Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors Part 1

Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors.

by James Freeman Clarke.

PREFACE.

The Protestant Reformation has its Principle and its Method. Its Principle is Salvation by Faith, not by Sacraments. Its Method is Private Judgment, not Church Authority. But private judgment generates authority; authority, first legitimate, that of knowledge, grows into the illegitimate authority of prescription, calling itself Orthodoxy. Then Private Judgment comes forth again to criticise and reform. It thus becomes the duty of each individual to judge the Church; and out of innumerable individual judgments the insight of the Church is kept living and progressive. We contribute one such private judgment; not, we trust, in conceit, but in the hope of provoking other minds to further examinations.

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.

-- 1. Object and Character of this Book.

The peculiarity of the book now offered to the religious public by the government of the American Unitarian a.s.sociation, is this-that it is an honest attempt to find and state the truth contained in the doctrines of their opponents. It is, perhaps, something new for an a.s.sociation established to defend certain theological opinions, and baptized with a special theological name, to publish a work intended to do justice to hostile theories. The too usual course of each sect has been, through all its organs, to attack, denounce, undervalue, and vilify the positions taken by its antagonists. This has been considered as only an honest zeal for truth. The consequence has been, that no department of literature has been so unchristian in its tone and temper as that of sectarian controversy. Political journals heap abuse on their opponents, in the interest of their party. But though more noisy than the theological partisans, they are by no means so cold, hard, or unrelenting. Party spirit, compared with sectarian spirit, seems rather mild.(1)

It is true that theologians do not now use in controversy the epithets which were formerly universal. We have grown more civil in our language than were our fathers. It is also true that we often meet with theological discussions conducted in a spirit of justice towards one's opponents.(2) But to say, "Fas est ab hoste _doceri_," is a step as yet beyond the ability of most controversialists. To admit that your antagonist may have seen some truth not visible to yourself, and to read his work in this sense,-in order to learn, and not merely to confute,-is not yet common.

This we are about to undertake in the present treatise. We stand in the Unitarian position, but shall endeavor to see if there be not some truths in Orthodoxy which Unitarians have not yet adequately recognized. To use the language of our motto-we come "not as deserters, but as explorers"

into the camp of Orthodoxy. We are satisfied with our Unitarian position, as a stand-point from which to survey that of others. And especially are we grateful to it, since it encourages us by all its traditions, by all its ideas and principles, to look _after_ as well as before-to see if there be no truth behind us which we have dropped in our hasty advance, as well as truth beyond us to which we have not yet attained.

-- 2. Progress requires that we should look back as well as forward.

Such a study as this may be undertaken in the interest of true progress, as well as that of honest inquiry. For what so frequently checks progress, causes its advocates to falter, and produces what we call a reaction towards the old doctrines, as something shallow in the reform itself?

Christians have relapsed into Judaism, Protestants into Romanism, Unitarians into Orthodoxy-because something true and good in the old system had dropped out of the new, and attracted the converts back to their old home. All true progress is expressed in the saying of Jesus, "I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil." The old system cannot pa.s.s away until all its truths are _fulfilled_, by being taken up into the new system in a higher form. Judaism will not pa.s.s away till it is fulfilled in Christianity-the Roman Catholic Church will not pa.s.s away till it is fulfilled in Protestantism-Orthodoxy will not pa.s.s away till it is fulfilled by Rational Christianity. Judaism continues as a standing protest, on behalf of the unity of G.o.d, against Trinitarianism.

And yet we believe that, in the religious progress of the race, Christianity is an advance on Judaism, Protestant Christianity an advance on Roman Catholic Christianity, and Liberal and Rational Christianity an advance on Church Orthodoxy. But all such advances are subject to reaction and relapse. Reaction differs from relapse in this, that it is an oscillation, not a fall. Reaction is the backward swing of the wave, which will presently return, going farther forward than before. Relapse is the fall of the tide, which leaves the ships aground, and the beach uncovered.

Reaction is going back to recover some substantial truth, left behind in a too hasty advance. Relapse is falling back into the old forms, an entire apostasy from the higher stand-point to the lower, from want of strength to maintain one's self in the advance.

The Epistle to the Hebrews deserves especial study by those who desire to understand the philosophy of intellectual and spiritual progress. It was written to counteract a tendency among the Jewish Christians to relapse into Judaism. These Christians missed the antiquity, the ceremony, the authority of the old ritual. Their state of mind resembled that of the extreme High Church party in the Church of England, who are usually called Puseyites. They were not apostates or renegades, but backsliders. They were always lamenting the inferiority of Christianity to Judaism, in the absence of a priesthood, festival, sacrifices. It hardly seemed to them a church at all. The Galatians, to whom Paul wrote, had actually gone over and accepted Jewish Christianity in the place of Christianity in its simplicity and purity. The Hebrews had not gone over, but were looking that way. Therefore the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews endeavors to show them that all which was really good in the Jewish priesthood, temple, ritual, was represented in Christianity in a higher form. It had been fulfilled in the New Covenant. Nothing real and good can pa.s.s away till it is fulfilled in something better. Thus the Roman Catholic Church stands, as a constant proof that Protestant Christianity yet lacks some important Christian element which Romanism possesses. Orthodoxy, confuted, as we suppose, over and over again, by the most logical arguments, stands firm, and goes forward.

Let us, then, reexamine the positions of our antagonists-not now merely in order to find the weak places in their line of battle, but to discover the strong ones. Let us see if there be any essential, substantial truth in this venerable system, to which we have as yet not done justice. If there be, justice and progress will both be served by finding and declaring it.

We ask, What are the substantial truths, and what the formal errors, of Orthodoxy? But what do we mean by these terms?

-- 3. Orthodoxy as Right Belief.

By Orthodoxy in general is meant the right system of belief. This is the dictionary definition. But as the world and the Church differ as to _which_ is the right system of belief-as there are a vast mult.i.tude of systems-and as all sects and parties, and all men, believe the system they themselves hold to be the right belief-Orthodoxy, in this sense of right belief, means nothing. In this sense there are as many orthodoxies as there are believers, for no two men, even in the same Church, think exactly alike. Unless, therefore, we have some _further_ test, by which to find out _which_ orthodoxy, among all these orthodoxies, is the true orthodoxy-we accomplish little by giving to any one system that name.

Here, for instance, in New England, we have a system of belief which goes by the name of Orthodoxy; which, however, is considered very heterodox _out_ of New England. The man who is thought sound by Andover is considered very unsound by Princeton. The General a.s.sembly of the Presbyterian Church, in 1837, cut off four synods, containing some forty thousand members, because they were supposed not to be sound in doctrinal belief. But these excommunicated synods formed a New School Presbyterian Church, having its own orthodoxy. Andover considers itself more orthodox than Cambridge; but the New School Presbyterians think themselves more orthodox than Andover-the Old School Presbyterians think themselves more orthodox than the New School. But the most orthodox Protestant is called a heretic by the Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholics, again, are called heretics by the Greek Church. So that orthodoxy, in this sense, seems an impossible thing-something which, if it exists, can never be certainly ascertained.

Whenever a body of believers a.s.sumes the name of Orthodox, intending thereby that they are right, and their opponents wrong, they evidently a.s.sume the very point in dispute. They commit the fallacy called in logic a _pet.i.tio principii_. They beg the question, instead of discussing it.

They put will in the place of reason. They say, in the very t.i.tle page of their book, in the first step of their argument, that their book is satisfactory and their argument conclusive. It would be more modest to wait till the discussion is concluded before they proceed thus to state what the conclusion is. This is an arrogance like that which the Church of Rome commits, in calling itself Catholic or Universal, while excluding more than half of Christendom from its communion.(3)

A political party does not offer such an affront to its opponents. It may name itself Democratic, Republican, Federal; it may call itself the Conservative party, or that of Reform. By these t.i.tles it indicates its leading idea-it signifies that it bears the standard of reform, or that it stands by the old inst.i.tutions of the country. But no political party ever takes a name signifying that it is all right and its opponents all wrong.

This a.s.sumption was left to religious sects, and to those who consider humility the foundation of all the virtues.

The term "Evangelical" is, perhaps, not as objectionable as Orthodox, though it carries with it a similar slur on those of other beliefs. It says, "We are they who believe the gospel of Christ; those who differ from us do not believe it." It is like the a.s.sumption by some of the Corinthians of the exclusive name of Christians. "We are of Christ," said they-meaning that the followers of Paul and Apollos were not so.

Probably the better part of those who take the name of Orthodox, or Evangelical, intend no such arrogance. All they want is some word by which to distinguish themselves from Unitarians, Universalists, &c. They might say, "We have as good a right to complain of your calling yourselves 'Rational Christians' or 'Liberal Christians'-a.s.suming thereby that others are not rational or liberal. You mean no such a.s.sumption, perhaps; neither do we when we call ourselves 'Orthodox' or 'Evangelical.' When we can find another term, better than these, by which to express the difference between us, we will use it. We do not intend by using these words to foreclose argument or to beg the question. We do not mean by Orthodoxy, right belief; but only a certain well-known form of doctrine."

This is all well. Yet not quite well-since we have had occasion to notice the surprise and disgust felt by those who had called themselves "The Orthodox," in finding themselves in a community where others had a.s.sumed that t.i.tle, and refused to them any share in it. Therefore it is well to emphasize the declaration that Orthodoxy in the sense of "right belief" is an unmeaning expression, signifying nothing.

-- 4. Orthodoxy as the Doctrine of the Majority. Objections.

The majority, in any particular place, is apt to call itself orthodox, and to call its opponents heretics. But the majority in one place may be the minority in another. The majority in Ma.s.sachusetts is the minority in Virginia. The majority in England is the minority in Rome or Constantinople. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of all England, gave Mr. Carzon a letter of introduction to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the head of the Greek Church. But the Patriarch had never heard of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and inquired, "Who is he?"

Nevertheless, it is a very common argument that such and such a doctrine, being held by the great majority of Christians, must necessarily be true.

Thus it is said that since the great majority of Christians believe the doctrine of the Trinity, that doctrine must be true. "Is it possible," it is said, "that the great majority of Christian believers should be now, and have been so long, left in error on such a fundamental doctrine as this?" Even so intelligent a man as Dr. Huntington seems to have been greatly influenced by this argument in becoming a Trinitarian. The same argument has carried many Protestants into the Roman Catholic Church. And, no doubt, there is a truth in the argument-a truth, indeed, which is implied all through the present work-that doctrines thus held by great mult.i.tudes during long periods cannot be wholly false. But it by no means proves them to be wholly true. Otherwise, truth would change as the majorities change. In one century the Arians had the majority; and Arianism, therefore, in that century would have been true. Moreover, most of those who adhere to a doctrine have not examined it, and do not have any defined opinion concerning it. They accept it, as it is taught them, without reflection. And again, most truths are, at first, in a minority of one. Christianity, in the first century, was in a very small minority.

Protestantism, in the time of Luther, was all in the brain and heart of one man. To a.s.sume, therefore, that Orthodoxy, or the true belief, is that of the majority, is to forbid all progress, to denounce all new truth, and to resist the revelation and inspiration of G.o.d, until it has conquered for itself the support of the majority of mankind. According to this principle, as Christianity is still in a minority as compared with paganism, we ought all to become followers of Boodh. Such a view cannot bear a moment's serious examination. Every prophet, sage, martyr, and heroic champion of truth has spent his life and won the admiration and grateful love of the world by opposing the majority in behalf of some neglected or unpopular truth.

-- 5. Orthodoxy as the Oldest Doctrine. Objections.

Some people think that Orthodoxy means the _oldest_ doctrine, and that if they can only find out what doctrine was believed by the Church in the first century, they shall have the true orthodox doctrine. But the early Church held some opinions which all now believe to be false. They believed, for instance, that Jesus was to return visibly, in that age, and set up his church in person, and reign in the world in outward form-a thing which did not take place. They therefore believed in the early church something which was not true-consequently what _they_ believed cannot be a certain test of Orthodoxy.

The High Church party in the Church of England, in defending themselves against the Roman Catholic argument from antiquity, have appealed to a higher antiquity, and established themselves on the supposed faith of the first three centuries. But Isaac Taylor, in his "Ancient Christianity,"

has sufficiently shown that during no period in those early centuries was anything like modern orthodoxy satisfactorily established.(4) The Church doctrine was developed gradually during a long period of debate and controversy. The Christology of the Church was elaborated amid the fierce conflicts of Arians and Athanasians, Monothelites and Monophysites, Nestorians and Eutychians. The anthropology of the Church was hammered and beaten into shape by the powerful arm of Augustine and his successors, on the anvils of the fifth century, amid the fiery disputes of Pelagians, Semi-Pelagians, and their opponents.

Many doctrines generally believed in the early church are universally rejected now. The doctrine of chiliasm, or the millennial reign of Christ on earth; the doctrine of the under world, or Hades, where all souls went after death; the doctrine of the atonement made by Christ to the devil,-such were some of the prevailing views held in the early ages of the Church. The oldest doctrine is not certainly the truest; or, as Theodore Parker once said to a priest in Rome, who told him that the primacy of Peter was a.s.serted in the second century, "A lie is no better because it is an old one."

-- 6. Orthodoxy as the Doctrine held by all.

But, it may be said, if Orthodoxy does not mean the absolutely right system of belief, nor the system held by the majority, nor the oldest doctrine of the Church, it may, nevertheless, mean the _essential_ truths held in all Christian Churches, in all ages and times; in short, according to the ancient formula-that which has been believed always, by all persons, and everywhere-"_quod semper, quod ab omnibus, quod ubique_."