THAT “NEEDED EDUCATIONAL REFORM” AGAIN.
By Editor
IN the REVIEW of May 22 we printed the Outlook’s statement and ground of “A Needed Educational Reform.” We reprinted the Outlook’s analysis of the present educational processes, by which students lose their religion while they are acquiring an education, which is summed up in these two sentences:— The process presupposes an inquiring, if not a skeptical, mood. Doubt is the pedagogue which leads the pupil to knowledge. In religion, the Outlook, as a matter of course, refers only to Christianity. And since Christianity is absolutely and pre-eminently the religion of faith, it is impossible for a process of education in which doubt is the pre-eminent thing to do anything else than to cause students who are subject to such process, to lose their religion while acquiring their education. The Outlook described the process of education in the schools in general. It might be supposed that in theological schools the process would not be the same; that there, instead of doubt being the guide to knowledge, faith would be recognized, and given that place. But such supposition would be altogether a mistake. The same process is employed in the theological schools as is so fully described in our quotation from the Outlook, in the REVIEW of May 22. That this is true, is put beyond all possibility of controversy, by an article in the North American Review of April, 1900, entitled “The Scientific Method in Theology,” by Frank S. Hoffman, professor of philosophy in Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., who was educated at Amherst and Yale, and spent two years in philosophical study in Germany, and from 1883-85 was instructor of philosophy in Wesleyan University. Thus every circumstance of the article is a pledge that it is authoritative. Professor Hoffman says:— Every man, because he is a man, is endowed with powers for forming judgments, and he is placed in this world to develop and apply those powers to all the objects with which he comes in contact. In every sphere of investigation he should begin with doubt, and the student will make the most rapid progress who has acquired the art of doubting well. . . . We ask that every student of theology take up the subject precisely as he would any other science; that he begin with doubt. Bear in mind that this is concerning the study of theology; and theology is “the science concerned with ascertaining, classifying, and systematizing all attainable truth concerning God and his relation to the universe; the science of religion; religious truth scientifically stated.” With this, remember also that the Lord himself has spoken, declaring that “without faith it is impossible to please him,” and “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” These things, therefore, simply show that in the schools of to-day, in which is taught particularly the science of the knowledge of God, the process is directly the opposite of that which is stated by the Lord himself. God has said that “he that cometh to God must BELIEVE that he is, and [must believe] that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” The process of education to-day, in the schools which teach the science of God, is, inevitably, that he who comes to God must doubt that he is, and must doubt that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. The result of such a process can be nothing else than that each mind shall create its own god, according to the dictates of its own reason. Nor is this simply a deduction from the quotation already made, though it is clearly deducible from that quotation. It is actually stated in the sentences immediately following the one quoted. And here they are:— We ask that every student of theology take up the subject precisely as he would any other science; that he begin with doubt, and carefully weigh the arguments for every doctrine, accepting or rejecting each assertion according as the balance of probabilities is for or against it. We demand that he10thoroughly “test all things,” and thus learn how to “hold fast that which is good.” We believe that even the teachings of Jesus should be viewed from this standpoint, and should be accepted or rejected on the ground of their inherent reasonableness. Thus, reason being set above God, and above Jesus Christ, to analyze, to criticise, and to judge, becomes, itself, the god. In this process, as thus authoritatively defined, it is proper enough that doubt should be pre-eminent, because, as has been truly said, “The highest effort of reason is to produce doubt.” Let us, then, follow this process a little, in its direct working. Again we quote:— The great and distinctive element in all induction is the formation of the hypothesis, and there can be no inductive science formed, of any sort, where this is not the chief feature. What, then, is to be understood by a hypothesis, and what is the process the mind goes through in bringing it to view?—A hypothesis is a supposition, a guess or conjecture, as to what the general fact is which includes the given particular facts, or what the cause is which has brought about the given effects. Much might be said about the conditions most favorable for making a good hypothesis; but the chief thing that concerns us for our present purpose is the fact that every hypothesis, however formed, is always a product of the constructive imagination. All previous acts are simply by way of gathering material for the imagination to rearrange and recombine into a new creation. In a certain sense, the mind takes a leap into the dark. It literally passes, per saltum [by a leap], from the realm of the known to the realm of the unknown. From all the material that the memory places at its disposal it makes a guess, or conjecture, as to what will best meet all the exigencies of the situation. It is for this reason that men of science, in all realms and in all ages, have always been men of powerful imaginations. The Greeks were the first great scientists of the race, because they were far more highly endowed than any other people with great imaginative powers. What they saw excited these powers, and urged them to conjecture, to reason about things, and try to explain their nature and cause. How could this process be more clearly or more fitly described than it is in Rom. 1:21, 22? “When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” And the rest of that description will follow as certainly as this process shall be followed. For, even in the quotation made, it is admitted that this process is identical with that of old, of which the Greeks, “the first great scientists of the race,” were the exemplars, “because they were far more highly endowed than any other people with great imaginative powers.” But let us follow the process further, and see what is the ground upon which it finally lands, as to knowledge:— Given the hypothesis, the next step in the scientific process is to verify it; and this is done by making the hypothesis the major premise of a deductive syllogism, and noting the results. If the conclusions obtained coincide with the observed facts with which we started, the hypothesis is probably a correct one [italics here are the author’s], and, other things being equal, may be accepted as an established truth. From this outline of the scientific method we see that no induction can be established beyond a high degree of probability; that is, no one can ever be absolutely certain that the hypothesis he assumes is a veritable truth. All generalizations in every science thus have their logical basis in the theory of probabilities. When Bishop Butler asserted that “probability is the very guide of life,” he might have added, “and we have no other.” . . . Great thinkers, from Thales, Plato, and Moses, have had their theologies,—their explanations of the origin and nature of the universe, as they understood it,—and many of these explanations have been of extraordinary merit; but even St. Paul himself could never have been certain that his explanation was more than a probably true one. As to knowledge, then, the result of this process is exactly described in 2 Tim. 3:7: “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,” and, as if he would make it absolutely certain that this is the sole ground, as to knowledge, which can ever be reached by this process, Professor Hoffman really goes to the limit, and declares:— Whether there ever existed on the earth such a person as Jesus, and what he experienced, are purely matters of historical evidence. And as everything that is a matter of evidence is a matter of probability, this must be also. And thus the process of education as it is to-day, ends, as well as begins, only in doubt. Its beginning, its course, and its end, is doubt, and only doubt. And instead of doubt being indeed, as is professed, the pedagogue to lead to knowledge, upon the authority of its own masters it is seen to be what it is in truth—the positive and chosen obstruction to all knowledge. Is it any wonder that students lose their religion while they are getting that education? In real truth, Christianity has to be abandoned in order to get that education; for Christianity is faith that knows, while that education is only doubt that never can know. Surely, there is needed, and sorely needed, to-day, an educational reform. And since the educational process of to-day is one in which doubt is the beginning, the course, and the end, it is certain that the only true educational reform for to-day is one in which faith is the beginning, the course, and the end; and faith, the faith of Jesus Christ—the faith which enables him who exercises it to “comprehend,” to “understand,” and to “know” the truth, and only the truth—the truth as it is in Jesus.