Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors. James Freeman Clarke

The school of Kant declares all knowledge to be phenomenal, and that all phenomenal knowledge consists of two parts—the part given by the thing, and the part added by the mind. Herbert Spencer (in “First Principles”) insists on the certainty of the existence of things in themselves, but also on their absolute and eternal unknowableness. According to John Stuart Mill, the same view of the unknowableness of Noumena is taken by M. Auguste Comte.

      These modern philosophers, it will be seen, go much farther than Paul, and lay down positions which inaugurate a universal scepticism. According to them there is nothing certain and nothing fixed. Mr. Mansell virtually teaches us that we cannot know anything of God, duty, or immortality; and that faith means, taking for granted on some outward authority. To use a striking expression of President James Walker, “We are not to believe, but to make believe.” That is, we are not to believe with our intellect, but with our will. Or, in other words, we are to believe not what is true, but what is expedient. This he calls regulative truth, as opposed to speculative truth.

      But this is by no means the doctrine of the apostle Paul. He teaches the certainty of substantive knowledge, but the fallibility of formal knowledge. He thus avoids the two extremes of dogmatism on the one side, and scepticism on the other. The substance of Gnosis, which is the sight of truth, is a reality, and, like all that is real, has its root in God, and [pg 026] shares his eternity. The form of Gnosis is subjective, relative, and transient. Everything which is seen is temporal; only that which is not seen is eternal. All that takes outward, visible form, comes under the law of change; the roots of our knowledge, fixed in God, are unchangeable.

§ 7. The three Tendencies in the Church.

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      The human soul, a unit, indivisible, and without parts, nevertheless acts in three directions—of will, affection, intellect. These are distinguishable, though not divisible. Every one knows the difference between an act; an emotion of anger, pity, sorrow, love; and a process of logic, or an intellectual argument. These are the three primary states of the mind, evidently distinct. It is impossible to mistake either for the other. I may direct my mind towards action, towards thought, or towards emotion. The first of these, action, is the most within my own power, depends chiefly on myself, lies nearest the will. Will passes instantaneously into action. I will to lift my arm, and it is done. On the other hand, feeling or emotion lies the farthest from this centre of will, depends least of all on my own choice, and in it I am most passive. But the sphere of intellect is intermediate. I am more free when I think than when I feel; less free than when I act. In the domain of will, I act upon external things; in the domain of feeling, I am acted upon by external things; in the domain of intellect, I neither act nor am acted upon, but I see them. In all thinking, in proportion as it is pure thought, both will and emotion are excluded. We are neither actors nor sufferers, but spectators. Things seen pass into our life through the intellect, and become sources of emotion and action. Love of truth causes us to desire to know it; this desire leads us to put our mind in the presence of truth, but when there, the functions of emotion and will cease, and all we have to do is to look.

      Now, there have always been in the Church three parties, or at least three tendencies, in regard to the basis of religion. [pg 027] One of these makes the basis of the religious life to consist in thought, one posits it in feeling, the third in action. With one, the intellect must take the initiative; with the second, the heart; with the third, the will, or power of determination. The three parties in the Church, based on these three tendencies, may be characterized as the Orthodoxists, the Emotionalists, and the party of Works. The first says, “We are saved by faith;” the second says, “We are saved by love;” the third says, “We are saved by obedience.” The first assumes that the sight of truth must take the lead in all Christian experience; the second believes that love for goodness is the true basis in religion; the third maintains that the first thing to be done, in order to become a religious man, is to obey the law of duty. It is evidently very important to decide which of these answers is the true one. What are we to do first, if we wish to become Christian men or women? Are we to study, read, reflect, in order to know the truth? Are we to go to church and listen to sermons, join Bible classes and study the Scriptures, read compends of doctrine and books of Christian evidence? Or are we to seek for emotion, to pray for a change of heart, to put ourselves under exciting influences, to go where a revival is in progress, to attend protracted meetings, to be influenced through sympathy till we are filled full of emotions of anxiety, fear, remorse, followed by emotions of hope, trust, gratitude, pardon, peace, joy? Or are we to do neither of these things, but to begin by obedience, trying to do right in order to be right, beginning by the performance of the humblest duties, the nearest duties, letting fidelity in the least open the way to more? Shall we know the truth in order to love it and do it? Or shall we love the truth in order to see it and do it? Or shall we do right in order to know it and love it?

      Large numbers in the Church have followed each of these three methods, and made each the basis of its action. One [pg 028] has said, “We are saved by works;” a second, “We are saved by faith;” a third, “We are saved by love.”

§ 8. The Party of Works.

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      Two tendencies have joined in teaching salvation by works, or, more strictly, in teaching the initiative of the will in religion. These are the Church-tendency and the Moral-tendency in Christianity. The Church party in Christianity teaches that the first duty towards a child is to make it a member of the Christian Church by baptism, and that the first duty of every baptized person is to obey the commands of the Church. The Church thus becomes a school, in which baptized persons are educated as Christians. The Church of Rome, and the High Church party in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church of the United States, teach this doctrine of salvation by works. This system by no means dispenses with Christian belief or Christian feeling, but makes them both subordinate. The Church says to its faithful, We do not require you to believe or to feel, but to obey. If we said, “Believe,” or “Feel,” you might justly reply, “We cannot believe or feel when we choose, and you have therefore no right to ask us to do so.” Therefore the Church only demands obedience, which it is in the power of all to render. It, indeed, requires an assent to its creed, and forbids heresy. But this only means, “Receive the creed as true until you are able to see how it is true.” The Church also insists greatly on love, and its saints have been filled with the highest raptures of piety. But it never requires feeling. It says, “Use the means we put into your hands, and feeling will come. Pray, as we command you to do, whether you feel deeply or not. Feeling will come by and by.” Discipline, therefore, and not illumination, has been the method of the Church of Rome, and is also the method of all other Churches, so far as they are ecclesiastical Churches. All such Churches teach that by a faithful conformity to their ritual, methods, sacraments, services, discipline, the Christian life will surely [pg 029] come. The one thing needful and primary with them all is obedience, and the result of obedience is knowledge and love.

      Essentially the same view is taken by the Ethical party, or Moralists, in Christianity. Their statement, also, of the foundation of religion is, that it lies in obedience. They differ only from the Church party as regards the authority to be obeyed. With them it is not the Church, but the Moral Law, as made known to men in revelation, or in the natural instincts of conscience. The foundation of all goodness and religion is right doing. This leads to right thinking and right feeling; or, when it does not lead to these, it is still sufficient, and is satisfactory to God. “What doth the Lord require of thee,” say they, “but to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God?” At this point the extremes meet, and the Roman Catholic Church, or the extreme right, offers its hand to the Liberal Christians, or the extreme left. This is the point of contact between the two, which sometimes, also, becomes a bridge by which proselytes pass either way, from one to the other. But the practical question is, Is this answer sound? Does the will lead the way in religion? Is obedience the first step