The Nature of Modern Theology
By L. A. S.
FROM a leading exponent of modern theology according to the higher criticism (Professor Lobstein, of the University of Strassburg), the Literary Digest quotes the following in answer to the question, “What does modern theology make of the Bible?”— The new and modern method [of interpreting the Scriptures] is the strictly historical interpretation of the sacred Scriptures. . . . This historical method is based upon ideas that are in deadly hostility to the old theory of inspiration, or, in fact, to any divine inspiration. . . . The difference that has all along been thought to exist between Biblical and secular history now practically disappears. What a wonderful light the historical method has cast upon the real meaning of many of the books of the Bible! Now more than one book, the significance of which was not and could not be understood on the basis of the old inspiration hypothesis, appears in a wonderfully clear religious light, among these such enigmas as the book of Jonah, to which former generations demanded only a blind obedience, but which, understood as a work of fiction, is full of religious instruction. Again, the Apocalypse of St. John, interpreted in the light of the events at the close of the first Christian century, by the processes of historical exegesis, is now for the first time understood in its real purpose and character. Examples to show how this method affects specific problems are readily furnished. It is now seen that the claim that Jesus was born of a virgin has no right to be regarded as one of the fundamentals of Christian faith. The latter is independent of the statements recorded in the Gospels. The same is true of the different views which have been developed in the New Testament on the basis of the tradition concerning the resurrection of Jesus. From another authority on this subject (Professor Bousset) we have the following:— The proclamation of the gospel can no longer begin with the thought of the utter corruption of man and the sinfulness of all actions. The old contrast between sin and grace is not the foundation of theology. Again, we can speak of the divinity of Christ only in a modified sense, and the Pauline doctrine of atonement does not represent the original faith of Christianity. Such quotations very clearly show what modern theology makes of the Bible. It removes from it entirely the whole foundation of the faith once delivered unto the saints, leaving it a book of no value whatever save of a merely literary and historical nature. Either this modern theology is false or the old Christianity is false. But the divinity of the old Christianity is abundantly proved by its fruits.