MANCHESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD

CHRISTIANITY IN THE LIght of HISTORICAL SCIENCE

AN ADDRESS

DELIVERED BY THE

REV. J. E. CARPENTER, M.A.

ON THE OCCASION OF THE

OPENING OF THE 120TH SESSION

16TH OCTOBER, 1905

The College adheres to its original principle of freely imparting Theological knowledge without insisting on the adoption of particular Theological doctrines

Orford

B. H. BLACKWELL, 50 AND 51 BROAD STREET

1905

BR115
H5C3

Christianity in the Light of Historical Science.

GENTLEMEN,

The College which resumes its work to-day, 'exists for the purpose of promoting the study of religion, theology, and philosophy, without insisting upon the adoption of particular doctrines.' This principle is of much wider application than is commonly supposed. In this country, it is true, the conception of religious fellowship without limitation of doctrine or definition of creed has been the inheritance only of an inconspicuous group of churches, which have found three small Colleges sufficient for their needs. But it is also the basis of the Theological Faculty of a great modern University like the Victoria University at Manchester. Early in the last century it became the guiding principle of the Divinity School of Harvard University, the oldest of the American foundations, at Cambridge, Massachusetts. And it provides the field for the whole religious life of the Protestant Churches of an entire European State, the Federation of the Swiss Cantons. Among a robust and energetic people political freedom resulted in a remarkably thorough adoption of religious freedom also. Thirty-one years ago at Geneva the last vestiges of dogmatic control were swept away; and the Church Constitution declared that any minister may preach and teach freely on his own responsibility, nor may this liberty be restricted either by confessions of faith or by liturgical formularies.' The Theological Faculty of its University is no less free. When the Conference of Unitarian and other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers' met within its walls seven weeks ago, the venerable head of the Faculty, Prof. Chantre, affirmed that Unitarianism stood 'for something more than opposition to an article of the ancient creeds;' it represented 'a free and independent theology, with a method different from that of all orthodoxies, in which M808655

the search for truth was practised with the same sincerity as in history, science, or philosophy.'

I.

I need not recite the well-worn tale of the steps by which this freedom was won for ourselves, or describe the intellectual, moral, and political forces which have shaped its operation abroad. To find anything really analogous to it we must go behind the schools of Christendom, and mingle with the philosophic theologians of Greece, or, as we may now add, of India. It is among the ironies of history that the great champion of spiritual liberty, who saved Christianity from lapsing into the stagnation of a Jewish sect, should at the same time have been the author of the idea of the Church, founded on specific formulae such as that Jesus was the Messiah and, in that function, also Lord. Here was the germ of a Credo, with all its subsequent implications of exclusive salvation, and doom of death for those who remained outside. Such ideas might belong to the promoters of the Greek mysteries; they formed no part of the fabric of common religious thought. Socrates describes Athens as the most free-spoken state in Hellas,1 not having yet learned his own peril. Plato criticises unsparingly the sacred traditions of the gods, and declares truth the beginning of every good thing both to gods and men.2 The Sophists undertake to make men able to dispute about divine things, and the corresponding teachers of the Ganges Valley, as we see them around the person of Gotama the Buddha a century before the death of Socrates, publicly question every received belief.

3

No great religious teacher has analysed more clearly the

1 Plato, Gorgias, 461 E.

2 Laws, v. 730. Yet he will allow no private rites: and any one guilty of impiety is to be punished with death, ibid. x. 910.

3 Cp. Laws, x. 886-9.

moral and intellectual mischief of the controversial temper than the historic founder of Buddhism. But so completely did he impress upon his followers the love of truth and mutual goodwill, that the widest theological differences made no schism in his Order. Sects might multiply, but they were not torn by jealous rivalries. Even the difficult subject of the person of the Buddha produced no cleavage between opposite views. On the one hand, the men of what was called the 'Little Vehicle ' adhered to the ancient tradition which declared that he had lived and died as man, though superior by his Perfect Enlightenment to all other beings in the world. As man he had passed out of life, with that kind of passing away which left not a trace behind. His disciples, therefore, offered him no worship; they sang no hymns; they chanted no litanies; they uttered no prayer; they entreated no help or protection; they neither sought nor enjoyed any communion with the departed Teacher. On the other hand the men of the Great Vehicle' affirmed that their master was the Eternal and the Self-Subsistent. Not once only had he appeared on earth, and seemed to be born, to attain enlightenment, and die. Many a time had he worn the semblance of humanity for the welfare of men, but these manifestations did not destroy his everlasting calm. Around this Buddha rose a gorgeous ritual with praise and petition, altar, functionary, and incense. The metaphysical reality which the later scheme offered to faith, the original doctrine absolutely denied. The fellowship after which the believer aspired, to become one with the Buddha-nature, had no existence for the psychological nihilist of the primitive school, who asserted that life was strictly limited to the thought or feeling of the moment. The Truth was summed up for the one in a system of ethical culture, leading to ultimate escape from the round of existences into the void without rebirth: for the other, it meant a religion of faith and love, realised through eternal union with the AllKnowing and All-Holy.

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