Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 51:203 (Jul 1894)
Article: A New Method With An Old Problem
Author: Elias Henry Johnson

BSac 51:203 (July 1894) p. 407

A New Method With An Old Problem

Rev. E. H. Johnson

If we take care not to hold the Bible responsible for doctrines which it does not expressly teach, then we are quite at liberty to offer as more or less probable other doctrines inferred from these. More still, we may ask help from the current philosophy and science in exploring the nature of the biblical facts. A better science or philosophy than that of a former day may improve our theology. This article proposes a new method with an old problem, because it would make full trial of an accepted doctrine of science.

Which holds the primacy, justice or benevolence? It may seem a narrow issue; but thin blades cut deep, and the answer to this question is the real answer to a great part of the questions by which, ostensibly, the church has been distracted. It was a conviction on this point that led Anselm to protest against, and enabled him to overthrow, the unworthy fancy of Origen, that Christ was given over as a ransom to Satan; an opinion on this theme divided Bernard from Abelard, Scotus from Aquinas, Socinians from Lutherans and Calvinists, Calvinists from Arminians, rent American Presbyterianism into Old School and New, set Princeton against the Andover of Dr. Park, and in our day defines to popular apprehension the issue between the old and the new theology. There is only a theory to offer; but, unless one can keep his mind clear of all theory, he needs a definite view on this point; otherwise he cannot hold coherent opinions on the perennial issues of all Christian generations.

BSac 51:203 (July 1894) p. 408

And it has been a difference on this point which embittered the debates. Not only because the issue is fundamental, but because it is an issue on which different minds are radically disqualified from seeing alike. To some it has seemed to give us one or another God. Wesley went as far in this as Charming, and both refused to worship the God of the Calvinist,—a God to whom justice was necessary, and mercy optional. The question can never lose its interest until Christians cease to think, and they have not yet given sign that they will ever stop thinking on this matter.

And yet it is not one of those problems about the Most High which it is absurd to attempt. True, the attributes of God are infinite, and we cannot foresee what his infinite attributes will lead him to do. But the infinite is a factor in every term of the equation; it may therefore be cancelled out, leaving, as the subject of inquiry, the nature and relations of the moral attributes holiness, benevolence, and justice. These are exactly the same in man as in God. Differing between God and man in quantity, they are identical in quality. The theological problem resolves into an ethical problem, as...