PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Southland Times, Issue 22474, 9 November 1934, Page 9

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

GENERAL ASSEMBLY ADDRESS BY DR. DICKIE. . (Special to the Times.) Dunedin, November 7. The “Present Day Theological situation” was the title of an address delivered by the Rev. Dr. Dickie, Mod- ' erator-Designate. of the Presbyterian General Assembly, at the opening of the Assembly in First Church this evening. He said, in part:— During the last quarter of a century there have been no startling developments in biblical scholarship. On the whole increasing knowledge has given no support to extreme opinions on either side. Many questions of detail are still unsettled. Perhaps, indeed, none are finally settled; for questions of scholarship are not settled till all candid, competent investigators who have given them thought have come to one conclusion. But no one who has followed the course of modem biblical research with any degree of intelligence can conceive it possible that the pre-critical views generally current a century ago will ever be rehabilitated. What is popularly known as “Fundamentalism” is still held by isolated scholars of eminence, like Dr J. G. Machen. But they make no new converts among educated persons. On the contrary, they are a fast-diminishing band, while the crudities and makeshifts and misrepresentations of many of their camp-followers came perilously near to discrediting not only Holy Scripture, but Christianity itself. Others again are alienated from them by their unchristian bitterness and their sectarian narrowness. I have a profound reverence for the Westminster - Confession of Faith, as I trust we all have. I scarcely think, however, that this venerable Assembly expects me to hold with Dr Machen that it is perfect and irreformable in its every detail, so that to depart from it by one jot or tittle is to cease to be a Christian! Such extravagances always lead to a correspondingly violent reaction. I have always tried to be scrupulously fair in stating opinions different from my own and to find elements of good even in those whose views are most opposed to mine. So I do not wish you to regard this extreme position of Dr Machen’s as typical of Fundamentalism. I wish, rather, to stress the undoubted fact that those serious, earn-est-minded Christians, whether learned or unlearned, who still feel themselves in duty bound to maintain the Fundamental position, do so, not because examination of the Bible has led them to it, but because they regard any other view of biblical authority as undermining the foundations of Christian certainty. There is, moreover, this much justification for their fears, that many of the advocates of other views have in fact surrendered vital elements of the Church’s historic faith—elements which I myself, equally with the Fundamentalists, regard as es:mtial to its very life. It becomes, accordingly, a pressing task of presentday theology, in the full light of modern knowledge, to work out a doctrine of biblical authority which sufficiently safeguards the whole of the Church’s historic faith to the satisfaction of all who hold that faith in sincerity and humility, and so holding it, are more concerned for the glory of God and the setting forth of His truth than for the victory of their own particular opinions. I believe, that such a doctrine of biblical authority has been wrought out or, at all events, is in the process of being wrought out. Be that as it may, the problem has been tackled in all seriousness by many theologians of undoubted knowledge and competence and of undoubted loyalty to the faith which is at once catholic and evangelical. Theologians of nearly all. the churches have engaged in the discussion; and a reasonable measure of agreement in essentials has been reached. So much is this the case, that a number of churches have felt in a position to set forth authorative statements on the matters at issue; and of course no Church can attempt any such statement till there is substantial agreement among those qualified to express an opinion. Of the churches which have thus spoken only one has given any countenance to the Fundamentalist view of biblical authority, namely, the Roman Catholic Church. All other creedal pronouncements of the last twenty-five years leave the way open for the critical study of Scripture and of the history of Christian doctrine, and recognize at least by implication that the doctrine of evolution can be worked into the Christian view of the world. As soon as the more reasonable among the Fundamentalists are convinced that such an attitude to Scripture and modem knowledge is in no way incompatible with wholehearted acceptance of the historic faith of the Church Universal, they will be ready to discuss questions of detail without heat or prejudice. This means, of course, that we shall have a new alignment -f the religious forces of the modern world. I believe that we have now reached this stage or are fast reaching it The true dividing, line is between a Christianity which is frankly, not to say triumphantly, supernatural and a reading of the message and significance of the Lord Jesus Christ which is purely humanistic. In church history, as in biblical study, during the last twenty-five years, there has been much valuable detailed work and the emergence of some fruitful new viewpoints in sections of the field. But, so far as I can judge, here, too there has been nothing of epoch-making significance except perhaps the historical studies of the late Professor Ernst Troeltsch, and especially his “Social Doctrines of the Christian Churches and Groups.” But although for the most part these studies did not appear in book form till 1912 ff., and the English translation of the “Social Doctrines” was not published till two or three years ago, they really belong to an earlier date. I mention church history partly because I am responsible for the teaching of it, But more especially because I wish to say a word about a task which still remains. Since I came to New Zealand there have been many histories of Christian doctrine. But they all come short in .two important respects. Christian thinking is much more complex and manysided than any of them recognizes. No summary which reduces the thought of a man like Origen or Athanasius or Augustine to so many formulae can do justice to these great dynamic personalities. Again, the historian must select his material and put it together in systematic form. No two independent students would make quite the same selection or correlate the various elements selected in quite the same way. Everyone is unconsciously influenced both in his selection and in his. interpretation of the material by his own interests and opinions, That is one reason why as yet there is no adequate history of Christian thought. The other is this. Every book written on the subject for nearly fifty years now has been dominated by the genius of Harnack, the greatest Protestant Church historian of our own or any other age. His learning was so comprehensive, his capacity for life-like characterization so wonderful, and his literary style so distinguished that it was practically impossible for any worker in the same field to get away from him. But Harnack started from the presupposition that there was a pronounced and definite antithesis between the simple teaching of the New Testament and the doctrinal developments of the i fourth and fifth centuries. All his work |

on the history of early Christian thought was vitiated by the theory that the Christ of the Nicene Creed is a corruption or obscuration of the figure of Jesus as He meets us in the gospels, and especially in the Synoptic Gospels. Now it is quite true that there is development. But there is no cleavage between the Christ of the New Testament and the Christ of the Great Councils. The development of doctrine is a logical and necessary one. Every affirmation of the Council of Chalcedon is implicit in the New Testament doctrine of our Lord’s person. To have made this clear is one of the outstanding merits of Brunner’s great book on “The Mediator.” But it was fully recognized a generation ago by a number of theologians, who were in no sense mere traditionalists, like Dr Martin Kaehler in Germany, Dr P. T. Forsyth in England, and Dr Denney in Scotland. Kaehler’s “So-called Historical Jesus and Jesus as He Actually Was in His Life and in the Biblical Representation of Him” appeared in German as long ago as 1892. Dr Forsyth s “The Person and the Place of Jesus Christ” was published in 1909, and Dr Denney’s “Jesus and the Gospel” in 1908. The failure of the attempt to eliminate the supernatural from the Gospel portrait of our Lord and reduce Him to purely human dimensions, after the fashion of the so-called “Liberal” or Rationalistic theology, is fully admitted by all up-to-date Ne v Testament scholarship. The recognition of this failure is often dated from the publication of Dr Schweitzer’s “Quest of the Historical Jesus,” the first German edition of which appeared in 1906. But this book, important as it was, did not establish any new position. It was rather in effect the epitaph on the work of one hundred and fifty years of Rationalistic scholarship, attempting to give us a purely human Jesus. Dr Dickie then dealt with the effects of the war and the essentials of Dr. Barth’s theology and concluded by saying: No theology can have any vital meaning for us unless we know God as Lord over all and know ourselves as we are in His sight. A theology has the right to be called Christian only as it shows us both God and ourselves through Jesus Christ. In the Christ of the Apostolic Gospel and of the historic faith “God himself confronts man and challenges him to decision.” The Church lives by her faith in Him Who loved us and gave Himself for us. There is neither life in nor hope for any sort of attenuated Christianity. The whole of Christian history is conclusive proof of what I am saying. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved except Him “Whom God hath exalted with His right hand for to give repentance and forgiveness of sins. And we are His witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost, Whom God hath given to them that obey Him.” \