THE HOLY SPIRIT AND MODERNISM.

The relation of the doctrine of Development to Christianity can be seen still more definitely in the way in which the movement known as Modernism has at once adopted and departed from Newman's theory. What Newman used for ecclesiastical purposes against Protestantism, Modernists apply all round to justify their position of continuance in the Roman Catholic Church while claiming freedom in regard to its distinctive doctrines. Modernism began by the realisation on the part of certain Roman Catholic scholars that in the critical knowledge of Holy Scripture and even in questions of history and philosophy, the Church of Rome was far behind the scholarship of the day, and was still relying upon the philosophy and history of past ages, With a splendid courage and an evident confidence in the fundamental truths of their Church's position, these scholars determined to learn from their opponents. They realised that the traditional method of apologetics was no longer sufficient, that it was in their judgment useless to continue to assert that the Roman Catholic religion was developed logically from a ' deposit ' of the faith committed by Jesus Christ to His immediate followers, because modern scholarship was held to be proving by the evidence of history and archaeology that the characteristic features of Christianity were derived from many sources in the course of the Christian centuries. It was thus that men like Loisy attempted to defend the position of Roman Catholicism against German scholarship as represented by Harnack. The result was soon seen in a view of Christianity which was dominated entirely by the theory of evolution. The original ideas of the New Testament were said to have become modified in the course of time, and the Jesus of history had been developed into the glorified Christ of faith, as the germinal idea assimilated materials from every side wherever the religion spread. This, it was pointed oat, had gone on through the centuries, till at length, by the end of the thirteenth century, the Church found itself safely protected by the citadel built by the great Schoolmen. Modernism now holds that this scholastic philosophy, based on Aristotle, has served its purpose and must be left behind or set aside in the onward march of thought; and that Christianity, if it is to live, must continue to become modified and to adjust itself to every changing environment.

This is the position, and the leaven is at work everywhere in the Roman Catholic Church. On one side Modernism stands for a religious democracy. Father Tyrrell puts this with his accustomed clearness:

' One thing, at least, is certain, that democracy has come to stay; that to the generations of the near future any other conception of authority will be simply unthinkable; that if the authority of Popes, Councils, and Bishops cannot be reinterpreted in that sense, it is as irrevocably doomed as the theologies of man's childhood. The receptivity of the general mind is a fact that priesthoods have to reckon with, and always do reckon with in the long run. They cease to say, nay, they cease to believe, that to which the general ear has become permanently deaf. They would fain seem to lead, but, in fact, they follow the spirit in its developments; for it is there, and there only, that truth is worked out.'1

On the other hand. Modernism claims to have a definite relation to Roman Catholic dogma. It desires to think with absolute freedom, and yet to deny nothing which Rome teaches. But the story of Tyrrell's life shows that such a position is really untenable. To have freedom of thought and yet to accept what Rome teaches is to draw a distinction between religious and historical truth which is impossible. Suppose, for example, a Modernist scholar were ready to accept the New Testament teaching of the Lord's Supper as an institution commemorative of the death of Jesus Christ; would it be possible for such a one to hold the distinctive Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation? Or suppose the same scholar were to accept the New Testament account of the Virgin Mary in its simplicity, would it be a logical and inevitable result that he should teach and practise the adoration of the Queen of Heaven? As a matter of fact, leading Modernists distinguish between the Historical Christ and the Mystical Christ; the Christ of Reason and the Christ of Faith; between the mortal life of Christ in the Gospels, and His spiritual life in the faithful. The following proofs from The Programme of Modernism could easily be increased.

' The results of Biblical and historical criticism... have necessitated a distinction between the outward history and the inward history, between the historical Christ and the mystical Christ, the Christ of reason and the Christ of faith ' (p. 25). ' The Gospel story is the result of two opposite tendencies — one toward the material truth of fact, the other toward a higher order of truth than that of historical exactitude ' (p. 75). ' Faith-truth is not always historical truth, but often only historical fiction. And, therefore, since it is faith-truth that governs the Gospels from beginning to end, we must not expect to find historical truth as well. It is found in different measures in different Gospels; most of all in Mark, least of all in John ' (p. 76).

' The mortal life of Christ, as evident to the senses, is an object of history. His spiritual Life in the faithful and in the Church can only be known by means of the experiences of faith. But this second kind of life can be at least represented under a historical form; and this gives rise not only to a distinction but to a separation between the historical Christ and the Christ of faith. The supernatural life of Christ in the Church has expressed itself outwardly in conformity with outward circumstances, and has thus gradually given birth to permanent ecclesiastical institutions. Now the Evangelists, in order better to signify the dependence of these institutions on the Spirit of Christ, have thrown their origin back into the very history of the mortal life of Jesus.... And, therefore, criticism does well to distinguish between what is history proper and what is merely a historical form of representing those supernatural facts which the Church's faith has brought forth ' (pp. 81, 82). ' The title " Son of God," which in Hebrew was synonymous with the Messiah, once transferred to Greek soil, where parentage between gods and heroes was a common belief, opened the road to the notion of a unique relation between Christ and the Father ' (p. 99).

And the same distinction is drawn in the case of almost every characteristic doctrine of Christianity. Thus one of the Enghsh interpreters of the Modernist Movement puts the matter as follows:

' The dogma of the Personality of God may not add to our speculative knowledge of the nature of God; but it serves to direct that practical knowledge of Him which is the only knowledge that religion is concerned with. It says in effect to us: " Conduct yourselves in your relations with God as you would in your relations with a human person." In the same way, the dogma of the Resui^rection of Jesus does not add to our knowledge of the new life which Jesus lived after death or to the manner of the transformation of the old life into the new. But it says to us: " Let your relations to Him now be what they would have been before His death, or what they are to your own contemporaries." And, again, the dogma of the Real Presence conveys to us no knowledge of the modality of that presence. But it enjoins upon us the necessity of preserving in the presence of the consecrated Host such an attitude of spirit as we should feel in the presence of Jesus Himself if He were visible to us.' 2

It ought to be obvious that this method of interpretation cannot possibly be accepted by any natural, we will not say orthodox, view of the New Testament. The truth is that Modernism is a philosophy based on critical theories, which the upholders endeavour in vain to harmonise with the Christianity of the New Testament, or with the dogmas of the Roman Church. When Tyrrell speaks of ' Catholicism ' as ' Divine with the Divinity of a natural process ' we can easily see the drift and tendency of the movement. If the conception of evolution is to be applied without limit, it is hard to see where any place can be found either for the Fall or for the Incarnation. The distinction between the Christ of Fact and the Christ of Faith is utterly impossible if we would retain a Christ that is historical, or indeed, any Christianity at all. To illustrate once again from The Programme of Modernism:

' It matters little to faith whether or no criticism can prove the virgin-birth of Christ, His more striking miracles, or even His resurrection; whether or no it sanctions the attribution to Christ of certain dogmas or of the direct institution of the Church. As ultra-phenomenal, these former facts evade the grasp of experimental and historical criticism, while of the latter it finds, as a fact, no proof. But both these and those possess a reality for faith superior to that of physical and historical facts.'

It ought to be evident that such a position is not congruous with the primitive Christianity of the New Testament. It is impossible to find the real worth of Christianity in what it is now rather than in what it was at first, or to think that the essential truth lies in to-day's view rather than in apostolic teaching. The present age is no more infallible, and has no more promise of finality than those which have preceded it, and there must be some criterion of truth to which we can appeal. Revelation is a reality in history and not a mere evolution of opinion. Christianity is bound by its past, and while there is, and must be, development, the later stages must not contradict the earlier.

' The fascinating movement known as Modernism, which engages the very êlite of the Roman Church, is drawn almost entirely to the rationalist, the illuminationist, the Socinian side of Protestantism, which in all matters of criticism and thought has influenced it very greatly. But it seems not only uninfluenced by the great evangelical theologians or discussions, old or new, it seems quite ignorant of them — almost as ignorant of them as its enemy, Curialism, is of rationalism. And in so far as it knows them, it dislikes them.... Some of the most able and genial writing of the Modernist School goes back with a clear somersault over the Reformation to the mediaeval idea of mystic love, as if the evangelical idea of faith were but a negligible aberration, justification a juridical fiction, and the Protestant movement the black sheep of the Christian family which it was charity to wrap in silence.'3

Besides, the essence of the Modernist position is intellectual rather than spiritual, a question of ideas rather than of experience, of thought rather than of redemption.

' Modernism, dropping much even of the teaching of Jesus, and almost indifferent to His history, seeks to keep the Church alive on its dogmas taken as ideas, on truth emptied of the person yet treated as the power. But, however modern, that theology is simply exchanging old lamps, old clothes, old views for new. For it is a case of views or truths either way, new or old, narrow or broad; and it is not a case of act and deed in the heart of universal reality.'4

But to say this is to record the futility of Modernism for ordinary human life. Critical scholarship is one thing, human redemption is another, and the attempt to sublimate Christianity into a set of ideas suited to the naturalistic tendencies of to-day will not minister to the deepest needs of the human race. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that Modernism

' can never permanently capture or hold the western mind; it is too far away from obvious facts, reaches such unity as it possesses merely by shutting its eyes to what declines to be included, and leaves no sufficient scope for that palpitating activity and that legitimate delight in responsibility from which true manhood declines even in supreme concerns (or rather, most of all in supreme concerns) to be severed.'5

It is not difficult to see that granted the Modernist premisses the inevitable conclusion will be something far removed, not merely from Roman Catholicism, but from Christianity itself. A careful reading of Tyrrell's Autobiography and Life seems to show that his latest views would not have been his last if his life had been prolonged. The acceptance of the evolutionary theory, when pressed with Tyrrell's remorseless logic, cannot end without the removal of the most distinctive, supernatural elements of Christianity. If there is one truth more than another ' writ large ' on Tyrrell's Life, it is that not Christianity, but George Tyrrell was ' at the Cross Roads.'

The serious fact in most, if not all discussions is the absence of any real reference to the Holy Spirit in relation to the deposit of faith. It is essential to notice how seldom His work is mentioned; indeed, there are few more significant facts than the relative neglect of the Holy Spirit in the system of the Roman Catholic Church. And yet if we recall His place in the provision of the deposit, it ought not to be difficult to notice three things that He is constantly doing for that deposit, (a) It is the province of the Holy Spirit to preserve the deposit in its pristine purity. Tradition, as we have already seen, is notoriously uncertain and inaccurate, and tends inevitably to impurity, but the Holy Spirit, working on and with Scripture, will keep Christianity pure. (6) The Holy Spirit guarantees the proper continuity of Christianity. It is inevitable that the mind will think and explore, but there may be an assimilation of alien ideas which only the Holy Spirit, using and applying Scripture, can prevent, (c) The Holy Spirit effects and guides the legitimate development of Christianity. Christian doctrine, to be kept true, must not be evolved merely by the ordinary processes of human thought and experience. The true test of all development is harmony with the apostolic deposit. The Vincentian canon, id quod ubique, quod semper, quod ah omnibus, is only applicable in part, because of the impossibility of arriving at what was actually believed, ' ubique semper et ah omnibus.' We believe the original deposit was at once the germ and ' the compressed totality ' of all true Christian doctrine. But we do not on this account believe that all the ideas of later ages are ' the natural outcome ' of the teaching of Christ and His Apostles. These ideas need to be constantly checked and tested by reference to the original deposit. While we hold that everything that is true in Christianity to-day was ' latent in the original teaching,' we do not believe that it was only awaiting any Conciliar or Papal announcement to bring it forth. On the contrary, we believe that the whole Church, when full of the Holy Spirit, brings forth from the treasure house of truth things new and old, and by the superintendence of the same Spirit will be preserved from the perils of addition or modification. We welcome all the helps that modern life can give, but we believe that these will only be interpretative and illuminative, not creative. While we claim the fullest possible freedom for the human mind to work, yet it is a freedom to be continually associated with the original deposit of truth and the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God.

' The effect of a real authority upon personality is the most kindling and educative influence it can know. In the interior of the soul authority and freedom go hand in hand.'6

The Church cannot be separated from the Gospel which Christ revealed and wrought, and the authority of the Church is only of value in so far as it declares and adheres to that Gospel in its purity and fulness.7 We believe in the Holy Spirit as Christ's representative on earth, the sole Applier of His redemption.8 It is only in Him that Christ is made real to the soul and to the Church. When this becomes a definite spiritual experience; when the soul surrenders to Christ, and the Spirit makes Christ known, then, and then only, do we begin to realise and enjoy the essential verities and Divine grace of the Gospel of Christ.

Literature. — Garvie, The Christian Certainty amid the Modern Perplexity, ch. xvi., ' Modernism.' Tyrrell, Through Scylla and Charybdis; Christianity at the Cross-Roads. The Programme of Modernism.

1 Through Scylla and Charybdis, p. 381.

2 Lilley, Modernism.

3 Forsyth, The Principle of Authority, pp. 78, 79.

4 Forsyth, ' Intellectualism and Faith,' The Hibbert Journal, p. 323 (January, 1913).

5 H. W. Clark, ' Religious History and the Idea of " Immanence," ' Review and Expositor, p. 25 (January, 1913).

6 Forsyth, The Principle of Authority, p. 322.

7 Forsyth, op. cit. p. 329.

8 Forsyth, op. cit. p. 328.