II. From the Ritschlian distinction of a "religious" and a "theoretic" view of the world.

II. The recent tendency in Continental theology, however, is not so much to deny the existence of a definite "Weltanschauung" in the Bible, as rather to lay stress on the distinction between a "religious" and a "theoretic" view of the world--ascribing to Christianity the former, but not the latter. This is the position of the school of Ritschl, and truth and error are so intimately blended in it that it is necessary to give it our careful consideration.1 That a sound distinction underlies the terms "religious" and "theoretic" is not to be disputed, and it is important that its nature should be rightly understood. But, under the plea of expelling metaphysics from theology, the tendency is at present to revive this distinction in a form which practically amounts to the resuscitation of the old doctrine of a "double truth"--the one religious, the other philosophical; and it is not held necessary that even where the two overlap they should always be found in agreement. It is not simply that the two kinds of knowledge have different spheres, move in different orbits, and have to do with a different class of objects; for this Ritschl at least denies.2 But they set out from different starting-points, judge by different standards, and as a consequence frequently lead to different results. Religious knowledge, Ritschl holds, moves only in the sphere of what he calls worth- or value-judgments. That is to say, it judges of things, not according to their objective nature and relations, but according to their value for us--according to their fitness to meet and satisfy religious necessities.3 This, logically, would lead to pure subjectivism, and in the hands of some of Ritschl's followers actually does so.4 This tendency is strengthened by the theory of knowledge to which this school generally has committed itself--a theory Kantian in its origin--which, denying to the mind any power of knowing things as they are, limits it within the sphere of phenomenal representations. Ritschl himself tries hard to ward off this reproach of subjectivity from his system, and makes more than one attempt to find a bridge from the practical to the theoretic, but with no real success. He never quits the ground that it is not the objective truth of things--which would carry us into the region of theoretic knowledge--which forms the subject--matter of our inquiry in theology, but solely their subjective aspect as related to our own states of pleasure and pain, or as helping or hindering the ends sought in religion. In his doctrines of God and Christ, of Providence and miracle, of sin and Redemption as we shall afterwards see, it is constantly this subjective aspect of things, which may be very different from our actual or scientific judgment upon them, which is brought into prominence. Religion requires, for example, that we view the universe from a teleological and not from a causal standpoint, and therefore that we postulate God and Providence. But these are only practical, not theoretic notions, and the mechanical and causal view of the universe may stand alongside of them intact. "Miracle" is the religious name for an event which awakens in us a powerful impression of the help of God, but is not to be held as interfering with the scientific doctrine of the unbroken connection of nature.1 Not only are the two spheres of knowledge to be thus kept apart in our minds, but we are not to be allowed to trace any lines of relation between them. We are not to be allowed, e.g., to seek any theoretic proof of the existence of God; or to ask how special Providence, or the efficacy of prayer, or supernatural Revelation, or miracle, or even our own freedom is to be reconciled with the reign of unbroken natural causation. All such inquiries are tabooed as a mixing up of distinct sphere of knowledge, with the result, however, that they are not really kept apart, but that all in the ideas of Providence, miracle, prayer, etc. which conflicts with the theoretic view is explained away

It should scarcely require much argument to convince us that this proposal to divide the house of the mind into two compartments, each of which is to be kept sacredly apart from the other, is a perfectly illusory and untenable one. It might have some meaning in an æsthetic theory of religion, in which the religious conceptions are avowedly treated as pure ideals, but it can have none where the speech is of religious "knowledge." There are, indeed, different modes of cognising the same object, as well as different stages and degrees of real knowledge. If by "theoretic knowledge" is meant only knowledge gained by the methods of exact science, or by philosophical reflection,1 then, apart from religion altogether, there are vast fields of our knowledge which will not come under this category. The knowledge, for example, which we have of one another in the common intercourse of life, or the knowledge which the ordinary man gathers from his experience of the outward world, is very different in purity of theoretical character from the kind of knowledge aimed at by the psychologist or metaphysician, or by the student of science in his investigations of nature. It is as far removed as possible from the disinterested character which Ritschl ascribes to the knowledge he calls "theoretical." Yet there is no part of this knowledge in which theoretic activities are not present. The same processes of thought which are employed in philosophy and science are implied in the simplest act of the understanding. In like manner, we may grant that there is a distinction of character and form--not to speak of origin--between religious and what may be called theoretic knowledge; and that thus far the distinction insisted on by Ritschl and his school has a certain relative justification. Religion, assuredly, is not a theoretical product. It did not originate in reasoning, but in an immediate perception or experience of the Divine in some of the spheres of its natural or supernatural manifestation; for the reception of which again a native capacity or endowment must be presupposed in the human spirit. Even Revelation implies the possession of this capacity in man to cognise the manifestations of the Divine when they are set before him. Originating in this way, religious knowledge--at least in its first or immediate form--is distinguished by certain peculiarities. For one thing, it is distinguished from strictly theoretic knowledge by the practical motive which obtains in it. Theoretic knowledge aims at a representation of objects in their purely objective character and relations. Religion, on the other hand, seeks to set its objects before it in those lights, and under those aspects, which directly subserve religious ends. With this difference of aim is connected a difference of form. Theoretic knowledge is cool, clear, and scientifically exact. Religious knowledge is touched with emotion, and moves largely in the region of figurative conception, or what the Germans would call "Vorstellung." In the first place, religion, as having to do with the personal relation of the soul to God, moves in a sphere in which the affections and emotions are necessarily allowed large play. Its modes of apprehension are therefore warm, lively, impassioned, intuitive. It groups its material under the influence of the dominant feeling; lays hold of those sides and relations of the object which affect itself, and lets the others drop out of view; leaps over intermediate links of causation, and seeks to grasp the object at once in its essential reality and inner significance--in its relation to its ultimate cause and final end. A second cause which leads to the same result is that the objects with which religion has to deal are largely transcendental--that is, they lie beyond the range and conditions of our present experience. A certain amount of figurative representation necessarily enters into the purest conceptions we are able to form of such objects.

To the extent now indicated we may agree with Ritschl that religion moves--if he chooses to phrase it so--in the sphere of value-judgments, and not in that of scientific apprehension. But this is not to be interpreted as if religion did not affirm the objective truth of the ideas it entertains--as if its judgments of value were not at the same time judgments of truth. Still less is it to be conceded that there is any necessary divorce between the mind in its practical and the mind in its theoretical activities, so that propositions may be affirmed in the one sphere which have no relation to, can receive no corroboration from, may even be contradicted by, propositions affirmed in the other. Thus to tear asunder faith and reason is to render no service to religion, but is to pave the way for theoretical scepticism. It is in truth the same reason which works in both spheres; the results, therefore, must be such as is admit of comparison. If Ritschl would raise a bar against any such comparison of the results of religious thinking with the conclusions reached by philosophy and science--leaving each to work in its own domain--a more just view of the subject will recognise that this is impossible. We cannot have two spheres of truth lying side by side in the same mind without some effort to arrive at an adjustment between them. Still less is it possible for the mind to find itself in conflict with itself,--on the one side for instance, affirming the personality of God, on the other denying it; on the one side affirming freedom, Revelation, miracle, on the other unbroken natural causation,--and not do what it can to annul the discrepancy. Nor will reason in practice be content to remain in this state of division with itself. It will insist on its knowledge being brought to some sort of unity, or, if this cannot be done, in regarding one or other of the conflicting propositions as illusive.

Finally, it is not sufficiently recognised by Ritschl and his school that religion itself, while in the first instance practical, carries in it also the impulse to raise its knowledge to theoretic form. Faith cannot but seek to advance to knowledge--that is, to the reflective and scientific comprehension of its own contents. Just because its propositions are held to be not only "judgments of value," but to contain objective truth, they must be capable of being submitted to theoretic treatment. Ritschl himself recognises the necessity of constructing a theology which shall be adequate to the contents of the Christian Revelation. Only he would have it move solely within the region of faith-propositions, or, as he calls them, "judgments of value." Its task is ended when it has faithfully collected, purely expressed, and internally co-ordinated these religious affirmations.1 It is not observed how much theoretic and critical activity is already implied in this very process of collating, sifting, and co-ordinating; or how largely, in Ritschl's own case, the results are dependent on the theoretic presuppositions with which he sets out in his (metaphysical) doctrine of knowledge, and his general theory of religion. But, waiving this, it is surely vain to ask theology to go so far, and then say it is to go no further. Christian science has many tasks beyond those which the Ritschlian limitation would prescribe for it. How, for example, can it refuse the task of investigating its own grounds of certainty? How can it help raising the question of how far these religious conceptions, now brought to expression and co-ordinated, answer to objective truth? How can it avoid asking if this content of the Christian Revelation receives no verification from the laws of man's spiritual life, or in what this verification consists? Can it help going back on its own presuppositions, and asking what these are, and what kind of view of God and man they imply? How can it help connecting this truth given in Revelation with truth in other departments? And this investigation is not a mere matter of choice in theology; it is forced on it as a necessity. For in the very process of collation and criticism questions arise which can only be solved by going further down. Antinomies arise within theology itself: the different sides of Biblical truth have to be harmonised in a wider conception; unity of view has to be sought in a field where only parts are given, and much is left to be inferred. All this involves a large amount of theoretic treatment in theology, and may--I should rather say must--result in showing that the truths of Revelation have also a theoretic idea, and are capable of theoretic verification and corroboration.

I conclude, therefore, that it is legitimate to speak of a Christian "Weltanschauung," and that we are not debarred from investigating its relations to theoretic knowledge.