial faith received a greater subjective motivation, inas­
much as the genesis of that faith was thrust into the fore­
ground.
Moreover, modern Protestant Theology, in contrast with
the earlier form, also set a greater value upon the powers
of fallen man and, in consequence, also upon the measure
of philosophical and apologetic knowledge, and the eviden­
tial value of the criteria externa et interna credibilitatis,
although it still refuses to ground the fides fiducialis et
salvifica upon these motives.
As regards the content of Faith, modern Protestant The­
ology no longer conceives Revelation so strictly according
to the meaning of the older confessions of Faith, particu­
larly since the State (in Germany) endeavored to bring
about a union of the Lutheran and Reformed churches, on
the occasion of the three hundredth anniversary of the
Reformation.
Modern Protestant Theology appears partly as a “medi­
ating” theology ( Vermitt lung st heologie), which no longer
acknowledges the supernatural in its strict theological con­
notation, partly as a theology of repristination or restora­
tion, which, in so far as it continued to rest upon a con­
fessional basis, very often undertook a revision of the
Lutheran and Reformed symbols, or asserted that the sym­
bols were obligatory only in so far as they were in har­
mony with one another, or finally, ascribed normative value
to the Bible alone, variously interpreted in a positive be­
lieving sense. Still claiming that subjectively the inner
spiritual experience of the individual is the ultimate ground
of faith, modern Protestant Theology, now in a neo-Kantian,
now in a Pietistic guise, has strayed into the many and
multifarious paths of a “liberalized” Christianity, even
with respect to the Apostles’ Creed. It differs from the
earlier Theology finally, in that it makes a more careful
distinction between Revelation and-the documents of Reve­
lation, the content of Revelation and the content of the
Sacred Scriptures, the inspiration of Revelation and the

I "

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I

1
I

*
I’ 1
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['
! ·
I

Β

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I
I
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9

Chapter III

inspiration of the Bible; moreover, it no longer asserts that
the proof that a doctrine is in conformity with Sacred
Scriptures, is eo ipso the proof of its truth; lastly, it subjects not merely the genuinity and integrity of the biblical
writings, but more so even their inspiration, to the in­
quiries of “untrammelled” criticism, and no longer admits
strictly verbal inspiration, nay even surrenders the real
inspiration of many or even of all the biblical writings and
thus, for various reasons, opens the way to a more liberal
interpretation of the Bible.21 In point of fact, so-called
“Modern Christianity”, “Progressive Christianity”, “the
New Theology”, as it is variously termed, retains very little
of primitive traditional Christianity.22*
The Illuminism of the eighteenth century had rudely
shaken men’s faith in dogma, but its own efforts at
spreading a rationalistic religion had met with scanty
success. Protestant Theology, so Fr. Aug. B. Nitzsch
writes,28 faced new tasks. Among other things the posi­
tion of religion, in the spiritual life of the individual and
of history, had to be re-investigated and theoretically
defined in accordance with the temper of the age, with
its predilection for the vital, personal and affective element of man’s nature. On the other hand,'Theology had
to be harmonized with the most recent results of criti’ cism, as applied to the Bible and the history of dogma,
idealism.
Modern
Protestant
Theology found an important
Romanticism,
·
λ
·
schieiermacher. preparation for its new tasks, on the one hand, in German Idealism, which made the high-tensioned inner life
.
of man the fountain-head of a new philosophy and ideal
of life. In place of mere reason it proclaimed the, rights
of the immediateness, oneness and individuality of man.
On the other hand, Theology joined hands with the Ro­
manticism of the earlier period of Protestantism. And
out of the fusion of Kantian and romanticist impulses
• issued a new philosophy, which, in its attempts to domi­
nate all the spheres of life and knowledge, naturally also
21) A. v. Schmid, ibid., pp. 213, 214.
22) cf. Errett Gates, The Development of Modern Christianity, in
A Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion, ed. G. E. Smith. Chicago, Ill. 1917 (2’ed Impression), pp. 431-482.
28) Lehrbuch der evangelischen Dogmatik, ed. by Horst Stephan.
Tübingen. 1912 (3’ed.), p. 38.

Protestantism

105

included religion, and thus became of primal significance
in the development of modern Protestant Theology.24
This is not the place to trace in detail the Various efforts
that were made in the past century, to translate “inher­
ited doctrines into modern philosophical form with as
little disturbance to faith as possible”.25 The attempts
to intermingle the older religious attitude with modern
philosophy inevitably led to confusion.
A third and most important factor in the develop­
ment of modern Protestant Theology is the influence of
Friedrich Schleiermacher, whose definition of Theology
as the interpretation of the experience of Christian men,
introduced a new epoch in the history of religious
thought. Ever since his day this appeal to Christian
experience, as the test of the truth of religion and mor­
ality, has become increasingly predominant in Protes­
tantism.26
The influence of Schleiermacher in this respect is ex- °!Jh^1do^ew
pressed by, a recent Protestant writer in the following
600
words: “For the type of theology which finds the content
of doctrine in an authorized system the primary question
must be as to the validity of this authority. Thus, the au­
thenticity of Scripture must be established by orthodox
theology before one is scientifically justified in deriving
doctrines from Scripture. If, however, we regard doctrines
as the creations of religious thinking for the purpose of
interpreting religious experience, the first task of the the­
ologian must be to inquire concerning the nature of re­
ligious experience. This approach to the study of theology
was initiated over a century ago by Schleiermacher, whose
famous Discourses on Religion are today as stimulating as
anything which one may read on the subject of religion”.
Hence, the student of Protestant Theology is urged to “real­
ize that his primary task is to understand the vital nature
and function of religion. If interest is once aroused in this
direct subject-matter, many of the formal topics of the­
ological controversy—such as discussion concerning the
exact location of 'authority’—cease to be of importance”.27
24) Nitzsch, ibid., pp. 38-40.
25) Gerald Birney Smith, Systematic. Theology and Christian
Ethics, in A Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion. Chicago, Ill.
1917 (2’Impression), pp. 504, 505.
26) Ibid., p. 499.
27) G. B. Smith, ibid., pp. 508, 509.

106
Conclusion.

Chapter III

In the light of this brief historical survey of modern
Protestant Theology, the tendency to divorce religion
from reason and to unite it, on the one hand, with the
will, and on the other hand, with the emotions, the move­
ments of the heart, is not difficult to understand. This
will become clearer, if we study the writings of some of
the more representative advocates of Voluntarism, and
Emotional Religion in modern Protestant thought. At
the same time, the relative value of the subjective and
mystic criteria of Revealed Religion, as understood by
the great majority of modern Protestants, will appear
in clearer light.

I

I.

K»nt.

VOLUNTARISM

1. For Protestants “one of the principal fountains
from which the main stream of modern theology has
flowed”28 is Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The primacy of
value, which the “will” enjoys in religion and faith
among large sections of present day Protestantism, is
mainly due to his influence.
For clarity’s sake, we must remind the student that we
are not concerned here with the question as to the influence
of the will in the exercise of religion and faith; for doubt­
less in this practical respect, the will does occupy the pri­
mary and most important position. For us the problem is
rather this: What is the extent of the will’s influence in
the matter of religious convictions? Or more precisely:
What value attaches to the will as a criterion of the natural
knowability of Divine Revelation?29
Pascal had already emphasized in a one-sided fashion
the motives of the will or the heart, which “has its rea­
sons that the mind knows not of”.30 But it was Kant who
proclaimed the perfect independence of practical reason ;
upon it and the will only, so he insisted, devolves the task
28 ) Errett Gates, ibid., p. 455.
29 ) J. Mausbach, Die Religion und das moderne Seelenleben, in
RCK, I, p. 62.
30) cf, J. Lataste, art. “Blaise Pascal”, in CE. XI, p. 512.

I

Voluntarism

107

of giving to a philosophy of life that final consumma­
tion, which speculative reason must despair of attaining.
For Kant the existence of God is not a truth of knowl­
edge, but rather a practical assumption on the basis of
the moral consciousness, a postulate, which becomes a
reality through the medium of the moral will. This
“faith” fills in the lacuna which the abdication of rea­
son produced in man.31
Kant’s ideal is a religion of pure reason, which pre- Kant’· Philosophy
cinds from every positive Revelation and statute. Its doc- of RelIeion'
trinal content is meager, being limited essentially to the
existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the moral
law.
Kant does not indeed absolutely reject a belief in Re­
vealed Religion resting on historical facts; he is inclined
to concede to it a provisional significance, even though he
does not acknowledge its supernatural origin. However, he
is willing to tolerate such a faith only under certain limited
conditions. It may not lay claim to any unique value; it
may serve only as a means of visualizing the truths of
natural reason. Neither may this faith be regarded as an
essential condition of salvation. Its explanation is to fol­
low the spirit of the religion of reason, as its highest norm ;
that is, its individual doctrines are to be interpreted as the
investiture of ethical ideas: “The reading of these sacred
writings or the inquiry into their content has as its final
end, to make better men ; but the historical element, which
does not contribute anything thereto is, in itself, something
entirely indifferent, which one can regard as one wills”.32
Kant himself transmutes the central dogmas of Christianity
in this spirit. Thus, for him the eternal Logos is simply
the divine idea of morally perfect man. Inasmuch as this
idea proceeds from God’s essence, the Logos is God’s only
begotten Son. Christianity rightly recognizes the highest
realization of the ethical idea in a man, who, despite the
strongest temptations and the greatest sufferings, remains
steadfast in the faithful performance of duty until death.
Union with this ideal man guarantees salvation.33 Mean­
while, however, one may not tolerate the idea- that this faith
even in its present form will last forever; in the course of
Mausbach, ibid., p. 64.
Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft. ed.
Reclam. Leipzig, p. 118.
33) Ibid., p. 62 sq.
31)
32)

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time it must give way more and more to the faith of pure
and unveiled Reason.
Religious action, in so far as it is justifiable, consists
only in the fulfilment of ethical duties. Religion and mor­
ality are really identical. Moral life becomes religion, when
the moral law is acknowledged as the law of God. Hence,
the definition: “Religion (looked at subjectively) is the
acknowledgment that our duties are divine command­
ments”.3435This definition precludes the erroneous concep­
tion, which would make religion a complexus of particular
duties immediately directed to God, and prevents our accept­
ing court service in addition to the ethical and civil duties
of man.85
The religion of pure Reason, at least, limits itself to
moral conduct. In the existing religion, side by side with
moral laws, there are still “statutory” laws, which impose on
man particular duties in respect of God and impel him to
perform particular religious practices. Kant regards these
as grounded in human nature and is unwilling to condemn
them, so long as they remain subordinated to ethical pur­
poses or ends. But just as soon as the idea obtains, that
such exercises are pleasing to God, they become an abuse..36
Kant goes so far as to reject absolutely every prayer as
divine worship in the proper sense of the term.87 God has
no need of “court service” and cannot be moved by flattery
J1 and prayers. He sees our needs and of Himself gives us
what His goodness wishes to bestow.
As regards the religious community, Kant is of the
opinion that it results, like religion itself, from ethical con­
siderations. The full domination of the good can be realized
by “the establishment and spread of a society according to
the laws of virtue”, by the organization of a “kingdom of
God”, a ‘‘church”. Kant’s ideal church is an “ethical repub­
lic”, which discards all dogmatic definitions and accepts
“rational faith”, as its guide in all intellectual matters, and
establishes the reign of the kingdom of God on earth by
bringing about the reign of duty. In this church there will
be no external authority and human statutes any more.88
In harmony with Kant’s Agnosticism, the criteria of Mira­
cles and Prophecies are, of course, rejected as unknowable.
34) Ibid., p. 164.
35) Ibid., p. 164.
36) Ibid., pp. 184, 186.
37) ibid., p. 213 sq.
38) Ibid., p. 130. cf. Franz Sawicki, Lebensanschauungen moderner
Denker. Paderborn. 1920 (2’-3’ed.), pp. 40-44; Wm. Turner, art.
“Philosophy of Kant*’, in CE. VIII, p. 603 sq.

Voluntarism

109

2. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)39 also championed Schopenhauer
the primacy of the will over knowledge in the apprehension
w**
of the Absolute. According to him the will itself is the
Absolute ; the basic essence of all things is a blind striving
and willing, to which the intellect associates itself merely
later on, in a secondary, ancillary capacity. This predomi­
nance of willing, as compared with thinking, manifests itself
in all the details of life; men’s judgments, whether they
believe or doubt, love or hate, yes, even when they err in
computing or counting, are according to Schopenhauer
dominated by their interests and their individual advan­
tages.4,0
3. Many modern thinkers gratefully acclaimed this v»iue-judgm»nts.
voluntaristic tendency as a defence against bold Material­
ism, as a means of rescue from the faintheartedness of
subjective Idealism, and incorporated it into their own
system. In the deepest problems of life, so they
claimed, the decisive factors are not ‘4 judgments of exist­
ence”, but rather “judgments of value” and “feelings
of value”, which express the tendency of man’s personal
will. If there is still a metaphysics, the most that it can
accomplish is to lead one to an absolute ground of the
world, but not to God, as the content of the good, that is,
not to the God of Theism. It is the will, the practical
need, that decides one’s philosophy of life in the latter
sense; we cannot “live” without God; we cannot sustain
our personality, in the face of Nature’s forces, without
God (Paulsen, Windelband, K. A. Lipsius, Tolstoi). The
underlying thought of this philosophy of religion may
be summarized thus : I hold fast to my religion, not be­
cause it is the true religion ; but it is the true religion,
because and in so far as it corresponds with my needs.
Accordingly, faith has no “objective validity, but only a
subjective inevitableness”. This voluntaristic concep­
tion finds its logical expression in so-called Pragmatism;
also in the school of Ritschl with its aversion for meta­
39) Die Welt als Wille und V orstellung, 1819, II vol. 1844, with
essays “Parerga,” and “Paralipomena”. English transi. “The World
as Will and Idea” by Haldane and Kemp. London. 1886.
*9) J. Mausbach, Die Religion und das moderne Seelenleben, in
RCK, I, p. 64; cf. A. B. Sharpe, art. “Pessimism”, in CE. XI, p. 740 sq.
Fr. Sawicki, ibid., p. 59 sq.

110

Balfour.

Chapter III

physics and its theory of faith closely akin to Luther’s;
finally, in certain Modernists, for whom, however, the
purpose of this practical need is simply to create the
right disposition for religion; religion itself, the real
faith in God, rests rather upon an experience of the feel­
ings.41 We shall treat of the pragmatic, Ritschlian and
modernistic viewpoints more in detail below.
4. Arthur James Balfour expounds a characteristic
theory of belief on the equivocal grounds, that it is no
less certain than scientific theory and method. Our be­
liefs are largely determined by non-rational causes, and,
even when evidence is their motive, what we regard as
evidence is settled by circumstances altogether beyond
our control.42 Starting with Kantianism and Positivism
he questions the value of metaphysics; the existence of
God, the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the
will are inaccessible to rational demonstration ; the prac­
tical reason, faith, must step into the breach.43

Balfour strives to show “how, in the face of the com­
plex tendencies which sway this strange age of ours, we
may best draw together our beliefs into a comprehensive
unity, which shall possess at least a relative and provisional
stability”.44 The logical use of modern speculative reason
on the data of experience, which he labels “Naturalism”
(that is, Positivism, Idealism, Rationalism), in his opinion
leads to the negation of religion and morality—to Agnosti­
cism. Their principles or methods rest upon indemonstrable
and inevident postulates ; and yet, men cannot and will not
and ought not to abandon religious and moral beliefs.
Hence, an adequate motive for these beliefs must be found.
“Not reasoning, inductive or deductive” lies at the basis of
“the immediate beliefs of experience”, but rather nonrational processes, especially authority, by which Balfour
understands, “a convenient collective name for the vast
«) Mausbach, ibid., I, pp. 64, 65.
Balfour, Defence of Philosophic Doubt. London, 1879,chap. xiii.
cf. G. Fonsegrive, Le catholicisme et la vie de ΐesprit. Paris,
1906, p. 52. Renouvier takes a similar stand. Every proposition, in
order to be affirmed with certainty, demands an act of the will ; science
is the result of an act of faith and the whole of science accordingly
rests upon faith (cf. Fonsegrive, ibid., p. 45).
44) Balfour, The Foundations of-Belief. Being Notes introductory
to the Study of Theology. London, 1919 (1 l’impression), p. 345.
42)
43)

Voluntarism

111

multitude of psychological causes of belief, not being also
reasons for it, which have their origin in the social environ­
ment, and are due to the action of mind on mind’*. 45 Thus,
the immediate cause or motive for man’s beliefs is the com­
bined influence of all the factors, which constitute a man’s
social environment and make up the “psychological atmos­
phere”, in which his mental life is steeped and'formed.
But, then, man cannot and does not live (his intellectual, moral, religious life) on reasons alone; “certitude is
found to be the child not of reason, but of custom”. Man
must hold to his beliefs despite the “rational” negations of
Agnosticism, not by attempting the hopelessly difficult, if
not impossible, task of rationalizing these beliefs; nor by
attempting the equally hopeless task of finding adequate
rational grounds for the authority of the various social
institutions, whether civil or religious, which propound
these beliefs to him as true.
Since the beliefs of which Naturalism is composed must
on its own principles have a non-rational source, there is
no contradiction if in other spheres, for instance, in the­
ology, the same condition prevails. Hence, it is only right
and proper and natural for man to trust the instinctive
“non-rational” impulses and yearnings of his soul, and so
to hold firmly to moral and religious beliefs,—beliefs which
so obviously harmonize with all that is best and noblest in
man’s nature, and the loss of which would degrade man to
an unnatural condition of mere animality.*
46 “If no better
ground for accepting as fact a material world more or less
in correspondence with our ordinary judgments of sense
perceptions can be 'alleged than the practical need for doing
so, there is nothing irrational in postulating a like harmony
between the Universe and other Elements in our nature,
‘of a later, a more uncertain, but of no ignoble growth’ ”.47
Balfour then contends that his argument shows “that
the great body of our beliefs, scientific, ethical, aesthetic,
and theological, form a more coherent and satisfactory
whole in a Theistic than in a Naturalistic setting”. Press­
ing the argument further, he maintains that these depart­
ments of knowledge, or any of them, are more coherent and
satisfactory in a distinctively Christian setting than in a
purely Theistic one.48 He thinks that it can be shown that
the central doctrine of Christianity, the doctrine which
essentially differentiates it from- every other religion,
«)
46)
47 )
«)

Ibid., p. 390.
cf. P. Coffey, Epistemology. London. 1917, vol. II, pp. 345, 346.
The Foundations of Belief, pp. 391, 392. Italics inserted.
Ibid., p. 397.

ft

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Chapter IΠ

namely the Incarnation, “has an ethical import of great
and even of an increasing value”. He enumerates three
aspects of this doctrine “in which it especially ministers as
nothing else could conceivably minister, to some of the most
deep-seated of our moral necessities”.
a) “The whole tendency of modern discovery is neces­
sarily to magnify material magnitudes to the detriment of
spiritual ones. The insignificant part played by moral
forces in the cosmic drama, the vastness of the physical
forces by which we are closed in and overwhelmed . . . in’ crease (on the Theistic hypothesis) our sense of the power
of God, but relatively impoverish our sense of his moral
interest in his creatures. It is surely impossible to imagine
a more effective cure for this distorted yet most natural
estimate than a belief in the Incarnation”.49
b) “Again, the absolute dependence of mind on body
... is of all beliefs the one which, if fully realized, is most
destructive of high endeavor. Speculation may provide an
answer to physiological materialism, but for -the mass of
mankind it can provide no antidote ; nor yet can an antidote
be found in the bare theistic conception of a'God ineffably
remote from all human conditions, divided from man by a
gulf so vast that nothing short of the Incarnation can
adequately bridge it”.50
c) “A like thought is suggested by the ‘problem of
evil’ . . . Of this difficulty, indeed, the Incarnation affords
>
no speculative solution, but it does assuredly afford a prac­
tical palliation . . . Christianity brings home to us, as noth­
ing else could do, that God is no indifferent spectator of
our sorrows, and in so doing affords the surest practical
alleviation to a pessimism which seems fostered alike by
/
the virtues and the vices of our modern civilization”.51
summary.
To sum up : The advocates of Voluntarism, divorcing
the reason from the will, closely associate the origin, and
the essence of religion and faith with the volitional part
of man’s nature and with the exigencies of practical life.
Repudiating the traditional apologetics of reason, they
seek to ground religious faith upon voluntaristic motives
of credibility. Accordingly, by the credibility of the
truths of religion and ethics, they mean their aptitude for
belief, inasmuch as they appear conformable with the
4») Ibid., p. 398; cf. pp. 333-338.
60) Ibid., p. 398; cf. pp. 338-341.
61) Ibid., pp. 398-399.

Voluntarism

113

dictates of practical reason, or with the practical needs
of man’s religious and moral life.6263
64
1. We are not now concerned with the problem as to CritIciam
the measure of influence, which the will exerts on knowl­
edge, especially in the sphere of religious faith.53 Neither
is this the place to enter upon a criticism of Kant’s theory
of knowledge in its application to voluntaristic faith. The
stüdent is referred to philosophy, especially to epistemol­
ogy, for an ex professo discussion of these questions.54 This
much, at least, is certain : Whoever separates theoretical
from practical reason, builds upon a precarious foundation.
Faith is powerless to reconstruct the beautiful world which
critical reason has deliberately demolished. Doubtless the
natural and moral tendency of the will is of the greatest
value, in the matter of inspiring and promoting thought
activity and of giving to it earnestness and profundity.
But if the will neglects this task, if it surrenders thought
activity to a false propensity or inclination to individual­
istic self-disintegration, it is impotent to create a certain
religious conviction. There is a natural connection between
the true and the good, between “judgments of existence"
and “judgments of value"; in the good is contained an in­
tensified truth and reality; in a judgment of value there is
contained the acknowledgment of the excellence and dignity
of existence.65 Hence, it is not surprising that ih the history
of modern ethics Kant stands almost alone, when he asserts
that the categorical imperative (the moral legislation of
practical reason) is the primary, a priori truth, which.evi­
dences itself to every one without proof, and which gives
to the whole realm of conscience, to morality, its uncondi­
tional validity and unction. This undervaluing of the vital·
tasks, of the pregnant and inspiring purposes, of morality,
has finally been rejected almost universally as an artificial
and impotent formalism.66
2. The question that interests us here is : "What is the vohmjuffetie^chvalue of this voluntaristic criterion as regards the Problem of cernatural knowability oî Divine Revelation? And in this tItude U1MOIved*
respect Voluntarism, in common with other subjective
systems of thought, makes “the common mistake of leavG2) Garrigou-Lagrange, Ο. P., ibid., I, p. 619; (3’ed.), pp. 269, 270.
63) cf. Mausbach, ibid., I, pp. 65-72; Chas. R. Baschab, A Manual
of N eo-Scholastic Philosophy. St. Louis, Mo., 1924 (2’ed.), pp. 177-184.
64) cf. P. Coffey, Epistemology. London. 1917, Π, pp. 330-344.
56) Mausbach, ibid., I, pp. 75, 76.
G6) Ibid., p. 74.

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114

Chapter III

.ing the problem of certitude without solution. Sceptics
themselves admit this more or less necessary impulse of
our nature to assent to certain truths. But the whole
point at issue is to ascertain whether this impulse is blind
or justified. If any claim is made to justify it, recourse
must be had in the last resort to some other motive than
the nature of the subject, to a motive whose foundation
the intellect can itself perceive, in a word, to a criterion
which is objective”.All anti-intellectualistic theories,
which would ground certitude ultimately on non-rational
motives, produce not assents of certitude, but only of a
prudent probabilism. An appeal to subjective feeling or
sentiment, to the “will to believe”, must show its cre­
dentials before the bar of reflecting reason. An appeal
to such extrinsic influences as are not directly rational,
influences that are motives or causes, but not reasons
(Balfour), of assent, cannot lay claim to my submission,
until I know that what they prompt me to do is true. It
is indeed proper for me-to believe ; to trust my faculties ;
to trust the moral and religious promptings of my na­
ture. But only, when I convince myself that there are
reasonable grounds for my doing so; but not sooner. It
1 is wrong for man to abdicate his dignity as a rational·
being by trusting or believing blindly. He must use his
reason to discover satisfactory objective grounds for be­
lieving; such grounds will be the ultimate test of the
truth of what he is to believe; they will be the ultimate
motive of his certitude ; then his belief will be a reason­
able belief, an obsequium rationabile. When the indi­
vidual holds beliefs “because he is rationally convinced,
rationally certain, that he has adequate grounds for their
credibility, for the truth of what they propose to him, then
and then only does he believe rightly and rationally. For,
as St. Thomas says, “Ea, quae subsunt fidei . . . aliquis
non crederet nisi videret ea esse credenda’; and not only
would the individual de facto refuse, but he would be
67) Cardinal Mercier, A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy.
Authorized translation and eighth edition by T. L. Parker and S. H.
Parker. London & St. Louis, Mo. 1916, vol. I, p. 366.

Emotional Religion

115

right in refusing, to ‘believe them unless he saw them
to be credible’
The man of average intelligence can
de facto easily see both within him and around him, in
his own nature, in the world of experience, and in the
light which those truths throw both on his own nature
and on the world around him, adequate objective evi­
dence of the credibility of the truths to which he assents,
for truth makes to Ihe human intelligence an objective
evidential appeal, which is not forthcoming in the case
of error. He can finally meet and settle all satisfactorily,
according to the measure of his capacity and oppor­
tunities, such difficulties as may de facto happen to arise
against the credibility of what he believes. Thus, the
certitude of his belief is a reflex, reasoned and reason­
able certitude”.®8 The voluntaristic criterion is, there­
fore, insufficient to enable us to arrive at a certain knowl­
edge of Divine Revelation.
r
?
\
*
II. EMOTIONAL RELIGION

Protestant Theology, for the., most part, still looks
upon the inner experience of the power and efficacy of
God’s revealed word to satisfy our feelings and our
striving for happiness as the primary criterion of the
Christian Faith. It regards this criterion not as an in­
tellectual, but rather as an emotional experience, an
experience of the sentiments or the heart. Hence, the
ground of the certitude of salvific Faith, and of the sci­
ence upon which it rests, is not an inner experience in
the sense of an intellectual intuition or perception, but
an inner experience in the sense of a feeling of that, which
satisfies our striving for bliss and of whatever goes to
make up our happiness. This criterion is said to be an
adequate sign of certitude, even apart from previous
metaphysical or apologetical proofs, and without in the
end needing Kant’s proofs of the moral reason. We have
already called this criterion “mystical” and so, too,
B8) Coffey, ibid., Π, pp. 346-348.

r.

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Chapter III

many Protestants term it.59 For obvious reasons we are
obliged to restrict our study to some of the more typical
representatives of this viewpoint.

1. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819)60 protested
most vehemently against Kant’s ethical faith in God and
religion. To it as well as to Lessing’s and Herder’s pan­
theistic concepts of God and religion, he opposed a sentir
mental religious faith and was, therefore, like Rousseau be­
fore him, the protagonist of a sentimental religious Illuminism. For him religion was not merely a mediate postulate
of morality, not only an adjunct of ethics, but rather some­
thing original, immediate, something that could be grasped
by a. sentimental rational faith, no matter how imperfect
it might appear to the understanding. He visioned man as
caught between the devil and the deep blue sea: in heart
man is a Christian, but in understanding a heathen, an
atheist and a pantheist.61
Jacobi created a complete philosophy of Revelation. For
him Revelation like Faith is the term or expression for the
irrationality of the world. Accepting the conclusion of
Kant’s “Kritik der reinen Vernunft”, namely that human
“understanding” (Verstand) cannot transcend the limits of
sense experience and arrive at a knowledge of the “nourrienon” or essence of things, Jacobi maintained that our con­
viction concerning the existence of things rests upon Reve­
lation and Faith. It is especially the irrational powers with­
in ourselves, the basic impulse of the true, the good, and
the beautiful, the sentiments of reason (Vernunftgefühle),
which must be ultilized as God’s Revelation ; by their means
God becomes immediately present within us.62 In other
words, ‘‘he proclaimed that man is endowed with a higher69
69 ) A. v. Schmid, ibid., pp. 236, 237. Other Protestant theologians,
however, designate as “mystic” only those tendencies, which assume an
immediate union of the soul with God and Christ in the formal mean­
ing of that term, or which unduly dissociate the inner Christian experi­
ence from the external, objective basis of the Person of Christ, as He
continues to live in the community and appears to us in the Bible.
Others call only that experience mystical, which emanates from ex­
ceptionally vital and intensive emotions (Pietism, Methodism etc.), or
from an immediate ecstatic absorption into the Divine, etc. To that
extent it is only a quaestio vocis. (Schmid, ibid., p. 237, foot-note) cf.
R. H. Fisher, Religious Experience. The Baird Lectures for 1924.
N. Y., pp. 48-70.
60) Werke, 6 vols., Leipzig. 1812-1825; Briefwechsel, 2 vols.,
1825-1827.
61) Schmid, ibid., pp. 75, 76.
62) Nitzsch-Stephan, Lehrbuch der evangelischen Dogmatik, pp.

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faculty than this ‘understanding’, which reasons logically
from the data of sense. This higher faculty (Vernunft:
‘reason’) works in a hidden, mysterious way in the suprasensible domain of the true, the good, and the beautiful, as
a sort of spiritual feeling or sentiment (Geistesgefiihl). It
is prior to, and deeper than, all reasoning : we cannot seize
or analyze it: we simply believe in it and accept its dic­
tates. It has nothing to do with the phenomena but gets
us into contact with noumena, with reality. Through it we
escape scepticism and rise superior to all the doubts and
limitations of the mere logical faculty, the understanding.
Thus, human certitude is based ultimately not on any in­
telligent apprehension of reality as the object of the human
understanding, but on an inevident dictate of sentiment or
feeling”.9* The following study will show how this “phil­
osophy of sentiment”—sentiment or feeling variously de­
scribed as “rational”, “moral”, “esthetic”, “religious”,
“spiritual”,—as contrasted with the so-called “reasoned”
systems with their claims for the supremacy of intellectual
evidence as the basis of certitude, permeates a very great
portion of modern Protestant Theology.

Jacobi’s Christianity is certainly not a positive, but
rather a deistic sentimental Christianity. And even for the
latter form of Christianity he had no certain scientific cri­
terion, because of its basic irrationalism.64
2. Modern Protestantism hails Friedrich Schleiermacher (1786-1834) as its great theologian and the
founder of the so-called “mediating” theology (Vermittlungstheologie), which sought to reconstruct the
bridge between supernaturalism and rationalism, Reve­
lation and nature, faith and science, orthodoxy and ideal­
istic philosophy.*65 He made a clean sweep of Melanchthonism and poked fun at the “finished plaything” of
“natural theology”.66 “In an age which was inclined to
hold religion in contempt, and to array scientific knowl­
edge and philosophical reflection against it”, says a mod­
68) P. Coffey, Epistemology, vol. II, pp. 318, 319.
«<) Schmid, ibid., p. 76.
65) w. Koch, art. “Schleiermâcher”, in Buchbergers Kirchliches
Handleæikon. Freiburg i. B, 1912, vol. II, colls. 1969, 1970; IDEM,
art. “Vermittlungstheologie”, II, col. 2584,
ββ) Gisler, ibid., p. 243.

Schlelermacher.

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ern Protestant writer,67 “he sought a defense for it. To
this end he prepared the epoch-making ‘Reden’ for the
‘cultured despisers of religion’ ”. Banishing meta­
physics from Christian philosophy, Schleiermacher
“finds Religion, as Kant had found the fundamental
moral law, in the human consciousness as such—it is a
necessary and inalienable constituent element of human
experience in its highest interpretation. It cannot, there­
fore, be a product of thought (it is not to be identified
with a doctrine or sum of doctrines or to be viewed as
the effect of such) ; or of moral action (it is not an in­
ference from moral principles or a belief involved in
the subjection to a universal moral law) ; but it is an
original human endowment. Indeed, in human experience
it is antecedent to all knowledge and action, for it ap­
pears in that rudimentary consciousness in which the
distinction of subject and object, self and not-self,
had not yet appeared. In- this priority, religion is
exhibited as superior to knowledge and morality. Here
the soul is the subject of the action of the universe; it is
wedded to infinity”.68 Subjectively, religion consists in
feeling, that is, much more than sensation; “it is that
sense of oneness with the whole of existence which is
peace and blessedness. It comes into vivid consciousness
in those deep emotions which are aroused by, or ex­
pressed in, elevated discourse or poetry or song. It does
not submit itself to minute analysis or theological
process. It is an immediate possession”.69* Philosophi­
cally, “it is the universe expressing itself in the human
consciousness. Therefore, it occurs in and with man’s
relationship to the world. In one aspect it may be desig­
nated as the human self-consciousness itself in its high­
est interpretation, and in another aspect as a function
of the universe, the universe coming to self-conscious­
67) Errett Gates, The Development of Modern Christianity, in A
Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion, ed. by G. B. Smith, Chi­
cago, ΙΠ. (Second Impression), 1917, p. 455.
68) Geo. Cross, The Theology of Schleiermacher. A Condensed
Presentation of his chief work, "The Christian Faith". Chicago, Ill.
1911, pp. 106, 107.
6») Ibid,, p. 107,

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ness in man”.70 “Religion is an immediate, or original,
experience of the self-consciousness in the form of feel­
ing”;71 “in the feeling of absolute dependence God is
immediately given to the religious man”.72 Thus, religion
is not knowledge, but feeling and the science of faith is
fundamentally different from rational science. Whoever
possesses this feeling is according to Schleiermacher
pious, religious, even though he does not know that this
sentiment is religion, and does not realize and acknowl­
edge the Infinite as a personal something, but views it
merely as something living and operative in the uni­
verse.*
78
As the feeling of dependence upon the Infinite is the Groaadof
ground of religion in general, so, too, the feeling of the chrUttan Faith·
need of redemption and the certainty that the influence
of Christ has put an end to the state of being in need of
redemption, or the experience of redemption, are the
ground of the Christian Religion, the Christian Faith.
This faith is merely a sentimental faith. It is “the in­
cipient experience of the satisfaction of that spiritual
need by Christ” and is, therefore, an emotional, experi­
ential faith. Even though it is acquired under the im­
pulse of the Holy Spirit and the ecclesiastical symbols,
still it cannot be demonstrated11 by means of the Miracles,
which He performs, or the Prophecies which predicted
Him, or the special character of the testimonies orig­
inally borne to Him, regarded as the work of divine in­
spiration”. “From all this it follows that, if faith in
the Revelation of God in Christ, and in redemption
through Him, has not already arisen in a direct way
through experience, as the demonstration of the Spirit
and of power, neither Miracles nor Prophecies can pro­
duce it, and moreover this faith would be just as un­
movable even if Christianity had neither Prophecies nor
Miracles to show”. The New Testament writings in par­
70 ) Ibid., p. 108.
Π) Ibid., p. 119.
72) Ibid., p. 315.
78) Schleiermacher’s Werke, 30 vols. 1834/64, vol. I, pp. 254-257;
269; 279-281. His “Reden uber die Religion an die Gebildeten unter
ihren Verdchtem”. Berlin. 1799, has been rendered into English by
John Oman under the title “On Religion*’, London. 1893.

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ticular have been inspired by the Holy Ghost only in the
sense that He is “the common spirit of the Church, and
hence the source of all spiritual gifts and good works”;
and “all thinking, so far as it pertains to the kingdom
of God, must be traced back to and inspired by the
spirit”. These writings are authentic inasmuch as they
are the genuine products of this common spirit, even
though they come from other and later authors than
those whose name they bear on their face.74
Thus, Schleiermacher divorced faith from science and
made a judgment of credibility impossible. And yet,
despite this valedictory to traditional apologetics, he was
>
unwilling to forego every defense of Christianity ; there­
fore, he sought a new approach to apologetics, namely,
through the philosophy of religion. He regarded apolo­
getics as a branch of philosophical theology, and aimed
at showing how Christianity is deduced from the uni­
versal concept of religion. By the help of his philosophy
he hoped to establish thé peculiar essence of Christianity,
as contradistinguished from other kinds of faith, by pre­
senting the differences, on the one hand, and by offering
* an insight into the details, on the other hand ; thus, he
hoped to strengthen the conviction as to the truth and
divinity of the whole. This procedure, however, is not a
proof, but merely an exposition, a characterization, of
Christianity by means of the science of comparative re­
ligion. The sum-total of such an apology is not the
unique character, the absolute truth, of Christianity, but
only its relative value and excellence. A very meager
result indeed; but whoever assumes with Schleiermacher
that one’s religious philosophy of life is not an objective
mirror of real cosmic conditions, but purely the subjec­
tive product of one’s own feelings and will, cannot
accomplish more as an apologist.7576
74) Schleiermacher, Der christtiche Glau.be nach den Grund·
sdtzen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhang dargestellt. Berlin.
1843, l’Abt. Zur Théologie, I, §14; §130. 131. English translation of
the second German edition. Edited by H. R. Mackintosh and J. S.
Stewart. Edinburgh (T. & T. Clark), 1928, under the-title: "The
Christian Faith".
76) Gisler, ibid., p. 244.

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3. The first attempt to establish a formal “System of Frank.
Christian Certitude”, on the basis of interior spiritual
experience, was made by Franz H. R. Frank (d. 1894), a
Lutheran theologian of the more conservative type. In his
opinion the Reformation practically laid hold of the reali­
ties of the Christian Faith, but it left “unsolved” the ques­
tion as to the subjective certitude of that Faith. His work
seeks to come to the rescue.76 Therefore, it claims to be the
ground-work of the “System of Truth” and of the “System
of Morality”, hence Fundamental Theology. As such, how­
ever, it is not identical with apologetics, as some recent
theologians 'would have it. Apologetics cannot ground the
fides divina scientifically ; it can only defend it against the
attacks of adversaries. For Christianity is “foolishness”
to the natural man and the convictions, to which natural
reason can attain, are not only inadequate as compared with
the Christian conviction, but also more or less in contradic­
tion with it.77 To make apologetics the science which
grounds theology is in contradiction with the spirit of
“evangelical -theology”.78 Hence, apologetics is only a prac­
tical theological science. Not so the “System of Certitude”.
Its aim is not to beget the fides divina; rather it presup­
poses it, in order to raise it to gnosis.
What, then, is the ultimate ground of the fides divina?
Frank answers : It is not the testimony of the Holy Spirit ;
rather it is the spiritual experience of regeneration together
with conversion as a change of the old man into the new;
hence, the “testimony of ourselves relative to our condition
as Christians”. That this new, spiritual man has the
Holy Spirit, as efficient cause, must first derive its certainty
from that effect.79 It is possible that the new Ego of regen­
eration is already present before conversion, especially in
the case of minors. It is only regeneration with conversion
that is the ultimate ground of the certitude of the Christian
Faith. According to Frank this spiritual experience is just
as little subject to deception as the experience of bodily con­
valescence. And granting that instances might occur where
the feeling of convalescence is deceptive, still they would
constitute no valid argument against the feeling of genuine
convalescence.80 Finally, in and through this fundamental
fact, namely, regeneration and conversion, all those facts
and objects, which are implied and assumed in it, also
76) System der christlichen Gewissheit. Erlangen, 2’ed. 1881,1884,
I, 12. English transi. “System of Christian Certainty" by M. J. Evans.
Edinburgh, 2’ed. 1886.
W) Ibid., I, 20-26.
7») Ibid., I, 37.
7») Ibid., 138-143 .
80) Ibid., I, 120-129.

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acquire certitude.81 In other words, starting with “Chris­
tian Certitude” in the same sense as Schleiermacher, Frank
essays the absolutely impossible task of deducing therefrom
all the objects of Faith; in a very uncritical way he at­
tempts to reconstruct the whole Lutheran dogmatics from
the fundamental fact of regeneration and conversion.82
4. Isaac Aug. Domer (d. 1884) is also opposed to an
external, authoritative and philosophical authentication of
the Christian Faith, and seeks to ground it rather on inner
mystic experience. He is not a Lutheran theologian like
Frank, but a representative of the so-called “mediating”
theology. He differs from Frank likewise in regard to the
manner of grounding the fides divina. According to Frank
the experience of regeneration and conversion guarantees
the central certitude upon which all other Christian certi­
tude depends ; but regeneration and conversion—so Dorner
objects—is continually in the making, and is not like justi­
fication “something entire and finished in its nature” ; more­
over, that principle is still too closely akin to Schleier­
macher *s conception and too subjective, since the consci­
ousness of regeneration would be “semblance and fancy”
only, unless it also directly contained God and Christ and
the Holy Spirit bearing witness to Himself in us, as its
objective ground: “There is an immediate knowledge of
God, not only a secondary knowledge, which is first deduci­
ble by way of conclusion from effect to cause . . . We are
not therefore certain of God, because we are conscious of
ourselves (as regenerated and converted), but because we
experience and know that God is in Christ for us, therefore,
we know ourselves as redeemed”.83 A proximate ground
for this difference of viewpoint is, that Dorner—obviously
in stricter adhesion to the Reformation principle—regards
salvific Faith as grounded upon the experience of regenera­
tion as a mere forgiveness of sin, and not upon the experi­
ence of regeneration, conversion, sanctification, which fol­
low upon it. Then too, Dorner conceives the fundamental
certitude of the experience of salvation in an ontologistic
and a more intellectualiste manner than Frank. “Without
the Absolute”, says Dorner, “there would be not only noth­
ing infinite any more for man, but likewise there would be
no knowledge of the finite as such, since without the con­
trast of the infinite the finite cannot be known”.84 If natural
81 ) Schmid, ibid., pp. 215, 216. 82) Nitzsch-Stephan, ibid., p. 49.
88) System der christlichen Glaubenslehre. Berlin, 1886 (2’ed.),
I, 40-41. English transi. “System of Christian Doctrine” by Prof. C.
M. Mead and Rev. R. T. Cunningham. N. Y. 1887.
84) Ibid., I, 213.

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experience already has the experience of God as its presup­
position, likewise also in a higher sense the spiritual ex­
perience of Christ’s saving Revelation. Religion is not a
mere feeling, but also knowing and willing; there is need
of an “objective norm” to which piety, to be perfect, must
conform itself. This norm is to be sought for in knowledge ;
hence, feeling without knowledge is not 'religion, even
though this knowledge must not be conceptual and scien­
tific.86 While this more intellectualistic conception of re­
ligion is doubtless superior to a mere emotional conception,
its ontologistic background is decidedly of inferior value for
the objective grounding of religion. Hence, the more recent
Protestant theologians generally are opposed to Domer’s
theory of Faith.86
5. More recent writers insist that “Christian experi­
ence covers the entire Christian life, and not merely the
initial act of conversion. It includes the operation in the
Christian of all the incentives to activity and spiritual
growth, the consolations in sorrow, the motives which lead
to the broadening and deepening of the spiritual life, and
the hopes for the future, which flow from the peculiarly
Christian mode of regarding life and the world”.87 Its
essential elements are said to be “1. The act of the will
involved in repentance and faith; 2. the object of faith,
God as revealed in Jesus Christ, Who is inwardly made
known to the believer through the Holy Spirit; 3. the re­
sults in religious adjustment, moral reinforcement and
intellectual peace. All these elements are not equally pres­
ent in all experience”, yet “conversion as thus analyzed is
the great generic type and norm of religious experience”.88
Religious experience known as the new birth is the product
of supernatural forces; these forces are personal; Jesus
Christ as the Revealer of God to man actually works the
change within man’s nature; and the inner power and wit­
ness which he employs for this purpose is the Holy Spirit
of God.89
If one inquires: How may Christian experience be veri­
fied?, Mullins replies that “this confirmation will in large
measure consist of further experiences, rich and manifold
in character . . . Sometimes the confirmation will refer to
the new birth itself, at others to the divine forces which
86) Ibid., I, 545.
86) Schmid, ibid., p. 217; cf. Geo. M. Sauvage, art. “Ontologism”,
in CE. XI, p. 257 sq.
87) E. Y. Mullins, Why is Christianity True? The American
Baptist' Publication Society, Philadelphia, Pa. 1905, p. 266. Italics inâdrtod
88) Ibid., p. 273.
89 ) Ibid., p. 287.

Uullin·,

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produce it, and sometimes to all these aspects together”.90
There is, in the first place, the principle of contrast. “In
conversion one of the most radical and striking contrasts
is introduced into experience”. Secondly, Christian experi­
ence is verified through reflection, which “makes reasonable
the idea of the forgiveness of sin”. Assurance is another
phase. Through the new birth doubts, misgiving, and fears,
cease and give way to a “deepening conviction and growing
intensity of Faith”. “Reflection also inevitably affects the
Christian’s view as to the creative cause of experience, the
Person of Christ”. Another test is the workableness of
Christian experience in practical life. “Christian experi­
ence actually raises to a higher plane of moral power and
attainment”. It enables “its subject to rise above the ills
of life”. Prayer is a further verification. Then, too, Chris­
tian experience is verified by the experience of other Chris­
tians; also by “comparison with the earliest literature of
the distinctively Christian experience, the New Testa­
ment”. Finally, the verification through the witness of the
Holy Spirit”, “Every ray of the Spirit’s light in the soul
can be traced to Christ as the Revealer of God”. “All the
methods of the verification of Christian experience are pro­
gressive. Each re-inforces the other. The cumulative effect
of them all produces immovable conviction. The gross re­
sult in moral and spiritual attainment is itself the solid
basis of outward fact, which fortifies us against any im31 putation of self-deception. The inner basis of fact is our
own experience of spiritual realities operating as causes.
There is a mysterious, an unexplained side of these inner
realities. But the result is as tangible and real to us as
that of a tree whose growth we observe, while every particle
of material addition to it is as mysterious as life itself”.91

Mullins repeats these same ideas in a later writing. “We
accept the deity of Christ along with His humanity, not by
authority, but by discovery. The lordship of Christ “has
come to us by way of experience of His Grace working in
us”.92 Baptists accept the authority of the Scriptures “by
the testimony of the Scriptures themselves and by the re­
sponse of their own spiritual life” ; they find that the Scrip­
tures are the word of God. The Bible becomes a spiritual
authority “by a spiritual process in which the whole relig»0) Ibid., p. 287.
91 ) Ibid., pp. 287-303; cf. also R. H. Fisher, Religious Experience.
The Baird Lecture for 1924, N. Y., especially pp. 48-92.
92) Mullins, "Why I am a Baptist
*
’, in Twelve Modem Apostles
and Their Creeds. N. Y. 1926, pp. 92, 93.

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ioua nature of man is active, and in which the self-authen­
ticating power of the Bible is felt”.93
6. Julius Kostlin, a representative of the “mediating” κ*«« η·
theology, assuming that reason as such cannot acquire a
firm, undoubting knowledge of the existence of God,84 con­
tends that'the ground of each and every ethical and relig­
ious conviction is inner experience, apart from metaphysical
knowledge. It is a “mystic” experience of an emotional
kind, “an immediate moving (Berührtsein) and stirring
(Ergriffensein) of our inner self by the Divine, which is
present to us in actual, historical Revelation, a perception
of the Divine, an immediate consciousness of the impres­
sions received here and now, and of the Divine, which now
operates in them, a feeling, which, however, is wholly dif­
ferentiated from the ordinary feelings of pleasure and
pain, an experience, which has the characteristic of immedi­
ateness in common with ordinary sensible experiences, .but
which itself is a supersensible event, indeed a full experi­
ence at the center of one’s own inner spiritüal life”. The
moral as well as the religious conscience rests upon such a
mystic emotional experience, superior to discursive reason­
ing; pre-Christian, and in a higher way also the Christian
conscience, has its origin in, such an experience.96 Hence, the
fact remans: there is no certitude of reality, which does
not finally rest upon external and internal experience,
upon a consciousness of the senses and of the inner, higher
sense.88
7. We see the criteria of mystic experience emphasized Quaker·,
especially by the Quakers, who claim “to reduce religion to
its essential traits, to an uttermost simplicity. They be­
lieve supremely in the nearness of God to the human soul,
in direct intercourse and immediate communion, in mystical
experience, in first-hand discovery of God”.97 Their prin­
ciple is that “religion is something to be done, not a pious
*
theory, or a creed in a book, or a set of notions to preach
about”. “They do not care much for the spectator theory
of truth,—that it is something to be observed and raptur­
ously viewed as an object. Nor do they approve that feel­
ing-theory, that truth is something which produces emo­
tional thrills. Truth is not really truth until you go out to
do it, until it has ‘motor-effects’ and becomes the tissue and
M) Ibid., pp. 93, 94.
94) Die Begründung unserer sittlich-religiosen Überzeugung. Ber­
lin. 1893, pp: 28-30.
85) Ibid., p. 53 sq.
") Ibid., p. 124.
87) Rufus Matthew Jones, Why I am a Quaker, in Twelve Modern
Apostles and their Creeds. N. Y. 1926, p. 114.

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fibre of a good life”.88 “The Quakers have always felt the
weakness of tradition or antiquity as a basis of authority”?8
“The Quaker endeavors to apply the laboratory method to
matters of religion. He asks always for the testimony and
verification of experience”. The truths of religion can be
tested out best “in the laboratory of man’s own soul and
in the experiences of his own life”.100 They are convinced
“that the foundations of faith stand sure because they are
built upon the eternal structure of the human soul itself,
because the most important facts of religion are facts of
experience, and finally because everything that has spiritual
significance can be tested and verified in the life of man as
he lives in relation to God and in relation to his fellow­
men”.101.
Bitsch!.
8. The same problem of the relation between faith and
knowledge, between science and religion, that Kant and
Schleiermacher had faced, engaged the attention oî Albrecht
Ritschl (1822-1889). “He was governed by the same motive
of reconciling them”, says a modern Protestant writer,
“and followed, in general, the same method of reconcilia­
tion. His solution of the problem consisted in a new defini­
tion of religion on the basis of Kant’s and Schleiermacher’s
contributions. He combined with them, however, related
suggestions from Herbart and Lotze. With Ritschl. the
philosophy of religion, which has steadily developed from
Kant and the faith philosophers through Schleiermacher
. in the direction of a subjective, independent basis for re­
ligion, and of a sharp distinction between religious and
scientific knowledge, has come to its final expression in a
conception of religion as a *value-theory’ ”.102
Ritschl denied to human reason the power of arriving
at a scientific knowledge of God.103 Consequently, for him
religion cannot have an intellectual, but only a practicomoral foundation. “Religious knowledge is essentially dis­
tinct from scientific knowledge. It is not acquired by a
theoretical insight into truth, but, as the product of re­
ligious faith, is bound up with the practical interests of the
soul. Religion is practise, not theory. Knowledge and faith
are not only distinct domains ; they are independent of, and
separated from, each other. While knowledge rests upon
«8) Ibid., p. 119.
88 ) Ibid., p. 119.
100) Ibid., pp. 120, 121.
i°i) Ibid., p. 122.
102) Errett Gates, The Development of Modern Christianity, in A
Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion, ed. by G. B. Smith, Chi­
cago, Ill., (Second Impression) 1917, pp. 456, 457.
103) cf. Ritschfs Théologie und Metaphysik. Bonn. 1887 (2’ed.),
pp. 7-40; Die christUche Lehre von Rechtf ertigung und Versohnung.
Bonn. 1888-1889 ( 3'ed.), pp. 16-20.

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judgments of existence (Seinsurteile), faith proceeds on
independent ‘judgments of value’ (Werturteile,) which
affirm nothing concerning the essence or nature of divine
things, but refer simply to the usefulness and fruitfulness ,
of religious ideas. Anticipating to some extent the prin­
ciples of Pragmatism, put forward in a later generation by
W. James, Schiller, etc., Ritschl declared that knowledge
alone valuable, which in practice brings us forward. Not
what the thing is ‘in itself’, but what it is ‘for us’, is de­
cisive”.104
He is particularly opposed to a “mystic-metaphysical
theory of knowledge”, and an immediate union of the soul
with God and Christ. He champions rather a mediate union
of the soul, by means of the historical influences proceeding
from the community and of the corresponding functions of
the soul. “Without the medium of the word of God, which
is Law and Gospel, and without the exact reminder of this
personal Revelation in Christ, there is no personal relation­
ship between a Christian and God”. In his opinion the doc­
trine of Lutheran theology, expounded in the seventeenth
century, regarding a mystic union of the soul with God is
untenable.105
Religion is for Ritschl “an interpretation of man’s ’of’Æe’
relation to God and the world, guided by the thought of
the sublime power of God to realize the end of this bless­
edness of man ... In every religion what is sought, with
the help of the superhuman power reverenced by man,
is a solution of the contradiction in which man finds him­
self, as both a part of the world of nature and a spiritual
personality claiming to dominate nature”.106 Accord­
ingly, the ground of religious faith is the practical need
of happiness, and the experience of satisfaction which
morality and religion offer for its fulfilment. In opposi­
tion to Kant, Ritschl grounds not only religion but also
morality upon the feelings of pleasure and pain, through
which man experiences either joy because of his
104) J. Pohle, art. “Ritschlianism", in CE. XIII, p. 87. Italics in­
serted.
105) Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus. Bonn. 1880-1886, II, pp.
10-12, 29-32, 98-100; Théologie und Metaphysik, pp. 41-54.
106 ) Die christliche Lehre von Rechtfertigung etc., Ill, pp. 185,
189. English transi. “The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Re­
conciliation”. The positive development of the doctrine. By H. R. Mack­
intosh and A. B. Macaulay. Edinburgh. 1902 (2’ed.), pp. 194, 199-

|

1,

1

.

}

128

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To Positive
Christian
F'aith Through
the Church.

Chapter III

dominion over the world by God’s help, or pain because
of the want of such help; therefore, in this sense upon
judgments of value. He writes: “Religious knowledge
•moves in independent value judgments, which-relate to
man’s attitude to the world, and call forth feelings of
pleasure or pain, in which man enjoys the dominion over
the world vouchsafed him by God, or feels grievously the
lack of God’s help to that end ’ ’.107 He is against making
religion a “subordinate appendix to morality”.108 He
agrees with Kant in rejecting a natural religion of theo­
retical or metaphysical reason, but he disagrees with him
in that he repudiates a natural religion of the practical
reason, for, he insists that religion comes about only
through the medium of positive Revelation; for there
never was a natural religion without positive doctrine
and tradition; the Lutheran theologians adhering to
Melanchthon and Scholasticism have also erred like Kant
in this respect. All religions were and are positive re­
ligions, the Christian Religion in the fullest measure.109
Despite this philosophical-practical method of grounding
the Faith in the Kantian sense, Ritschl exerted such a
far-reaching influence in theological circles, particularly
by reason of this approximation to Positivism.110

Ritschl does not seek to arrive at positive Christian
Faith like Kant, through a philosophico-practical faith
based on need; neither does he plan to come to Christ,
and through Christ to the Church, like Çîchleiermacher,
by means of a subjective, experiential faith. His ap­
proach to faith in Christ and His Gospel, and to trust
in the forgiveness of sin, to divine sonship and beati­
tude, in the kingdom of God, Who is Love, is rather
through the ecclesiastical community.
In the Ritschlian conception “justifying faith is possible
only in the Christian community. The Church of Christ (by
io?)
English
108)
109)
110)

Die christl. Lehre von Rechtfertigung etc., Ill, pp. 194-196;
transi., p. 205.
Ibid., Ill, 209. 215 foot-note.
Ibid., Ill, pp. 185-193; Théologie und Metaphysik, pp. 65-66.
Schmid, ibid., p. 219.

Emotional Religion

129

which, however, is to be understood no external institution
with legal organization) is, on the one hand, the aggregate
of all the justified believers, but, on the other hand, has, as
the enduring fruit of the work of Christ, a duration and
existence prior to all its members, just as the whole is prior
to its parts. Like the children in the family and the citizens
in the state, all believers must also be born in an already
existing Christian community. In this alone is God
preached and in this alone, through the preaching of Christ
and His work, is that justifying faith rendered possible, in
virtue of which the individual experiences regeneration and
attains to adoption as a son of God . . . Since the Christian
Faith exists only through personal experience, or subjec­
tive acquaintance with justification and reconciliation, the
objects of faith are not presented to the mind from without
through a Divine Revelation as an authoritative rule of
faith, but become vividly present for the Christian only
through subjective experience. The revelation of God is
given only to the believer who religiously lays hold of it
by experience and recognizes it as such
.
**
111
This approach to Faith is perhaps the reason why, in
the second and third edition of his work on “Justification
and Reconciliation”, Ritschl stresses and puts into the fore­
ground not a philosophical-practical method of proof, but
rather a theological-mystic proof in the anti-Kantian
sense112 after the manner of Spener. Theology, so Ritschl
writes, cannot enter upon either a direct or an indirect
proof of the truth of Christianity, in that it seeks to demon­
strate its harmonization with any philosophical or juristic
view of life. For Christianity stands really in opposition to
these . . . The scientific proof for its truth will have to be
sought for along the line of thought already excellently
stated by opener. Whoever fulfils the will of God, will
know that Christ’s message is true (John vii, 17). Still,
the ground of the Christian Faith is only an experience,
through the soul’s reaction, of the salvific operations of
God’s word coming from without; it is not, however, a
secret union with God in the ground of the soul itself, that
is, not a un io mystica. Hence, in this stricter sense Ritschl’s
doctrine disclaims the appelation of “mystic”.113
ni) J. Pohle, art. “Ritschlianism”, in CE. XIII, p. 87. Italics in­
serted. cf. A. E. Garvie, The Ritschlian Theology. Edinburgh, 1889;
which according to R. Mackintosh is the "standard work”.
112) Kant's Werke, ed. Rosenkrantz. X, 310-311.
US) Ritschl, Die christliche Lehre von Rechtfertigung etc., (2’ed.,
1882-1883; S’ed., 1888-1889, pp. 20-25.

130

Chapter III

In other words, just as many philosophers of modern
emotional religion generally regard the religious feeling as
an immediate experience, or' laying hold, of the Deity,
hence, not as a practical feeling of value, but rather as a
kind of mystic knowledge, so, too, in Ritschl and many of
his pupils we note a similar ambiguity. On the one hand,
Ritschl says that the judgments of value, which go to make
up the kernel of religious knowledge, have their motive
solely in the feeling of value, which the objects arouse in
the believer; and, on the other hand, he calls the origin of
faith also an inner experience, thus, passing over to the
other interpretation of feeling.114
Kaftan.
9. Julius Kaftan essays to define more exactly the rela­
tion between the philosophical-practical and the theologicalexperiential method of grounding the Faith, in that he at­
tributes only to the latter the power of engendering certi­
tude. Already the feelings and the will, so he writes,: and the
striving after well-being,’ direct theoretical knowledge and
enable man to find satisfaction in morality and religion, and
finally in a rational speculation according to practical
norms. This, however, has nothing to do with subjective
mood and arbitrariness, but “is in its way just as objective
as the theoretical function of any science”, even though
with its judgments of value it does not possess such a com­
pelling force as science and, purely as such, does .not pass
beyond a merely rational postulate, hypotheses, proofs, of
probability.115 Rational postulates of a kingdom of God
Λ offer only probability; certitude arises only through the
Revelation of this kingdom of God in Christianity, and
through the preaching of the justifying and reconciling love
of God made known to us by that Revelation; “The subjec­
tive need in itself engenders no certitude, and just as little
does the latter spring from the acceptance on authority of
an objectively existing Revelation. Only where the subjec­
tive need lays hold of Revelation, as objectively given and
self-announcing, is such certitude attained”.116 Only thus
does rational speculation pass beyond mere rational postu­
lates and hypotheses, mere conjectures and probabilities,
and arrive at a full apo log etic proof of the reality of that
kingdom of God in Christianity as the grounding of dog­
matics.117 Thus, apologetics and the System of Christian
Certitude are not separated from each other, as in Frank’s
U4) J. Mausbach, Die Religion und
RCK. I, pp. 81-82.
ns) Die Wahrheit r der christlichen
393-440. English transi.' "The Truth of
Geo. Ferris. Edinburgh. 1894, 2 vols.
116) Ibid., pp. 549-553.
h?) Ibid.,

das moderne Seelenleben, in
'
Religion. Basel. 1888, pp.
the Christian Religion”, by

pp. 490 sq; 547-554; 569-571.

IJ!
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Emotional Religion

131

system, but they are regarded as one and the same for the
purpose of laying this foundation of Faith.118
10. Richard Lipsius opposed this positivistic concep- L1i'sl,ia
tion of Revelation, which Kaftan assumed as regards Ritschl
and his school. With Fr. A. Lange he also championed the
neo-Kantian theory of knowledge. Knowledge comes only
through internal and external experience; over and above
this, there are only ideal conceptions of speculative reason,
winged by fancy, and the practical experiences of truth that
satisfy the feelings. Like morality, religion,, too, owes its
origin to the “self-assertiveness of man in the face of the
external natural world” ; to that extent moral and religious
ideas are like two branches of a common root; Religion has
as its presupposition the Revelation of God; both are cor­
relative concepts. To both sides of subjective religion—
piety and faith—there correspond objectively, as aspects
of Revelation, manifestation in nature and history, and in­
spiration within the spirit.119 But faith in Revelation does
not come into being, so Lipsius thinks, merely in an: exter­
nal way, through the spirit oif Christ forever operating in
the community, but also in an internal manner, through the
authentication of Revelation within ourselves by the testi­
monium Spiritus Sancti, by an immediate touching of our
spirit by the Holy Spirit and thé unio mystica with Him’.120
As regards content, Lipsius
*
theology largely coincides with
the “liberal theology” of Ritschl.121
11. In France, Auguste Sabatier (d. 1909), Dean of Sabatier,
the Protestant theological faculty at Paris, stirred up much
interest and exerted a wide-spread influence, even in many
circles of Catholics in France, by his theology, which in
many points manifests contact with the theology of Ritschl,
Kaftan, and Lipsius. Sabatier’s method of grounding the
Faith is partly a philosophical-practical in the neo-Kantian
sense, and partly also a theological-mystic method, although
-the distinction between the two methods is not always
clearly discernible.
The opposition between the theoretical and the practical
reason, between nature and the spirit, between cosmic and
118) A. v. Schmid, ibid., p. 221.
118) cf. Lipsius, Dogmank. Braunschweig. 1879 (2’ed.) ; Theologische Prinzipienlehre, § 16-17 ; Neue Beitrage zur wissenschaftlichen
Grundlegung der Dogmatik, I-V, in Jahrbûcher der prot. Theol. 1885,
pp. 177 sq.
12°) cf. Lipsius, Dogmatische Beitrage zur Verteidigung und
Erlauterung meines Lehrbuches. Leipzig. 1878, pp. 16-17; RitschVsche
Théologie. Leipzig. 1888, pp. 24-25.
121 ) A. v. Schmid, ibid., p. 221.

132

Chapter III

self-consciousness, is to be resolved according to him by
religion in the heart of man. Essentially this is a religion
of the heart or the feelings. It arises from the practical
need of protection in the face of the limitations and the
threats of the physical world, from the initial contradiction
of the inner life of man. “All human development springs
from religion and ends with it. Art, morals, science itself,
fade and waste away, if this supreme inspiration be want­
ing to them”.122 Confidence in God’s assistance, and the
intercourse of the heart with God through prayer, are the
vital pulse of religion.123 Natural religion is not a religion,
because “it deprives man of prayer; it leaves God and man
at a distance from each other”.124* “In all piety there is
some positive manifestation of God. The ideas of religion
and Revelation are, therefore, correlative and religiously
inseparable. Religion is simply the subjective Revelation
of God in man, and Revelation is religion objective in
God”.126 Revelation is supernatural in cause, natural in its
realization and appropriation. There are not two Revela­
tions different in nature and opposed to each other. “Reve­
lation is one, in different forms and various degrees. It is
at once supernatural and natural: supernatural by the
cause which engenders it in souls, and which, always re­
maining invisible and transcendent, never exhausts or im­
prisons itself in the phenomena it produces ; natural, by its
effects, because, realizing itself in history, it always appears
therein conditioned by the historical environment and by
the common laws which regulate the human mind”.126
Miracles are not the criteria of Divine Revelation.127
“It is nonsense to demand a criterion of evangelical Revela­
tion other than itself, any other evidence, i. e., than its
own truth, beauty, and efficiency”.128 “Only one criterion
is sufficient and infallible: every Divine Revelation, every
religious experience fit to nourish and sustain your soul,
must be able to repeat and continue itself as an actual Reve­
lation and an individual experience in your own conscious­
ness”.12’ “Instead of reasoning we have here to live, to
experience, and to test”.130
122) Esquisse d’une philosophie de la religion. Paris. 1897. We
quote from the English translation Outlines of a Philosophy of Re­
ligion. (N. Y. Geo. H. Doran Co.; 2’ed.), pp. 13-27.
12») Ibid., p. 27.
i24) Ibid., p. 30.
125) ibid., p. 34.
12») Ibid., p. 64.
W) Ibid., pp. 48 sq.
«8) Ibid., p. 62.
12») Ibid., p. 62.
180) Sabatier The Religions of Authority and the Religion of the
Spirit. Transi, by Louise S. Houghton, N. Y., 1904, p. 240.

Emotional Religion

133

Sabatier teaches that we must distinguish between the
Christian Revelation and the Sacred Scriptures, which are
its documents ; “the word of God is in the Bible, but all the
Bible is not the word of God”. This sharp distinction is an
inalienable achievement of modern theology.181 All relig­
ious knowledge of the truths of Divine Revelation is inade­
quate, symbolic. Under all things lies hidden mystery.
“Who says symbol says at the same time occultation and
Revelation”. This is the symbolism of philosophy and the­
ology,182*and in this respect Sabatier approximates the doc­
trine of Lipsius.133
For Sabatier, therefore, Faith is an act of liberation
from inner division and oppression, a bold salto vitale, not
only dependence; as regards content, it is a practical feel­
ing, an act of confidence, not a proof.184
12. Wm. Ralph Inge, Dean of St, Paul’s in London, in»·.
England, believes that “the Gospel of Christ is the religion
of the Spirit in its purest form”. “It is not modern, but
older than Catholicism and much older than Protestantism.
It goes back to the New Testament, and we may even say
to Christ Himself, Whose ‘secret and method’, as Matthew
Arnold said, were the necessity of ‘dying to live’, and in­
wardness”.185 It is “distinguished by its friendly attitude
towards secular culture, by its insistence on divine im­
manence, by its resolute determination to find the seat of
authority, not in tradition, or in the arbitrary commands
of God, or in an external and supernatural Revelation, but
in the heart and wind of man, illuminated by the Spirit of
Christ. This illumination must be earned, or rather pre­
pared for, by a strenuous course of discipline. The religious
life begins with faith, which has been defined by Frederick
Myers as the resolution to stand or fall by the noblest
hypothesis. phis venture of the will and conscience pro­
gressively verifies itself as we progress on the upward path.
That which began as an experiment ends as an experi­
ence”*.™ In this religion of the Spirit “the infallibilities
are gone, the infallible Church as well as the infallible book.
Nor can we trust to the Inner Light as the old Quakers did
. . . As for the old proof from Miracle and Prophecy, we
now see that, even if the fact could be established, they
181) Outlines etc., pp. 51-53.
182) The Religions of Authority etc., pp. 322, 326.
188) Schmid, ibid., pp. 222, 223.
184) Mausbach, Die Religion etc., I, p. 82.
186) The Future of Christianity, in Twelve Modern Apostles and
Their Creeds. N. Y. 1926, pp. 14, 12, 13.
188) Ibid., pp. 12,13.

I

'134

IK
! ,
i I >
,I i
’ !

I I
i

I
i
■
i

Chapter III

would not carry the weight which the old apologetics placed
on them. . . We are in fact driven back upon the Testimonium Spiritus Sancti, the witness of the spiritual life to
itself. And it is enough”.137
SMerbiom.
13. Finally, in modern times there is a marked ten­
dency to substitute for Schleiermacher’s “feeling of absolute dependence”, a feeling of power, of trust, of moral
freedom, of peace. In this interpretation of “feeling” it is
not difficult for theologians to approximate more closely to
Luther’s doctrine of fiducial faith.138 Thus, Nathan Sôderblom, late Archbishop of Upsala, Sweden, claims in the first
place that he is a Lutheran because he owes to his section
of the Church “an overwhelming sense of the greatness of
God’s free grace as granting forgiveness and peace to the
troubled human heart and saving men from perdition, not
through their own perishable endeavors and observances
and works, but through faith in Jesus Christ.”139
SUMMARY.
1. Let us now summarize.the various viewpoints elab­
orated in the preceding pages. The advocates of modern
emotional religion, like the voluntarists, separate faith
from science and seek to construct the certitude of Faith
upon non-rational^prounds^ They appeal to the subjec­
tive criterion of Christian experience, which may be
described in general as “the state or condition produced
in the mental, moral and spiritual nature of man, when
he conforms to the conditions which Christianity de­
clares to be necessary to union and fellowship with God.
To experience is to learn by ‘practical trial or proof.’;
‘to try or prove by use, by suffering, or enjoyment’ ”.140
But the precise manner in which this Christian experi­
ence takes place is variously interpreted. For instance,
it is said to consist in ‘ ‘ the feeling of the need of redemp­
tion, and the feeling of redemption through Christ’’
(Schleiermâcher); “the spiritual experience of regener137) Ibid., pp. 15, 18.
138) Mausbach, Die Religion und das moderne^ Seelenleben, in
RCK, I, p. 82.
139) Why I am a Lutheran, in Twelve Modern Apostles and Their
Creeds, pp. 78, 79.
HQ) E. Y. Mullins, Why is Christianity True? Philadelphia, Pa.
1905, p. 266; cf. Stearns The Evidence of Christian Experience, which
according to some is the standard work along this line.
» .

Emotional Religion

135

atioh together with conversion” (Frank); “the experi­
ence of regeneration as a mere forgiveness of sin”
(Domer); “the inner witness vouchsafed to the penitent
and inquiring sinner by the Holy Ghost, through the
teaching of the Scriptures, assuring him of truth, pardon
and salvation through Jesus Christ” (Keyser)
“a
spiritual process in-which the whole religious life of man
is active, and in which the self-authentication of the Bible
is felt” (Mullins); “a feeling of value, which faith in
God’s saving grace in Christ brings to the soul’'(Ritschl,
Garvie); “an experience of our subjective need of justi­
fication and reconciliation, and the subjective laying hold
of salvific Revelation by Faith” (Kaftan); “an experi­
ence by which we feel that Revelation nourishes and sus­
tains the soul”. (Sabatier); “an experience of our own
spiritual life witnessing to itself” (Inge). Or this ex­
perience is interpreted not so much as a practical feeling
of value, as rather “an experience of being immediately
touched and stirred by the Divine” (Kostlin); and a
“unio mystica with the Divine” (Liysius); “a direct
intercourse and immediate union, in mystical experience,
in a first-hand discovery” (Quakers); in other words, as
a kind of mystical knowledge.
2. Some seek to come to Christ and through Christ to
the Church on the basis of this sentimental faith ; others,
however, wish to arrive at faith in Christ through the
Church, and the historical elements of Christianity ;
others finally, through the laboratory of man's own soul,
and the experiences of his own life (Quakers), entirely
apart from commentaries or the authority of priests.
3. As regards the verification of Christian experience
there is a variety of interpretation ; for instance, appeal
is made “to the self-authentication of the Sacred Scrip­
tures as subjectively felt by the believer”, or to “the
witness of the spiritual life itself”, or to the “experi­
ence of countless other people”, or to “the witness of
the Holy "Spirit”, or to “the workableness of Christian
ni) Leander S. Keyser, A System of Christian Evidence. Bur­
lington, Iowa. 1924 (3’ed.), p. 130.

136

experience in practical life” etc., in other words, generally to further experiences.

t i
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Chapter III

'

However, it must be noted that the appeal to Chris­
tian experience is not regarded as the exclusive criterion
of modern Protestantism. Many have recourse also to
the Person of Jesus Christ, to His supernatural character, His moral grandeur, His Miracles and Prophecies,
especially His Resurrection, and to the evidence from the
history of Christianity. Generally speaking, however,
modern Protestants either wholly discard the external
tokens, particularly Miracles, or insist that “ Miracles
are not the chief evidence of Christianity and the proof
of Revelation”;1*2 the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit
“impinging directly on the believer’s consciousness, is
more convincing than outward Miracles would be ; it is,
indeed, the final proof for the individual who receives
it”.148 Thus, external criteria are either entirely ignored,
or at least relegated to a secondary place as evidences of
Christian certitude. The primacy of value is accorded to
“inner Christian experience” as the test of credibility.

I
t

!

$0 ‘MjRITICISM

ί

1. In every system of religious thought there are
kernels of truth intermingled with patent errors. So, too,
subject under consideration. The Catholic apolo­
gist freely admits that Faith, as a moral and super­
natural act, includes the elevating and gracious impres­
sions, which the advocates of modern emotional religion
stress so emphatically. But he dissents from the erroneous evaluation placed by modern Protestantism upon
these subjective experiences. These latter are not sub­
stitutes for the objective grounds of Faith. They pre­
pare the way for the act of Faith by opening the mind
and the heart to attend to the objective grounds of belief,

subjective Expetut® for objwtivi
*
Ground
of Faith.

;
'

·

Mullins, ibid., p. 182.

143 ) Keyser, ibid., p. 132.

Criticism

137

as Catholic theologians have often indicated.144145
Then too,
at times these subjective impressions may be so strong,
that they may function as reflexive motives of certitude.
However, they are not the real ground and support of
faith,as will appear from the following considerations.
2. We note among the advocates of a religion of the
heart and feelings an intermingling of two lines of
thought;for clarity’s sakewe shall treat them separately.
• a) Some regard the religious feeling as an expres­
sion of the souVs need, an acknowledgment of creatural
misery, emptiness, dependence, yearning for higher light
and assistance. In its whole tone and tendency it reminds
one of Kant’s postulates of practical reason, as well as
of the standards which Pragmatism applies to religious
truth. But it avoids the conceptual element, the abstract
side of Kant’s postulates; a sinaple^act.pf^the^spul, Jnj
describable _and mvsterious_in^_charac.ter, a feeling, a
sigh, a surrender of the heart, takes the place of all the
reflections of reason and of all the consideraiions
I I ί I ίΜΒ of the
will; in fact, it suffices to make the receptive soul regard
ffial need as actually satisfied, and to believe in the In­
finite, in a harmony of the cosmic forces, in a blessed
consummation and a good God.—However, precisely be­
cause of this obscure and purely subjective character, the
feelings just described are even less capable than Kant’s
postulates of communicating with certitude the highest
and most luminous thought content, namely, the existence
of God. No one will deny, of course, that the vision of
human misery, the feeling of painful abandonment and
the fervent desire for happiness, prepare the way for
Faith, and accompany the initial manifestations of re­
ligious certitude. But they do not generate certitude it­
self. Indeed the struggle of the inquirer and doubter is
rather an evident sign that real religion is riot yet presΊ!!

144) cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Quodlib. q. 2. a. 6, where he speaks
of an “inner vocation” of God as a help to faith ; cf. also Origen, Contra
Celsum, I, 46; Suarez, De Fide disp. 4, s. 6, n. 4.
145) J. Mausbach, Grundzüge der katholischen Apologetik.
Münster i. W. 1921 (3*-4’ed.), p. 23.

Fate· ΏμοτΙμ
of Religion.

138

Chapter III

ent within the soûl; it comes actually only when truth,
the certitude of the Divine, enters into the mind in some
way that is capable of communicating reality. The
strongest need of the soul does not, of itself, bring a
comforter and helper; the most consuming hunger does
> not supply nourishment. How vain, then, to imagine that
in the religious sphere the heart “can create its own
God’’ in accordance with its deepest wishes and yearn­
ings ! And when the feelings take on a religious charac­
ter (e. g., the feeling of dependence on God and the
wish to be near Him), obviously the real concept of God
is already present in the soul; therefore, religion is al­
ready theoretically grounded. But the very general feel­
ings, which these philosophers regard as the source of
the knowledge of God, the yearning for a unified pur' pose and consummation of being, for a moral, blissful
perfection of the Ego, are quite incapable of functioning
as proofs of religious facts ; they are also too empty and
indefinite to be able to overcome, in times of difficult
struggle, the sensual impulses of life and to supply the
comfort, which the soul needs in those trying times.146
b) Other advocates of emotional religion interpret
the religious sentiments rather as feelings of freedom
and joy, of power and certitude, of “espousal’-’.147 As
Wm. James puts it: “The time of tension in our soul is
over, that of happy relaxation, of calm deep breathing,
of an eternal present, with no discordant future to be
anxious about, has arrived. Fear is not held in abeyance
as it is by mere morality, it is positively expunged and
washed away”.148—Such moods of the soul are indeed a

11
N

λ.

i 7VTIU
·»·
*

148) J, Mausbach, Die Religion und das moderne Seelenleben, in
RCK. I, pp. 82, 83.
147) Wm. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 47,
*48: “Like love, like wrath, like hope, ambition, jealousy, like every
other instinctive eagerness and impulse, it (religion) adds to life an
enchantment which is not rationally or logically deducible from any-?
thing
_ . . else
. . . . Religious feeling is thus an absolute .addition to the
If
λ Subject’s range of life. It gives him a new sphere of power . .
religion is to mean anything definite for us, it seems to me that we
ought to take it as meaning this added dimension of emotion, this enthusiastie temper of espousal, in religions where-morality strictly so
.called can at best but bow its head and acquiesce”.
x
148) ibid., p. 47.

Criticism

139

frequent and precious accompanying phenomenon of
religious certitude ; but they do not constitute its essence.
They play about our thinking and willing like “sacred
music”, but so long as the text of the hymn, the thoughts
y
and hopes, announce nothing of the -true, living God,
this music is not “sacred”; this “enthusiastic temper of
espousal” might just as truly be termed secular as re­
ligious. These sentiments of happy power and peace presuppose the possession of the genuine faith,· the inner
fulness of divine powers; they are- tokens and fruits
a life in God rather than its grounds and essence.
Perhaps the depth and energy of such feelings can-ζΛΤΎ A At
not be exhausted on rational and logical grounds; perhaps their fervor and cordiality oftentimes far outstrip _ - - —our powers of description ; still, that does not mean that
they hang in the air “without an object”, or that their
underlying thought may be false as well, as true. The
blissful and peace-bringing element of religion is
grounded upon the conviction, that we are dealing with
no mere figment of the imagination, but with the highest
realities, which, in content and value, far .surpass the
narrow circle of our experience. Only such an earnest
and decisive faith, not a timid and broken faith, is ablé
to pour the balm of consolation into man’s heart. But
whence can faith obtain this certitude, if the feelings,
which are really the effects of faith, are also supposed to
constitute its essential groundwork and support Î149
Obviously, therefore, unless one wishes arbitrarily to
pass off purely secular feelings for religious feelings,
one must unquestionably concede to religion a certain,,
characteristic thought content.160
Thus, a faulty theory of religion lies at the basis of
modern emotional religion.
3. Let us now consider this same concept of religion
in its relation to the Christian Faith.
Dmiculties and
__
Contradictions.
-The older Theology of the orthodox Lutheran and Re­
formed confessions grounded the fides divina in God’s savJ. Mausbach, ibid., I, p. 84.
Ibid., p. 85.

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ing Revelation, and in the divine inspiration of the Sacred
Scriptures, as the documents of Revelation, upon an inner
experience of the heart or feelings ; but it left unsolved the
problem as to whether and how that experience might serve
as the ground of Christian certitude. On the other hand,
modem Theology of the positive believing type, such as is
reflected especially in Frank’s “System of Christian Certi­
tude”, has come to realize that the inner experience consists
of certain subjective movements or impressions, which have
been awakened by the external preaching of the word of
faith. Consequently, it insists that the fides divina relative
to the objects of faith must assume those experimental facts
as its starting point, if it is to arrive at certitude. It
begins, therefore, with creatural, experiential facts.

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a) The proximate experiential fact stressed by many
advocates of the theory of “emotional religion” is the
soul’s need of salvation. A desiderium innatum, an innate desire ofsalvation, is said to have resided already
in the hearts of our first parents. But we ask: Does
fallen, spoiled human nature still possess such a desire?
Or is the contradiction of fallen nature to all the higher
or so-called spiritual things so strong, that we are com­
pelled to ascribe the desire for these blessings exclusive­
ly to the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit, Who
makes man’s heart receptive of the external preaching
of salvific Revelation, and bears witness to it indhe soul?
Orthodox Protestant Theology either did not raise this
question at all, or answered it in various ways according
to the diverse conceptions of sinful human nature.
b) Others emphasize rather the emotional impres­
sions of freedom and bliss, of peace and assurance, which
satisfy the soul's need of salvation, as the bridge leading
to the fides divina. Again we ask: How does the Holy
Spirit manifest Himself to the individual, as the Witness
of the truth of God’s saving word, by means of these subjective impressions? Is it perhaps in virtue of an immediate vision of the Spirit in the sense of Theosophy, or
even of Ontologism? This type of theology would be the
first to disclaim any such allegation. The only way in
which the Holy Spirit can reveal Himself to the indi­
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theologians is by virtue of the principle of causality.
Solely by reason of this rational principle is it possible
cither to deny that these impressions are natural, or to
affirm that they are supernatural and divine, and thus to
arrive at salvific Faith through those experiences.151
Therefore, in the end this type of theology must appeal
to other than purely emotional grounds of belief.
c) Moreover, there are other difficulties to be solved
by this orthodox type of modern Protestant Theology.
Tn the first place, there is the question as to whether and
how a Divine faith can arise from such facts of creatural
experience. Then, too, this Divine faith, as understood
by these Protestants, implies that God graciously de­
clares every one just and righteous, who trustingly ac­
cepts the message of Revelation, even though such a one
is not really just and righteous, even though such a one
remains in his inner self the same sinner as before.™
But how can God’s word be trusted, if He is not faithful
to His word; if through grace He pronounces a person
just and righteous, but does not really by His grace make
him just and righteous? Finally, this Divine Faith is
said to arise solely on the basis of an experience of the
heart or feelings; but the facts or impressions of such
an experience, even though they be divine and super­
natural in origin, cannot constitute an objective ground
of the certitude of Divine faith.153
4.* Experiential facts of moral reinforcement and
intellectual peace, the workableness of Christian experience, the moral power of religious faith, can be verified
only after a long and faithful testing. How, then, can
they be reckoned among the motives, which influence a
person in his first decision to embrace the faith!154
5. The mystic experience of modern Protestantism
may also take the form of feelings of value, as appears
in the Ritschlian school of theology. We have already
161 )
152)
16a)
1M)

A. v. Schmid, ibid., pp. 239, 240.
cf. J. Mohler, Symbolism. English transi, by Robertson, p.110.
A. v. Schmid, ibid., pp. 240, 241.
Mausbach, Grundzüge sic., p. 23.

st<p r*lth·
^p^ÿ^aAjft

Jodrment^of
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touched upon this-viewpoint in a general way above;155
let us now consider it more in detail. Judgments of feeling
are judgments of value,-which only tell us what the
object is “for us”, not what it is “in itself ” (judgments
of existence). Such judgments can indeed accompany
the latter, without being themselves judgments of exis­
tence; emotional value is not eo ipso entitative value.
M. Scheibe rightly remarks: “The ground for judging
the value of objects can lie only within ourselves; the
norms must have their seat and origin within ourselves”.
“The norms and values of approval and disapproval, of
preference and rejection, we can become conscious of
only in feelings of pleasure and pain. Hence, judgments
of value do not express what the object is in itself, but
what it is for us”.1™ We realize, of course, that Ritschlians insist that judgments of value “do not even implic­
itly deny the .existence of the object but assume it; and
so there is no opposition of judgments of value and judg­
ments of existence”. They assume “the historical value
of the Revelation in Christ”; the purpose of the_value­
judgment is “to show how the reality is apprehended”.
4 Hence, they maintain that the value-judgment is not “a
substitute for the necessary historical inquiry regarding
the reality of the object of Christian faith—Jesus.,Christ
—as fact”; and neither is it “an escape from the obli­
gation to strive for a metaphysic which will give -to
-. *
Christian faith its appropriate intellectual content”.157
. ' . However, thanks to their neo-Kantian theory of knowl­
edge, Ritschlians must deny to speculative reason the
power of acquiring certain knowledge. “Spiritual
things”, so they insist, “are spiritually discernible”, and
“scientific knowledge, and logical understanding, and
speculative reason, do not of themselves give moral in­
sight or spiritual vision. A man must be living the
W
religious life to be able to test what is, or what is not
ΐδδ) cf. above, 126 sq.
1β6) Die Bedeutung der Werturteile fur das religiose
Erkennen.
*
Halle. 1893, pp. 26-27.
167) A. E. Garvie, A Handbook of Christian Apologetics. N. Y.
1923, pp. 48, 49. Italics inserted.
<·

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religious truth”. However, approach to Christianity
along the path of historical inquiry alone can beget at
most only “a judgment of probability”. “Whether there
is recorded and interpreted in the Holy Scriptures the
Revelation of unique significance, supreme value, abso­
lute authority, and final sufficiency, is a question which
neither historical learning nor philosophical insight can
answer, but only the personal experience of Christ’s
coming into contact and communion with the soul in
Christ”.158 What is this except the. confession that the
ultimate test of faith, is a personal experience resting,
not on rational grounds, but on the emotional side of
man’s nature? But to surrender the theoretical knowl­
edge of things, and to try to build the edifice of ·faith on
the foundations of practical feelings, is, apart from the
viewpoint of epistemology, a very dubious method. Judg­
ments of-value, which do not rest upon previous theo­
retical judgments of knowledge, having objective and
universal validity, do not suffice to authenticate with cer­
tainty the content of the Christian Revelation, inasmuch
as it comprehends eternal truths; far less even, in so
far as it implicates truths-of the temporal and historical
order. How can value-judgments guarantee the great
basic facts of that Revelation, unless they be strength­
ened by-reasons grounded in facts? How can such judg­
ments, demonstrate that in Christ, God’s power of .for­
giving sin, and His gracious loving will, have revealed
themselves ; „ that, therefore, the consciousness of the
Christian community and the testimony of the Scrip- ‘
tures in regard to the work and the person of Christ, are ' i
not mere pious sentiments, to which there corresponds
no reality! How can all this be authenticated with cer­
titude by merely emotional experiences and judgments
of feeling! These difficulties Protestant theology has not
been able Jo overcome in a thorough and satisfying
manner.
Ethical, esthetic and religious feelings of value are
indeed also “judgments of existence”; but they are
168) Garvie, ibid., p. 49.· ‘

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based upon subjective grounds of feeling; consequently,
they have value only for the individual; they are not of
universal value. In consequence, they can all too easily
become the prey of illusions,139 as the history of the mys­
tical theories of faith among Protestants shows from the
Reformation period to our own days. All religious en­
thusiasts appeal to the experience of extraordinary joy
and peace ; and yet, they may be rejoicing in vain images
of their phantasy; vice versa, very many genuine believers do not experience such impressions, while reflect­
ing upon the “good news” of Christ’s message. Obvi­
ously, therefore, there are also false feelings or experiences. Hence, there must be a criterion at hand, which
will enable one to discern the genuine from the false in
religious experience. Surely, it argues a great disregard
for the position of the ήγεμονικόν within us, to allow the
feelings, nay more, even the sensible feelings, to act
as the guide of reason, when it is the function of reason
to judge of the value of the feelings.159
160 Consequently, to
guard against illusions the judgments of feeling, value­
judgments, must have as their groundwork judgments of
knoivledge, which can truly lay claim to a certainty that
1 excludes every reasonable doubt. On the basis of the
feelings and emotional experience alone, it is impossible
ever to rear a certain religious knowledge and a certain
religious science (philosophy of religion, apologetics,
dogmatics).161
subjective Expe6. In point of fact, apologetic subjectivism has led
DVinusration of to the progressive disintegration of historical ChristianRevealed Reunion. -^ι62 js apparent especially in the Liberal type of
modern Protestant Theology, which has, to a large ex­
tent, adulterated and abandoned the distinction between
natural and supernatural Divine Revelation, between
natural and supernatural Faith. It no longer regards
faith in salvific Revelation as a fides divina, a super­
159)
i«o)
1β1)
152)

Schmid, ibid., p. 238.
Gutberlet, ibid., II, pp. 100, 101.
Schmid, ibid., p. 238.
Mausbach, Grundzuge etc., p. 23.

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natural Divine Faith, but rather as à human belief in
Divine Revelation. It has more or less attenuated the
content of the Christian Revelation, surrendered the
divine inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, and based
faith upon a theological emotional experience, and partly
also upon a philosophical-practical foundation in the neoKantian sense. Like orthodoxy it conceives justifying
faith as a trust in the Saviour God, Who in Christ places
grace at our disposal and applies it to us despite our
sins ; but, contrary to orthodox theology, it refuses to re­
gard the intellectual acts of knowing and assenting, as
included in the essence of faith, or as the necessary pre­
liminary steps to it.
However, Liberal Theology like orthodoxy must face
the question : How does the individual arrive at objective
certitude as regards the feelings of sin and guilt, and the
need of salvation? How can the individual, indepen­
dently of theoretical knowledge and proofs, of all his­
torical and metaphysical science, acquire the saving cer­
titude of a supermundane God, of His veracity and
gracious will, of the person of Christ forever living in
the consciousness of the community, as the Revealer and
Mediator of this gracious will, and of the divine pardon,
despite sin, and of eternal beatitude? Nolens volens, Lib­
eral Theology must grant that the certitude of salvation,
as a trust (fiducia) in the grace that has been made ours
by justification, implies or presupposes a knowledge and
a holding as true of the aforesaid facts and doctrines of
salvation (notitia et assensus), even though it does not
acknowledge, in the orthodox sense, the Trinity of God
and the divinity of Christ, Miracles and the vicarious
atonement, the divine inspiration of the Bible, etc. As
orthodox theology rests its assent as regards the facts
and doctrines of salvation, not indeed upon intellectual
grounds, but rather upon the basis of their satisfying
power and efficacy, so, too, Liberal Theology must base
its assent upon the same grounds, despite the abbrevi­
ated content of its faith. Like orthodox theology it must
answer the question: Whether a certitude of salvation,

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grounded only upon an experience of the heart or .feelings, is not an insufficiently motivated certitude, hence,
a mere-semblance of certitude.163

’

7. A final interpretation of modern emotional· reo^Sôd.’ ^g10n remains to be considered, namely, the viewpoint
of those Protestants who speak of arriving at religious
certitude by means of an immediate consciousness, an
experience, of the Deity. In so far as it posits an immediate, mysterious contact of the soul with God as the
onty source of religion, it may be termed “Mysticism”.
Modernists call it “Immanentism”. It is an assurance
of God and His will. We shall deal with the Modernistic
criterion in detail in a later chapter.

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This viewpoint is exemplified in Jacobi and Schleier­
macher. Jacobi’s religion of the heart is not merely a perception of value ; it is also a kind of conviction by which
God manifests Himself interiorly to the heart. Schleier­
macher explains the religious feeling as a perception of the
primitive causality of finite things, an experience of the
Infinite in the finite. It is neither knowing nor willing,
neither is it a third co-ordinate power ; rather it lies deeper
than all the powers of the soul. Hence, its content does not
^consist of rational concepts and religious dogmas; for these
latter originate only afterwards, namely, through reflec­
tion on religious experience. This viewpoint became the
connecting link by which the Protestant doctrine of the pri-.
vate inspiration of the believing Christian was more fully
elaborated into the present day theory of religioùs experience, as the primitive fact of personal Christianity. Thus,
W. Hermann of the school of Ritschl describes Revelation·
as the process by which, one becomes conscious of God, and
which the individual experiences at the moment when he
becomes aware of a “power of good over all things”. This
satisfying and transforming experience must be joined with
the person of Christ manifested to us in the Gospel,
Troltsch likewise teaches that we obtain certitude regarding “the totality of the world and God” only through the
religious feelings; the presence of this totality within us
reveals itself through the feelings. ‘The language of religion
calls this manifestation of God Divine Revelation ; it differs
only in degree in the ordinary pious man and in the divine
163) A. v. Schmid, ibid., pp. 241, 242.

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147

legate of Sacred Scripture.164 A similar conception appears
also in Kaftan, the Quakers, etc.
There .is, of course, no doubt that emotional religion
can appeal to certain facts and phenomena of the Chris­
tian life. Thus, a feeling, a painful consciousness of one’s
own limitations, oftentimes precede thought’s initial
searchings for God. Moreover, the knowledge of God
itself frequently comes about so easily and naturally,
that it approximates to feeling, an immediate perception ;
Cardinal Newman, for instance, speaks of such an expe­
rience in the fifteenth year of his life. As the soul is
God’s image and likeness, so, too; God operates natur­
ally by promptings and enlightenment' in the depths of
the soul. He also grants to the soul supernatural graces,
whose operations upon the emotions frequently reveal
themselves in touching and exalting experience. Even
the philosophical knowledge of God, by reason of the
sublimity of its content and the mysterious obscurity
that envelopes it, bears a certain likeness to the enig-?
matical and ineffable element of the emotional life.
Nevertheless, we must emphatically reject the viewpoint that religion has its origin in the feelings and that,
not reason, but the feelings must decide as to the essence
and certitude of religion. For such a theory involves
itself in intrinsic contradictions, and comes into conflict
with the objective power of Christianity and with the
essence of historical religion.
a) A primary and inescapable characteristic of a
one-sided emotional religion is its intrinsic obscurity, its
impotency to avoid insoluble contradictions the moment
it emerges into the world of reality. This fact can be
made clear only by considering the theory in- particular
examples.

For instance, Schleiermacher maintains that religion is
not grounded upon philosophical concepts and knowledge,
but upon the immediate "‘feeling of the Absolute in the
finite”. But are not finite and absolute also philosophical
1M) J. Mausbach, Die Religion und das moderne Seelenleben, in
RCK, I, pp. 86, 87.

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concepts, which surely cannot be felt, but can only be acquired by abstract thinking? Moreover, according to
Schleiermacher the religious feeling expresses man’s abso­
lute dependence upon an absolute causality ; but has he not
thereby assumed the law of causality, hence, a basic law
of metaphysics? And again, are not "absolute” and
"causality” abstract, metaphysical concepts? Moreover,
what a sharp contradiction between his conception of universai Natural Religion, and of Christian Revelation and
piety !—Harnack once wrote : “Despite all doubts religion
remains immovable in the hearts of Christians, who have
an interior feeling of its truth!”165 But a religion which
can be seriously "doubted”, does not stand "immovable” in
the heart. If the interior feeling is really to give to religion
steadfastness, it must also overcome the doubts as to its
truth ; if the heart is really to find peace and quiet in God,
the spirit of man may no longer struggle and contradict
religion.—In like manner the learned book of R. Otto (Das
Heilige), which elaborates Schleiermacher, shows its lack
of psychological and noetic clarity by its many foreign
words (das Numinose, Faszinose, das augustum, das tre­
mendum mysterium), and by the assumption of correspond­
ing innate “emotional ideas”.166

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b) Moreover, the emotional experience under consideration lacks the actual universality and diffusion,
which it must possess, if it were the essential and deci­
sive form of religious conviction. For, in the latter case,
we should have to assume that God would grant this feel­
ing to all men, irrespective of time and environment. The
very contrary, however, is the case, as Modernists admit.
Then, too, many modern Protestants tell us that indi­
vidual revelation never takes place without interven­
tion, “but always through the mediation of all sorts of
impulses”, especially through “religious tradition in the
garb of community feelings” (Troltsch). Since religion
is the most intimate and necessary relation with God;
since, moreover, according to Modernists it is essentially
purely individualistic, how can God, Who vitally perme­
ates all souls, make such a mighty distinction between
J®5) Harnack, Reden und Aufsatze. 1904, II, p. 376.
166) J. Mausbach, Die Religion und das moderne Seelenleben, in
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Christians and heathens; how can He thus bind the
natural and personal to external accidents? One would
rather be inclined to think that, if interior instruction by
God were the rule in the economy of salvation, God would
grant it precisely and most of all to men, who were ex­
teriorly the most abandoned and the poorest. The expla­
nation, namely, that there are men, who “have no organ
for religious things’’, or the other explanation, that the
lack of holiness hinders the gracious experience, cannot
be regarded as offering a satisfactory escape from the
difficulty. Such an explanation, on the contrary, is rather
a humiliation and an insult, not merely to those who stand
outside the pale of Revelation, but also to the many
thousands within Christianity, who cannot boast of such
an overwhelming inner experience as the groundwork of
their faith. In fact, this whole matter of Mysticism does
not seem to be taken very earnestly, save in very limited
circles ; just as there are many Protestant laymen, who
cannot specify exactly the day of their inner enlighten­
ment and rebirth, which surely must be possible and
easy, if Divine Revelation were such an overwhelming
experience !
A distinguished Protestant theologian acknowledges this
fact. He writes : “I can believe that it is possible for us
men to come in contact with God through Him (Jesus). But
I do not rely at all upon my ‘feelings’. I do not find anything
‘original’ in them, that is, like a Revelation”.167 If,
on the
* other hand, the rule according to which Faith origi­
nates is the testing’of objective rational grounds, as well
as the believing attachment to historical tradition and
authority, it is not difficult to explain this actual inequality
in the twofold process by which religious Faith is brought
about. For in both processes the variety of external methods
by which peoples are instructed, and the diversity of the
mental powers of those who investigate the rational objec­
tive basis of Faith, are, from the very nature of the case,
concomitant factors in that process.168
c) Whoever looks upon the feelings as the decisive
i6^) Kattenbusch, Christliche Welt, 1917, p. 699; cf. Bonwetsch,
Dae religiose Erlebnis führender Personlichkeiten (in “Das 19. Jahrhuwiert"), 1917; Mundle, Die religibsen Erlebnisse. 1921.
1M) J. Mausbach, ibid., I, p. 93.

Danger of

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factor in religion, opens the door wide to all sorts of
fantastic vaporings, and exposes himself to the danger
of regarding all religions as of equal value.
Accordingly, the inspiration of an Isaias, the divine
enlightenment of a Paul, would no longer be essentially dis­
tinct from, and absolutely superior to, the mantic ravings
of a Pythia, the ecstasy of an Indian Yoga, the visionary
experience of Swedenborg. Thereby the unique position of
Christianity, its power and right to evangelize the world,
would be nullified. Some Modernists seek to parry this
conclusion by remarking that scientific knowledge consti­
tutes “the permanent corrective”, the bright light of the
twilight depths of the feelings; that reason may compare
the religious and moral content of the cult-religions, and
thus establish the value and the distinction as regards the
truth of religions. But how can reason be the corrective of
the feelings, if it contains within itself no certain rule of
truth? How can it assume a critical attitude as regards the
content of Revelation, if it has absolutely no viewpoint in
metaphysical things ; if it is not an organ for the knowledge
of the Divine? A science that knows only the phenomena,
does not possess a “bright light”; on the contrary, it” is
wholly blind in the matter of testing the realities, that lie
behind the manifestations of the religious consciousness.
When the religious feelings have assumed the scepter, they
no longer tolerate the interference of “old step-mother wis­
dom”, or they attribute to her criticism and wishes at most
a platonic significance. Modérnism and kindred tendencies
.face a fatal dilemma. For it is impossible to escape the
fact, that even the, most pioùs feelings lose their true mean­
ing and nobility, if the essential distinction between Theism
and Pantheism, between optimism and pessimism, must
cease to exist. To cite only one example : What becomes of
the oft admired cry of the.meditating Augustine: “God and
the soul !”, if we remove from these words their deep meta­
physical value; if we degrade them to obscure symbols? And
yet, Modernism and kindred theories cannot cease to prate
about the originality and inviolability of the religious feel­
ings; they cannot admit reason’s criticism of the content
of those feelings, without surrendering their most funda­
mental presuppositions !169
d) A religion, in which the feelings of the individual
hold the primacy, will never be able to develop into a
)
*
is

J. Mausbach, ibid., I, pp. 93, 94,

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151

power of historical and social significance capable of
dominating human life. At the very outset Christianity
appealed to historical facts; it stressed most emphatic- .
ally religious and moral ideas, as truths having eternal
and universal validity. Only in that way did it succeed
in overcoming the sensual, earthly culture of paganism;
only in that way did it give to mankind, to the guiding
spirits as well as to the masses, a higher theoretical and
practical philosophy, from which then noble and ardent
religious feelings could be developed. Of themselves
alone, the feelings can bear witness obviously to the
present only; they can only express their own yearning's
for God and His presence ; they cannot, therefore, be the
means of producing a belief in the great saving facts of
history. Emotional religion also lacks historical great­
ness because the unsteady, fluctuating character of the
feelings prevents religion from striking its roots firmly
into the life of the spirit. And how can the religious
feelings, which men laud as the most individual and im­
mediate flowers of the. soul’s life, be transplanted by a
religious genius into a whole people, without surrender­
ing their unique essence! Whence can the feelings ac­
quire that all embracing reality, and that deeply social
power of union, such as a religion of the spirit and of
moral ideas actually possesses .and exercises Î
<- In this respect we must-even concede to ancient Pla­
tonism and Stoicism, and the religion of Illuminism, the
preference, over modern emotional Christianity. For
those systems have brought about a unified uplifting of
great masses of men above-the meshes of sensual Nature.
But ever since metaphysics and dogma have been de­
throned, and the religion of the feelings has become dom­
inant among the learned, the development of modem
times shows us, in point of fact, a growing disintegration
of all religious life. But the hoped for advantage, name­
ly, that modern science would allow greater freedom to, ’
and look with greater reverence upon a faith, which no
longer makes doctrinal claims, but professes to be merely
a personal vital act, has been only modestly realized.

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There are comparatively few investigators, who like the
English scholar Romanes so honestly carry out the prin­
ciples of Agnosticism, as to forego a criticism of the con­
tent of Faith. Most of them ply a negative metaphysics
to their heart’s content; they attack the possibility of
creation, of Miracles, of the Incarnation, as though they
had never radically condemned every kind of meta­
physics as an “arrogance of reason”. And men like
Haeckel and other monists find it all the easier to place
the unquenchable impulse for a philisophy of life in the
service of Materialism, the more openly theologians
acknowledge that there are no proofs for the existence
of God, that only an inner experience can bear witness
to Him.
The most recent development of the soul’s life offers
another psychological source of danger in regard to emo­
tional and experiential religion. In consequence of strong
over-excitement coming from the enjoyments and decep­
tions of an over-refined culture, no less than because of the
mighty turmoil and upheaval in all the circumstances of
life during recent years, the emotional life of the modern
man has assumed an especially irritable and decadent ten­
dency ; it hovers in unsteady equilibrium between optimism
and pessimism, between presumption and despair, or has
lapsed into a condition of indolent resignation. Hence, his
“experiences” lean far more in the direction of atheism,
religious indifferentism, and despair, than towards a living
faith and hope in God. We must forcibly snatch away
modern men from their feelings ; we must lift them up and
educate them by means of authority, spiritual discipline,
and tradition, in order to win them back again to religion
and faith. This condition of society is all the more difficult,
since with the lassitude and depression of the feelings, there
go hand in hand great moral weariness and corruption.
Moreover, the moral ladder, which Kant offered to broken­
winged thought, as a means of rising above the sensible
world, has lost its sustaining power more today than ever
before.170
8. This predilection of Protestants for the internal
subjective criteria of religion and faith is a consequence
of their peculiar conception of justifying faith. By trans­
170) Mausbach, ibid,, I, pp. 95, 96.

Criticism

163

ferring the seat of justifying faith from the intellect to
the will and the emotions, they have completely subverted
the Catholic notion of faith, as an intellectual assent to
revealed truth on God’s authority. 171 That this concept
is erroneous is shown ex professo, in the tractate of Di­
vine Faith to which the student is referred172* Rightly
understood, faith has reference to truth and super­
natural Revelation ; but truth and Revelation appeal pri­
marily to the intellect, and not to the will and the feel­
ings, although, of course, the latter also have a share in
the Act of Faith. Thus, a false notion of Divine Faith
leads necessarily to a false notion of the criteria of Re­
vealed Religion.
9. We shall now consider in detail some of the more
common interpretations of this *1 inner experience”,
which we have not dealt with in the preceding criticism.
a) Some Protestants explain inner experience as sig­
nifying that the believer instinctively recognizes God’s
word, just as a child recognizes its mother’s breast.178—But
instincts intervene only as helpful means, when rational
knowledge is wanting. Whatever happens by instinct, hap­
pens with all certainty in all individuals of the species. Now,
very many men experience rather an instinctive disinclina­
tion as regards Revelation ; at any rate, in many individuals
no vestiges of an inclination to Revelation can be discerned.
Then too, how uncertain a guide is instinct, even for be­
lievers? This appears most clearly from the host of diver­
gent opinions among the adherents of this subjective cri­
*terion.
b) In rebuttal certain Protestants argue : This instinct
is not natural ; it is inspired by the Holy Spirit ; therefore,
the appeal to the universality and necessity of natural in­
stinct is beside the point.—We may very properly ask the
question : Whence do you know that this testimony is really
the testimony of the Holy Spirit, and not the testimony of
171) cf. Confessio Augustana, art. iv, fol. 13; Mohler, Symbolism,
English transi., pp. 127 sq.; G. Esser, art. “Glaube" in Buchb erger’s
KirchlicKes Handlexikon, Freiburg, i. B., 1907, vol. I, col. 1709 sq.;
Nitzsch-Stephan, Lehrbuch der evangelischen Dogmatik, Tübingen.
1912 (3’ed.), pp. 675 sq; J. Pohle, art. “Justification", in CE. VIII,
pp. 573 sq.
1«) cf. P. P. M’Kenna, Ο. P.; The Theology of Faith, N. Y. 1913;
Hugh Pope, O. P., art. “Faith” in CE. V, pp. 752 sq. with bibliography.
178 ) A. Twesten, Vorlesungen Uber die Dogmatik der ev. luth.
Kirehe nach dem Kompendium do Wettes, vol. I, p. 893.

Negative argu­
ment. Objection·
Refuted.

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your own spirit, or of an evil spirit? If Protestants have
recourse to certain passages of Holy Writ, for example : “It
is the .Spirit which testifieth” (I John v, 6), they fall into
the fallacy of a vicious circle; for the· question is precisely
as to whether Holy Scripture is the Word of God. Conse­
quently, in order to know that it is the Spirit Who testifieth
to Revelation, they must fall· back again ùpon “the-unction
of the Spirit”, that is to say, upon these deceptive feelings.
c) ’ Such is by no means the case, so Protestants rejoin.
For the Holy Spirit assures us immediately of the truth of
Revelation. “The ultimate proof of truth is self-demonstra­
tion” (Luthard).—But surely Protestants do not wish to
maintain that the propositions of faith and their Revelation
are self-evident as, for example, is the proposition : “A
contingent being needs another to explain its existence”. A
fact like Revelation cannot be an immediately evident truth ;
for this would mean that from an analysis of the concept
of Revelation follows immediately the predicate “divine”.
Facts are immediately evident, inasmuch as they are per­
ceived by the senses; and in this sense, we say that the best
proof that man can give as regards himself· is that based on
the testimony that his senses offer him; But Divine Reve­
lation does not present itself immediately to our senses; it
is not perceived immediately even by those who, as eye wit­
nesses, saw its authentication. For the-question at issue is
the knowability of the divinity of Revelation ; and that can­
knot appear immediately to the senses any more than to
reason itself.
But it is the Holy Spirit, so Protestants insist, Who
assures reason immediately of the truth of the message.'that
has been presented to us. He it is Who “impinges dirqctly
on the believer’s consciousness”.174 Why is not this: more
direct and intimate way “just as valid and certain, as when
an experience comes in the roundabout way of the senses?”
“When God speaks to man’s soul, He lets, him
* know who is
speaking. This may be illustrated: A little child has'been
put to bed at night. The room being dark, , he .becomes
frightened. He calls to his father in the next room, ‘Father,
are you there?
*
Will not the father answer in his'own voice
to assure the child that it is he? Will he disguise his tones
and assume the voice of a stranger? Likewise our heavenly
Father, speaks, to us in His own assuring tones and so quiets
our fears and resolves our doubts”.1,15
174) L. Keyser, A System of Christian Evidence. Burlington, Iowa.
1924 (3'revised ed.), p. 123. <
ï ÿ
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.
” Πβ) ibid., ρρ. 137, 140.
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Criticism

155

It must be remembered, in the first place, that reason
cannot become certain without objective grounds. * Hence,
most probably not even God can give reason certitude with­
out such grounds. The influence of divine grace does not
do away with the essence of rèason, rather it perfects it,
raising it to a higher plane of capability and action : but to
accept anything without objective grounds is not a higher
perfection, it is credulity, even if such a thing were pos­
sible. Secondly, and this is the chief point, it would have to
be demonstrated that the Holy Spirit assures man of the
divinity of Revelation in the way described, particularly
since experience seriously contradicts that claim. It will
not do to'assume that it is the Holy Spirit, Who subjectively
assures us of His presence. That must be proved on objec­
tive, rational grounds.17·
d) Obviously the evidence of Christian experience suf­
fices only for such as actually feel that experience. Hence,
we may rightly ask : What is the evidence for those who
stand outside of that experience? Many Protestants reply
that that will depend upon a man’s moral attitude as re­
gards the Christian view of life. There is abundant evi­
dence to satisfy all who possess the right attitude. There is,
for example, the “common experience of other Christian
believers”, “the cloud of living witnesses”, “reinforced by
Christian history”, “creeds are the monumental expression
of religious conviction”, “Jesus Christ has been the center
of the progressive moral and spiritual movement of thé
world two thousand years”, “Christian art and architec­
ture bear Hie same witness”, “Baptism and the Lord’s Sup­
per have no meaning apart from Him”, “the evangelistic
apparatus of Christianity has worked successfully”, “the
strength of the Christian type of experience, as compared
with others is the strength of intellectual confidence as com­
pared with the weakness of doubt”, etc.177—What is all this
except the appeal to external criteria? Hence, in the end,
Protestants must admit that inner experience is not the
only criterion. Indeed Protestant theology is beginning to
realize more and more the necessity of objective tokens of
faith.
e) Finally, some Protestants interpret inner experi­
ence in the following way: One may conclude as to the
divine origin of Revelation from its purifying, redemptive,
ennobling power experienced within the soul. Thus, Christ
Himself challenged His: adversaries to translate His teach176) Gutberlet, ibid., II, pp. 101, 102.
177 ) Mullins, Why is Christianity True?, pp. 308-S21.

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Chapter IV

ing into practise and they will know that it proceeds from
God.—We have not much to object against this criterion,
provided, of course, that the inner experience of justification and regeneration, that is to say, a deceptive feeling, be
not proposed as the real ground of Christianity, as orthodox
Lutheranism would have it. We can indeed conclude as to
the divinity of the Christian Faith from its morally puritying power and efficacy ; only we must not put the emphasis too much on the individual moral life of a particular per­
son; for here again very many deceptions and illusions are
liable to vitiate our judgment. Rather we must envisage
the mighty reactions, which the Gospel has called forth in
the moral life of the nations, which cannot be reduced to
purely natural influences. Thus, this criterion falls into
line with the external criteria, which embrace not only
physical, but also moral Miracles, such as the great num­
ber of martyrs, the marvelous spread of Christianity, the
ethical and religious transformation of the world, etc.178

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Chapter IV.
THE CRITERIA OF PRAGMATISM AND MODERNISM

The Catholic apologist may not allow the two latest
theories of the criteria of Divine Revelation to pass
unchallenged. Like Protestantism, Pragmatism and
Modernism champion the primacy of the internal subjective tokens of God’s supernatural message to mankind.

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on.

PRAGMATISM

Pragmatism may designate a) a tendency in philosophy,
an attitude of mind towards philosophy, which insists on
usefulness, or practical consequences, as a test of truth ;
b) a theory of the nature of ideas and truth, a theory of
knowledge ; c) a theory about reality, a metaphysics.1 Here
we are directly concerned with Pragmatism only in its
relation to the natural knowability of Divine Revelation.
178) Gutberlet, ibid., II, p. 104; cf. J. Kleutgen, Théologie der
Vorzeit, 2’ed., pp. 391 sq.
i) Wm. James, in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology etc., V,
p. 85; cf. Wm. Turner, art. "Pragmatism”, in CE. XII, p. 33 sq;
Leslie J. Walker, S. J., Theories of Knowledge. N. Y. & London, 1911
(2' ed.), for a scholarly study of Pragmatism in its various forms on
the basis of original sources.

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The Criteria of Pragmatism and Modernism

157

The attitude of the Pragmatist is “the attitude of look­
ing away from first things, principles, categories, supposed
necessities ; and of looking towards last things, fruits, con­
sequence, facts”.2* Knowledge is said to be “true”, only
in so far as it helps mankind to advance in a practical way.
Truth is usefulness; it resolves itself into “error” just as
soon as it has lost its usefulness, or workableness, or just
as soon as it has proved its hurtfulness for practical life.
Thus, “irut/t” is something relative and mutable. In the
evolution of life, and still more in the development of
human experience and human modes of thought, Pragma­
tists insist that the supreme idea, which governs the whole,
is not that of the “ideal” or of the “true”, but rather of
the “good”. Theory is subordinate to practise, the “true” is
subordinate to the “good”. The “true” is not the source
of the “good”. Action is primary; knowledge is always
derivative, secondary, subservient, useful.8 “Truth is a
form of the good”. Utility is the essence of the truth-rela­
tion. Truth is not transcendent, but changeable, “ambula­
tory”, as Wm. James puts it. In other words, no truth is
made and set aside, or outside of experience ; experience is
a stream out of which we can never step ; no item of experi­
ence can ever be verified definitely and irrevocably ; it is
verified provisionally now, but may be verified again to­
morrow, when I acquire a new experience. All truths are
empirical ; they are “man-made” ; hence Humanism is only
another name for Pragmatism. The mutability and rela­
tivity of truth manifest themselves spontaneously in the
advancement, or hindrance of practical interests. Thought­
systems or ideas, which today have outgrown their useful­
ness, formerly contained within themselves their own justi­
fication and “relative truth”; now they are “antiquated”
and, therefore, false. The truth which today we have labor­
iously acquired will be repudiated in a later stage of in­
quiry, if it has lost its vital power. Thus, “truth” is a fluent
concept, entirely submerged in the stream of time and
carried along by its current.
The application of Pragmatism to Religion and Revela­
tion is perfectly obvious; the one and only element which
can come up for consideration in this respect, is “the judg­
ment of value”. The truth of a religion is measured nega­
tively, by the lack of value which theoretical truths possess
in respect of the interests of religion; positively, by the
2) Wm. James, Pragmatism. N. Y. 1908, p. 55.
·) Walker, ibid., p. 545 sq.

Application of
Pragmatism to
Religion and
Revelation

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value which a religion enjoys in regard to its practical use­
fulness for life and culture.4

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The apostle off the pragmatic method of grounding
P°ueeiMa“nd Religion is pre-eminently William James of Harvard,
whom a numerous following acclaims with enthusiasm.
Through the repudiation of causality and finality by
Hume, Kant and Darwin, so James argues, every meta­
physic and, therefore, also the scientific proof of God
have been done away with once and for alii “The bare
.
fact that all idealists since Kant have felt entitled either
to scout or to neglect them (i. e., the argument for God’s
existence) shows that they are not solid enough to serve
as religion’s all sufficient foundation . . . Causation is
indeed too obscure a principle to bear the weight of the
whole structure of theology. As .for the argument from
design, see how,Darwinian ideas have revolutionized it”.
These arguments “prove nothing rigoursly. They only
corroborate our pre-existent partialities ”.B Even though
God’s existence were proven, religious life could derive
no useful motive from the “scholastic attributes” of
God. Of what use are the so-called metaphysical attributes, e. g., God’s aseity or His necessariness, His immateriality; His simplicity, etc.? “I cannot conceive of its
being of the smallest consequence to us réligiously that,
any one of them should be true”.6 James admits that
the· moral attributes do indeed “positively determine
fear-and hope and expectation, and are the‘foundations
for the saintly life”. Still, “it stands with" them as ill
as with the arguments for His (i. e., God’s) existence.
Not only do post-Kantian idealists reject them root and
-branch, but it is a plain historic fact that they never have
• converted any one who has found in the moral com­
plexion of the world, as he experienced 'it, reasons for
4) J. Pohle, Natur und Vbematur, in RCK, I, p. 476.
®) The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study of Human
Nature, Being the Gifford Lectures, on Natural Religion delivered at
Edinburgh in 1901-1902. N. Y. & London. 1925 (35’ed.), pp. 437-439.
6) Ibid., p. 446.

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The Criteria of Pragmatism and Modernism

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159

doubting that agoodGod can have framed it*’.7 They
are practically useless.
James, therefore/ concludes that the value of re- J’hilosofMci1
ligious opinions “can only be ascertained by spiritual
judgments directly passed upon them; judgments based
on our own immediate feeling primarily ; and secondarily
oh what we can ascertain of their experiential relations
to our moral needs and to the rest of what we hold as
true. Immediate luminousness, in short, philosophical
reasonableness, and moral helpfulness are the only avail­
able criteria”. “In other words, not its origin, but the
way in which it works on the whole”, is the*final test.
“Our practise is the only sure evidence, even to ourselves, that we are genuinely Christians”.8 Repudiating
the scholastic- and embracing the empirical method,
James decides that “on the whole one type of religion
is approved by its fruits, and another type condemned”.9
In the words of Professor Leuba10 “God is not known,
he is not understood; he is used—sometimes as meat-,
purveyor, sometimes as moral support, sometimes as a
friend, sometimes as an object of love. If he proves Himself useful, the religious consciousness asks for no more
than that. Does God really exist? How does He exist?
What is He ? are so many irrelevant questions. Not God,
but life, more life, a larger, richer, more satisfying life,
is, in the last analysis, the end of religion. The love of
life, at any and every level of development, is the re­
ligious impulse”. James unreservedly acknowledges the
value of personal holiness for the social welfare: “The
great saints are immediate successes; the smaller ones
are at least heralds and harbingers, and they may be
leavens-also, of a better mundane order”.11 To the ob­
jection of modern psychologists of religion (Starbuck
etc.), who point out that the founders of religion, and
’) Ibid., pp. 447, 448.
8) Ibid., pp. 18-20.
») Ibid., p. 327.
10) The Contents of Religious Consciousness, in- the Monist, xi,
p. 586, (July, 1901), cited by James, ibid., pp. 506, 507.
H) James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 377.

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Chapter IV

religious geniuses give evidence of a pathological char­
acter, James answers that this does not prejudice the
practical value of their doctrine and example. For it
is necessary to make a sharp distinction between the
origin and value of a religion, and the person and thing.
Saints are to be judged according to their fruits, not
according to their psychopathic disposition. “By their
fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots”. On the
basis of this distinction, Pragmatism is supposed to free
our piety from “the bugaboo of morbid origin” of re­
ligion,12*towards which radical psychology of religion is
definitely tending.
CRITICISM

We are concerned here only with the criticism of the
pragmatic proof in respect of the criteria of Religion
and Revelation. For a more detailed appreciation of the
value of pragmatic truth, and of the pragmatic criteria
of truth, the student is referred to special treatises.1*
1. In general we note an intermingling of truth and
error. We freely admit that truth and life, idea and
practise, can never be sharply and clearly separated
from each other. However, it seems to us that Pragma­
tism has confused their respective roles; it has turned
things upside down. It has transmuted effect into cause
and vice versa. A religion, or a revelation, is not true
because it is useful ; rather it is useful precisely because
it is true. Usefulness is a consequence, not the principle
of religious truth. Truth cannot be mere utility, for
utility is the consequence of truth. Far from being only
a “form of the good”, the true precedes the good as its
prius; for the desirability of things, in which transcen­
dental goodness consists, presupposes knowability or
truth. In like manner the idea of God is of value for
the human race, only if there is a corresponding objec­
tive reality, namely, the existence of God. Or is religion
12) Ibid., pp. 13-25; cf. J. Pohle, Natur und Übematur, in RCK.
I, pp. 476, 477.
13 ) cf. Leslie Walker, S· J·, ibid., pp. 550-620.

The Criteria of Pragmatism and Modernism

161

to nourish itself on phantoms and imaginary entities'?
2. The proposition of “the tree and its fruits” is a
genuine Christian principle, and in its logical setting is
nothing else except the scholastic argumentum ex conse­
quentiis, inasmuch as not infrequently the truth, or
falsity, of a principle can- be rightly judged from its
practical consequences. But “the criterion of the fruits”
is, of itself alone, insufficient; for at times, per accidens,
a true conclusion can follow from a false antecedent.
Thus, even though Islamism has produced a high degree
of secular culture, as in Spain and elsewhere, this
“fruit” alone is not sufficient to warrant the conclusion
as to-its “truth”. On the other hand, as a negative cri­
terion the appeal to the fruits of a religion is valid ac­
cording to the logical axiom: Ex falso consequente
sequitur falsum antecedens. If a principle as such leads
to consequences, which are either’contrary to reason or
immoral, eo ipso, the tree stands' self-condemned by its
fruits.14
3. Whoever applies the norm of value alone to a re­
ligion, places himself at once in a very precarious position,
nay more, involves himself in contradictions. What is the
norm according to which we ought to evaluate a religion?
Is it the ideal of Christianity? If the pragmatist appeals
to this standard of value, he surrenders the very essence
of Pragmatism, for he acknowledges an absolute truth,
which transcends all empiricism and psychology. Or is this
norm,‘perhaps, the changing judgments and moods of the
changing spirit of the age? If so, the pragmatist would also
have to grant the liceity of polyandry, polygamy, prostitu­
tion, suicide, duelling, abortion, etc., at least in so far as
a community or age regards these immoral practices as
“useful” for culture and, hence, as moral and true. In his
polemic against a radical psychology of religion, Wm.
James has recourse to the infelicitous distinction between
the origin and the value of a religion. But in the matter of
a Divine Revelation it is erroneous to separate absolutely
the person from'the cause. For, if Christ as a Person was
a paranoic, and St. Paul an epileptic, we must reject as
nonsense the cause which they championed. Revelations
proceeding from an “unhealthy brain” cannot possibly be
14) J. Pohle, ibid., I, pp. 477, 478; cf. above, pp. 64, 66-67.

Unwarranted
Conclusione.

Contradictions.

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of divine origin; in fact, we repudiate them instinctively.
We gratefully accept the happy solution of a mathematical
problem, or the technical invention of an airplane, even
though they are the fruits of a deranged mind, because at
times we have at our disposal the means for investigating
the value, or lack of value, of these achievements. But we
exercise no such forbearance as regards the revelation of
things divine, for in this respect, when there is question of
the credibility of an alleged revelation, we demand also the
proper authentication of the Person.15
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MODERNISM

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Modernism suffers apologetically from the same fun­
damental weakness as religious Pragmatism with which
it is spiritually allied. Like the Pragmatist the Modern­
ist denies that truth is absolute, eternal and unchangeable; for him truth is always relative and fluent; thus,
from the very outset it is impossible to speak of “only
one true” Religion, Revelation, Church. Our religious
life, so the Modernist contends, is the spontaneous
product and expression of the feeling, or sense, which
emerges from the depths of our subconsciousness in
which the Divine is immanent. This attitude effectively
closes the door against the proof of truth on the basis of
Miracles and Prophecies. At most, one might speak of
an internal criterion ; but this test is, and remains, thoroughly subjective, even when Modernists speak of an
“objective” method of proof.
This subjective proof from immanence may be stated
thus: Even though all religions, which give evidence of
life, are “true” because of that life, still Catholicism is
the most perfect religion, because it corresponds closest
with the immanent needs of the human heart. Such is
the viewpoint of moderate Modernism. “As for the
others, who might be called Integralists”, so Pius the
Tenth says, “they would .show to the non-believer, as
hidden in his being, the very germ which Christ Himself
had in His consciousness, and which He transmitted to
-------------_
15) J. Pohle, ibid., I, pp. 478, 479; cf. G. Michelet, Dieu et
l’A gnosticisme contemporain, Paris. 1909, p. 86 sq.

Criticism

163

mankind ’ ’.le Since, therefore, the immediate 44 feeling of
the Divine” is at the same time its own proof of Divine
Revelation in man’s consciousness, in the final analysis
there is no further need of any other criterion; inner
experience is its own criterion.11
This radicalism, which destroys all objective religion,
far outstrips the moderate subjectivism which has domi­
nated Protestant orthodoxy since Luther’s time. It betrays
a close affinity with that tendency in Protestant theology,
which champions a “sentimental faith” (Jacobi, Schleier­
macher), a “religious instinct” (Twesten), the “private
testimony of the Holy Spirit” (Pietism), of which we have
spoken in detail in the preceding chapter. But its true birth­
place is Liberal Protestantism, such as has been incorpor­
ated in Ritschlianism. French Modernism finds its echo in
the writings of A. Sabatier, the mouth-piece of German
Illuminxsm.16
18
17
CRITICISM

1. In the preceding chapter we have shown that, as
Christians, we cannot get along with a religion of the
feelings only. For us, 44religious experience” is not the
primary fact, which is followed by the intellectual inter­
pretation of those experiences; but rather, vice versa,
objective Revelation must precede, in order to be trans­
lated into subjective experience. Only by arbitrarily
assuming that every Christian has the right to feel that
he is an inspired organ of Revelation, and to act accord­
ingly, is it possible to regard religious “experience” as
the original and primary fact, upon which then follows
the preaching of that message to the believer.
On this latter hypothesis we should also have to take
into the bargain the absurdity, that all these so-called
divinely inspired prophets and apostles may rightly
pawn off as divine wisdom all kinds of opinions and con­
victions, no matter how contradictory they may be, as
16)
17)
18)
lation",

Encyclical "Pascendi dominici gregis”, in DB. n. 2103.
J. Pohle, ibid., I, pp. 470, 480.
J. Pohle, ibid., I, 480; cf. our volume "The Theory of Reve­
I, 1, pp. 55-61.

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Chapter IV

the history of Pietism abundantly testifies. Whoever
relies solely upon the testimony of the Spirit unto Him­
self, builds upon sand; he also becomes guilty of the
logical fallacy of assuming, as the basis of his proof, the
very thing that needs proof, namely, that it is the Holy
Spirit that speaks, and not his own private spirit.19
crjteHoni^
2. The appeal made by Modernists to the moral
n lvlduaHetic· power, which Christian experience- creates within the
human heart, has only individualistic value; it .lacks the
mighty recruiting power of that propaganda, -which
slumbers within the essence of Christianity.20 'It is
unnatural for man to appropriate a Religion based on
Revelation and Facts, solely by means of an inner per­
sonal experience.21
rneoneistenaee.
3. Finally, whoever appeals to the religious and
moral transformations, which primitive Christianity has
effected in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean
Sea, as a proof of its divine origin, has really abandoned
the internal criteria, and taken refuge in a “historical
.
Miracle”, which, in a previous chapter, we have classed
among the external criteria.
It is beyond question, therefore, that a strict proof
for the divinity of Revelation cannot be had without the
added assistance of the external criteria, particularly
Miracles and Prophecies.22

CHAPTER V.

t

THE CRITERIA OF THE “NEW APOLOGETICS”
Generaijcharac-

eria

During the latter half of the past century, a' method
of apologetic demonstration came into vogue, especially
in France, which became known as the “New Apologet­
ics”. It sought to ground the proof of the divine origin
19) J. Pohle, ibid., I, p. 480.
20) J. Pohle, ibid., I, p. 480; cf. above, pp. 148, 149.
21) J. Mausbach, Grundziige der katholischen Apologetik. Müns­
ter i. W., 1921 (3’-4* ed.), p. 23.
22) J. Pohle, ibid., I, p. 481.

The Criteria of the “New Apologetics”

165

of the Christian Religion upon the native aspirations
of the soul, hence upon a mystic or, as some of its chief
advocates prefer to express it, upon the psychological
basis of the exigencies of the feelings and the will, and r t
upon the corresponding fitness of Christianity, and4
Christianity alone, to -satisfy them.1 It has a negative
and a positive side.
Its negative side consists in the rejection, or at least
in the depreciation, either in principle or for tactical
reasons, of metaphysics, as the instrument for proving
God’s existence-and for laying the groundwork of-Faith;
hence, in the separation of Science and Faith.
Its positive side appears, on the one hand, in the
Apologetics of Immanence, or Need,m&er the leadership
of Blondel; and, on the other hand, in the PsychologicoMoral Apologetics, or Social Apologetics, or the Apolo­
getics of Value, or the Method of Accommodation, as it
is variously called, with Ollé-Laprùne, Fonsegrive and
Brunetière as its most distinguished exponents.2
The negative attitude of the “New Apologetics” towards Attph££>Xard’
metaphysics is evinced by the fact, that many Frenchmen
'OMp y‘
rallied under the banner of Agnosticism, as understood
either by Kant, or by Comte and Spencer, or by Hegel and
Renan. Faith and Science were completely divorced from
each other or, at least traditional apologetics, in so far as
it rests upon Aristotelian-scholastic metaphysics, was de­
clared to be unsuited to our times, since it was supposed
to have lost its influence over the “modern mind”. The
Protestant attitude is reflected particularly in the writings
of Auguste Sabatier.8,
Misguided, in part, by Pascal and de Lamennais, con­
fused by the Positivism, which Littré proclaimed in the
words: “Quelque recherche qu’on ait fait, jamais un mira­
cle ne s’est produit là où il pouvait être observé et constaté”,
and finally blinded by neo-Kantianism, these Catholics
shared more or less the viewpoint of Aulard, who in his
1) Al. v. Schmid, Apologetik als speculative Grundlegung der
Théologie. Freiburg i. B. 1900, p. 200.
2) Anton Gisler, Der Modemismus.
Einsiedeln. 1913 (4’ed.),
pp. 251, 252.
8) Esquisse d’une philosophie de la religion. Paris. (8’ed.),
p. 353 sq. English transi. “Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion*
Based on Psychology and History". (Geo. H. Doran Co.). N. Y.

166

I '

!

;
I

't
I
,

i
!ς
’

I

Chapter V.

controversy with Buisson declared, that we must lead the
old God of metaphysics to the frontier, and dismiss Him
with thanks for the passing services which He had ren­
dered.4 .
jSSSrt.
Vs brtefly recount the historical factors which led
up to this attitude towards metaphysics. There was, in the
first place, Descartes, whose philosophy was strongly sub­
jectivistic, and who sought to discredit the traditional
proofs for the existence of God and the immortality of the
soul. Secondly, Pascal’s reasoning offered a wide berth to
Mysticism. Male branehe and the Traditionalists misunder­
stood the innate powers of human reason. The Deists had
struck mighty blows against the Fact of the Christian Rev­
elation. Finally, we must not pass over Rousseau, the
father of Romanticism, the enthusiast of the beautiful in
Nature, the panegyrist of the unsullied goodness of Nature;
neither may we forget to mention Chateaubriand, in whose
Apology of Christianity, Romanticism unfolds its glittering
pinions. But above all others, the Romanticists were the
most eloquent advocates of passion, of enthusiasm, of the
impulses of the heart; they raised Mysticism high above
the cold assent of reason. Even Kant himself felt the in­
fluence of Rousseau.
Now, when the spirit of Voltaire, of the Encyclopedists
and Positivists in France, sought to drown the spiritual in
the floods of Materialism, and the school of Cousin offered
neither a defense nor a haven of refuge, the philosophers,
especially Renouvier, bachelier, Boutroux and others, in­
voked the spirit of Kant to preserve for the youth of France
at least the idea of duty, and hence also the idea of God, of
free will, and of immortality. Then too, certain Protestants
(Buisson, Steeg, Pecaut), who had emigrated from Switzerland and become leaders in the French system of education,
labored in a similar spirit. Indeed, in the opinion of some
Frenchmen the fact, that these ideas were preserved in the
French schools, is largely due to Criticism.6
Others, however, refuse to pay such a high tribute of
gratitude to Kantianism. Thus, Maurice Barrés, in his
romance “Les Déracinés”,6 wields a sharp sword against
the Kantian theory of knowledge, against his categorical
imperative, against his exotic philosophy, which permits
<) Thamiry, Les deux aspects de Vimmanence. Paris. 1908,
p. 259; cf, Fonsegrive, in La Quinzaine, Jan. 1, 1897, p. 108; later in
Le Catholicisme et la vie de l’esprit. 1906 (2’ed.), pp. 1-4.
B) For instance, Leclère, Le mouvement catholique kantien en
France. Kantstudien VII (1902), p. 348.
«) Paris. 1897.

Apologetics of Immanence or Need

167

several pupils of the Lycée of Nancy to lapse step by 'Step
into unbelief, and one of them even to end as a robber and a
murderer: first déraciné and then décapité.7
On the other hand, the Catholic pulpit and Catholic
apologetics did not perhaps realize sufficiently their duty
of defending the Faith with the weapons of genuine phil­
osophy. Without robbing Lacordaire and Gratry of any of
their glory, it may be truthfully said that their method of
defense aimed in a one-sided fashion at showing the har­
mony between the spiritual and social needs of men and
of Faith. In consequence, other thinkers were led to
“laicize” Lacordaire’s sermons, that is, to create an apolo­
getics, which was constructed upon the basis of feeling,
morality and sociology, rather than upon metaphysics. The
temptation to do this was all the greater, since, despite the
Church's condemnation of Lamennais, Bautain and Bonnetty, Kant’s postulate of the practical reason shone like a
star of hope and refuge amidst the positivistic darkness.
Moreover, in the heads of many there buzzed the very am­
biguous catch-word, that Faith contains “une part d’irra­
tionnel”, and must be wholly divorced from science. Finally,
the tendency of our own age, which has turned away from
speculation and aims predominantly at energetic action,
also had a share in clamoring for a philosophy, which pro­
ceeds from action as its most certain and dearest principle.
Thus,, men hoped to be able to give to apologetics a new
principle, which, by virtue of its7 power of appeal and
attractiveness, would far surpass the intellectual apolo­
getics of the past.8*
'
*
J. APOLOGETICS OF IMMANENCE OR NEED.

The father of this “New Philosophy” is Bergson.
Maurice Blondel,8 Abbé Denis, Leroy, Laberthonnière,10
elaborated and reconstructed it, and sought to place it
in the service of apologetics. Its chief characteristics
are the following.
7) Gisler, ibid., pp. 253-256.
8) Ibid., pp. 256, 257.
») Lettre sur les exigences de la pensée contemporaine en matière
d’apologétique.— Annales de philosophie chrétienne, Jan. — July,
1896.—L'Action. 1893.
iû) Laberthonnière often attacked the old method of the theo­
logians and scholastic philosophy in the Annales de philosophie
chrétienne. The Sacred Congregation of the Index condemned the
Annales that appeared between 1905 and 1913.

168
Moderate
Agnosticism

,

1

I

Chapter V.

. A. 1. The advocates of this philosophy look upon
intellectualism as plainly erroneous; they champion a
moderate agnosticism.
Speculative reason alone, so they insist, cannot arrive at
metaphysical· truth ; to be able to do so, the understanding
must be grounded upon, and supported by, moral ideas and
feelings, by aesthetic sentiments, and by impulses of the
will. In other words, speculative reason can defend its
onotological validity only according to the practical exigen­
cies of human action. Aside from the exigencies of action,
our speculative knowledge remains notional and subjective;
it merely posits the problem of action and directs its solu­
tion; we arrive at objective reality by means of action.11
Only that is true, which I embrace and experience with the
totality of the soul’s powers, not merely with my intellect,
but with my whole soul;-truth is the work of the whole
spirit.12 Accordingly, the proofs for God’s existence, when
considered only speculatively, are merely notional and do
not prove the divine reality. The only correct dogmatism,
is moral dogmatism, which makes action, not evident
knowledge, the corner stone of philosophy, inasmuch as
action imposes itself irresistibly as the condition of, our
n) Blondel, L’Action, Paris. 1893, p. 463, writes: “Pour la sci­
ence, entre ce qui paraît être à jamais et ce qui est, quelle différence
saurait-on découvrir? et comment distinguer la réalité même d’avec
invincible et permanente illusion, ou, pour ainsi parler, d’avec une
apparence éternelle? Pour la pratique, il en est autrement: en faisant
COMME SI c’est, seule elle possède ce qui est, si c’est vraiment”;
Ibid., pp. 426-427: “Montrer que nous sommes forcément amenés à
affirmer (quelle que soit d’ailleurs la valeur de cette assertion) la
réalité des objects de la connaissance et des fins de l’action ... ce
n’est point, malgré le renouvellement de la perspective, sortir du
déterminisme des phénomènes, c’est manifester comment, par cela
seul que nous pensons et que nous agissons, il nous est nécessaire de
faire comme si cet ordre universel était réel et ces obligations
fondées”. Ibid., p. 297: “La’Métaphysique a sa substance dans la
volonté agissante. Elle n’a de vérité.que sous cet aspect expérimental
et dynamique : elle est moins une science de ce qui est que de ce qui'
fait être et devenir: l’idéal d’aujourd’hui peut être le réel de demain”.
Ibid., p. 437 : La connaissance qui avant l’option était simplement sub­
jective et propulsive, devient, après, privative et constitutive de l’être
... La seconde de ces connaissances, celle qui succède à la détermina­
tion librement prise en face de cette réalité nécessairement conçue,
n’est plus seulement une disposition subjective; au lieu de poser le
problème pratique, elle en traduit la solution dans notre pensée; au
lieu de nous mettre en présence de ce qui est à faire, elle recueille,
dans ce qui est fait, ce qui est. C’est donc vraiment une connaissance
objective, même alors qu’elle est réduite à constater le déficit de
l'action”.
12) A. Leclère, Kantstudien, Vif (Ï902), p. 30? sq._
,

i

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169

self-assertion and happiness. Action of this kind, or the
longing for and the need of it, is the most certain ground­
work for further intellectual operations ; it is also the deep­
est and the primal ground, earlier even than thought, which
is itself also action.13 Hence, the old definition of truth, as
adaequatio rei et intellectus, must-be rejected14 in favor of
another definition, namely, veritas est adaequatio realis
mentis et vitae. That is to say, we possess truth, when our
mind knows and affirms the exigencies of our life and
action.
The first operation of the spirit, therefore, is said to Attitude towarde
be a kind of surrender (by faith) to God and the Church. External·c** 1*
··
An immediate consequence of this viewpoint is the new
and questionable teaching, that the knowledge of Mira­
cles does not lead to Faith; on the contrary, we accept
Miracles because we believe; a Miracle is really Faith’s
dearest child.
For, there are no natural rational proofs for Miracles;
they are excluded for the very reason, that the constant
13) L'Action, p. XXI: “Abordant la science de l’action, il n’y a
donc rien que je puisse tenir pour accordé, rien ni des faits, ni des
principes, ni des devoirs; c’est :à me retirer tout appui précaire qut
je viens de travailler. Qu’on ne prétende point, comme Descartes, par
un artifice qui sent l’école tout sérieux qu’il est, extraire du doute
et de l’illusion la réalité même de l’être; car je ne sens point de con­
sistance dans cette réalité du rêve, elle est vide et reste hors de moi.
Qu’on ne me parle point, avec Pascal, de, jouer croix ou‘ pile sur le
néant de l’éternité; car parier ce serait déjà ratifier l’alternative.
Qu’on ne me fasse pas, après Kant, surgir je ne sais de quelle
nuit Je ne sais quel Impératif catégorique; car je le traiterais en
suspect et en intrus. Il faut, au contraire, accueillir toutes les néga­
tions qui s’entre-détruisent, comme s’il était possible de les admettre
ensemble; il faut entrer dans tous les préjugés, comme s’ils étaient
légitimes; dans toutes les erreurs, comme si elles étaient sincères”,
etc.. Ibid,, pp. VII, VIII: “A consulter l’évidence immédiate, l’action
dans ma vie est un fait, le plus général et le plus constant de tous
. . . Toute règle de vie qui serait uniquement fondée sur une théorie
philosophique et des principes abstraits serait téméraire: je ne puis
différer d’agir jusqu’à ce que l’évidence ait paru, et toute évidence qui
brille à l’esprit est partielle. Une pure connaissance ne suffit jamais
à nous mouvoir parce qu’elle ne nous saisit pas tout entiers: en
toute acte, il y a un acte de foi”. Ibid., p. XIII: “Il s’agit du tout de
l’homme; ce n’est donc pas dans la pensée seule qu’on doit le chercher.
C'est dans l'action qu’il va falloir transporter le centre de la philoso­
phie, parce que là se trouve le centre de la vie”.
14) Blondel, Point de départ de la recherche philosophique, in
Annales de Philosophie chrétienne, 1906, art. 1, p. 235: “A l’abstraite
et chimérique adaequatio rei et intellectus se substitue . . . l’adaequatio
reâlis mentis et vitae”.

170

Chapter V.

regularity of nature's operations is not something grounded
in the world of reality itself; rather this regularity is
fictitiously ascribed to it and thrown over it» like an arti­
ficial net, by our understanding. The world of external
reality is wholly indeterministic, everything (hence, laws
too) is changeable and fluent. Thoroughly convinced of the
changeableness of all natural laws, modern science does
not venture, save only provisionally, to formulate a single
law as irrefragable.18 In other words, apart from the
exigencies of human action, speculative reason cannot know
with certainty ontological reality, nor any separate extra­
mental fact. The separation of phenomena, like the fixity of
nature’s laws, is due solely to our subjective conception, not
to reality itself which is ever changing. Hence, a Miracle
is not a derogation from the laws of nature as they are in
themselves, but as they appear to us, dérogations “aux ap­
parences anthropomorphiques”, as Blondel writes: or déro­
gations “à un ordre illusoire” according to P. Laberthonnière.18
Accordingly, the advocates of the “New Philosophy”
refuse to acknowledge the philosophical knowability of the
proving force of a Miracle. That is to say, the ontological
value of a Miracle, as a token of the special divine inter­
vention for the purpose of confirming and proving the Fact
of Revelation, which is admitted by common sense, cannot
be defended philosophically and scientifically. For them, a
Miracle possesses only_svwhoZic value, that is, it manifests
to us the presence of God in the world and in our life, there­
by directing our minds to examine the religion, which it
symbolically confirms. Nay more, this symbolic value of a
Miracle can be perceived only by minds, which are already
conscious of the exigencies of moral human action, and
rightly disposed to admit God’s activity in ordinary facts.
Hence, according to Blondel,16
17 if a Miracle be examined
metaphysically, no more will be discovered in it than in
ordinary facts; even the most ordinary fact embodies the
16 ) Gisler, ibid,, pp. 258, 259.
ie) cf. Bulletin de la Société française de Philosophie, June 1911,
p. 144 . . . March 1912, p. 143; also P. DeTonquédec, Immanence,
pp. 200-227.
17) L'Action, p. 396: “L’idée de lois fixes dans la nature n’est
q’une idole; chaque phénomène est un cas singulier et une solution
unique. A aller au fond des choses, il n’y a rien de plus sans doute
dans le miracle que dans la moindre des fait ordinaires: mais aussi
il n’y a rien de moins dans le plus ordinaire des faits que dans le
miracle: et voilà le sens de ces brusqueries exceptionnelles qui pro­
voquent la réflexion à des conclusions plus générales. Ce qu’elles
révèlent c’est que le divin n’est pas seulement dans ce qui semble
dépasser la puissance accoutumée de l’homme et de la nature, mais

Apologetics of Immanence or Need

171

same content as a Miracle, for, in all facts the presence
of God's activity is apparent to a mind rightly disposed;
only a Miracle compels our attention, and symbolically in­
cites us to examine into religion. Thus, the proving force
of Miracles is made subordinate to the exigencies of our
action, that is, to the method of immanence.
The same is true as regards “moral” Miracles, for in­
stance, the marvelous life of the Church.17·
2. Bergson and Blondel also agree· as regards the ρμιο·οΡηχ ot
principle of Immanence (from the Latin, in manore, i. e., “man*ne··
the quality of any action which begins and ends within
the agent) and its transcendental consequences. Their
philosophy starts with the Ego; they refuse to admit
anything as a fact, especially in a religious respect, un­
less the grounds of that fact are found within the Ego.
Nothing can enter into man, so they insist, which does
not proceed from him and manifest itself in some way
as a postulate, or a need, of his soul. Every truth, every
duty, every command, must be in a sense autonomous
and autochthonous; it may not be presented to me sim­
ply and solely from without as a historical fact, a tradi­
tional doctrine, or duty. Hence, the apologist ought to
show that of ourselves alone we are, in point of fact,
not self-sufficient ; that our thought and action need cer­
tain desiderata and requisita; grace, Revelation, an in­
fallible teaching authority, etc. In order to live and to
act in accordance with reason and conscience, we seek
for powers higher than our own, we need a supplement
partout là même où nous estimons volontiers que l'homme et la nature
se suffisent. Les miracles ne sont donc miraculeux qu'au regard de
ceux qui sont déjà prêts à reconnaître l'action divine dans les
évènements et les actes les plus habituels. Ces coups brusques
n'agissent qu'autant qu’on en saisit, non pas les merveilleux sensibles,
qu'est-ce que cela, mais le sens symbolique".
17·) Ibid., p. 395: “Qu’ils soient ou non surnaturels en leur prin­
cipe, ce n’est point dans les signes sensibles eux-mêmes, qu’il faut
voir l'origine de notre idée de révélation. C’est par le développement
de l'activité pratique et grâce à l’effort de la volonté pour s’egaler
à son propre élan, qu’est né, on a vu comment, le besoin d'une corre­
spondance extérieure et d'un complément nécessaire à notre action
intime". Ibid., p. 397: “Ce n’est donc pas de la révélation même (dans
l’hypothèse où elle n'est pas), ni des phénomènes naturels (dans l’hy­
pothèse où elle n’est pas) que peut venir à l’homme l'idée de pré­
ceptes ou de dogmes révélés. C'est d'une initiative interne que jaillit
cette notion".

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Chapter V.

from the supernatural order. The apologist ought to
make it plain that our inmost soul calls out : The super­
natural is necessary for us to enable us to live as we
ought.17b
B. Armed with’the philosophy of Immanence, Blondel
next proceeds to construct the Apologetics of Immanence.
He discards the traditional, doctrinal, objective and
rational apologetics18, which, he says, aimed at emphasiz­
ing only objective Faith, and wholly neglected its subjec­
tive side, the Act of Faith, the preparation for Faith.1* In
Blondel’s opinion the apologetic method of Fonsegrive,
Brunetière and others, is also inefficacious. They believed
that the chief task of apologetics was the subjective prep­
aration of the believer, but it was to be effected by psycho­
logical means, namely, by disclosing the beauty, the moral
and social usefulness, the universal harmony between Faith
and the aspirations of the human spirit. However, Blondel
is convinced that to impress the modern mentality, which
has been brought up in the school of Criticism, we must
employ arguments of a totally different kind. It has often
been said that metaphysics is gone, never to return. Blondel
offers to show how this metaphysics can return after all
under a new and totally different form. Without such a
metaphysics one cannot even touch the problem, to say
nothing of solving it.20
Therefore, the Apologetics of Immanence claims to
be strictly philosophical. It takes as its starting point
“Action”; from this point of vantage it seeks to develop
17b) Gisler, ibid., p. 259 ; cf. E. Thimary, art. "Immanence, in
CE. VII, p. 682 sq; also Aug. and Alb. Valensin, art. "Immanence
(Doctrine et Methode d’)”, in DAFC, fasc. VIII, colls. 569 sq.· with
appended bibliography.
18) Blondel, Lettre sur les exigences de la pensée contemporaine
en matière d’apologétique et sur la méthode de la philosophie dans
l’étude du problème religieux. Annales de philosophie chrétienne,
Jan.-July, 1896, p. 83: “S’opiniâtrer à restaurer ce qui dans l’ancienne
école est mort, au moyen d’un rationalisme mort, c’est d’avance re­
tomber sous les coups de la double critique qui a tué la pseudo­
philosophie chrétienne par la métaphysique de la transcendance, et
qui a tué la pseudo-philosophie rationaliste par la doctrine de
l'immanence, elle-même dépassée”.
18) Lettre, p. 22.,
20) Blondel, Annales de philosophie chrétienne, Nov. 1895, p. 189-

Apologetics ofJmmanence or Need

173

all truth.21 What does Blondel understand by “Action”?
He means the concrete act of vital thought, which reflects
for us our own-selves and all things else.22 Now, Action
postulates the supernatural: “Thé progress of our will
compels us to admit our insufficiency, 'leads us to the de­
sire of some help (au besoin d’ un surcroît), enables us,
not, indeed, to create or to define it, but to recognize and
to accept it”.23
*
If the will has not found full satisfaction in individual
and social activity, it seeks it beyond the world of phe­
nomena, in the Infinite, in order to pay worship to it, but
in a superstitious manner, by materializing,it as a fetish, or
by anthropomorphizing it, drawing near to it by petitions
and sacrifices, or by deifying ethical ideals after the manner
of Kant, or by deifying metaphysical phantoms, construc­
tions, the ideals of science and of art, and thus is a believer
•—a negative believer—despite the rejection of all dogmas ;
or the will espouses a new mysticism, which assumes an un­
bounded critical attitude, and pays homage to a progressive
action for action’s sake, without an object, without faith,
without rites, without prièsts.24 It is impossible to mistake
the impotency and insufficiency of the whole order of nature;
Accordingly, an inventory of our immanent resources
“brings to light, on the one hand, our irrepressible aspira­
tions towards the' infinitely True, Good, and Beautiful, and,
on the other hand, the insufficiency of our means to attain
these ends. This comparison shows that our nature, left to
itself, is not in a state of equilibrium”.25
But whither are we to go? Where can we find salvation?
We wish to be self-sufficient, and we cannot be. If we are to
find the One Thing Necessary (l’unique nécessaire) ; if our
21) Blondel, L'Action, p. 465: “A la vérité du primat de l’action’,
'au commencement était l’Action’, répond la grande affirmation de
l’égale primauté de la vérité: ‘Principio erat Verbum’. Ce règne de
la vérité est tout entier hors de nous, elle ne sera, jamais désarmée
de son sceptre de fer; mais aussi ce règne de la vérité est tout entier
en nous, puisque nous en produisons en nous-mêmes toutes les despo­
tiques exigences . . . Du moindre de nos actes, du moindre des faits,
il suffit de tirer ce qui s’y trouve, pour rencontrer l’inévitable présence,
non pas seulement d’une abstraite cause première, mais du- seul
auteur et du vrai consommateur de toute réalité concrète. Jusqu’au
dernier. détail du dernier des phénomènes imperceptibles, l’action
médiatrice fait la vérité et l’être de tout ce qui est’
22) Lettre, p. 57.
23) Lettre, p. 38.
24) L'Action, pp. 306-318.
25) Thamiry, art. "Immanence", iri CE VII, p. 686.

J
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174

Chapter V.

nature is to achieve its destiny, “it needs a help which is
essentially beyond it—a transcendent help
* ’26; we must
ascend from the sphere of the immanent to the sphere of the
transcendent. This Vunique nécessaire cannot be proved by
demonstration and deduction. Metaphysical conceptions and
definitions ought not, indeed, to be rejected; but they are,
of themselves, sterile phantoms of reason. The concept of
a First Cause, or of an Ethical Ideal, or the ideas of a meta­
physical perfection, of an actus purus, are vain, false and
idolatrous, when looked at in themselves, as abstract
thoughts; but they are true, vitally efficacious, when they
are taken as practical certitudes, which satisfy the will:
"C’est donc dans la pratique même que la certitude de
Funique nécessaire a son fondement”.27
In like manner supernatural Revelation, with its dogmas
and precepts, can acquire certainty for us only in this way.
It is certain for us, only if we offer to it a receptivity (dis­
position d’obéissance) free from all selfish strivings; if we
accept that Revelation as a gift coming from God, which
makes possible for us a higher life in Faith and action, and
which atones for, arid redeems, us from the defects and fail­
ings, which attach to our nature. However, in order to be
believed, as it ought to be believed, revealed doctrine must
itself offer the grounds of Faith and prove its certainty. In
this respect, the only proof that can be of service is an effica­
cious experimental proof (une expérimentation effective).
Faith does not enter into the heart by means of thought;
rather it is practical action, which draws down from above
a divine light for the spirit. God is operative in this action ;
hence, the thought, which follows upon action, is richer as
regards the Infinite than the thought which precedes it.28

suuury.

To sum up : According to Blondel present day philos­
ophers are thoroughly wedded to the principle of im­
manence; they regard human reason as autonomous and
autochthonous, and refuse to accept anything from with­
out, that is not required for the perfect and connatural
2«) Ibid., p. 686.
27) L'Action, pp. 319-320.
28) Ibid., pp. 397-403, summarized in Schmid, ibid., pp. 206-207.

i

Apologetics of Immanence or Need

175

evolution of our faculties.20
*29 Hence, when the apologist
proposes the Christian Religion as supernatural, that is,
as something, imposed from without, which must be
accepted under the pain of eternal damnation, he meets
at once with the bitterest opposition. To cope with this
modern mentality, he must start with the principle of
immanence. He ought to show that? the supernatural,
although not due to human nature, is, nevertheless, in
some way demanded from within, as a help for the per­
fect evolution of our action; hence, we must embrace it.
This method consists “in eqùating within our own con­
sciousness, what we seem to think, to wish and to do,
with what we really do, wish, and think, in such a way
that in the fictitious negations, or the ends artificially
desired, those profound affirmations and irresistible
needs, which they imply, shall still be found”. This in­
ternal analysis, this psychologic examination of con­
science, brings the human soul to recognize itself as
relative to a transcendent Being, thereby setting before
us the problem of God. It arouses in man a more vivid
consciousness of his weakness and his need of help,
thereby impelling him to acts of humility, which inspire
prayer and attract grace.90 Thus, Blondel advocates a
relative, not an absolute, immanence as understood by
Modernists. The latter assert that the Catholic Religion
proceeds from our vital immanence, in accordance with
the evolution of the natural religious sense ; whereas the
former only affirms that the Catholic Religion, although
supernatural and revealed by God, is postulated by our
20 ) Blondel, Lettre sur les exigences de la Pensée contemporaine
en matière d’Apologétique, in Annales de Philosophie chrétienne,
Jan.-July, 1896, p. 600: “La pensée moderne avec une susceptibilité
jalouse considère la notion d’immanence comme la condition même
de la philosophie; c’est à dire que, si parmi les idées régnantes, il y
a un résultat auquel elle s’attache comme à un progrès certain, c’est
l’idée très juste en son fond que rien ne peut entrer en l’homme qui
ne sorte de lui et ne corresponde en quelque façon à un besoin d’ex­
pansion, et que ni comme fait historique, ni comme enseignement
traditionnel, ni comme obligation surajoutée du dehors, il n’v a pour
lui vérité qui compte et précepte admissible sans être, de quelque
manière, autonome et autochtone”.
80 ) Thamiry, ibid., p. 686.

176

.’

« *

Chapter V. .. ......

.

nature from within; it does indeed'transcend the> powers
of our nature, but not the exigencies of our nature. With­
in us, there a re-aspirations for something higher, for the
Infinite and the Divine, which we desire as our ultimate
end, from within, by the necessity of our nature. But
we cannot(attain to this Infinite Being without His help;
hence, our nature intrinsically demands a supernatural
help from God, that is, Divine Revelation. It also de^·
mands a Mediator and Saviour, in order that through
His assistance we may be able to approach God. Thus,
“a method of immanence developed in its integrity be­
comes exclusive of a doctrine of immanence.
*
’ Blondel
next endeavors to show by history, that these Divine
helps, which our nature demands, are; found· solely in
Christianity and in the Catholic Church. Thereupon the
divine origin of Catholicism, which is manifested sym­
bolically by Miracles and the marvelous life of the
Church, becomes practically certain through our experi­
ence of the Christian Religion under grace.8182Conse­
quently, by the credibility of the mysteries of Faith
the advocates of relative immanence understand their
aptitude for belief, inasmuch as they appear conformable
'to the aspirations and exigencies of our nature.12
**
CRITICISM
False Principles
Closely akin
to Kantianism.

1. The philosopher of Konigsberg might object here
and there to an important point in the “Nouvelle Philos­
ophie” of Bergson, Blondel, and their pupils; but, on
the whole, he would discern much of his own spirit re­
flected therein. He would find there the siibjectivistic
conception ,of the world and of certitude—both in part
thè product of the mind itself, and dependent upon emo­
tional and volitional factors ; he would recognize there
especially the concept of immanence. Just as Kant
81 ) cf. L’Action, p. 402.
82 ) P. Fr. Reg. Gar rigou-Lagrange, Ο. P., Theologia fundamen­
talis secundum S. Thomae doctrinam. Romae et Parisiis. 1918, vol. I,
p. 125 sq., vol. II, p. 3 sq., (3’ed., 1925), pp. 44 sq., 317-sq.

Criticism

177

makes the-ideas of God, of free will, of immortality, pro­
ceed from the idea of duty, so, too, these philosophers
look upon all religious dogmas as flowing from the total­
ity of the soul’s needs. Finally, Kant, the energetic op­
ponent of the so-called “statutory” in Religion, could
point to the idea of religious evolution in the “New
Philosophy”, as well as to the mystic, emotional element
in Faith. Hence, he might rejoice that his “Kritik der
reinen Vernunft”, his “Religion innerhalb der Grenzen
der blossen Vernunft”, and his “Streit der Fakultàten”,
had not been written in vain, at least as far as these
Frenchmen are concerned. He might even show that the
French Immanentists had outstripped him, inasmuch as
they have made theoretical reason dependent upon prac­
tical, reason to a far greater degree than he himself had
done, since they ascribe to the emotional, volitional and
moral element, to Action, the primary role in the whole
process of knowledge.83
a) The Apologetics of Immanence, or Need, rests, in
the first place, upon the erroneous doctrine of semi­
agnosticism.

These philosopher^ champion the agnosticism of specu- Semi-amoeticism.
lative reason, as is evident from their definition of truth.
For them, truth is not the,“adaeg«aiio seu conformitas rei
et intellectus” ; they conceive truth in a merely subjective
manner as “adaequatio seu conformitas mentis et vitae”.
That is ’to say, only that judgment is true, which is in con­
formity with the exigencies of our life. Hence, extramental
reality can be known only according to the exigencies of
.human action ; only practical certitude is obtainable. But
according to St. Thomas, only the truth of the practical in­
tellect, or the truth of prudence, depends “on the conformity
with a right appetite”.And the rectitude of the appetite
depends on the first principles of reason, which are true
accordingly as they are in conformity with the thing itself.33
35
34
Hence, it is difficult to see how these philosophers can escape
the condemnation which the Church placed upon the kindred
33)
p. 263.
34)
85)
p. 297,

A. Leclère, Kantetudien VII (1892), p. 360'sq; Gisler, ibid.;

ST. I, II, q. 57, a. 5, ad 3.
Garrigou-Lagrange, Ο. P., ibid., II, *p. 3, foot-note; (3’ed.),
foot-note.

178

Chapter V.

viewpoint of the Modernists : “Veritas non est immutabilis
plus quam ipse homo, quippe quae cum ipso, in ipso et per
ipsum evolvitur”.86
An immediate consequence of this agnosticism is the
denial of the philosophical knowability of Miracles, and also
of the existence of God. Likewise, if the concepts in which
dogmatic formulae are expressed, lack ontological and
transcendental validity, the dogmas also lose their absolute
truth and immutability. Thus, again these philosophers
seem to approximate to the teaching of the twenty-sixth
condemned proposition of the Modernists: “Dogmata fidei
retinenda sunt tantummodo juxta sensum practicum, id est
tamquam norma praeceptiva agendi, non vero tamquam
norma credendi”.87
Therefore, the semi-agnosticism of these philosophers
leads to strict agnosticism.38

semï-immânen.

Rejoinder of the
New Philosophy.

The second foundation of the “New Philosophy” is
the principle of semi-immanentism, which exaggerates
our natural desire for the supernatural, and thus leads
to the error of Baianism.88
89
For, if the Catholic Religion is demanded by our nature,
it is due to us, and thus is not supernatural. For, the super­
natural is not merely above the powers, but also above the
exigencies of nature. What our nature demands is only
natural beatitude, which consists in an abstractive knowl­
edge of God, and in a natural love proportionate to that
knowledge. Compare this viewpoint with the condemned
proposition of Baius: “Humanae naturae sublimatio et
exaltatio in consortium divinae naturae debita fuit integ­
ritati primae condicionis, et proinde naturalis dicenda est,
et non supernaturalis”.46
The advocates of the “New Philosophy”, for example,
P. Laberthonnière41, reply that Blondel can and ought to be
88) DB. n. 2058.
37) DB. n. 2026.
38) Garrigou-Lagrange, Ο. P., i6id., I, p. 129, (3’ed.), p. 48.
89) Ibid., I, pp. 129, 130; (3’ed.), pp. 48, 49.
40) DB. n. 1021. Thus, also Pius X teaches in his Encyclical
“Pascendi dominici gregis” : ,rWe have grave reason to complain that
there are Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as a doctrine,
employ it as a method of apologetics, and who do this so impudently
that they seem to admit, not merely a capacity and a suitability for
the supernatural as such, as has at all times been emphasized within
due limits by Catholic apologists, but that there is in human nature
a true and rigorous need for the supernatural order”. (DB. n. 2103).
41) Cf. Annale» de Philosophie chrétienne, March-April, 1897;
IDEM, Essais de philosophie religieuse, p. 168 sq.
/.

Criticism

179

interpreted more. benignly, and that his doctrine, far from
deserving the strictures mentioned above, really merits our
commendation. For, Blondel, so they explain, is not speak­
ing of human nature in the abstract; he has in mind man,
not as he might have been created according to the exigeni
cies of nature ; rather he is speaking of human nature in the
concrete, as it exists here and now; he is discoursing on
:
man, destined as he is to the supernatural order. Now, man
!
does not find himself in a purely natural state or condition ;
!
he is really under the influence of actual grace, which impels
him to turn to God, the Author of the supernatural order,
i
even though he does not actually possess habitual grace and
supernatural Faith. Even in the state of fallen nature, the
human soul experiences within itself a certain vague con­
sciousness, almost wholly obliterated indeed, of its original
elevation to the supernatural order and of its Divine dig­
nity, as St. Augustine teaches.4243Moreover, in the present
order every Divine dispensation is fraught with God’s
grace; hence, it is not temerity to assert that in man certain
pious desires and aspirations well up, under the impulse of
grace to be sure, which argue an exigency of the supernat­
ural order. Therefore, so these philosophers maintain, we
may hold that even before he has a perfect knowledge of
I
Revelation, man may experience a certain need of the
(supernatural order. However, this experience is not due to
human, nature left to itself, but inasmuch as it is subject
to the influence of Divine grace, which is continually mov­
ing man to Faith.42
h
It is not necessary that this aspiration towards Chrisi
tianity be perceived in our consciousness, since it is, strictly
P
speaking, supernatural in its end or purpose ; it suffices that
i
we be conscious of our incapacity to fulfil the highest ten;
dencies of our soul, and that we recognize that these aspiraÎ
tions may find their satisfaction in Christianity. We are
able to experience our own restlessness of soul, even as St.
Augustine did when he wrote: “Irrequietum est cor nos­
trum, donec requiescat in Te”.44 Hence, even though this
'
postulate of our nature is not immediately evident, still,
anyone who knows how to interpret the immediate and
■

42) De spiritu et littera, c. 28: "non usque adeo imago Dei ter­
renorum affectuum labe detrita est, ut nulla in ea velut lineamenta
extrema remanserint; unde merito dici possit etiam in ipsa impietate
vitae suae aliqua legis divinae sapere”.
43) Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., ibid., I, p. 130; (3’ed.), p. 49; cf.
Aemil. Dorch, S. J., Institutiones theologiae fundamentalis. Oeniponte,
1916, I, p. 487.
«) Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., ibid., I, p. 130; (3’ed.), p. 49.

I

180
Chapter V.
spontaneous tendency of the soul, which, as Tertullian says,
is “naturally Christian”, will recognize that postulate under
the things which are systematically offered to the soul, and
impinge upon the consciousness. We cannot, indeed, know
the supernatural as such; but there is doubtless much more
in reality than in our power of apprehension; hence, from
what we know of reality or of action, we deduce some
knowledge of that reality as existing outside ourselves, and
as postulated by our immanent appetite, even though it
does not exist within our apprehension.45
Thus, according to this interpretation of Blondel’s doc­
trine, grace or the operation of the Holy Spirit moves a cer­
tain exigency within our souls, and by virtue of that move­
ment leads us to Revealed Religion, in fact, to the Christian Religion. For the aspirations, which we experience
within, and which are excited by the exigency already latent
in our souls, are far more sublime than our immanent
powers, which of themselves alone are incapable of satis­
fying these tendencies. Looking about, we discover in a
certain concrete religion, that is, in Christianity, the way
that makes it possible for ûs to satisfy these aspirations.
Hence, we are led to embrace that religion as the right way,
and thus the motions and illuminations of Divine grace
are for us indications and proofs of supernatural truth.46

3 J
!

,
I

,

I
I
1

I

This Rejoinder
This rejoinder of the “New Philosophy” does not really
unwiSd!” solve the question at issue; it merely defers it. The prob­
lem in regard to the original and primal destiny of the
human race to a supernatural end, still clamors for solution. Is this destiny to a supernatural end altogether gra­
tuitous, or is it postulated from within, as these apologists
would prove by the principle of immanence?—For, this
principle of immanence is either securely rooted in the
original ordering or destiny of the human race to a. super­
natural end, or it is not. If it is not, then the “New Apolo­
getics” does not prove its contention, and the objections of
Naturalism remain unsolved. If, on the contrary, it is
safely lodged in that divine decree by which God destines
mankind to a supernatural end, how is it possible to avoid
the error of Baius?—There is no escape from this dilemma,
save perhaps by a worse error, namely, by the denial of the
ontological value of our reason : thus, the exigency of the

i
i

_______

45) J. V. Bainvel, De vera religione et apologetica. Paris. 1914,
pp. 139, 140.
46) Dorsch, S. J., ibid., I, p. 489.

Criticism

181

supernatural order would be merely subjectively, not ob­
jectively, necessary.47
r?
c) The Apologetics of Immanence, or Need, does not Fidebm.
prove the credibility or the divine origin of Christianity,
rather it approximates to Fideism.
It does, indeed, to a certain extent show that Christian­
ity is a beautiful and attractive religion, and deserving of
religious experience ; nay more, that it is morally necessary
to enable the modern man to live in accordance with the
dignity of human nature. But-this does not prove that the
Catholic Religion, with all its dogmas and precepts, must be
believed most firmly and irrevocably by Divine Faith, and
that there never will be a more perfect religion than the
Christian. Agnostic prejudices and the almost exclusive
use of internal subjective motives render such a proof
ineffectual.48
This method presents a false notion of credibility, for,
it identifies Divine Faith, more or less, with religious ex­
perience, which is common to all religions.49 Divine Faith
is grounded on the authority of God revealing, and not on
religious experience. According to Blondel, the divine
origin of Catholicism becomes certain only in a practical
way, that is, through the experience of the Christian Re­
ligion, under the assistance of grace. The Catholic Church,
on the-contrary, teaches that our rational certitude as re­
gards the Fact of Revelation ought to be much stronger, in
order that we may be able to believe most firmly on the
authority of God revealing.50
Moreover, a man who does not yet believe, but is con­
scious of the need of faith, is counselled by these new apolo­
gists to act as though he already believed, in order that he
may arrive at certitude» as regards Revelation, by means of
this action or experience of Catholicism. But how is it pos­
sible to have this experience of Catholicism without receiv­
ing the Sacraments, and how can one receive the Sacra­
ments who does not as yet believe? This attitude of mind
closely approximates to the conception of the Modernists
condemned by Pius X: “The aim he (the Modernist) sets
47) Garrigou-Lagrange, Ο. P., ibid., I, p. 130; (3’ed.), p. 49. For
a deeper critical examination of this part of Blondel’s doctrine the
student might consult P. De Tonquédec, Immanence. ’ Paris, 1913,
p. 155 sq; also Alb. Valensin, art. “Immanence (Methode d’), in
DAFC, fasc. VIII, col. 600 sq.
*8) Garrigou-Lagrange, Ο. P., ibid., II, p. 4; (3’ed.), p. 298.
. «) Ibid., II, p. 4; (3’ed.), p. 298.
»o> Ibid., I, p. 130; (3’ed.), pp. 49, 50.

182

Chapter V.

before himself is to make one, who is still without faith,
attain that experience of the Catholic religion, which, ac­
cording to the system, is the sole basis of faith”.61 And “if
you ask”, so the Encyclical adds, “on what foundation this
assertion of the believer rests, he answers : In the personal
experience of the individual. On this head, the Modernists
differ from the Rationalists, only to fall into the views of
the Protestants and pseudo-Mystics”.62
2. In the light of this critical appreciation of the
method of relative immanence, the chief limitations and
excellencies of the method may be summarized under the
following heads.

·*Μ.

of

a) In the first place, the scope of this method is limited
by the very same exigencies which it formulates, that is,
by the exigencies of the “philosophers”, the élite, at least
under the rigorous form which the scientific application of
the theory implies. Hence, Blondel’s “I/Action” is not a
popular apologetics.66
b) The psychologic analysis of man’s present misery
and needs on the one hand, and of his legitimate aspira­
tions on the other, manifests the fact, that man is not selfsufficient and that he needs some divine help, in order to
arrive at his natural end, namely, the fulfillment of all the
precepts of the natural law. But this does not prove that
this help must necessarily be supernatural. For, strictly
speaking, God might also offer to man sufficient natural
assistance to enable him to reach his final end, as we
have shown in the chapter on the Necessity of Revela­
tion.64 Hence, if we experience certain vague aspirations
for this superadditum, we may not conclude with certainty
that it is supernatural in the strict theological connotation
of that term. In the present order of the human race, a
supernatural help is, indeed, necessary, but only because, as
Revelation informs us, mankind has been destined to a
supernatural end. This fact, however, can be known with
certainty only through history, not by purely philosophical
reasoning.66
Therefore, this method of itself alone is impotent to
prove the fact of the supernatural. As Thamiry says, it51
*
55
54
53
52
51) DB. n. 2101.
52) DB. n. 2081.
53) Alb. Valensin, ibid., col. 609.
54) Baierl, The Theory of Revelation, I, sec. 1, p. 123 sq.
55) Ad. Tanquerey, Synopsis theologiae dogmaticae.
Romae,
Tornaci, Parians. 1922. (19'ed.), I, pp. 55, 56.

j

Criticism

J

183

is doubtful whether this method, by its immanent analysis
of human action, caii\bring the believer to hear and heed
“the appeal of preventive or sanctifying grace”, which
would then express itself in psychologic facts discernible
by observation and philosophical analysis (Cardinal
Dechamps) ; whether it would enable us to experience God,
or at least “to find in our action the supernatural element
which is said to enter into His Constitution” (P. Laberthonnière) ; whether, finally, it would justify us in affirm­
ing with certitude, that the object of oùr “irrepressible
aspirations” is a “supernatural Unnamed” (Blondel), an
object which is “beyond and above the natural order”
(Ligeard). All such attempts, “when they lead to anything,
seem to do so only at the price of confounding the notion
of the transcendent with that of the preternatural, or even
of the supernatural—or, again, at the price of confounding
the divine co-operation and divine grace. In a word, if
the psychologic analysis of the tendencies of human nature
ends in ‘showing, without recourse to what Revelation gives
us, that man desires infinitely more than the natural order
can give him’ (Ligeard), it does not follow that we can
say with any certainty that this ‘desired increase’ is a
supernatural Unnamed. As a matter of fact, (1) the nat­
ural order far exceeds in vastness the object of my
analysis; (2) between my nature and the supernatural
there is the preternatural; (3) the aids to which my nature
aspires, and which God gives me, are not necessarily of the
supernatural order. Besides, even if a supernatural action
does in fact manifest itself under these religious aspir­
ations, immanent analysis, apprehending only psychological
phenomena, cannot detect it”.6®
• The method of relative immanence manifests certain
excellencies of a legitimate scope.
a) It can help man to arrive at Faith. For, normally it
is necessary to have the desire to believe (pius credulitatis
affectus) as a preliminary step to faith. St. Thomas says :
“Cum alicui proponuntur aeterna bona, primo vult ea,
secundo vult eis inhaerere per amorem, et tertio vult
sperare ea, et quarto vult credere ea ut credens possit jam
sperare et amare et habere”.66
67 Since the method of rela­
tive immanence stimulates the desire, not, indeed, of the
supernatural as such, but of some help, it disposes, at least
66> Art. "Immanence” in CE. VII, pp. 686, 687.
B7) III Sent. dist. 23, q. 2, a. 5 ad 4; cf. St. Augustine, De quan­
titate animae, c. xix, n. 24; De vera religione, c. x. n. 20; De utilitate
credendi, c. xvi, η. 84; De ordine, 1. Π, c. xix, η. 61.

Excellencies of
the Method.

184

Cardinal
Dechampe.

Chapter V.

negatively, a person of good will to embrace whatever offers
to satisfy all his exigencies and aspirations.
b) It also offers to philosophical thought the. justifica­
tion for man’s adherence by faith to the supernatural. For,
it shows that the supernatural, the gift of God to man, is
neither tyranny nor something foreign to reason. Hence'
it cannot be said that the problem of the supernatural is
inconceivable and inadmissible.68
c) Finally, it is an excellent means to prepare the. way
for the historical demonstration of Divine Revelation. For,
it enables the modern mind, which proclaims the autonomy
of reason, to recognize man’s insufficiency and his need'of
some superadded assistance, thereby disposing it to con­
sider the external criteria of Catholicism. Therefore, we
concede to this method a certain priority of time, but not
of value, that is to say, a priority as regards preparing the
inquirer, not in itself and from the objective viewpoint.69
The Redemptorist, and afterwards Archbishop of
Malines, Belgium, Cardinal Dechamps, has worked out an
apologetic demonstration, which embraces the method of
relative immanence and the traditional, historical demon­
stration. The manifold arguments, so ..he maintains, in­
ternal and external, ought to be combined into a homo­
geneous and formal unity, thus forming a complete apolo­
getics (apologétique intégrale). He.states the program in
these words: “Ecoute et,regarde, dit-il: Il n’y a que deux
faits à vérifier, l’un en vous, l’autre hors de vous; ils se
recherchent pour s’embrasser, de tous les deux, Je témoin
c’est vous-même”.58
*60 Thus, he grounds the apologetic dem­
onstration upon a twofold fact, the one interior, the other
exterior.
The former is the starting-point, and consists in the con­
sciousness of our needs, especially in relation to religion
and morality. “Who is satisfied with his natural condition?
Who does not yearn for à more perfect condition? Who does
not perceive in his soul a true echo of those words of St:
Paul : ‘Every creature groaneth, and travailéth in pain until
now’ . . . Therefore, it is true that nature longs for the
supernatural, which ought to heal and perfect it, and that
Deism, which denies the positive, supernatural and living
order of the relation existing between God and man, is a
58 ) Alb. Valensin, ibid., col. 608.
69 ) Garrigou-Lagrange, Ο. P., ibid., I, p. 131; (3’ed.), p. 298.
60) De la Demonstration de la Foi ou Entretiens sur la demon­
stration catholique de la révélation chrétienne. Premier Entretien,
p. 1 (H. Dessain, Malines).

Criticism

185

doctrine contrary to nature. The supernatural is not con­
trary to nature, but rather the healing, exaltation, perfec­
tion of nature”. We feel the need of some authority, in
which we can have full confidence as regards the things
necessary for our final end. In consequence, we are pre­
pared to offer an attentive and docile ear to this authority,
provided, of course, that it can show that it is worthy of
credence.
The external fact is the Church, which lays claim to
infallible authority in religious matters, and which -by vir­
tue of the great number of her members, her qualities and
the. splendid benefits, which she unceasingly confers in the
religious and moral sphere, gains the friendship of souls
and appears truly worthy of our credence and allegiance.
The apologist realizes, of course, that he must search the
records of the past for the credentials of the Church. There­
fore, he opens up the Gospels and studies them according
to the historical ^method, and establishes the transcendence
of Christianity, and the right of the Church to' her title of
“catholic”. The force of this demonstration is in the
sources. But its practical efficacy, its aptitude to take hold
of men, will not appear independently of actual conditions.
Hence, the external fact must be joined with the internal
fact.61
These two different methods of demonstration do not
place before the apologist paths theoretically equivalent,
and separately capable of leading to a decisive conclusion;
rather both of them are indispensable, but in different
ways, for a full and complete demonstration; And their
synthesis is in the living man. For the act by which man
adhères to.Faith, is not the simple resultant of an historical
inquiry in accordance with positive methods. This act is
preceded by the gift of God, namely, grace. The beginning
of; this' process is within the soul. It ends by facing the
external fact. Hence, the “apologétique integrate” is both
internal and external.62*
Some authors, it is true, are unsympathetic towards
this method of Cardinal Dechamps and, for various rea­
sons, accuse it of subjectivism and traditionalism. How­
ever, it is practically the method advanced by the Vatican
Council.68 For instance, P. A. Matignon, S. J., .objects that
the proof resting on the innate needs of the human heart,
is not a real demonstration and does not beget full certi61)
cf. Alb.
62)
63)

Dechamps, Oevres, (H. Dessain), Malines, t. I, III, IV, XVI;
Valensin, ibid., colls. 610, 611; Tanquerey, ibid., I, pp. 44, 45.
Alb. Valensin, ibid., col. 611.
DB. n. 1785-1794; cf. J. V. Bainvel, S. J., ibid., p. 136.

186

Chapter V.

tude.M To this the Cardinal replied, that the psychological
need and its disclosure are, to be sure, no argument for
the necessity of supernatural Revelation, but only for its
credibility, and that the apologetic proof that proceeds from
this argument does not render superfluous the demonstra­
tion drawn from external facts, but rather presupposes it,
and from this viewpoint is really a demonstrative proof on
intrinsic grounds.®5
II.
General Charac­
terisation.

PSYCHOLOGICO-MORAL APOLOGETICS.

Akin to Blondel’s method of Immanence, and yet dif­
fering from it, is the method espoused by Ollé-Laprune,
Fonsegrive, Denis, Brunetière and others. Their aim is
to deduce a proof for the truth of the Christian Religion
from the harmony of Christianity with the inmost aspir­
ations of the soul, with the laws of reason and morality,
with the postulates of life. Nature and the Christian
Religion are in perfect accord. This form of apologetic
demonstration may be termed the Psychologico-Moral
Apologetics, or the Apologetics of Value, or Social
Apologetics.
Ollé-Laprune, Denis and Fonsegrive reject Kantian­
ism; they do not question the ability of theoretical rea­
son to prove the existence of God.68 But speculative
proofs, so they insist, no longer exert much influence
over the modern mentality; moral and psychological
arguments, on the other hand, appeal to minds educated
in Kantianism and modern philosophy. If we are to
gain access to the modern mind, it is necessary to take
man as we find him, and to speak the language which he
understands.67 Brunetière advocates a similar method.
Let us examine these aspects of the “New Apologetics”
more in detail.64
64) Le Question du Surnaturel. Paris. 1861, pp. 10-12.
66) Dechamps, Pie IX et les erreurs contemporains. 1864, pp. 291305; cf. Schmid, ibid., p. 201.
66) Ollé-Laprune, De la certitude morale. Paris. 1880, p. 105. For
Fonsegrive ci. Quinzaine, March 16, 1907: Novissima verba.
67) Fonsegrive, Le catholicisme et la vie de Vesprit. Paris. 1906,
pp. 9, 58, 70. Ollé-Laprune, Le prix de la vie. Pari*. 1909, (3’«d.),
p, 105 sq., Les sources de la paix intellectuelle. Pari*. <5’ed.)t P- 78.

Psychologico-Moral Apologetics

187

Ollé-Laprune
û

Leon Ollé-Laprune (1839-1898) was instrumental in Κρ^°οΡ11*πι1
establishing a new school of apologetics in France. His
doctrine, which finds expression in various works,6*68 is
written with an enthusiastic conviction and a deep and
splendid eloquence. He distinguishes, in the first place,
between religion and philosophy, for, religion is not
merely an operation of the intellect, but also a practical
operation. In agreement with Hurter’s Compendium, he
differentiates between man’s natural end, natural happi­
ness, and the means that correspond to that end, and
man’s supernatural end, supernatural beatitude, which
consists in the beatific vision, and the proportionate
means to that end; hence, between natural and super­
natural religion, that is, the Christian Religion, which
is grounded on positive authority and transcends the
powers of human nature.69
The basic thought of his important work on “Moral cJfStSi·.
Certitude” deals with the question: Is there really such
a thing as metaphysical, natural-religious and apolo­
getic certitude! He answers in the affirmative, but he
contends that this certitude is only moral. In the Preface
to this work, he acknowledges his indebtedness most of
all to the influence of Gr a try’s publication concerning
the knowledge of God, and to a philosophical inquiry con­
cerning moral certitude written by C. Caro. Moral
truths, in the stricter sense, are such as constitute the
subject matter of morality and moral science. In the
broader sense, moral truths are also such metaphysical
and natural religious truths, as are closely associated
with moral truths in the stricter sense. They are espe­
cially the following four: the moral law, freedom, God
and immortality. They are partly inner experiential facts,
partly rational postulates; they are, moreover, objec6S) Besides the works already cited above in notes 66 and 67, cf.
La philosophie et le temps present. 1890; La Vitalité chrétienne, 1901;
Raison et Rationalisme,
€9) La prix de la vie. Paris. 1897, pp. 341-365.

k

188

Chapter V,

tively certain and universally valid truths, which we are
in duty bound to acknowledge. But in view of the fact,
that in many respects they do not possess evidence,
which excludes ^every unreasonable and sophisticated
doubt, they are only truths of natural faith; still, they
are actual or demonstrable rational truths which are
objectively certain. Understood in this sense, they: are
truths of natural rational faith, and, hence, they must be
carefully differentiated from the truths of positive,
supernatural Faith, which have for their formal ground
of certitude, or motive, the authority of God revealing,
and for their end, or purpose, supernatural beatitude,
and'transcend the sphere of human reason. Thereby; so
Ollé-Laprune believes, every kind of false mysticism and
scepticism is eradicated.70 Thus, two extreme tendencies
are eliminated : on the one hand, the tendency of certain
writers, who exaggerate moral faith, for instance,
Pascal, Maine de Biran, Kant, Fichte in his writing on
the destiny of man, Jacobi, Hamilton and Mansel; and,
on the other hand, thetendency of such writers as Cour^
not, Spencer, John Stuart Mill, who. undervalue moral
faith, credit it with mere probability, or even regard it
as an illusion. Both tendencies lead to false mysticism
and scepticism.71 According to Kant, a belief in rational
creatures outside of ourselves, and historical faith, ought
to appeal to sciences but a belief in transcendental
things, on the contrary, ought not to have recourse to
science. Ollé-Laprune, however, maintains that, for both
classes of objects, rational knowledge and rational faith
are really possible, since their objects are partly evident
to us, and partly also inevident or obscure; moreover,
moral faith as. regards supersensible things is an objec­
tively certain faith that1 binds in conscience, and not
merely a subjectively certain faith “of need or. neces­
sity”.72 Therefore, the question as to whether faith
70) De la Certitude Morale, Paris. 1898 (3’ed.), pp. 10-12. 98-125.
168-169.
71) Ibid,, pp. 126-312.
72) Ibid,, pp. 113. 146-163.

Psychol ogico-Mor ai Apologetics

189

(croyance) is the ground of intellectual.knowledge must,
in Ollé-Laprune’s opinion, receive both- a negative and
an affirmative answer with qualifications. It must be an­
swered negatively, inasmuch as faith cannot be the
ground of all intellectual knowledge, if that faith be con­
ceived as a mere instinctive or sentimental faith, or in
the sense of Fidei sm, which ends in scepticism, and re­
stricts all knowledge to the phenomena only. The ques­
tion must be answered affirmatively, inasmuch as intel­
lectual ' certitude concerning many things, especially
supersensible .things, is, from the viewpoint of their
object, only partly evident, and partly inevident, being
dependent upon trust or confidence, and is, therefore,
also a mixed certitude, or only moral certitude.73
According to Ollé-Laprune metaphysics is, indeed, a “Si?hcertitS?
science ; but it is not a science grounded upon pure evi­
dence, and dependent upon free will only from the view­
point of its exercise; rather it is a science that rests upon
*
“moral certitude”, and depends upon free will also from
the viewpoint of its assent, so that not every unreason­
able doubt becomes impossible, but only reasonable
doubt. In this latter respect, it is rooted in pure faith ;
but this faith is not a tradionalistic or fideistic faith,
neither is it a positive divine faith; rather itds affiuman
moral faith, based on the authority and testimony of rea­
son, and, therefore, in this wider sense it, is a faith of
authority and testimony.74
As metaphysical science is not to be grounded fideis- Aroiogeucs.
tically upon a mere sentimental arid volitional basis, but
at the same time upon an objective rational foundation;
so, too, apologetic science. Such is the basic theme of
Ollee-Laprune’s volume on “The Sources of Intellectual
Peace”. Man and human society yearn for peace. The
so-called exact science cannot show how this peace may
be acquired. Only a science that aims higher is able to
accomplish this, inasmuch as it proceeds from certain
78) De la Certitude morale, pp. 205-227.
74) La Philosophie et le temps présent.
pp. 257-290.

Paris. 1894 (2’ed.),

190

Chapter V.

generally acknowledged conceptions, needs and aspira­
tions, and seeks for the means to bring about their fulfill­
ment and satisfaction, and finally to insure the full en­
joyment of intellectual peace. Indifference to truth can­
not produce this peace; least of all, can it be the ground­
work for a fruitful union of souls, whose end is to do
away with misery. Only the knowledge of truth, not mere
feeling and good will, liberates, and is able to be the
basis of a firm association and a common action for the
realization of this end. To be sure, a person can rest
content with a minimum of truth in the beginning, but
not permanently.75
But where is the whole truth to be1 found? OlléLaprune replies: Only in Christianity and the Catholic
Church. The exact sciences, despite their marvelous
progress, have not the words of eternal life, just as little
as philosophy, or the science of history, or art. Chris­
tianity alone possesses the words of eternal life, and the
Church with her dogmas ; il faut que l’Eglise refasse une
chrétienté,· il faut qu’elle recommence sans se répéter.
By Christianizing thought in this way, there will come
into being a new philosophy, which will absorb the
precious achievements of the exact sciences and through
them enrich and rejuvenate metaphysics, without sacri­
ficing anything of its possessions. To this end, it will
make use of the philosophy of St. Thomas, but not sim­
ply by a process of reproduction. Ollé-Laprune thinks
that such a philosophy has already been inaugurated by
Gratry and Caro, although it is still far from perfec­
tion, and perhaps never will be fully realized. To arrive
at such a philosophy, we must seek after the things that
unite rather than separate the minds of men.75
CRITICISM
AmbiruoutTer1. a) Ollé-Laprune distinguishes between rational
”on«i Fkith." knowledge resting on pure evidence, which make every
doubt, even an unreasonable and sophistical doubt, im-'
75) Les sources de la paix intellectuelle.
pp. 3-31.
76) Ibid; pp. 39-47. 107-120.

Paris. 1893 (2’ed.),

Psychologico-Moral Apologetics

191

possible, and rational faith based on moral evidence,
which excludes every reasonable doubt, but, in view of
the partial obscurity of its object, does not preclude
every unreasonable doubt; he conceives the latter, how­
ever, as an objectively grounded, rational faith. In so
far he has not abandoned traditional metaphysics—gen­
eral and special—; for an objectively grounded, rational
faith is really nothing else except rational knowledge of
a morally compelling kind, as contradistinguished from
a purely evident, rational knowledge that possesses
absolutely compelling force. Still, because of the am­
biguity of the term “rational faith”, and the danger of
misinterpretation inherent in that expression, it seems
preferable to avoid it and, furthermore, to use the words
“faith of authority and faith of testimony” only in rela­
tion to positive historical faith.77

b) Ollé-Laprune also departs from the traditional c^nfcal.”
terminology adopted by Catholic theologians in regard
to “moral certitude”. He defines this as a firm adhesion
of the mind to historical and metaphysical truths bear­
ing on the moral life, which is given under the influence
of moral dispositions, and with the concurrence of the
the will, even though per se an objective proof might
suffice.7879But this definition is really the cause of an
equivocation; for, it is derived, not from that which is
per se the motive of this certitude, but rather from dis­
positions, which per se do not concur in the formation o£
such a certitude. On the basis of this definition, we should
have to admit that the existence of God, as proven by
valid metaphysical arguments, would be only morally
certain and, that a philosopher, who was very clear
visioned but perverse, could not, without the proper
moral dispositions, arrive at a certain knowledge of
God’s existence,—surely an erroneous conception. Such
a definition, however, might, indeed, be useful as an ar­
gumentum ad hominem in controversy with agnostics.78
77) Schmid, ibid., p. 204.
W) De la Certitude Morale, pp, 413-414.
79) Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., ibid., I, p. 530, foot-note.

L

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Chapter V.

2. There is another point in Ollé-Laprune’s system
which goes deeper than mere terminology. He is of the
opinion, that traditional metaphysics ought to be further
developed; in union with Gratry,80 he conceived rational
faith as a natural belief in God after the manner of. $
moderate Ontologism. Reason (raison), so he teaches,
starts from the phenomena of the exterior and interior
world of experience, and harks back to their efficient
causes and substances, to their essences and essential
laws, which reason expresses in concepts, ideas, and judg­
ments. Reason is able to exercise this activity, only in
so far as it has received the impetus thereto from God,
and perceives this divine activity by means of a divine
sense latent within itself, ’without, however, having .an
immediate, although imperfect, intuition of the same,
such as Malebranche assumed according to Ontologism in
its strict form.81 Thus, God is the internal Teacher, Who
speaks within our souls, the sun of every intelligence, the
light, that enlightens us. Every thought, in some way or
other, includes God (“toute pensée implique Dieu en
quelque sorte”)· The divine sense, which is proper to
us, is an instinctive, natural faith, which by reflection
* can be transformed into concepts, into the idea of God,
as the necessary and all perfect primal Being. God is
ever present to our reason (“Dieu est sans cesse présent
à la raison”) ; but the idea of God is not an innate idea
resting upon an immediate intuition; rather it is a
product of our reason, and of the activity of God that
awakens it. We merely strive to obtain a clearer vision
thereof; if it were merely an illusion, the human spirit
would be caught in the meshes of an incurable error.82
80) -cf. Schmid, Erkenntnislehre, Freiburg i. B., 1890; II, 348354; IDEM, art. “OntoLogismus”, in Buchberger Kirchliches Handlexikon, Freiburg i. B. 1912, II, col. 1216.
81) cf. Geo. M. Sauvage, art. “Ontologism”, in CE. XI, p. ,257 sq.
82) Ollé-Laprune, La Philosophie de Malebranche, Paris. 1870,
II, pp. 291-344, where among other things he writes: “Nous-ne voy­
ons pas la substance de Dieu par intuition, mais nous sentons Dieu"
(p. 326). “Naturellement avant toute réflexion nous croyons au néces­
saire et au parfait réellement subsistent et nous y croyons parce qu'il
est en nous agissant sur nous et se révélant à nous par son action que

Psych ologico-Mor al Apologetics

$

193

Thus, for Ollé-Laprune the Divine Primal Being is, not
merely the active ground of our rational knowledge, but
also an objective ground of its certitude, which really
imparts to our knowledge of the causality operating in
the world its full centrifugal force. He rejects an im­
mediate vision of God as something due to us by nature,
since it is supernatural in character; but from this it
follows, that the human spirit would not be involved in
an incurable error, if such an intuition were denied it.83

It is not Ollé-Laprune's intention to break with the prin- Ν**
ζ£^
*
ci pies of traditional apologetics, nor would he wish others Traditional
to question them. He merely wishes to add to it a new, Ap°lo*etiee·
youthful vigour, by unfolding the germ which it em­
bodies. He only desires to see it assume a development in
a way, that accords more fully with the demands of the
present age, by showing that the immanent needs of the
human intellect, heart; and will, attain their full satisfac­
tion only in so far, as the transcendent truths of the super­
sensible and supernatural order, which never grow old, but
which have largely disappeared from the mind and heart
of the modern world, again permeate, dominate, and deify
the life of the individual, and of society. His aim is to offer
to those who have gone astray in metaphysics, and in the
apology of Christianity feared upon it, a helping hand, so
that on the basis of the psychological facts, which they
admit in common with us, they may again become aware
of the saving truths and benedictions of Christianity, or at
least that they may lay hold of them in a more intimate and
vital manner, and finally concede to the intellectual powers
of human reason the full confidence, which they deserve.84
3. Doubtless the good intentions and efforts of this
-ι-v, ·,
t
i i · Γ
·
n
-,
.. ,
- Philosopher-Apologist are praiseworthy and well suited
to remove prejudices, thereby preparing modern unbe­
lievers for the acceptance of Divine Revelation. But this
method, which relegates tlie externat criteria to a sec­
ondary position, does not present an adequate proof of
nous atteste le sens divin” (p. 330). “Nous aspirons à la claire vue
c’est un fait incontestable ... si elle n’etait qu’une chimère, l’esprit
humain serait par nature dans un irrémédiable erreur” (pp. 339,341).
83) Schmid, ibid., pp. 204, 205.
84 ) Ibid., pp. 205, 206; cf. Jacques Zeiller, Leon Ollé-Laprune,
Paris (Gabalda), 1932.

inadequate to
Trove Divine

194

Chapter V,

the credibility of Catholic Christianity. By showing
that Christianity is in perfect accord with the aspira­
tions of our nature, and that the remedy for our miseries
is to be found only in Christianity and the Catholic
Church, the practical obligation of embracing the teach­
ings of the Catholic Church becomes manifest. However,
in order to demonstrate the credibility of Catholic Chris­
tianity, it is not enough to show that there is a moral
necessity of embracing it for the right ordering of our
whole moral life; it is, above all else, necessary to demon­
strate the divine origin of the doctrine of Christ and of
the Church. For, the mysteries of faith must be believed
because of the authority of God Who reveals them, and
not simply on account of their necessity for right con­
duct. Thus, this method involves an erroneous concept of
credibility65 The same criticism applies also to the
apologetic method of Fonsegrive, Denis, and Brunetière,
which we shall now consider briefly.
Fonsegrive.
A

Georges Fonsegrive (Yves le Querdec), in his volume
entitled “Le Catholicisme et la vie de Vesprit”,** opposes
Blondel’s rejection of traditional apologetics, but he con­
curs with him in the claim, that there is an urgent need of
a modern apologetics, which will take cognizance of men
as they are. With the Oratorian Laberthonnière, and the
Jesuit Bachelet, he tries to defend Blondel against the accu­
sations of Idealism, Scepticism, neo-Kantianism, etc., which
his scholastic adversaries have raised against him; for,
Fonsegrive believes that the needs of human nature, which
lie at the basis of Blondel’s apologetics, do not necessarily
lead to these consequences.85
*87 On the basis of an Apologetics
of Need, strict rational knowledge is, of course, not obtain­
able, but only a knowledge that is mixed with a natural
faith (croyance) as regards the truth of the Christian Re­
ligion; but Fonsegrive does not think that this viewpoint
involves Scepticism as its consequence. Human knowledge
85) Garrigou-Lagrange, Ο. P., ibid., I, p. 125.
8«) Paris. 1899.
87) Ibid., pp. 58-67.

Peychologico-Moral Apologetics

;195

and human science, for the most part, include something
obscure and mysterious, which can, indeed, become the ob0 ject of doubt, but which, nevertheless, can be assented to
by virtue of an act of the will. Hence, they also include
faith as a partial elemeht : “il y a une part de croyance dans
la science même”. If modern apologetics demands a natural
faith in this sense, and is opposed to a strict demonstration,
it does not understand these terms in the same sense as
its scholastic adversaries; consequently, it acknowledges
the definitions of the Vatican Council no less -than its
scholastic opponents and, so far as the principles are con­
cerned, it is not necessarily constrained to reject science
in the Aristotelian-scholastic sense.88 Furthermore, when
modern apologetics shows that true life can be achieved
only in Catholic Christianity, it simply aims at establishing
the appropriateness, not, in a rationalistic sense, the strict
necessity of positive Christianity and of Catholicism. To
that extent, therefore, traditional apologetics must remain
unimpaired: “la démonstration logique ne perd pour cela
aucune de ses qualités; elle demeure excellente et vraie”.89
Fonsegrive argues thus : For the right ordering of our
life, it is necessary to reflect upon our inmost nature and
its legitimate aspirations. Now, our consciousness bears
witness to the fact that we perceive within ourselves many
desires, which by our own powers alone we are unable to
satisfy. We long to know and to understand whatever is
true, but we know only a very few things, and these also
quite imperfectly; we wish to embrace whatever is good,
but we cannot by our own resources alone obtain the good ;
we aspire to a complete life, above the merely human, to a
God-like life, but, after many and arduous efforts, we are
compelled to admit that such a life is inaccessible to us.
We note that the Christian Religion claims to be able to
satisfy our aspirations. For, it teaches that man is destined
to a higher, a God-like life ; that the Word became flesh, in
order that man might become God ; that He instituted the
means by which we might become the adopted sons of God,
and, by sharing in the Divine nature, tend to life eternal.
Thus, the Christian Religion, far from extinguishing the
intellectual and spiritual life of man, really exalts it and
lifts it to higher spheres. Therefore, if we wish to arrive
at a complete and perfect life, we ought to embrace Chris­
tianity. On the other hand, this religion manifests some
very certain signs, namely, Miracles, not merely in the
«) Ibid., pp. 67-83.
8») Ibid., p. 29; cf. Schmid, ibid., pp. 207-208.

I

196

Chapter V.

physical, but also in the intellectual and moral order, which
reveal its divinity. On the hypothesis of a supernatural
life, these'Miracles do not seem to be impossible to human
reason ; on the contrary, they appear to be in perfect accord
with right reason. Thus, the method of Fonsegrive places
the emphasis upon the internal, subjective criteria, al­
though, at the same time, it admits and employs the ex­
ternal-signs of Divine Revelation; but it invokes the latter,
only after the aprioristic prejudices against them have been
removed.90

Denis.
The editor of the Annales de Philosophie chrétienne, Ch.
Denis, published a similar work under the title “Esquisse
d’une Apologie Philosophique du Christianisme”, which is
a reprint of articles contributed by him to that Review in
1 897-1898. The basic thought of these articles, apart from
various inaccuracies and historical errors which they con­
tain, may be summarized as follows. The intellectualistic
demonstration of the Apology of Christianity ought to'be
supplemented by the psychological method, which rests
upon the needs of' the heart, the will, and the activities of
* will, as well as upon the intellect. The' traditional
the
apologetic method ought to be perfected by rrieans of a’ new
method, which possesses evidential value not merely for
the faithful, but' also for unbelievers. It is true, the ex­
ternal motives of credibility suffice for the majority of
minds, but not for all; many require motives of internal
credibility. The supernatural, in consonance with its defi­
nition, must be above us and exalt us, cannot proceed from
ourselves, is not due to us, but is the free gift of God. But
true philosophy ought to beget the conviction, that the impotency and insufficiency of our nature is able to find its
support and perfection by' means of the supernatural, so
that the latter, while not, indeed, a juridical postulate, is,
nevertheless, a possible postulate, a presumption, a hypoth­
esis. True philosophy is also capable of accrediting the
transcendent truths of Christianity with an immanent cred­
ibility, inasmuch as these truths offer to the inner needs,
aspirations, postulates of our nature, a satisfaction un­
dreamt of, which fills the soul with new power and life.
This satisfaction serves as a criterion directly indicative
eo) cf. Ives le Querdec, Le Fils de Vesprit, Paris, 1905; Tanquerey, ibid., I, pp. 50, 51.

Psychologico-Moral Apologetics

*
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197

of their Divine origin, and makes possible an experiential
p proof of their credibility.01
The old traditional apologetic method of the truth of
Christianity is, according to Denis, dogmatic, since in its
argumentation it rests upon biblico-ecclesiastical testiip monies; in the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas of Aquin
it assumed a scientific, in the decrees De Fide of the Vatican Council a solemn ecclesiastical formulation. The new
method, on the other hand, is by its nature philosophical,
and, therefore, it has evidential value not merely for the
faithful, but also for unbelievers. Accordingly, it is more
in accord with the demands of the present age. It had
already been utilized in the first four centuries—especially
by Justin and Augustine—later, particularly by St. Bonaventure, by the author of the Imitation of Christ, and by
St. Francis of Sales. But for the past three centuries, it
has been well nigh forgotten, and did not receive due recognition in the current text-books. Only in .recent times
was it restored to its proper place in religious psychology,
thanks to the efforts of Maine de Biran, V. Dechamps, Car­
dinal Newman, de Broglie, Ollé-Laprune, Blondel, and
others. It is a method of immanence, in that it derives the
proof for the truth of positive Christianity, and of the
Catholic Church, from the inner needs of men and mankind,
in opposition to the Rationalism that was represented in
France, especially by A. Sabatier and his school; hence, it
does not merit the anathemas which the representatives of
the older apologetic method frequently heaped upon it.91
92
C. Mano advocated a similar viewpoint in his essay entitled
"Le Problème Apologétique”?»

Brunetière.
With the death of Ferdinand Brunetière, Catholic France,
lost one of her noblest sons, a bold fighter, and the best
religious lecturer, aside from Lacordaire, that she has ever
possessed,—“un admirable et un vénérable et un imposant
directeur d’esprit, un maître d’âmes”—as Gaguet wrote in
the “Gallois” (Dec. 10, 1906). Brunetière travelled through­
out France, Italy, Holland, and Switzerland, to defend the
91 ) Esquisse d'une Apologie phü. du Christianisme. Paris. 1898,
pp. 182-245. 261-296; “la crédibilité du Christianisme n'est donc pas
seulement une crédibilité de logique et de raison raisonnante, elle est
une crédibilité d’espérience. et de fait” (p. 286).
*2) Schmid, ibid., pp. 208, 209.
. .
M) Paris. 1899.
... . .

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Chapter V.

Faith by his exalted, powerful and original eloquence,
against the assaults of Liberalism. This pilgrim had jour­
neyed from afar, from the frontiers of atheism, before he
finally made his profession of Faith, and his hand lovingly
clasped the crucifix, which he had sought for so long.®4
NeoKBnttanbm.
In the light of this heroic enthusiasm, this marvelous
apologetic ability, it is all the more to be regretted that
Brunetière was caught in the meshes of neo-Kantianisw, as
is evident from his joy over Balfour’s book/'TAe Founda­
tions of Belief”, which openly espouses Agnosticism, as
well as from the long Preface, which he wrote for that
volume.96 Science, and by it Brunetière means also philos­
ophy, guarantees for us neither the existence of an external
world, nor the existence of anything external whatsoever,
which corresponds to our sense perceptions, nothing con­
ceptual, which is the counterpart of the sensible.96 We do
not owe religion, or religions, to an act of reason, so he
writes. A rational religion (“une religion ‘rationelle’”) is
no religion.97 Between science and religion, there is no place
for philosophy as a system of knowledge.®8 Reason is not
the ground of faith; rather faith is the ground of reason.®9
One must believe, in order to know ; the abasia of science is
faith.1” The time will come soon, when the feelings and the
will will be given their natural place in the groundwork
of faith.101
do not believe without grounds, but these grounds
***’ of belief, so Brunetière continues, are not of an intellectual
sort. We believe, because we wish to believe, namely, for
reasons of the moral order, because we experience the need
of some standard, and because neither nature nor man dis­
cover such a standard within themselves.102 The need of
believing resides in the nature and the constitution of the
spirit; it is a “category", which conditions action, science,
and morality. It is grounded in the feelings and the will;
partly, too, it depends upon authority and tradition.103 His-

moSj

H) Gisler, ibid,, pp. 264-278.
W) Lea Bases de la Croyance. Paris. 1897.
96) Ibid., p. XIV; IDEM, Sur les chemins de la croyance, Paris,
1905, p. 154. v
•T) Les Bases de la Croyance, pp. XX, XXXIV.
M) Ibid., p. XXXII.
W) Discours de Combat, 1« série, “Le besoin de croire", p. 302.
100) Ibid., p. 322. Lamennais also wrote: “Toute certitude repose
sur la foi” (Essay sur I’indifference, II, p. 41).
tel) Les Bases de la Croyance, p. XXXVII.
La science et la religion. 1895, p. 62.
1M) Discours de Combat, 1er série, p. 339, and passim.

i

Psychologico-Moral Apologetics

if

199

^°ry proves that reason can decide nothing as regards the
immortality of the soul, faith enlightens us in this respect.104
'
Like Kant in his “Critique of Pure Reason”, Balfour and
Brunetière question the value of metaphysics ; the existence
B
A
of God, the immortality and the freedom of the human soul,
are said to be inaccessible by rational proof; practical rea­
son, faith, must come to the rescue.106 Renouvier taught
1
approximately the same doctrine: Every proposition, to be
affirmed as certain, demands an act of the will; science is
;
the result of an act of faith, and all science rests accordIingly on faith.10®
Realizing that his adherence to neo-Kantianism would
be strenuously opposed by the theologians and philosophers
of the old school, who looked upon this system as their
worst eqemy, Brunetière hastened to remind them in the
I
words of Montesquieu, that he was only imitating the pracI
tise of the ancient Romans, who after having conquered all
the nations in turn, always renounced their customary
methods, just as soon as they had discovered better ones.
’
So, too, the arms of defence must be altered to suit the new
i
exigencies of our age.107 But Brunetière forgot that, even
!
though the old Romans did frequently change their weap;
ons and plan of battle, they never surrendered their experienced arm, that wielded the new weapon. By surren­
dering metaphysics, Brunetière did not only throw away
this or that apologetic weapon, but he abandoned the very
basic condition, the arm of all apologetics, especially of all
I
universally valid apologetics, which leads to the portals of
the supernatural. What he offers us in his Raisons actuelles
de croire, as positive apologetic weapons and values, are,
indeed, valuable pearls, but they make us feel all the more
vividly the loss of the diamond of metaphysics, which has
been discarded.108
'*

λ

ΰ

Brunetière made use of many modern points of view in
his apologetic method. There is in the first place the positi­
vistic viewpoint. His volume entitled “Sur les chemins de
la croyance” ends with the sentence: “The ultilization of
Dûcouré de Combat, nouvelle série, p. 20; cf. Gisler, ibid..,
pp. 280 sq.
IOS) G. Fonsegrive, Le catholicisme et la vie de l’esprit. Paris.
1906, p. 62.
ibid., p. 45.
IOT) Sur le» chemin» de la croyance, p. XV.
1M) Gisler, ibid., pp. 281, 282.

200

.
I
I
■

■
|i
iî

I

!
I

Çhapter V.

Postivism will be the first step of the twentieth century on
the path to Faith”.109 He expressly claims to have'followed
the method of Comte faithfully, in so far as it starts
with a fact (à partir du fait), regards a fact only as a fact,
and never generalizes, save within the limits of fact.110 He
champions this method as the fitting and proper apologetic
method against heretics; but, at the same time, he insists
that he wishes to extract from Kant and Comte, only what
is apologetically good and useful.111
Hence, Brunetière does not claim that Postivism can
offer everything that is requisite for apologetics. It is only
the “first step” in the process, and his intention is simply to
play Postivism against itself, in order to compel it to make
certain admissions. What he demanded of Postivism, or of
August Comte, is the fact that, apart from religion and in­
dependently of it, morality can neither be developed nor
justified nor preserved; secondly, that this religion, what­
ever it be, can neither be “natural”, nor “individual”, but
only “social”, and can be grounded only upon the assump­
tion of the supernatural ; thirdly, and that only incidently,
that Catholicism in the course of history has satisfied these
demands, which science posits and determines. Nothing
more and nothing less ! He does not, therefore, claim that
this method demonstrates the transcendence or the divinity
of Christianity. It is only a step, indeed, the first step, on
the path to Faith. Thus, he anticipates the objection which
insists that Positivism is utterly worthless apologetically,
for the simple reason that no religion of the “Absolute” can
'
be proved by means of a philosophy of the “Relative”.112
00 de/of en'
Brunetière employs the positivistic method immediately
Christianity. an(j primarily, in order to make clear the social excellencies
of Christianity and Catholicism. For him, the chief apolo­
getic motive was the harmony between the democratic'and
the Christian idea. In his speech at Lille, Nov. 18, 1900,
he asserted that for himself the most decisive, grounds for
believing were those of a moral and social character. His
affection for the common people, for the democratic ideal,
finds protection, and also limitation, in the Catholic Church
alone ; only there does he discover the basis for the- re­
publican watch-word, in which he still puts his faith:
“Liberté, égalité, fraternité”. And not the basis merely,
109) “L’utilization du positivisme sera la première étape du
vingtième siècle sur le chemin de la croyance”; cf. also Discoure de
Combat, nouvelle série, pp. 172-190.
110) Sur les chemins etc., p. XI.
m) Lettres de combat, 1912, p. 234.
·,
112) Gisler, ibid., pp. 283, 284.

i
Psychologico-Moral Apologetica

i
"i

201

but also the interpretation of this watch-word can be found
iZ only in the Christian idea, nowhere else.113
In the same way he emphasizes how Christianity was
first of all a religion of the poor.11* Catholicism is likewise
a government, whereas Protestantism is simply the lack of
- government (“le protestantisme n’est que l’absence de
gouvernement”) ; “to rule is it not very necessary to begin
by being a government” ? And because it is a government,
Catholicism can absorb its heretics, destroy, or even, as
occasion demands, employ them for its own benefit. And
becaùse it is a government, Catholicism has also a “doctrine” and a “tradition”, the full force of which he recently
experienced, while reading Tolstoy’s latest writing in regard to war and the Christian spirit. How well advised
was not'Catholicism, so Brunetière reflected, nay more, how
political, in that it persistently refused to surrender the
Sacred Scriptures to the interpretations of individual
minds!115
Finally, Brunetière shows how superior Catholicism is
to Protestantism, since it is not merely a “theology”, or a
psychology, but a “sociology”; in the critical hour in which
we now find ourselves, this is a great advantage.116 He de­
veloped the same idea in the conference at Geneva, Dec. 17,
1901, when he accused Calvin of having intellectualized,
aristocraticized, individualized, religion.117 “The power of
Christianity”, so we hear him say in another conference,
“is today,,above all else a social power”.118

i,

J

I

118) Les raisons actuelles de croire, in Discours de Combat, nou­
velle série, pp. 25; 33 sq.
114) Revue des deux Mondes, 1895, Jan., p. 110.
115) Ibid., p. 114.
u«) Ibid., p. 115.
117) Discours de Combat, nouvelle série, p. 123 sq. : “L’oeuvre de
Calvin”.
118 ) Discours de Combat, ibid., p. 171.
llfl) However, Brunetière also admitted that his apologetic
method of demonstration was not absolute and decisive. In his raisons
actuelles de croire he says: “Ces raisons vous paraîtront-elles, peutêtre, entachées, ou suspectes au moins de fidéismel et craindrez-vous

i

j
i
*

CRITICISM
1. Brunetière undoubtedly went astray, when he cast
aside metaphysics as an apologetic weapon ; he probably
also overestimated the import of his “raisons
actuelles de croire”, particularly in his earlier years.119

i

Poaitive values,

j

202

Defecta.

Chapter V.

Nevertheless, from the viewpoint of apologetics, it is
highly significant that this distinguished scholar, and
matchless literary critic, affirmed the bankruptcy of a
purely natural philosophy of life; that he destroyed by
Positivism Renan’s dream of a scientific organization
of humanity (“organiser scientifiquement l’humanité”)
and finally, that he showed in such a splendid manner
that natural science is incapable of doing away with'
mystery (supprimer “le mystère”).120
Never were the social power and the social indispens­
ability of the Church lauded in such a manly, diversified,
and mighty language as issued from the lips and pen of
Brunetière; that was the positive .side of his apologetic
activity, his instructive, valuable, and lasting contribu­
tion to the cause of truth.
His example, too, is an apology. When he saw that
the political and moral order was imperilled by a false
faith, he hastened as the “miles Domini” from city to
city, awakening Catholic hope by his polemic speeches.
To the first volume of these speeches he prefixed, as his
motto, Cicero’s words: “Omne officium quod ad conjunc­
tionem hominum et ad societatem tuendam valet, est
anteponendum illi officio, quod cognitione et scientia con­
tinetur”. Ten years this oratorical campaign continued.
“For ten years”, says Barboux, “he defied ridicule, un­
popularity, injustice, and scorn, thereby revealing in his
activity and person the splendor of a mighty eloquence,
espoused to the beauty of duty faithfully performed.”121
2. If we submit the “New Apologetics” to the test
of criticism, we do so, not precisely because it is new, but
rather because it rests upon questionable grounds.
peut-être qu’en dernière analyse, elles n’aboutissent qu’à fonder la
foi sur l’impuissance de la raison? Je ne pense pas. Ce que l’on
pourrait plutôt dire, c’est qu’elles ne sont pas encore assez détermi­
nantes. Il semble qu’elles aient aussi quelque chose de trop ’utilitaire
,
*
et surtout qu’elles ne nous mènent pas au-delà d’un vagua déisme. Ce
sont des raisons de croire à sa véracité”. (Discours de Combat, Nou­
velle série, p. 23). Thus, Brunetière himself specifies the points, which
give to his apologetics the character of mere relativity. Moreover,
only too often he touches the fringes of Fideism.
12®) Revue des deux Mondes, 1895, Jan., p. 99. The citations from
Renan are from his “L’avenir de la science’’, p. 37.
121) Discours de réception, Feb. 20, 1908.

Psychologico-Moral Apologetics

203

The Church has always not only permitted, but even
encouraged,
her children to search for, and to walk upon,
0
apologetic paths, which in a sense were new, as is evident
from the fact, that not all of her converts have returned
into her fold by the same paths. Brunetière says in this
regard, that a beautiful book might be written under the
a
caption, “The Psychology of Conversion”. With Cardinal
Newman he points to the eunuch of Candace, queen of the
Ethiopians, to the converts of the Areopagus, to the con­
verted philosophers of the second and third centuries, and
to the more recent converts, for example, Theodor de la
Rive, Lady Herbert of Lea, the Baroness of Kônneriz, I.
Hecker, and others.122
And when the apologists Justin, Barnabas, Tertullian,
battled'against ancient Judaism; when Augustine entered
the lists against the secular power of paganism, Thomas
against Mohammedan Philosophy and Religion, and its
pantheistically interpretedAristotelianism; when Bellarmin
took his stand against the so-called' Reformers ; Newton,
Leibniz, Bergier, Haller, and Euler fought against Deism;
Chateaubriand; Fraissinous, Lacordaire faced Rationalism
and Materialism; when Goerres, Drey, Vosen, Weiss,
Bougaud, de Broglie, Schanz, Pesch, Schell, Gutberlet, arose
to ward off Criticism, Pantheism, and Darwinism,—apolo­
getics assumed a different battle array, and changed its
tactics and its weapons of defence.
And rightly, too. For, apologetics can, and must, contain
a changing element; that is grounded in its very nature.
The defence of the Faith must keep abreast of thè times,
and adapt itself to the changing conditions. The means for
awakening and strengthening the will to believe, and the
joy of believing, cannot always be the same. The attitude
of mind and the receptivity of men, the value-judgments in
regard to dogmas, the ideals of life, are mutable; like the
stars, they ascend and descend on the firmament of one’s
philosophy of life; if the apologist is to be effective, he must
studiously watch the signs of the times.
Hence, the Catholic apologist is wholly within his rights,
if he puts such a strong emphasis not upon Miracles only,
but also upon the psychological, artistic, social, and moral
side of Christianity; for grace, understanding, and will
co-operate in the genesis of Faith. He may not look upon
a one-sided cultivation of the understanding, a mere demon­
stration, the formation of the judgment of credibility only,
as the end towards which he is to direct his efforts, at least;
not when there is question of practical apologetics.
122) “Let raison» actuelles de croire”, Discours de Combat, Nou­
velle série, p. 11.

204

,

I

Chapter V.

He must likewise aim at cultivating the will; in order
that it might become enthusiastic through the motives
of God and eternity, of the duty of believing, and the rea­
sonableness of believing, of the beauty, usefulness and har­
mony of faith, thereby commanding the intellect to assent,
to make a real act of faith. Precisely because the will
has such an important rôle to play in the act of faith,
apologetics may, and must, be not merely didactic, but also
stimulating and inspirational. This is true in a special
degree, as noted above, if the apologist is to be not only ..a
speculator, but also a man of action ; if he is to present not
merely in an abstract manner the proofs, which show that
one can and must believe, but likewise the motives and in­
spirations, which will move to the acceptance of, and the
firm adherence to, faith. Indeed, nothing could be more
erroneous than to assume, that the intellect is led to accept
dogma in the same way as a mathematical tenet. For, the
same didactic method does not hold for mathematics and
religion; for, mathematics directs itself only to the intellect,
whereas religion appeals also to the will. Hence, in matters
of faith, the affective factor is very important, especially in
the modern age, when men place such a high estimate upon
moods and psychic dispositions, and emphasize so strongly
the primacy of the will.123
The method of stressing whatever is' socially: useful.,
beautiful, harmonious, and consolatory in Faith, is an error
from the apologetic viewpoint, only if it is done in a one­
sided. fashion, and at the expense of rational knowledge ;
only if the will is to be moved to command -the act of faith,
without first having been enlightened by the torch of a cer­
tain judgment of credibility; in short, such an apologetic
method becomes wrong, if apologetics is merely voluntar­
istic, while claiming at the same time to be the absolute,
adequate, and exclusively valid apologetics.
Just as the apologist, especially when he, like the
teacher of religion, aims at practical ends, may not pass
over the motives of the will, so, also, and to the same extent,
he must stress the intellectual grounds of faith; for, faith
is not merely free, but also reasonable. The spirit cannot
arrive at a reasonable faith, once the wings of metaphysics
have been broken; the pinions of Kantian postulates are
incapable of soaring so high.124
128) Long before the neo-apologetic school, Catholic apologists
stressed and appreciated the motives which are derived from inner,
subjective experience. We refer the student especially to P. Kleutgen,
Théologie der Vorzeit, 4, p. 203 sq.
124) Gisler, ibid., pp. 288-292..............................
b

Psychologico-Moral Apologetics

205

The weak side of the Psychologico-Moral or Social Apol­
ogetics is apparent. If with Brunetière I deduce the truth
of Christianity from its social usefulness, I do not satisfy
logic; perhaps I even become undignified and officious. For,
it has already been said, with perfect truth, that religion is
no panacea for all the infirmities and defects of human
society. It is no social arcanum for the preservation and
amelioration of all possible things. Religion is above all
else truth.
If Fr. Coppée was led to Catholicism by the path of
suffering, Huysmans by the path of art, Paul Bourget by
the path of morality, we will not quarrel about individual
cases. We only remark that thousands of others have de­
sired a much more reliable Beatrice, to guide them into the
kingdom of supernatural Revelation and grace.
On'the other hand, we are far from wishing to deny to
this apologetic method all value. The words of Pascal: “Le
coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point”, contain
much that is true. Therefore, we are willing to admit
moral proofs, as proofs of convenience, as auxiliary proofs,
as motives, as an appeal to man’s emotional life. Let the
apologist show as insistently as possible the beauty of
Catholicism, the consonance between social welfare and
Catholicism, between suffering and Catholicism. Let him
appeal to reverence for the faith of our fathers, who have
stood firmly in that faith, battled, and died for it; let him
appeal to love of country, to history, to father and mother!
All these things are mighty levers for moving the will ; they
are not merely proofs but also motives, and that of the most
glorious kind. By them the will is made mobile, is warmed,
made enthusiastic, not only for the joyous perception, but
also for the realization of the content of faith. We thank the
new apologists for having so insistently stressed the emo­
tional side of apologetics, the voluntaristic element, the
pius credulitatis affectus (the pious wish to believe).
Psychic dispositions and moods are a valuable means in the
hand of the apologist; for, the emotions always have an
influence on the intellect. Hence, it is not enough to bring
forward, and to pile up before the spirit in a mechanical
manner, the schemata of dogmas; it is also necessary, that
they be experienced and loved interiorly, in the midst of
the sun-rise of the world of Divine Revelation and grace.
But we may not forget, that historical, social, and philoso­
phical facts are often ambiguous, that they may possess evi­
dential value for religion in general, but not for the super­
natural Religion of the Catholic Church.125
126) Gisler, ibid., pp. 292-294.

206

Chapter V.

Thus, this apologetic method ‘‘has undoubted merits
from that practical standpoint as an aid to, and comple­
ment of, the intellectual defense of objective and his­
torical Christian evidence. Christianity effects a har­
mony between two great facts—the external fact of a
positive, historical, Divine Revelation, and the internal
fact of the moral and religious aspirations of the human
soul. But the consciousness of these aspirations, and the
experienced fact of their finding the fullest satisfaction
in certain religious beliefs,—those namely, of Chris­
tianity,—must of necessity raise a problem for the indi­
vidual-intellect, the problem of investigating the objec­
tive credentials of doctrinal Christianity. And until the
believer or seeker finds these to be rationally adequate,
he cannot find intellectual repose, the repose of convic­
tion or certitude, in the meré consciousness, that assent
to these doctrines satisfies instincts and yearnings of his
, nature”.12*
Hence, Brunetière *s mode of grounding moral and re­
ligious beliefs according to -the criterion of what serves
the higher interests of humanity (which for him is Chris­
tianity, but for Balfour the vague mass of moral and
religious influences felt in our social environment) is
entirely unsatisfactory. “It is open to anyone to assail
it on such lines as these : Granted that history shows the
influence of Christianity to be wholly bénéficient, am I,
therefore, bound to accept its moral and religious teach­
ing! It may be good ; it may be the best : but show me that
I am morally bound to accept the good, or the best. If I
happen to be a utilitarian, or a hedonist, why should I
abandon my utilitarian ethical system, or my hedonist
programme of self-gratificati on, and espouse Christian­
ity! If these are wrong, and if it is right, you must
prove it: you must show your reasons. But this pre­
cisely is seeking a rational basis for moral and religious
belief. You appeal to what Christianity has done for the
progress of humanity. Progress towards what! What is
12β) P. Coffey, Epistemology, London. 1917, II, p. 352.

Concept and Kinds'of Miracles

’207

the end or aim of human life Î You think that’humanity
really profits and is really served by accepting the re­
fl ligious teaching and submitting to the moral code of
Christianity. But what if I disagree; if with Schopen­
hauer or Nietzsche I hold the Christian conception of
□ human society and human nature and human destiny to
be no better than an illusion; if, in fine, I hold it folly
to sacrifice individual pleasure, present and attainable,
to an ideal of some social good that is future and proble­
matical! Who is to decide between us! Reason alone can
decide; your reason and my reason. And whether we
succeed in coming to an agreement or not, one thing at
least is„glear: that the ultimate decision of all such ques­
tions must be reached by reason, or else never reached.
Between reasoned certitude and scepticism there may,
indeed, be a battle-ground, but there can be no restingplace”.127

Let us, therefore, continue the old "traditional apolo­
getics, but let us join with it the hew, to form what Car­
dinal Dechamps calls the “apologétique integrate”.
Chapter VI.

CONCEPT AND KINDS OF MIRACLES
,

Retrospect and

In chapters three, four, and five, we have discussed Proepect·
the opinions of those who extoll the internal, subjective
criteria of Divine Revelation. Our study has led to the
conclusion that these criteria, do, indeed, possess a cer­
tain evidential value, but that it,is erroneous to ascribe
to them the primacy of value, for demonstrating the cred­
ibility of God’s self-disclnsnre. This primacy belongs
rallier to the external, objective signs, the most promi­
nent of which are Miracles and Prophecies, as we have
indicated in outline in the first and second chapters of
this treatise. We now proceed to present a more de>27) Coffey, ibid., pp. 350, 351.