The Report of the Commission on Christian Doctrine appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1922.
IN all our reading of theological literature we have scarcely read anything to compare with this extraordinary Report. As a piece of theological tight-rope walking it will be hard to beat. Orthodoxy and heterodoxy walk in loving fellowship as far as the Report indicates. The yawning theological chasms along the road do not seem to have perturbed the Commissioners, for do they not tell the public that their minds moved freely, “at times even playfully, in the intercourse of friends.” We should think that when those who love the truth in the Church of England will express their minds that the playfulness will have little place in the controversy this Report is destined to arouse. If not, it will be further evidence of the spiritual death that has fallen upon a Church which had, at one time, honoured witnesses to the truth. The hope expressed by the Chairman, Dr. Temple, Archbishop of York, that the Commissioners in this Report have commended the gospel or have removed obstacles of belief to any perplexed minds, we need scarcely say will not be realised. The more likely effect will be that where perplexity existed before it will be doubly increased by reading the Report. Throughout its 242 pages the sinister spectres of the Higher Criticism, Evolutionism, Modernism, and Romish tendencies flit out and in unabashed, keeping friendly company with prelates and doctors whom the Church of England has honoured by giving them high places in her counsels. The Commission which issued the Report was appointed in 1922 by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York “to consider the nature and grounds of Christian doctrine with a view to demonstrating the extent of existing agreement within the Church of England and with a view to investigating how far it is possible to remove or diminish existing differences.” No one can charge the Commissioners in being too precipitate in their work for they took fifteen years to it.
Some of our readers may ask why should Free Presbyterians worry themselves about what is going on in the Church of England. In the first place, we are interested in it as a Church that is recognised and supported by the nation; in the second place, we are interested in it in view of the fact that there is a considerable party in the Church of Scotland doing their utmost to have union with this Church; in the third place, it is to be remembered that there is a movement on foot at present in England for union between the Church of England and some of the Non-conformist denominations, and fourthly, there is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Recall to Religion. Is this the type of religion to which the nation is to be recalled?
It is impossible to deal with all the objectionable points raised by the Report but a few will be touched upon. Dr. Temple says that some will be startled to find so little said “about the Fall; about Freedom, Election, and Predestination; about Justification by Faith; about the Order of Creation and the the Order of Redemption; about the possibility of Natural Theology” and points out in defence that the Commission’s labours dealt with subjects that were matter of controversy in the Church of England (pp. 4, 5). We should think some will be startled not only at so little said about these doctrines but that the little that is said about them is so bad.
1. The Bible.
The Church of England at one time had no doubt about the inerrancy of God’s Word, but listen to what the Report says: “The tradition of the inerrancy of the Bible commonly held in the Church until the beginning of the nineteenth century . . . cannot be maintained in the light of the knowledge now at our disposal” (p. 29). “There is some reason to think that in some cases the words attributed to our Lord reflect rather the experience of the primitive Church, or the utterances of Christian prophets, than actual words of Jesus” (p. 33). Speak about a coach and pair being driven through an Act of Parliament! this is more like the chariots of Diablos being driven ruthlessly through the doctrine of the inerrancy of God’s Word. The seriousness of the situation is heightened by what the Methodist minister of the City Temple, the Rev. Leslie Weatherhead, recently said in an article in The Star (London), 27th January. Here are his words: “We are given a view of inspiration in this Report which the educated man of to-day can accept. Indeed, if I may say so without offence, the view given in this volume is the view taught in all the Free Church [i.e., Non-Conformist] theological colleges, and held by all the Free Church ministers I know who are under fifty years of age, whatever their denomination. Verbal inspiration—the theory that every word of the Bible is divinely inspired—went years ago, and is only retained in a few obscurantist camps which count for nothing in the life of the nation.” [The italics are ours.]
2. Creation.
“No objection to a theory of evolution can be drawn from the two Creation narratives in Gen. i. and ii.,” says the Report, “since it is generally agreed among educated Christians that these are mythological in origin, and that their value for us is symbolical rather than historical” (p. 45). What a blessed word “symbolical” is to the Higher Critic and the Modernist! The opening chapters of Genesis are symbolical and so also is the story of Jonah, the Second Coming of our Lord, the Empty Tomb, angels and demons, etc., according to this School. But these are serious matters and without dissentient voices the Commissioners accept that will-of-the-wisp of the modern mind and turn part of the Word of God into mythology. In keeping with the above, we are told that “the ritual of the Day of Atonement which was established at a date later than Ezekiel has this expiatory reference” (p. 147).
3. Miracles.
This subject is dealt with in a very unsatisfactory way. Miracles, they admit, are divine acts but they can be explained by natural laws. Because of the possibility of legendary accretions the evidential value of the miracles in the Gospels have not now the evidential value that they had in the past (p. 51). The hand of the Modernist is clearly seen in this deliverance. The Gospel miracles are thrown to the Modernist lions.
4. God.
In face of their own Thirty-nine Articles, the Commissioners, with their modern conception of Love, if we understand them aright, accept the doctrine of the passibility of God, that is, that God is capable of suffering (p. 56). We need not meantime bring forward arguments to prove the opposite, except to say that the literature in defence of the Impassibility of God is conclusive enough to every reverent mind.
5. Total Depravity.
As might naturally be expected, the doctrine of total depravity as set forth in the Scriptures and in our standards and in the Thirty-nine Articles is not accepted (p. 60); the Commissioners will only go the length of saying that “the general state of sinfulness into which we are born involves at least partial alienation from God” (p. 64). The treatment of the doctrine of sin by them leaves much to be desired. Man’s tendency to evil is traceable to man’s kinship with the higher animals (p. 221).
6. Christ’s Knowledge.
The sections dealing with Christology give indication of the fact that the modern theories of His Person have largely influenced the Commissioners, so we find such a sentence as the following: “At that period [Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451], and, indeed, until quite lately, Christians did not attribute to the Incarnate Lord any limitations of knowledge, or, at any rate, any beyond the one concerning the date of the Parousia [Appearing] which He Himself mentioned. In this respect, modern theology, by a return to the Scriptures themselves, with their evidence of real surprise and disappointment as elements in the Lord’s experience, has broken fresh ground” (p. 81). Was it by a return to the Scriptures that modern theologians found that Christ could be mistaken about the authorship of the Old Testament books? Was it such a return that led them to the daring so-called discovery that He was mistaken about the Davidic authorship of Psalm 110. It is a presumptuous challenge to divine truth to say that such discoveries were made by a return to the Scriptures. It may seem out of place on our part to recommend a careful study of Powell’s Principle of the Incarnation and Gifford on The Incarnation (both distinguished scholars of the Church of England) but it might be useful in giving much needed light to those who are in Egyptian darkness on this great subject.
7. The Virgin Birth.
As might be expected the Virgin Birth is not received by some of the Commissioners. “There are some among us,” says the Report, “who hold that a full belief in the historical Incarnation is more consistent with the supposition that our Lord’s birth took place under the normal conditions of human generation” (p. 82). To reverent minds such doctrine creates a feeling of intense revulsion when it is borne in mind the implication that must of necessity lie behind it.
8. Christ’s Resurrection.
The majority of the Commissioners hold the traditional view that the Tomb was empty but others relegate the Empty Tomb and the Appearances of our Lord to the sphere of religious symbolism rather than accept it as historical fact (p. 86).
9. The Atonement.
As one might expect from the drift in Anglican theology from the Calvinism of the Reformers and the Thirty-nine Articles the Arminian view of the Atonement is asserted without a dissentient voice—”His death, therefore, is of universal significance, and it is true that He died for every one among the sons of men” (p. 92).
10. The Holy Spirit and Inspiration.
At p. 31 the Commissioners have a sentence which is not quite clear. “In the light of the Christian experience of the Holy Spirit and His work we can trace the activity of the same divine Spirit in various degrees outside the limits of either Israel or Christendom.”
11. The Unity of the Church.
“The Church is one, for it is the body of Christ,” says the Report and then adds: “It is clear that this fundamental unity ought to be expressed in the visible unity of the Church on earth” (p. 107). This is a non sequitur and the latter statement is the result of a well-known fallacy in logic.
12. The Sacraments.
There is more space devoted to the Sacraments than to any other subject in the Report, but the whole treatment of the subject reveals how hopeless the divergences on this subject are in the Church of England. We read about the Real Presence, one time the Commissioners seem to be looking in the direction of the Greek Church and then in the direction of Rome. They reject Transubstation and Consubstantiation but their doctrine is a high type of sacramentarianism which no true evangelical can accept. “The doctrine of the heavenly Altar,” the Report says, “at which we join in the perpetual offering by Christ of Himself and share the life of Christ crucified and risen” (p. 162). The theological verbosity with its technicalities such as Receptionism, Virtualism, the Real Presence of this part of the Report is anything but easy reading.
13. Auricular Confession.
“The Church makes provision for such confession and absolution [i.e., an express and authoritative declaration of forgiveness, given in the name of Christ and carrying with it the fullness of reconciliation to God], both in public services and by private or auricular confession” (p. 193). “In pronouncing absolution,” the Report says, “he [the priest] speaks with authority derived from his office as priest” (p. 198).
14. Doctrine of the “Last Things.”
The Commissioners are unable to give any pronouncement as to whether there will be a Last Judgment conceived of as an event (p. 206) and the expectation of a single great Day of General Resurrection considered literally presents great difficulties, they say (p. 211).
But we must now conclude and in doing so, it is not to be thought that the serious errors embodied in this Report have all been referred to. The Commissioners, while rejecting the Roman Catholic doctrines of Extreme Unction and Purgatory, acknowledge that in the Church of England there are those who believe in the administration of Extreme Unction and a doctrine of purgatory of a diluted type (pp. 200 and 213). Prayers to the saints and for the departed are permissible (pp. 214, 215). The Larger Hope and Restorationism are evidently allowable within the elastic comprehensiveness of the Church of England. If we are not mistaken, this is one of most unsettling documents ever issued by Church of England divines. The Commissioners were all agreed on one particular point and that was to differ. The Report will be read with real heart-sorrow by many in the Church of England. What would Anglican theologians of other days or such modern theologians as Moule, Litton and Griffith Thomas, say, we wonder, of the strange mixture in this Report. When the Report comes up for discussion in the recognised ecclesiastical courts it will be interesting to watch the reception it receives.