The Bible and the Higher Critics
By L. A. S.
RECENTLY there was held in New York City the first convention of the American Bible League, the object of which is “to organize the friends of the Bible to promote a more reverential and constructive study of the sacred volume, and to maintain the historic faith of the church in its divine inspiration and supreme authority as the Word of God.” The league aims chiefly to oppose the work of the “higher critics.” The president of the league, Rev. William Phillips Hall, in an address stated it was the purpose of the convention to set forth and prove “that the Bible is now being subjected to a scholastic assault of unparalleled danger; that the practical consequences of this assault are in evidence in the demoralization of conduct and education, and in evil influences on the ministry and missions; that the assault is based upon groundless claims of a false scholarship, and that the methods proposed by the league will fully meet the imperative needs of the situation, and lead to a recovery of faith in the Bible as the word of God, and to the enthronement of our Lord Jesus Christ in the hearts of men.” A further statement of the purpose for which the league was formed was given by another speaker, Rev. D. S. Gregory. It owed its existence, he said, to the present death struggle between faith and disbelief centering in the Bible, and involving the question of Bible or no Bible. The new view treated the Bible as a piece of literature, and put evolution in the place of creation. Among other speakers at the convention was President Patton, of Princeton University, who took strong ground against the doctrines of the higher critics, who had, he declared, entirely sacrificed the old Christianity. “To them,” he said, “there was no primeval innocence, no fall, no redemption, no incarnation. They hold these things not to be doctrines, but pretty teachings, making up what is really nothing more than a metaphysic philosophy.” As an illustration of the methods of reasoning employed by the higher critics, another speaker, Rev. Dr. Schmauk, gave the following:— I desire to prove to you that New York as a city never existed. On the three hundred million square feet within her boundaries the countless millions of people in the past never have lived. I desire to prove also that New York never existed, because geology shows she was thrice submerged, and her people possessed no aquatic ability; therefore she never existed. She never existed because she never had any gardens. Fourthly, from the records I find that in New York there was a political power named Tammany. In other records I find accounts of another power—Reform. Therefore, the records are wrong. New York never existed. She was a figment of the imagination. Now that is internal reasoning—as you can imagine a sage three thousand years hence reasoning. This evidence that Manhattan Island never had existence4is of the same sort and type that some men are using to prove that Moses, Abraham, and the twelve sons of Jacob never existed. The Sun says editorially that the Bible League “will render a good service if it forces an open division between believers in the Bible as the word of God and critics of the Bible as a compilation of documents of no higher than merely human authority. Then there will remain to it the task of meeting the evidence on which the critics rely in support of a position which practically destroys the supernatural basis of all religion.” The Independent, which stands by the higher critics, does not approve of the league or its methods of work. In its view the league “does not represent a healthy or courageous attitude toward the Bible.” “Why,” it inquires, “should any lover of truth be afraid of investigation, no matter how radical? Whoever knew truth worsted in a fair encounter? If these men do not think the conclusions reached by nine tenths of our Biblical scholars and ninety-nine hundredths of our scientific men are true, let them meet the enemy in the fair field of discussion; one David . . . could overthrow the whole army if armed with the sling of good argument and genuine scholarship.” The fault with the higher critics, and with the view that the higher criticism ought to be met with “good argument and genuine scholarship,” is that Christianity does not rest upon the basis of human wisdom or scholarship. All the argument in the world, scientific or historical or otherwise, over the points raised by these critics, would lead to nothing, because men can not be led to the truth of God in that way. The Lord never commissioned his servants to argue people into the truth. He has not made the knowledge of him dependent on the ability of the human mind to grasp the subtleties of logic and follow out the thread of a fine argument. The apostle Paul, who was a learned man and could speak from the standpoint of such, discovered and declared the truth that God had “made foolish the wisdom of this world,” and that “the world by wisdom knew not God,” but by that which was to the world foolishness—“the foolishness of preaching”—God saved them who believed. The Jews, he said, “require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom.” The Greeks were great reasoners; they relied on “good argument and genuine scholarship;” but it never led them to Christ. “But we preach Christ crucified,” wrote the apostle, “unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” I Cor. I: 21-24. Those who were called, however they may have thought and reasoned before, when they received Christ by faith, found themselves possessed of the wisdom of God and the power of God, and that was to them, and to honest hearts about them, the all-convincing evidence of the truth of what the apostle had preached. Jesus Christ came into the world not to argue with men, but to manifest the power of godliness. “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” His life was a demonstration of the truth of his words. And his life, in his followers,—the mystery and miracle of God dwelling in human flesh, conquering the carnal propensities, turning the individual from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, revealing a life which no temptations, no trials, no darkness, no difficulties, could conquer; a life of unselfish love and service for all mankind,—that life has been from his time down to the present, the light of men, the invincible argument for the truth of the old Christianity. It is the life of faith that tells the story. The higher critics will never overthrow the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. They will never be able to account for the lives which have pushed Christianity into the farthest and darkest corners of the earth, and have wrought the miracle of modern missions. They are the fruit of the old Christianity, and they testify of the character of the tree. And by the same test—the character of its fruit—the higher criticism is found wanting. A Christianity which these human critics could find no fault with—one which they could examine, comprehend, and approve by their own reason—would represent human wisdom and nothing more. The god of such a Christianity would be divested of all supernatural power, and would be altogether such an one as themselves. Without supernatural power there would be no saving power, and thus in such a Christianity there would be no salvation. The old Christianity reveals “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God,” which saves lost souls. L. A. S.