Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/704

Rh 690 CHRISTIANITY contained. Perhaps the most ingenious of these theories is that cluster which has been produced by the writers of the Tubingen school, who have suggested the general method which has been almost universally followed by anti-supernaturalist writers. The method is by an ingenious negative criticism to separate between the original elements of Christianity as these were present in the mind of Jesus and communicated by Him to His disciples, and those elements which were afterwards added by more philo sophical adherents, and to explain how, out of the conflict between the two opposite tendencies of Judaism and anti- Judaism, the various and conflicting elements at last settled into a somewhat harmonious whole. By this ingenious method Jesus is reduced to the position of a Jewish rabbi, not much more noticeable than some of his contemporaries, and Christianity is not the religion of Jesus, but what grew out of that religion when it was subjected to the influences of Roman civilization, Greek philosophy, and Eastern theosophy. Such theories are unsupported by external, and rest confessedly on internal evidence. The weakness of internal evidence when unsupported by external is well known, an d in this case the internal evidence is any thing but strong. There are many serious objections to be taken to the Tubingen hypotheses (see article BIBLE) merely as hypotheses, and these difficulties are so great that it is almost evident the hypotheses would never have been put forward unless the anti-supernaturalist idea of Christianity had been taken for granted at the outset. There can be little doubt that if the supernatural be admitted these various hypotheses, while they suggest some difficulties which have not yet been solved, will be found to be at variance with the plain results both of external and inter nal evidence. On the other hand those who believe in the supernatural take a different view of the relation of Jesus to His con temporaries. He was no mere Jewish rabbi, but spake as never man spake, and did what never man did. He was the manifestation of God, and came to give by His presence, person, and work, as well as by what He said, the full revelation of God. He was while on earth the centre of the world s history, to whom all had looked forward, to whom all look back. And Christianity is not the simple product of the contemporary philosophical and religious systems, but is the embodiment of the unique appearance and work of Christ. Cliristi- The relation in which Christianity stands to the future anityaml j s a i so a basis on which various views of its nature have &quot; ie&amp;lt; been rested, according to the theory of the peculiar powers of diffusion and propagation which it is supposed to possess. Anti-supernaturalists consider Christianity to be merely a moral force, acting through mere moral enlightenment ; but this has already been sufficiently dwelt upon. There are, however, what may be called two Christian views of the modus propaganda of Christianity, which produce two of the real nature of Christianity itself. This difference of view is best seen in the variety of answers given to the question how Christianity subsisted after the departure of Christ, and how it subsists now from age to age, a more or less compact organic life in the world. The various answers given may be roughly placed in two classes as they lay stress on the spiritual or the mechanical side of the process, and enlarge on the spiritual or the mechanical influences at work. Those who take what may be called the spiritual view of Christianity hold that it was sustained after the ascension of Christ by the mission and work of the Holy Spirit, whose presence and influence enable it to go on from age to age, spreading in the world and developing according to the laws of its growth. And they believe that as the chief result of Christ s work consisted in a change of moral relation between God and those for whom Christ died, the spread and permanence of Christianity is purely moral, and manifests itself mainly in a change of will. Of course all this takes place in special ways and by appropriate means. These means are called the means of grace, and are usually held to be the Word, Sacraments, and Prayer ; but it is always to be understood that all such means are secondary or subordinate, and that the primary means of grace is the Holy Spirit, who works through these subordinate means, but may and does work in other ways. It is always understood that the operations of the Spirit cannot be limited to special actions nor confined by mechanical laws. On the other hand those who look at Christianity from what may be called the mechanical point of view are inclined to lay stress upon the means by which the Spirit works. They do not ignore the mission of the Holy Ghost nor His work, but are apt to say that He works only in certain prescribed ways, and through one set of means, and the tendency is to lay almost exclusive stress on one set of subordinate means the Sacraments, and to represent that the persistence and spread of Christianity depend upon the constancy and correctness of sacra mental ceremonies. These opposite views of the nature of Christianity depend upon differences of dogmatic conception which may be briefly indicated. All through the one view, a change in the relationship between God s will and man s will is held to be the fundamental result which flows from the work of Christ. All through the other view man s nature rather than man s will is considered, and the result of Christ s work is looked on rather as a process within human nature than as a change in moral relations between man and God. In this way the progress of Christianity is looked on as the gradual semi-physical impregnation of human nature by the nature of Christ, a prolongation of the Incarnation rather than a development of the consequences of the finished work of Christ, to be produced by keeping Christ incarnate in the sacrifice of the Mass and impregnat ing mankind by means of Trausubstantiation in the Sacrament of the altar. The one view is the view of churches which have accepted the Reformation, the other is that of churches which have not. These various conceptions of Christianity may be further illustrated by the views which are held by the partisans of each concerning the relations between Christianity and the Bible. The Bible and Christianity cannot be separated, but different opinions may be and have been held about the relation in which the two stand to each other. On the one hand naturalists, and those who take the mechanical view of Christianity, are inclined to regard the Bible chiefly as a compendium of abstract truths, which may be condensed into dogmas and summarized in creeds ; while those who take the spiritual view of Christianity regard the Bible as the medium which reveals God and His gracious dealings personally to the believing reader or hearer. To the one the Bible is a quarry of doctrines to be rationally criticized or implicitly accepted when once stamped as genuine by the church, to the other it is above all things a means of grace which the most ignorant can use and profit by. To the naturalist the Bible has been formed by the church, it is simply the natural production of the minds of those who formed the old Jewish and the early Christian communities, and grew to be what it is without the aid of superhuman intervention. To those who have adopted a mechanical view of Christianity the Bible is also the product of the church, but of the super natural power in the church, and has grown to be what it is because it has been sanctioned by the church. To those who take the spiritual view of the nature of Christianity, the Bible, on the other hand, is and always has been the formative power in the church and that round which the Christi anity and the Bilile.