Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/335

Rh long as there is the infinite to explore or the human intellect is capable of comprehending more; that new symbols are of periodicity and of rational expectation, and therefore that all creeds are tentative and adapted only to a transition period; that authority is insufficient, and requires the corroboration of correlative facts or principles of observation to establish faith; that no formula of faith can be adjusted to all comprehensions or made the condition of salvation, and that the probable is the highest and the sufficient warrant for all human faith and practice—it remains to be seen if the New Theology has a clearer or a fuller apprehension of scriptural teaching, and if it can present its ideas less dogmatically and more scientifically, or as authoritative utterances corroborated by corresponding facts or experiences which are generally accepted.

No adherent of the New Theology, however enthusiastic or confident in his early love, presumes that in this dawn of its day its beams are as bright or broad as they will be at its meridian; and the most zealous of its expounders confess that in its present stage it is largely suggestive, and possibly adapted to arrest the reactionary tendency to reject all scriptural teaching as of divine origin or authority on account of the unreasonableness of some of the current theological interpretations and expositions, and to unite thinking Christians and confirm the weak and the wavering in the faith of the gospel, by such a presentation of scripture truths as will be commended by their judgment, and will show them to be essential to human welfare and analogous to the laws and phenomena of Nature. It is therefore chiefly a contribution of suggestive definitions and methods applied to the popular or evangelical theology. But, in order to a clearer idea of the New Theology and its methods, it is necessary to give a brief statement of its presentation of some of the more prominent evangelical doctrines, and especially of those which within the last few years have been made conspicuous through church councils and the religious and secular press, as the atonement, the work of the Divine Spirit, human probation, etc.

As to the nature and necessity of the atonement, the New Theology is perhaps more perplexed than as to any other evangelical topic, if indeed it is not agnostic, or at least without decided convictions; and its adherents consider themselves as mere inquirers, investigating in an obscure light its profound mysteries, trusting that the dark labyrinth in which they are groping will lead to their fuller disclosure. It does not deny that in some way the mission of our Lord, accomplished immeasurable good to mankind, for it recognizes a new and diviner life issuing from Calvary and streaming down through the centuries in ever-increasing volume, purifying the hearts and inspiring the lives of men, and constituting the impulsive force to all that is desirable and divine in human progress; but it can not reconcile with a worthy conception of either the divine or human nature the punishment or the