Higher Criticism by Earle Albert Rowell

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 12, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 27.

Higher Criticism

By Earle Albert Rowell

X. Higher Criticism and Protestantism

ONLY a few hundred years ago humanity was sunken in the black, hopeless despair of the Dark Ages. With their minds shackled by the chains of ignorance, their consciences the playthings of priests, and their fears the revenue of corrupt popes, unnumbered millions longed for the light and liberty of which they dreamed but for which they dared not hope, and for which they were too ignorant or too weak to fight. They dreamed of happiness, and lived in a nightmare.

Then came the bright morning stars of the Reformation, shining through the ten long, black centuries of gloomy night. Then burst upon the world in all its imperishable glory the radiating splendor of the Reformation sun. Then was born Freedom, the favored child of Light, the noblest child of Time.

Freedom of Thought

is a priceless possession, bought with humanity’s blood; but freedom of thought, like freedom of action, may be, and often is, abused. The great pendulum of humanity swings down through the ages from one extreme to the other. Five hundred years ago people were blind because the darkness was so gross; while to-day the world is going blind because the light is so intense. Five hundred years ago the minds of men were bound hard and fast, not daring even to doubt the power of faithless and debauched priests to send them, for a consideration, to the unending bliss of heaven, or to banish them, for motives of trivial hate or personal greed, to the increasing torments of an endless hell; but to-day men are rioting in the unrestrained license of impious and presumptuous thinking, and, freed from their ancient intellectual bondage, they now not only deny the power of God, but with their man-made laws called Evolution would penetrate the heavens to bind even the Almighty.

Higher Criticism is the most favored of the numerous progeny of Evolution. Its claims are the widest, its teachings the most pleasing to the natural man, and its precepts apparently the most luminous, but its results are the most disastrous of them all.

Every One Knows the Accumulating Debt

that humanity owes to the Reformation. Then a movement that knocks at the door of our hearts, seeking entrance in the name of the Reformation, should, if imbued with the Reformation spirit, receive our heartiest welcome and active support. But if it uses the mantle of the Reformers as a disguise by which the more effectually to undo their noble work, it should be exposed as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Higher Criticism arrogates to itself the sole right to explain the Reformation and interpret the Bible. “The reverent Critics are the lineal descendants of the Reformers.”—McFayden, “Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church,” page 191.

Having seen in previous articles some of the fruits of the labors of “reverent Critics,” it comes to us as a startling thought that all their virtual skepticism is claimed by them to be in reality genuine Protestantism, and that all who do not believe as they do are disloyal to the principles of Protestantism. Yet this is a commonplace in Higher Critical teaching.

One Higher Critic defines Protestantism as “the spirit that is ever ready to challenge all that obscures the truth, whether that be the teaching and traditions of an ancient church, the solemn decisions of ecclesiastical councils, the authoritative decrees of popes, or even the traditions which in its own name have been established.”—Id., page 174.

This principle is not only true, but could hardly be better stated. But when the same writer and others of the Higher Critical movement use it as justification for teaching that

The Bible Itself

is mainly an ancient tradition, and hence according to the Reformation formula should be largely discounted, if not entirely discredited, it is an obvious and flagrant abuse of the holy and immortal principle. Thus while Higher Criticism claims to be the reincarnation of the spirit of the Reformation, it would effectually destroy the very authority upon which the principles of Protestantism are based and by which alone they can be carried out.

True, Protestantism is a critical movement. But it is critical only so far as it uses the Bible as a standard, and tests all things by a “Thus saith the Lord.” But Higher Criticism is critical in a very different manner. It uses reason as its standard. It spends its force and lavishes its genius in criticizing and destroying the Book which caused the rise of Protestantism and made it possible for us to have freedom of thought at all.

That the Higher Critics do not hold to the Reformation principle of

“The Bible and the Bible Only”

as the seat of authority, but substitute another which they try to palm off on the gullible and the unwary, is made clear by the following recent Higher Critical pronouncement:

“It should be sufficient for us to hold fast tenaciously—aggressively if occasion requires—to the root principle of the Reformation that REASON is the candle of the Lord, and that BY REASON we are to prove all things and to hold fast to that which after proof is found good.”—W. F. Cobb, “Theology Old and New,” page 29.

Inspiration, however, lays down an entirely different rule for testing the truth: “If they speak not according to THIS WORD, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8:20. Why is it that man will resort to any alternative rather than use God’s way? “God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” Eccl. 7:29. And one of the most disastrous of all man’s inventions has been his substitution of reason for Revelation, of his own fitful sparks for God’s glorious sun of Truth.

The Reformation was a rediscovery of the Bible, and hence of God. But Higher Criticism, in its exaltation of reason, would destroy our divine Chart, and push us adrift without a Captain, to beat helplessly upon the huge reefs of infidelity. The danger and harm of this lie in the fact that this work is done by hundreds of ministers who are doing it in the name of Protestantism.

But Higher Critics forget or ignore the

fact that Higher Criticism, so far from being the product of Protestantism, was on the contrary fathered by Catholic priests, and

Was Born under the Roof of Catholicism

but is being matured in the welcome home of apostate Protestantism, which Harnack, one of the world's greatest church historians, calls "the mere double of Catholicism."

They also forget or ignore the fact that the Reformation was a movement away from the dogmatism of tradition toward the Bible as the sole authority; while Higher Criticism is a movement away from the Bible toward the dogmatism of science, philosophy, and Evolution. Higher Criticism has only exchanged the traditions of the church for the traditions of reason. It has merely exchanged the slavery of ignorance and credulity for the equally intolerable slavery of learning and presumption, and has led the people as far from the Bible as did the priests of the Dark Ages. Now, as then, the leaders of this spiritual apostasy are the high priests of the religion they are betraying. This movement is by a recent Higher Critic euphemistically called "progressive orthodoxy."—Browne, "Studies in Christianity," page 5.

The public is deceived by the book monuments built to the heroes of the Reformation by Higher Critics who, while forsaking the spirit that produced it and subverting the principles by which it was carried forward to triumph, often over the graves of its martyred adherents, blandly pose as the spiritual descendants of Wyclif, Huss, Calvin, and Luther. The Reformation leaders would be the last to appreciate such homage and the first to denounce it.

So far, indeed, is Higher Criticism from perpetuating the work of Protestantism, that

It is a Reversal of the Same

and if continued unchecked will eventually undo the noble work of these intrepid pioneers of truth and liberty.

Instead of standing upon the two distinguishing principles of Protestantism, "justification by faith alone, and the exclusive authority of the Scriptures" (Fisher, "History of the Reformation," page 459), the Critics proclaim, as evidence of their "progressive orthodoxy," that "ALL RELIGIONS are now recognized as ESSENTIALLY DIVINE. They represent the different angles at which man looks at God. . . . The credentials of the DIVINE ORIGIN OF EVERY RELIGION are to be found in the hearts and lives of those who believe them."—Universal Review, December, 1888.

Higher Critics put forth such astounding statements in their desire to be considered "liberal thinkers," forgetting that thereby they are proving themselves very illogical thinkers; for as every schoolboy knows, many of the religions, especially of ancient times, were founded upon the grossest immorality. It is an absolute impossibility for Christianity and such debauched religions to emanate from the same source.

Thus Nothing Is More Opposed

to the genius of Protestantism that Higher Criticism; for this New Theology, instead of seeing that Christianity is the only divine religion and all others the counterfeits of Satan, is so "progressively orthodox" that it includes all religions, no matter how corrupt or how contradictory, in its broad mantle of faith. Instead of believing that "the Word of our God shall stand forever" (Isa. 40:8), Higher Critics think that the word of any god will stand forever. And instead of believing that "Thy Word is truth" (John 17:17), they loudly proclaim that any one's word is as likely to be truth. If this be a "higher development of Protestantism," then what would agnosticism, skepticism, and infidelity be?

As a matter of fact, under the deadening influence of the Higher Critical religious dissecting knife, Protestantism has ceased to protest. In its enervated apathy it is linking arms with Romanism, and is currying favor with unbelieving science and skeptical philosophy. It is adopting the teachings of Spiritism, and is looking favorably upon Christian Science. Indeed, Protestantism is becoming like the Pantheon of Rome, in which any god could find a welcome home. It is no wonder that St. John, in looking down the ages to the present, said the church would "become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Rev. 18:2.

When will professed Protestants see their encroaching danger? When will the clarion message of the Reformation, "The Bible and the Bible only" as the text-book of faith and the guide of life, be again proclaimed from the pulpits of Christendom? Let the glorious principles that freed humanity from the mental and moral degradation of the Dark Ages, be once more heralded to the world by Protestants, and the stealthy but mighty tide of Romanism that is rolling over the land would be swept back as if by magic, Spiritism would lose its charm along with its power, Christian Science would be relegated to oblivion, and infidelity would no longer rear its hideous form behind the sacred pulpit.