THE aim of this book, as stated by the writer in his Preface, is to attempt, in a brief and simple fashion, the lines along which a re-statement of the faith for the re-united Church of Scotland should be made. “In doing so,” he says, “the author has not always endeavoured to confine himself to a personal belief, but to give voice to opinions which are held by the majority of thinking men and women at the present time.” One would imagine from the language that is commonly in use by those who cut themselves adrift from the faith once delivered to the saints that they are the only real thinkers. This is a feature of the arrogance that characterises the mental outlook of Modernism. Dr. Marr quotes the significant words of the Psalmist: “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” but if Dr. Marr imagines that the material he, and those for whom he speaks, use in his building is that of the Lord we have entirely misunderstood our Bible. In our opinion he could not have quoted a more appropriate text for the undermining of his own position. Dr. Marr says there is a paramount need for the United Church (of Scotland) “of interpreting the Christian faith in the light of all that recent knowledge has brought to mankind.” This at first sight may appeal to some as moving in the right direction but when the
*A Faith for To-Day by the Rev. George S. Marr, M.A. (Hons.), M.B., Ch.B., B.D., D.Litt. (Edin.); Minister of Lady Yester’s Parish Church, Edinburgh.
statement is examined we are confronted at once with what is meant by “recent knowledge.” Has all the recent knowledge in physical science, biology, psychology, philosophy, etc., etc., been so assured that no doubt exists in the mind of those who are masters in these various fields? In a few years the text books of these different departments of human knowledge are out of date. Many of the views some of us were taught in the Natural Philosophy Class in Glasgow University under Lord Kelvin in reference to the constitution of matter, the nature of light, etc., are set aside as exploded theories though at that time advanced by master minds. Are we to begin building on these shifting sands the Church’s faith? Verily not! If philosophy and science has taught us one impressive lesson it is that human knowledge of the highest is in a state of flux and that it would be as wise to moor our ship to a floating island that is sure to drift with the next tide.
Dr. Marr tells us we are to get behind the “traditional Christ” to the “historic Jesus.” These words are ominous; we never come across such expressions without immediately coming to the conclusion that the writer is sailing on an uncharted sea and Dr. Marr is no exception as a reading of his book soon makes clear. He has come across professional men who are out of touch with the Church’s faith, he tells us, he might as well have said out of touch with the teaching of the Bible; beliefs and practices which are repugnant to the modern mind. And Dr. Marr is to set himself and the Church the hopeless task of trimming his belief and the Church’s belief to that dim, dancing, flickering will o’ the wisp—”the modern mind.” He had better, here and now, give up the useless and hopeless task. One of the most pressing needs, he says, is to make clear what to believe about the Bible. So far so good but if what Dr. Marr says in pp. 20-23 is what we are to believe about the Bible then it is a Bible that is not worth believing. If we understand him aright he casts doubt on the Genesis statement that light was made before the sun, that Jonah was swallowed by a whale and that the Bible story of Job is history. In
reference to the New Testament he writes: “The position of the Church with regard even to the New Testament itself must not be left in doubt. There are passages, for example, in the Epistles of St. Paul which are entirely foreign to our modern outlook on life, to which we simply cannot subscribe, and there are portions of the Gospel narrative which bear the marks of myth or exaggeration. Wherever such passages occur, we must, in the same spirit which Jesus showed towards the Old Testament, pass beyond to a position satisfying to reason and conscience alike.” This will not do; we emphatically protest against this attempt to have the countenance of our Lord for buttressing modern views of the Bible. Never in this world was there one who bore such testimony to the divine authenticity of the Old Testament Scriptures both before His resurrection and after it. Space does not permit us to elaborate this point but we direct attention to Dr. Saphir’s masterly little book—Christ and the Scriptures.
Dr. Marr devotes a chapter to the Trinity and were it not that we have his statements in cold print we could scarcely believe there was a minister in the Church of Scotland who held such views or at any rate who sent them broadcast as an attempt to a re-statement of the Church’s faith. Athanasius does not seem to be a theologian for whom Dr. Marr has much place as witness the following reckless statement: “It was not until it was pointed out that the Bible appeared to posit a third Person in the ‘Holy Ghost’ that Athanasius proceeded to elaborate the doctrine of the Holy Ghost as the third Person in the Trinity. If the Bible had indicated in addition to God the Father and God the Son, two other persons in the Godhead, Athanasius might well have elaborated a Quaternity in place of a Trinity. For what is the true position? Once we pass from the rich material clustered round the idea of God as Father and God as Son, we realise that the ‘Holy Ghost,’ the third Person in the Trinity, does not appear to convey a fresh and distinct group of ideas to the human mind” (p. 29). These sentences speak for themselves—they betray
a woeful lack of knowledge of historical theology and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Would the great theologians whose learned, reverent and scriptural treatises which have received the imprimatur of the Church of Christ such as Shedd, Hodge, Owen, Smeaton, Bishop Moule, etc., say that the Holy Ghost “does not appear to convey a fresh and distinct group of ideas to the human mind.” Dr. Marr is not content to rest here in his campaign, he advances the suggestion that it would be helpful to associate with the Holy Spirit the “mother” idea and in this way that the gap which he says has long been felt in the Church of the Reformation and which the Roman Catholic Church supplies in the worship of the Virgin Mary would be filled up. “Thus if it could be found possible,” he writes, “to enrich the third Person of the Trinity with the idea of motherhood, would it not also do much for the women of the Protestant Church?” If this is a sample of the “faith” that is to be re-stated for the Church of Scotland may she in mercy be saved from it. We hesitate to characterise the statements made about the Holy Ghost, feeling as we do how outrageous they are; we never dreamt that such things could be written by a minister of that Church of Scotland and that they would pass unchallenged.
Dr. Marr as one might expect is an admirer of Macleod Campbell of Row (Rhu) and holds the opinion that “the wrath of God,” at least, as presented in the Old Testament has given place to the modern conception of a loving Father. This is a subject on which there has been a great deal of loose thinking and in connection with which a vapid sentimentalism has run riot but we cannot stay to deal with it at present. We must pass on to what Dr. Marr has to say about sin and the Bible account of the Fall.
He states the Genesis account of the Fall and then adds: “But science has upset this age-long tradition of innocent man in the Garden of Eden, tempted by Eve and cast out from Paradise. The investigations of science into the past history of the world does not bear out the Scriptural view of a period
in the misty past when man was in a state of innocence nor does it sanction the view that the race originally lived on a high spiritual plane from which it irretrievably fell. The very opposite is the case” (p. 39). Science is Dr. Marr’s sure guide in this matter and despite the theorisings of Charles Darwin, the discoveries of Mendel and the statements of Bateson he sails unconcernedly among the rocks and in the name of science he says “the Church must frankly relinquish the doctrine of Original Sin” (p. 40). He does not think the Church should give up the idea of sin altogether but the conception of sin presented in his book is not the Biblical one.
He is obsessed with finding the “historical Christ” but foolishly commits himself to “recent knowledge” as a guide; “it is here,” he writes, “recent knowledge has enabled us to go a step at least along the way of understanding the mystery surrounding the person of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of evolution enables us, in a measure at least, to understand in a manner what was impossible to fourth or fifth century theologians, how God could become manifest in the person of Christ” (p. 48). Evolution helping to explain the mystery of the person of Christ! Why, that is the rock on which every theory of modern evolution will be wrecked. Where is there in any of the modern theories of evolution a place where the Incarnation can logically fit in? One need not wonder after the above statement that the new theology conception that “the Divine is present in some measure at least in all humanity, and not simply once and for all in Jesus Christ” (p. 49) is hailed as an “essential contribution” nor that Dr. Martineau, the Unitarian, is quoted in support of this false theory.
The Virgin Birth, that first miracle in a life which was full of miracle, the tremendous stumbling block to the “modern mind,” is not to be regarded as an essential—”the time has come,” we are told, “when the Church should plainly state that belief in the Virgin Birth is not essential to membership of the Christian Church” (p. 50). It is significant that when Dr. Marr gives illustrations of “the saintliest of men” it is
Francis of Assissi, Thomas à Kempis and Loyola (the founder of the Jesuits) that are mentioned—all Roman Catholics.
Dr. Marr’s suggestions for the re-statement of the doctrine of the Atonement are as far astray as his other efforts to satisfy the “modern mind.” Vicarious Atonement is set aside and “the association of the idea of Atonement with the shedding of blood, especially the shedding of the blood of an innocent man,” we are told, “has lost all appeal to the modern mind.” Anselm’s masterly presentation of the doctrine of satisfaction in Cur Deus Homo? does not satisfy Dr. Marr but his own theory of atonement, so vague and indefinite, will never satisfy the conscience of a guilty sinner helplessly ruined seeking a solid rock on which to rest.
Our author does not believe in a physical resurrection. How could he have dissected a body in his medical training if he believed anything of the kind? he asks. Why not? any more than making use of his surgical training he cut off a hand or a foot from a living body. What has that got to do with a physical resurrection but belief in a physical resurrection as “enunciated in the Apostolic writings” (p. 76) must be cast to the winds to satisfy the “modern mind.”
In his chapter on Hell and Heaven Dr. Marr is out and out against the doctrine of hell as taught in the past. Our chief quarrel with his treatment of this subject, however, is that the view he presents of hell is not that presented in the Bible and which no effort of man can tone down. It may be quite easy for Dr. Marr and others to marshal a host of quotations from writings and sermons in the past on this solemn subject which went beyond scriptural bounds. The doctrine as set forth in the Bible is so unspeakably solemn, that it requires no addition from men to make it more awful and the unfeeling and over-constant use of the word, hell, instead of making the subject more impressive too often weakens the effect. But the man who tries to rob the Scriptural doctrine of its awfulness by pen or voice is trifling with one of the most solemn truths revealed in Scripture.
We have now said what we had to say on this highly modernistic book though there are many very questionable statements passed over. Some of our readers may think that too much space has been devoted to it and in writing this article we confess the same thought occurred to us more than once but we feel that such teaching should be exposed and that if the people in the Church of Scotland are kept in the dark that our people should not.