Bible Dictionaries
Fact and Theory

　　FACT AND THEORY.—Christianity is a religion which comes to man from God. It has to do with man’s relation to God, and with God’s will for man. Any knowledge, therefore, of the nature of Christianity depends upon revelation. This would still be true apart from the fact of sin and the fact that Christianity is a religion of redemption. For God is a personal Spirit; and the only way by which we can know even the finite persons about us is through their revealing themselves to us. When, further, we bear in mind the truth that God is an infinite Spirit, and that we men are finite, it at once becomes obvious that all knowledge of God as well as of His plan or purpose must rest upon a revelation by God. This revelation may be general. Thus the creation of the Universe and of man, with God’s image in his heart and able to see God in the work of His hands, is to be regarded as an act of self-revelation on the part of God. But sin is a reality in this universe, and the noetic effects of sin have rendered necessary a special revelation of the holy God to sinful man. Sin has not only made man blind to spiritual realities, it has distorted the purity of the Divine image in man’s heart and in nature. Accordingly special revelation must be external, consisting in supernatural acts of God to restore the image of God, and must also consist in a supernatural word-revelation or communication of knowledge to explain the meaning of these acts. Special revelation, then, being soteriological, accompanies the redemptive activity of God. This Divine redemptive activity is historical, and has entered this world of time and space. This was necessary, because sin, the effects of which the redemptive activity was to counteract, is a historical force at work in the world. Since, therefore, special revelation accompanies God’s redemptive acts, it too is historical, taking place under the category of time. Hence we have, first of all, God’s redeeming acts, culminating in the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. These redemptive acts are also revealing acts. Thus God’s Son came into this world in the flesh in order to save sinners, as St. Paul tells us (1 Timothy 1:15). But His incarnation is also a revelation of God, as we learn from the prologue to St. John’s Gospel. But we have also a word-revelation accompanying the Divine redemptive facts or acts, and giving us their meaning. Indeed, that which rendered necessary the fact-revelation, viz. the noetic effects of sin, also makes necessary an authoritative word-revelation to explain to us the meaning of those acts. Christianity, therefore, consists in facts which have a meaning, or in the meaning of the facts, whichever way we choose to put it. Take away either the facts or their authoritative interpretation, and we have no Christianity left. The mere external facts apart from their meaning are, of course, meaningless, and therefore do not constitute Christianity; while the abandonment of the facts no less destroys the Christian religion, reducing it to a mere natural religion, or religious philosophy. Neither can the abandonment of the facts be justified because of the co-ordination of revelation and redemption, and of the historical character of the latter, to which we have already alluded.

　　This is the conception of revelation which the Scripture writers themselves give us. They claim that they were spoken to by God, and not merely that they had their religious intuition aroused by the facts of God’s revelation. Hence their interpretation of the meaning of the great facts of Christianity, according to their own account of the matter, is not mere human reflexion upon the facts. If, therefore, we reject their interpretation of the facts as itself immediately from God, and therefore authoritative, we shall not be able to trust them for the occurrence of the supernatural facts, and shall be driven logically to deny the immediacy and supernatural character of the Divine activity in the facts themselves. The meaning of the term ‘revelation’ will have been changed. It will no longer signify the communication of truth by God’s acts and words,* [Note: It is often asserted that the words first quoted show Pauline influence on the Evangelist. But the unwillingness to admit that Jesus uttered them rests on dogmatic grounds. There is no external evidence against them, and, as Denney has shown, they are perfectly in keeping with the context. So also Spitta’s idea that the words Matthew 26:28 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] vol. iii. pp. 160–185, 230–276). God and man are identified. God is the ideal self of each man. Sin is self-assertion, and salvation consists in ‘dying to live,’ i.e. giving up this individualistic self-assertion. This is held to be the revelation of Christianity, but no value is attached to the historic Christ apart from the idea which He exemplified. This, it goes without saying, is Neo-Hegelianism and not Christianity. The claim, also, that faith which has a historic element in its content is therefore psychologically a ‘historic faith’ in the sense of a dead faith, is specious. Faith may have a historical element in its content without being changed as to its psychological character as trust in God. (For a critique of Green’s religious philosophy see Kilpatrick in The Thinker for 1895; Rainy in the Theol. Review for 1899; Forrest, The Christ of Hist. and of Experience, Lect. 8).

　　From the standpoint of NT criticism, the art. by Schmiedel on ‘The Resurrection and Ascension Narratives’ in Encye. Bibl. vol. iv. p. 4040 f., illustrates the same distinction between kernel and husk, and the giving up of the fact of the bodily Resurrection of Christ. Here an anti-supernaturalistic bias governs the whole discussion, though Schmiedel asserts that he does not presuppose the impossibility of a miracle.

　　The extreme result of this tendency to give up the authority of Scripture, and the consequent subordination of the facts of Christianity to a theory, is seen in an art. in the Hibbert Journal, Jan. 1905, entitled ‘The Christ of Dogma and of Experience,’ by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge. According to the author, the fundamental error in Scripture is its identification of Jesus Christ with the Spirit of God, communion with whom is the essence of religion. The Apostles were confronted with a personality of ‘overwhelming attractiveness,’ and so made this mistake. This, indeed, is Christianity without Christ. The author’s Christ is a mere mao idealized by emotion.

　　In doing away with the historical element in Christianity, these thinkers have done away with Christianity itself. This is only to say that the great facts of Christ’s life are a part of the essence of Christianity. The Christian religion is not a product of human ideas, but of a direct revelation of God to men, accompanying God’s direct interference in the downward course of the world caused by sin, which is a historic force. Thus, having abandoned all external authority, we lose the fact-basis as well as its Scripture interpretation, and are left with a philosophy of religion. But these so-called eternal truths are either purely human, in which case they cannot be eternally valid truth; or else man’s thoughts about God must be held to be God’s thoughts about Himself, in which case even natural religion vanishes in Pantheism. This type of religious philosophy may not admit the authority of the Scripture, but it should frankly admit that what it leaves us is not Christianity. It is, however, simply the logical result of the entire abandonment of the principle of external authority in religious knowledge.

　　When we turn from the philosophers to the ‘liberal theology’ represented by Biedermann, Lipsius, and Pfleiderer, we find that, notwithstanding the greater emphasis which they lay upon the historic Christ, their difference from the philosophers is not so much one of principle as of degree, i.e. of how much of Christianity they will retain as kernel and how much they will throw away as husk. This is determined largely by their philosophical standpoint. Hence in their case also there is a subjection of Christian fact and doctrine to an unauthoritative theory. That they do not differ so much in principle from the preceding philosophical solvent of Christianity can be seen from the following considerations. Wherever the principle of external authority is given up, we are sure to meet with the same distinction between kernel and husk in reference to Scripture fact and doctrine. And whenever this takes place, the Scripture idea of revelation has been changed, revelation being simply the product of religious thoughts and feelings in the mind of man. This makes it the product of natural development, and subjects it to the laws of psychic life. Accordingly we find that, while these theologians differ from the preceding construction of Christianity in laying greater emphasis upon Christ and in insisting that the essence of Christianity lies not in eternal truth so much as in Christ Himself (see esp. Lipsius, op. cit.), they nevertheless regard the Scripture facts as Scripturally interpreted, i.e. both fact and dogma, as but the ‘sensuous representation’ of rational religious truth.

　　Christ is probably of least significance in the theology of Biedermann, who held that Jesus is simply the first realization of the idea of Divine Sonship (Dogmatik, ii. § 815). Whereas Lipsius, though an opponent of the Ritschlian school, resembles it in the emphasis laid upon Christ. Thus in the essay already cited he says that the Christian religion is historical, and that the eternal good which it offers is bound up with the person of Christ. Christianity, he says, consists not in ideas which Christ illustrated, but in Christ Himself. But Lipsius distinguishes between kernel and husk, and between some facts and others. Thus he says that ‘faith has to do not with single historical facts as such, but with their religious value,’ and that ‘there are facts about whose historicity there is little doubt, and which are of no importance for our religious life, and there are others about which there may be much doubt, and yet, as sensuous representations of religious truths, they are of the greatest value.’ Obviously, if facts about whose occurrence there is doubt are of such importance as ‘sensuous representations’ of religious truth, the really essential thing is the rational truth which they are supposed to represent. And this is actually the case with Lipsius’ treatment of the great Christian facts. Thus the Cross is ‘the symbol of the eternal truth that the old man in us must die, in order that man be born of God’ (p. 138), though Lipsius does recognize in Christ’s death more than a mere symbol (p. 139). At the same time the all-important thing is the idea symbolized. So also the Resurrection of Christ need not be true in its literal Scriptural form, but at the same time it symbolizes the truth of the entrance of Christ into the heavenly world. The ‘form’ in which we conceive it is expressly said to be of no importance. This is sufficient to show the complete subordination of Christian fact to philosophic theory in this movement. But not only are the great facts of Christianity put into the category of ‘husk.’ The dogmatic interpretation of them in the Scripture is also regarded as the external hull or symbol of rational truth. For, unlike the Ritschlian school, who hold that the Greek influence is largely later than the NT writings, the liberal theology carries this influence, and consequently the critical process of separating the kernel of truth from its husk, back into the NT. Thus Pfleiderer (Glaubens- u. Sittenlehre, p. 4) says that it is the business of Dogmatics to ‘work over critically’ the Scripture as well as the Church dogma in order to reach its abiding truth. The Scripture doctrine is said to contain a ‘sensuous’ element which is not rational and which must be rationalized.

　　It is evident that the principle of external authority in religious knowledge having been abandoned by this school also, the historic facts of Christianity as well as the Scripture interpretation are given up. Again, facts are subordinated to a human theory, and we have left a religious philosophy.

　　The subjection of the Scripture facts and doctrines to a subjective norm has taken also a more mystical form. This, indeed, is a natural consequence of the attempt to find a permanent basis for religious knowledge after the principle of external authority has been given up. For this kernel of rational truth seems to differ with each theologian, and does not afford that permanency which should characterize the essence of Christianity. These so-called eternal truths are temporally conditioned just as are the Scripture dogmas. To hold to them, therefore, is a species of dogmatism. Accordingly it is natural that a demand for a truly undogmatic Christianity should arise, seeking to be rid not only of Scripture doctrine, but also of the rational element into which it had been distilled.

　　This demand was made by Dreyer in his Undogmatisches Christentum, the first edition of which appeared in 1888. Coming from the camp of the liberals, Dreyer directed his polemic against ‘liberalism’ and ‘orthodoxy’ alike. The liberal theology fails to satisfy the demands of the ‘pious heart,’ while orthodox dogma is in conflict with modern culture. We are therefore bidden to turn from dogma to the life of faith. Christianity is a life, not a series of facts or doctrines. Dogma is religious experience put into the form of concepts (p. 77). It is therefore put into a form of relative validity, and one that is continually changing. When these concepts are no longer valid, they no longer serve to express religious life, and must be rejected. The facts of Christianity fare no better at Dreyer’s hands. He will not allow our idea of history to be governed by any dogmatic supernaturalism, and consequently, at the demand of an equally dogmatic anti-supernaturalism, he tells us the ‘myth-forming process’ is seen in the Gospel record of the life of Christ. Although something of external fact may remain, we can find no religious certitude in any historic fact, and are told to fall back on Christ’s holy character, which is exalted above all the changes of theological science and historical criticism. This arouses life in us, and this life is the essence of Christianity, which is a life, not fact or doctrine.* [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , 1889) has written a reply to Dreyer, showing that the dogmatic element is essential to Christianity, and that what we need is a ‘new dogma.’ But this demand must be judged in the light of the motive, principles, and results of this theological movement. The fundamental motive of Ritschlianism is an apologetic one, viz., to find a ground of certitude in Christianity which shall be independent of the results of historical criticism and of metaphysics, and so to state the content of the Christian faith that it too shall be independent in both these respects. In order to accomplish this, it is common with theologians of this school to lay stress on the revelation of God in the ‘historic Christ,’ and to seek to find in Him the ground, as well as an essential element in the content, of the Christian faith. This ground of certitude and this dogmatic content are held to be independent of historical criticism and metaphysics, by means of their sharp distinction between religious and theoretic knowledge, the latter dealing with facts and their explanation, the former with religious values. In regard, then, to the historical element in Christianity or the Christian facts, this school emphasizes its importance as part of the essence of Christianity; but in order to maintain its independence of the results of historical criticism, falls back upon one fact, viz.—the so-called ‘historic Christ.’ It is not meant that Christianity is independent of the results of historical criticism in such a sense that, if there were no basis for their historic Christ in the Gospels, Christianity could still survive. Their idea is that the ‘historic Christ’ stands fast after historical criticism has done its work. But since this criticism is largely determined by an anti-supernaturalistic bias, it is evident that the historic Christ of the Ritschlians is not a Christ who is independent of historical criticism, but the Christ which a naturalistic criticism has left us. This shows that independence of the results of criticism is impossible, since Christianity is a historical religion. The supposed independence of its results turns out to be a surrender of all that is difficult to defend against a criticism which is determined by naturalism. Accordingly Harnack says (Das Christentum u. die Geschichte) that ‘the tradition as to the incidents attending the birth and early life of Jesus Christ has been shattered.’ This makes necessary the old rationalistic distinction between ‘kernel’ and ‘husk,’ and so in his lectures on the Essence of Christianity we are told that we must distinguish between the Easter message of the empty tomb, which is not essential to Christianity, and the Easter faith that Jesus gained a victory over death and still lives. Of course, if we follow this method, not only will all the external supernatural events of Christ’s life have to be surrendered, but also those elements in His inner life which involve the supernatural must go. And so we find Herrmann in the Verkehr falling back upon the inner life of Jesus reduced to a merely ethical content.* [Note: Philistine.] of Relig.; T. H. Green, Miscell. Works, iii. pp. 160–185, 230–276; Pfleiderer, Glaubens- u. Sittenlehre, §§ on Christ: Biedermann, Chr. Dogmatik, ii. § 815; A. Sabatier, Esquisse d’une Phil.