WE were recently much pained to read an article on the “New Learning,” by Bishop Ryle, Dean of Westminster, which was reproduced from The Expository Times in the columns of The Scotsman. The Bishop, who, we understand, is a son of the late Dr. Ryle, Bishop of Liverpool, bears an honoured name. His father was a sound believer in the plenary and verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and an able and outspoken champion of “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints,” but the son, we regret to say, is to be placed in an entirely different category. He is one of those modern scholars who have long since discarded the doctrine of Verbal Inspiration as an obsolete opinion, and who rejoice in the progress of what is called the “Higher Criticism”—criticism to which the adjective “lower” would more fitly apply, as it emanates from the lower region of “the bottomless pit.” If the results of this Criticism are to be accepted, large sections of the Old Testament must be put down as frauds and forgeries, and the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, in reference to the Scriptures as the unerring Word of God, must be completely rejected. We are not prepared to adopt such infidel conclusions, and see no cause to do so, as we are convinced, on abundant grounds, that the fundamental principles of this rationalistic mode of interpretation, which leads to such shocking results, are entirely wrong, and inconsistent with the highest reason, in relation to the Bible as a supernatural revelation from God. But let us proceed to the Bishop’s article.
The article is retrospective in its character. He compares the point of view that was generally taken in regard to the Bible “thirty years ago” with what is generally adopted among scholars now, and says: “We can thank God that, so far as Old Testament study is concerned, a great advance has been achieved.” He recalls with manifest disapproval “the impeachment of Robertson Smith for heresy” in the Free Church of 1881, and rejoices in the thought that Robertson Smith’s lectures were “the beginning of a new era.” Moreover, he proceeds, as follows: “Thirty years have steadily confirmed the justice of the demands that the Bible should be subjected to the free application of the same methods of literary and historical study as other ancient writings. In the learned world a revolution has taken place: the so-called ‘critical position’ has been universally accepted. Upon matters of detail, as in every living science, there are, and always will be, differing views in plentiful abundance. They testify to the vigour and health of an unfettered and inquiring intellect. But the old traditional system of explanation, respecting the authorship and structure of the books of the Old Testament, respecting the formation of the canon, and respecting the undeniable presence of contradictions in the Sacred Writings, can no longer be regarded as tenable. The principles which some of us advocated thirty years ago, and on account of which we were denounced as ‘unsound,’ and our lectures labelled ‘dangerous,’ have now been generally adopted in the teaching of the Universities, both in Great Britain and in America. The ‘New Learning’ has triumphed.”
In his next paragraph, he goes on: “But do not let us suppose that the triumph of the ‘New Learning’ denotes a revolution in Christian thought generally. The great majority of the people receive their notions about Holy Scripture from devout persons who have never read an article of Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, and have never heard of Driver’s Literature of the Old Testament. They still receive instruction from class teachers and Sunday school teachers, who have been trained on antiquated lines, and have been told to study ‘safe,’ but obsolete, handbooks. The ordinary layman assumes that what he was taught as a child about the Bible is Christian truth, and that no departure from it is justifiable. He is not prepared to trouble himself over literary problems. He says to himself: ‘Moses wrote the Pentateuch; David wrote the Psalms; the whale swallowed Jonah; and what is the good of Christian faith if it does not enable you to believe things like that?'”
Now, let us examine briefly the contents of these paragraphs. He defines the new learning as a “demand that the Bible should be subjected to the free application of the same methods of literary and historical study as other ancient writings.” What is the essential idea underlying this demand, and practically expressed in it? It is simply nothing less than this, that the Bible is not essentially different from “other ancient writings.” It is, like them, the natural product of the thoughts and the life of the times in which its various books were written; and although containing within its scope nobler ideas and principles than other ancient writings, it is not a directly supernatural production, the Word of God as radically distinguished from the word of man, and so it is to be viewed and handled like other human compositions. This, in plain terms, is the “great advance” of thought which Bishop Ryle, Dean of Westminster, applauds and advocates, an advance that grossly degrades the inspired volume, and renders it valueless for saving good to mankind.
Let us observe next, that he exaggerates the extent to which that new learning has prevailed. He declares that “in the learned world a revolution has taken place; the so-called ‘critical position’ has been universally accepted.” In a subsequent sentence, he modifies the adverb “universally” into “generally.” All the same, he evidently wishes to give the impression that any existing dissent from the “critical position” is a negligible quantity, and that nobody of any consequence is among the dissenters. While we admit that the “higher criticism” has spread far and wide to a lamentable extent, especially among the larger Churches, yet we hold that it is positively unjust to regard the conservative minority as something not to be accounted of. There are eminent scholars at Princeton, U.S.A., and elsewhere, who still hold, with outstanding ability and learning, the truth as to the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. The real fact is that the miserable triumph is only partial after all.
Our readers will notice, however, that the Bishop is compelled to acknowledge that the “new learning” has not obtained acceptance from “the great majority of the people.” “These have received their notions about Holy Scripture from devout persons,” he says, who have never read “higher critical” works. “The ordinary layman assumes that what he was taught as a child about the Bible is Christian truth, and that no departure from it is justifiable.” Happy people, and happy laymen! They are permitted to hear the Word of God speaking for itself, and are not warped in their judgments by the Satanic subtleties of German Rationalism. The Bible is God’s message to all, ignorant as well as learned, and it is divinely designed that the most illiterate as certainly as the most educated should apprehend, under the Spirit’s illumination, its true character and doctrine as the Word of God. While the Bishop in a concluding passage again concedes that “the great mass of our Christian fellow-countrymen are still wholly unacquainted with” the new principles, he predicts that “the people will love” the Bible “better and revere it more intelligently when they become acquainted with the more modern method of explaining its difficulties, and of interpreting its spiritual message.” We deplore the Bishop’s spiritual blindness and infatuation. Can any honest person say that these have been the results where the principles of the newer criticism have thoroughly prevailed? Are these the results in Germany, the principal stronghold of the new learning? Manifestly and emphatically not.
We shall point out, in conclusion, two outstanding results of the “New Learning” in our time, which the Bishop would do well to meditate upon. The first is: it has robbed the pulpits of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. We cannot meantime explain fully the connection, but it is the very truth that the “Higher Criticism” has taken away the Godhead and Atonement of Christ from the preaching of our age, and has evacuated the kind of gospel generally proclaimed of all saving truth and power. It is thus responsible for the blood of immortal souls who are perishing in their sins. The second result is: it has deluged Europe with the blood of millions of precious lives. We, solemnly and in all seriousness, lay the guilt of the recent terrible War, with all its horrors and losses, at the door of the “New Learning.” It was Germany’s departure from the truth, as to the Word and Person, work and doctrine of Christ, that led to the adoption of militarism with all its diabolical consequences, and it was the departure of other nations from the same truth that exposed them also to severe chastisements.
The Lord Jesus said in the days of His flesh: “For judgment I am come into this world that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind” (John ix. 39). It is to be feared that there are many among us in these days, Bishops as well as others, in whom the latter part of this solemn utterance has been fulfilled. May the Lord, in His sovereign mercy, open their eyes before it is too late!