Nothing New, Nothing True '

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 12, 21 March 1907, Page 9

Nothing New, Nothing True '

We have just risen from the perusal of a speech "by a, much-advertised exponent ,of the ' new theology '—a

clergyman who, professing to be a minister of the Gospel of Christ, .serenely denies or .questions sundry dogmatic facts upon which Christianity Us based.- As Byron said in another connection, ;-." """ '-„* 1 His speech is a fine sample, on .tfie "whole, • ' Of rhetoric wLlich- the lea'n'd call- rigmarole.' -*- v It is a combination of /very diluted biblical 10re,.-dam-aged logic, fuzzy and foggy indefinitenessr-a rehash- of old heresies, containing (as one critic" has "pithiiy^put it) 'nothing new • and nothings true. ' The surprise is ( a s we said 1 last 'week)- that tha preacher's. Reformed brethren should express any" astonishment at. . the -\ new theologian's ' vagaries. , The explanation of their" ';indigent cirprise ' lies evidently- in' the iact t-hat Tas . Brownson says) s ' few then ever reason out their own systems. ' The Reformed " creeds disclaim any authority to ' teach. They (officially) xefer the individual inquirer to the Bible. ' Take it ' , they say, ' study it ; understand it as best you can ; interpret it as may • seem -well, to your critical knowledge or ignorance ; draw up your own creed and moral code from/ it. That is your - affair ;it is your- " right— the fight^" of private judgment,.' And then, if', in the - exercise of this supposed 'right*,' he happens not to understand or interpret- the Scriptures according to their - "standards, they excommunicate him ! But on their own principles, are not the Rev. Mr. .Campbell's denials as' '-orthodox ' as their affirmations ? Why (on their principles) is it wrong for' Mrr' Campbell to differ from them, and right for them to differ from . Mr. Campbell ? .~ Summa : It is not- Christianity that is placed before the bar by the old • new theology '—it »is_ the principle ctf private judgment, as opposed to the principle of authority, in religion. More- than three centuries ago it_ was pointed out that the tyranny of private opinion in religion involved perpetual self-contra-diction arid led to~ creetlal anarchy.- It has given the world more than three hundred - years "of doctrinal stammering in all the tongues of Babel. But there is this difference : that , the Reformed principle has never given us even the decent semblance of an tfrdered. or symmetrical doctrinal structure— a creedal tower of Babel — as a memorial of the confusion of tongues ; for it pulled down with . one hand what it built . up with the other. Creedal confusion and anarchy began . with the birth of the Reformation. The ' new theolpgy' is simply the old Reformed theology driven in to the Unitarian notch. Driven home to the head, it spells pure rationalism— of the sort that has played such havoc with belief \in dogmatic Christianity among many of the Protestant clergy in the iGerman Fatherland. . Those who. recoil" from unbelief and rationalism dare not push the Reformed principle of private judgment to its consistent and logical issue. In^fact, not .one' Reformed -denomination frankly accepts this principle as a working ' proposition. They whittle down the ' right ' of private judgment by all manner of creeds and standards and confessions /of ; faith, assent to which .they require under pain of excommunication. - On their, own principle, this is a tyranny and an usurpation. But' this self-contra-diction, this speaking with a double tongue, is a necessity of their position.. It * is the enforced (though wholly inconsistent) partial recognition of. the principle ofChurch authority, against which the Reformers rebelled during the religious revolution' of 1 the sixteenth century. This curious effort to mingle oil and ;water, to reconcile Yes and ' No, to overlay' the supremacy of * private, opinion with" authority, enabled the new creeds, however, to maintain some semblance of religion. v Those who follow the lead of the private judgment to * its terminus, land in pure rationalism. Those who^ (like Brownson/ Newman, Manning, and so many others) follow the lead of the principle of authority that is quietly smuggled into the Reformed creeds, are brought by an invincible " logic into the . bosom of Catholic

faith .and unity. Those who try to avoid either alter-r native— rationalism -or - CarUiolicism— -must remain hung-^; up, so to speak, in mid-air, like Mahomet's coffin, between the mutually repellahi; poles lofjia ' Yes . and 'No - —of a negation "of and an affirmation of the authority of the Chuf oh of Christ, -- not indeed to make the faith', but to propose and define -the 1 faith originally revealed by God. . „ •■*•- . ' . . ' , "