66 66 first. If you could go back far enough, you would get a universe without matter and without mind, consisting simply of a chaotic medley of simple motions. Gradually this medley, for a reason which I do not find clearly explained, organizes itself into regular patterns. What we call "matter is a relatively simple pattern of motion. As time goes on, within the simple patterns there arise more complex patterns, each complex pattern being the appearance of something definitely new in the world's history. Thus mere matter, by simple increase of complexity of the motions of some of its parts, gives rise to matter with sensible" properties, such as colour and fragrance, this to bodies with life, and this again to living creatures with minds. My mind is thus, strictly speaking, the same thing as my brain, or rather, as a special portion of my brain, a peculiarly complicated pattern of motion within the whole larger and simpler pattern I call the " organism." Now it is Professor Alexander's thesis that this production of ever-increasing complexity of patterns of motion goes on endlessly. In the course of time something must emerge "a favourite word of the author's-which stands to my mind in the same sort of relation in which my mind stands to my body. This next most complex pattern to Mind is Deity. It follows, it must be noted, that as it could never have been predicted from mere knowledge of the patterns of motion which come before Mind what Mind itself, when it "emerged," would be like, so we strictly cannot say at all what Deity will be like. We know only that it is what will come after Mind. Again, just as the tendency of the universe to the production of the new, which led from the mere existence of bodies to that of living bodies, and from this to the existence of minds, succeeds only in producing finite individual organisms and minds, so the same tendency can only lead to the " emergence " of finite "gods" of the polytheistic kind; the God who is " King of kings and Lord of lords" is, so to say, a king of whom the universe is always in travail but will never have the strength to bring forth. 66 I must not here call attention to the numerous difficulties which might be raised about this whole conception of a stuff which, for reasons to me unintelligible, gives itself an endless series of ascending forms. I will only ask the question whether Professor Alexander provides us, as he himself owns he is bound to do, with a possible object of real worship. For my own part, I feel bound to hold that he does not. For, whatever the word "worship" may mean to another, to me at least it means an attitude of absolute devotion which at the same time gives the worshipper an absolute confidence and strength. I cannot feel this either towards Professor Alexander's "gods 66 or towards his "God." Not towards the latter, because I can draw no strength from what I am supposed to know to be the most unreal" being. Not, again, to the former, for all I know about them is that it is quite unknown what sort of thing Deity may be, and I cannot see why, when they appear, they might not be precisely what I should call devils or powers of darkness rather than "angels" or "gods." Nay, I do not even see why they should ever " emerge "at all. I cannot see that Professor Alexander has given any reason to suppose that the capacity for the production of new forms is inexhaustible. Why may not the " emergence " of Mind be succeeded by a process with the reverse rhythm, a reduction of things to the supposed former medley of simple motions? Is Professor Alexander not uncritically assuming that the temporal advance must be, if not from worse to better, at least from less to more complex? I could understand this attitude in an ethical Theist who regards evolution" as guided all through by a perfect intelligence standing outside the whole process; in Professor Alexander it strikes me as no more than an unreasoned prejudice. His heart is unreservedly on the side of good, but his theory, as far as I can see, lends no support whatever to raisons de cœur. The other point I must mention in even so cursory a notice is this. It is part of the theory that the newer and more complex can only arise in and subsist in the simpler which stands to it as body to mind. Hence Professor Alexander expressly declares that if any soul has ever survived its body his whole metaphysic has been refuted by fact. It seems to me at least rash to pin one's whole philosophy so absolutely to the assumption that Christ is not risen from the dead, and that not simply because the external evidence the other way impresses me as unusually strong, but because the very undeniable reality of the life of the Christian in all ages does seem unintelligible apart from a personal relation to one who is "alive for evermore. My own conclusion, then, is that, unless the interior life of the Christian believer is to be excluded from the phrase "the religious consciousness," there is at least one great system of facts to which Professor Alexander's metaphysical hypothesis can do no justice at all—the facts of the "religious consciousness." This is not to say that I would not have theologians give serious study to Professor Alexander's volumes. I cannot believe that his central hypothesis has much of a prospect before it, but I am sure that there is a great deal that is of real and permanent value in his volumes for readers who will set themselves in earnest to discover just where it is to be found. A. E. TAYLOR. NOTICES RECENT STUDENT MOVEMENT BOOKS. THE Student Christian Movement has become so much a recognized element in the religious forces of our country that special interest attaches to its publications. They are intended for the young men and women in our Colleges and Universities-for the élite of our educational system, that is to say, at their most impressionable age-though, of course, this does not preclude a wider public still. They afford, therefore, some index to the student mind of to-day and its needs, and to the way in which some at least of the Movement's leaders think they may be met. The books before us are of different types. Dr. Glover's The Pilgrim (S.C.M., 6s. net) is called by the author Essays on Religion, and consists of a dozen studies of scenes, lessons, or personalities in the Christian tradition, particularly in the Gospels. Dr. Maclagan's The Gospel and its Working (S.C.M., 3s. 6d. and 2s. 6d.), Mr. Richard Roberts's The Untried Door (S.C.M., 5s.), and Dr. H. R. Mackintosh's The Divine Initiative (S.C.M., 3s. 6d. and 2s. 6d.) are all in varying degrees expository and homiletic; though, as we should expect, the expository and definitely doctrinal element in the last-named greatly prevails. Finally, Mr. T. W. Pym, the Head of Cambridge House, presents in 139 pages a suggestive study of Psychology and the Christian Life (S.C.M., 4s.). Brief Their authors would not take as a compliment any indiscriminate praise we might be disposed to give to these books; and, in fact, we take too serious a view of their responsibility and aim to do any such thing. All are good of their kind; sincere, earnest, candid, and full of conviction that somehow our Lord provides the key to right living. But, with one exception, we are inclined to be critical of the kind. That exception may be mentioned at once: it is Dr. Mackintosh's The Divine Initiative. as it is, this is a fine book, and one for old as well as young. The author knows his own mind-knows what the Christian Gospel is, and bears witness to it as the act and message of God. He lays especial stress on the Divine "priority of action" illustrated in Revelation, in the Incarnation, and in the faith of the individual. When he describes faith as "the obedient and grateful apprehension of God in Christ," he has framed a definition which will stand searching criticism. We only regret that Dr. Mackintosh is not more ready to make use of the term grace, which is so often the word just called for by his exposition, and is surely as central to Christian terminology as any of those which he explains. 66 Mr. Pym's book we have called "suggestive": we dare not say more. It is useful to have the teachings of the Nancy School brought into contact with the failures and hopes of Christian life; and we thank him for pointing out how the sinlessness of our Lord bears testimony, in the light of modern psychology, to the character of the Mother who was called to "form His mind and order His environment" in early years. Our chief criticism of the book, however, lies in another direction, and is indicated by the bibliography at the end. Among books recommended there or referred to earlier no mention is made either of Dr. McDougall's Introduction to Social Psychology or of Mr. Shand's Foundations of Character. We regard that as a most serious omission. And for this reason. Nothing is more vital for young men and women at College than that they should study the essential principles of any science before they pass to their application. They must learn the accepted terminology and the assured results of modern work in any field of knowledge they approach. Only so can they form the habit of accurate and conscientious thinking. And Mr. Pym is very free, both in his use of terms (such as "instinct ") and in his analysis of personality. This does not make the book less interesting; but it does impair its usefulness for undergraduates. Particularly is this the case with undergraduates well disposed towards religion. For what their enthusiasm most needs is the discipline of theory, if it is to grow into a robust faith. We suspect that none of Mr. Pym's chapters will wear so well in life as the few pages where Dr. McDougall treats of Reverence or of Gratitude. Similar objections may be urged against Dr. Glover's book, though the field of knowledge is a different one. Dr. Glover is trying to write theology as though there had never been any theologians before him; or rather to cast away their cumbersome constructions as so much false accretion on the central Truth of Christ. The result is a picture of our Lord and His teaching which does great justice to the learning and literary insight of the author, but leaves us completely in the dark as to our Lord's place in the scheme of things. Yet it is just that which we want to know. Appreciation of our Lord is not the same as faith. It does not grow into faith, until it brings the whole man into play. And the whole man, if he is alive to the world he lives in (as College students should be) demands a Credo. Dr. Glover's attitude to Christ, as revealed by The Pilgrim, is, in fact, sentimental rather than rational; and in this he is in line with the Liberal Protestant tradition. In the transition from The Jesus of History to this later book we see how Ebionism developed. Its antidote is the Gospels. St. Mark's Gospel alone is enough, if it be fairly read. But the Church has four Gospels, and not one, nor even three. What we are dealing with now in Liberal Protestantism is not merely a preference for the Synoptic Gospels to the Fourth as historical sources, but an interpretation of the Synoptic Gospels which is inconsistent with the tenor and meaning of the Fourth. The result is a partial faith; and it is a line of thought which surely cannot satisfy for long. Its span will depend on how soon scholars can get to work on the content of the Johannine writings. For St. John presents a Saviour so sufficient for all the needs of heart and head, that we shall be satisfied with no other; and men will recognize Him not only as the Jesus of history, but also as the Christ of the Catholic Faith. E. G. SELWYN. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER THEOLOGY A Monthly Journal of historic Christianity Edited by the Rev. E. G. SELwyn, M.A., Redhill RECTORY, Havant, Vol. IV FEBRUARY, 1922 No. 20 EDITORIAL MODERNISM AND MIRACLES THE January number of the Hibbert Journal contains a striking criticism of the Cambridge Conference of Modern Churchmen from the pen of Dr. Foakes Jackson. His criticism concentrates itself upon the point that the Jesus depicted in the Conference papers, whatever else we may say of Him, is at any rate not the Jesus of history. For the Founder who "had commended Himself by the wonders that He wrought, and had been declared to be the Son of God with power by His rising from the dead," and was " from the first from the first . . . the Saviour of those who believed on Him," the modern Liberal School has substituted a gifted teacher of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,' the prophet of a social and moral ideal. But that is not what our evidence gives us. Christianity, to most who accepted it, was essentially a supernatural faith. The work of Schweitzer and Johannes Weiss and (to judge from the review which we publish to-day) Reitzenstein also has shown that "the real Jesus Christ is far too mysterious to be accounted for by the methods of modern Liberalism." 66 66 Dr. Foakes Jackson devotes special attention to Canon Barnes's paper, the tone of which, he says, is "one of pious rationalism disguised in beautiful language." Certainly there is one page in that paper (The Modern Churchman, September, 1921, p. 254), which seemed to us further removed from the mind of the Church than anything else said at the Conference. It purports to give a summary of Christ's Personality and work; and the impression it makes can be best seen by a comparison. We print on the left the extract from Canon Barnes's paper, and on the right part of the passage which closes the biography |