[We gladly give the following from Dr. Arthur T. Pierson, editor-in-chief of the Missionary Review of the World. It confirms what we before have noted, and which has come to us from good authority, that Higher Criticism, or as Dr. Pierson calls it, “Rationalistic Criticism,” is making inroads in modern mission work, and is wherever found death to modern missions. The article, which appears in the current Review, is as follows:]
We have already referred editorially to a quoted article in the September issue of this “Review,” written by an esteemed and useful missionary of the American Board in Japan, but expressing some sentiments not a little at variance with the common convictions of the “Review.” This article gives us occasion, once for all, and at some greater length, to express the views of the editor-in-chief upon some of the questions involved, especially touching the relations of so-called “Higher Critical views” to missions.
The writer of the quoted article, in discussing the changes in religious thought which he has witnessed during the past twenty years in Japan, refers to two great branches of study as having a very wide acceptance among thinkers —“the Evolutionary hypothesis,” which, he says, “is very powerful in every branch of science and history and religion;” and “Higher Criticism,” to which he refers as having “necessitated in the minds of a majority of Biblical scholars a reconstruction of theology.” Thus far, he might have been simply chronicling as an observer a few facts in the development of current thought and opinion; but he proceeds to add, somewhat as an advocate, that these “newer views, in his own judgment, show with far more power the methods of God’s working and the glory of His progressive manifestations to all people,” etc. Then, after a devout and enthusiastic tribute to “the Bible” as “the supreme Book of life for the whole world,” adding, “It can never fail,” he says, “I welcome this new knowledge as giving us a larger Bible and a better knowledge of the methods of God’s progressive revelation,” etc.
Just what this somewhat ambiguous language is meant to convey, or how far these “newer views” and “new knowledge” are intended to cover the advanced views of the Higher Critics, we are left in doubt, but we feel a persuasion that the valued writer of this paper has been erring upon the side of an excessive charity and an oversanguine hopefulness.
We have watched for fifty years the rapid growth of “Higher Criticism,” and with increasing conviction that it is permeated with rationalism and naturalism, and imperils both sound doctrine and pious practise, and is especially fraught with risk to missions.
To begin with, “the gospel of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man” is, to our minds, a very elusive, if not delusive, doctrine. That there is a NATURAL relation of man to God as CREATIVE Father, there is no doubt; for “we are also His offspring;” but our Lord teaches plainly that sin has perverted this natural relationship as that there is alienation and practical destruction of the filial bond, and that instead of God, the devil is rather the spiritual father of sinning humanity; and hence the need of a new birth from above — a spiritual regeneration — to constitute man the spiritual child and son of God. So, likewise, a new spiritual brotherhood of men is constituted by this new Fatherhood of God in Christ and by the Holy Spirit.
We much fear that this preaching of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood, without proper lines of discrimination between what was originally natural and creative and what is spiritual and redemptive, only tends to exalt and flatter the natural and carnal man, and encourage human pride and self-righteousness, and make Christian character more a development of something already found in universal humanity than the planting of God that He might be glorified. It is those who receive Christ who also receive the right to become children of God. John 1: 12. To teach a heathen that God is his Father and man his brother, may lead him to infer that he needs no new and divine birth to make him a child of God, or bind him to other regenerate sons of God in a true brotherhood. What we fear is the exaltation of natural religion and the practical displacement of the supernatural.
As to the “Evolutionary hypothesis,” whatever it may be considered in the province of science — tho even there not a few of its advocates confess that it is an “unproven theory” and at best only a “working hypothesis” — in the department of history, and especially of religion, we regard it as not only unproven but as very misleading and dangerous. If there be anything inseparable from Biblical teaching, there are two great positions without which Biblical history and theology fall into chaos: one is that the human race began on a comparatively high level and sank to a lower in the fall of man through sin; and, second, that in Jesus Christ we have a perfect man — the God-man — not a product of evolution, or a sort of exceptional freak of nature in giving us, in advance, a kind of anticipation of the final product, but a divinely perfect humanity due to a vital union of the Spirit of God with the seed of the woman.
A group of Chinese boys whom Higher Criticism can not save
These two Scriptural positions are so diametrically opposite and opposed to the teachings and inferences of Evolution, that it is necessary to choose between them; combination and compromise are simply impracticable and impossible; and it is becoming more and more apparent that between the two there can be no wedlock. If this doctrine of Evolution is right, Scripture is wrong, Adam is a myth, and a simian ancestor must take the place of the first man. And a more serious inference must follow as to the second Man. He is not the last Adam, but, however comparatively perfect, only a sort of premature and exceptional development on the way to the final and full-orbed perfection. He was imperfect alike in knowledge and virtue, however much in both respects in advance of His day. This theory is an easy way to account for our Lord’s so-called mistakes of ignorance and judgment in teaching and practise; but while it affords an explanation of supposed errors, unhappily it is utterly destructive of all His claims to deity or infallibility and finality as a preacher or even exemplar. His claims as a universal and only Saviour from sin become, if not audacious assumptions, at best mistaken self-persuasions.
While Dr. De Forest is so sanguine about these newer views and knowledge as giving a larger Bible and a better knowledge of the methods of God’s progressive revelation, and showing “to the whole world the wonderful life of Jesus Christ,” we happen to have from all quarters unmistakable testimony to the destructive influence of these views upon the faith of the new converts in heathen lands, and the very existence of the native church. One conspicuous missionary in India writes of seeing the rapid decay of faith in the Bible and the deity of Christ where these views are taught. It is a conspicuous fact that when a very prominent Higher Critic recently visited India he was approached by the most successful Indian evangelist in the presidency and frankly told that the views he taught and embodied in his books were actually undermining the faith of converts all over India. He was so much impressed that he called together the missionaries of the city and locality and besought them NOT TO PROMULGATE THESE VIEWS HE HAD ADVOCATED!
We are persuaded that much Biblical criticism in these days is reckless on the one hand, and distinctly rationalistic and naturalistic on the other. No one can study its history without seeing that it is very largely LED by professed unbelievers and skeptics. There has been, at bottom of it, a determined purpose, or at best an unconscious bias, in the direction of a desire to eliminate the supernatural in both prophecy and miracle. To eliminate this is to reduce the Bible to the level of other books and make it no more, at best, than the foremost human product of religious literature. And it must not be forgotten that the high claims of the Word of God to divine authority, if unsupported, only sink it to a lower level than other books by the collapse of its unsupported assumptions. How can it be the supreme human book if at bottom its claims are either imprudently arrogant, or mistakenly confident, or fraudulently false! If Moses was a myth and the whole Levitical order a postexilic invention and fabrication; if there is no proper prediction in the Old Testament beyond a sagacious human forecast; if the Old Testament miracles are folk-lore or traditional exaggerations of natural occurrences; if Christ taught as He believed and was taught, but was Himself a victim of prevailing ignorance and popular tradition, — then the Bible ceases to be the final authority in faith and practise, and each man’s reason and conscience become the final arbiter of truth and duty.
How these “newer views” and “new knowledge” can advance missions we are at a loss to comprehend. We had always supposed that the unique claim of missions was based upon the infallible authority of Christ and the Scriptures on the one hand, and the indispensable proclamation of His salvation on the other. If all even of His teaching were11marred by uncertainty and error, and all religions are simply steps and stages in evolving a final faith and character, why expend thousands of lives and millions of money in carrying the Gospel to the ends of the earth! Why not let the race evolve toward perfection!
Before dismissing this theme we are constrained to add a few facts which are very significant:
1. Some prominent advocates of Evolution have actually become its antagonists. There has been a marked reaction against it as a “scientific certainty.”
2. Every new discovery in the line of archeology has confirmed and vindicated instead of impairing and condemning the Scripture statements. When the stones cry out, it is as a witness for the Word of God even where it was supposed that mistakes were most obvious.
3. Wherever the “Higher Critical” views most strongly obtain there has been a LOSS OF SPIRITUAL POWER. Especially do we know of no missionary whose impulse toward the world’s evangelization has been quickened by the reception of these newer views.
4. The constant tendency of our day is toward loss of all external authority in religion; and toward a kind of intellectual and moral anarchy where, as in the days of the judges, there is no king to command and compel, but every man does that which is right in his own eyes.
How anything but evil can be the outcome of such teaching we can not imagine, except as good is developed by compelling more intelligent and independent search into truth and more persistent and consistent opposition to error and evil. Perhaps too much of our faith and conduct have been the result of tradition. We have believed because others have believed, and done what others have done before us. We have not known for ourselves what we believe and why we believe it. We have not looked to original sources for our knowledge, but depended on what Bacon called the “idols of the den”—the scholarly teachers, or the idols of the theater—the popular orators. Nothing will do so much to correct misleading views of Scripture as a devout and prayerful habit of close Bible search; and nothing so exalts Christ to the rank of Deity as experimental acquaintance with Him by fellowship.
Particularly we do feel convinced that the motive and impulse which, since Paul’s day, have constrained the greatest evangelists of all ages, and have driven the hosts of missionaries to the ends of the earth, have been the solemn acceptance of the twofold declaration of Scripture that “death passed upon all men for that all have sinned;” and that he that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life, “neither is there salvation in any other.”
For ourselves, the religion taught by Jesus Christ is good enough for us—and having tasted the new wine, we can only say “the old is better.” So long as the editor-in-chief has anything to do with shaping this “Review,” it will stand for an uncompromising advocacy of plenary inspiration, vicarious atonement, the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ and His salvation, the universality of sin and need, the personality of the Holy Spirit and His indispensable work in regeneration, and the duty of an immediate and world-wide proclamation of the Gospel. To all who hold such truths the pages of this “Review” will be welcome, whether as contributors or readers. If jealousy for such truths shall limit either our circle of writers or readers, we shall still hope to have One with us who is a majority.
