Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 58:230 (Apr 1901)
Article: The Limits Of Theological Freedom
Author: Frank Hugh Foster

BSac 58:230 (April 1901) p. 209

The Limits Of Theological Freedom1

Prof. Frank Hugh Foster

These two books, of which the earlier derives a renewed importance from the appearance of the later, present two very serious questions to Congregationalists, to the brief answer of which this article will eventually come. But, first, a review of the most salient features of the question-raising books.

I must interject at this point an apologetic remark. I see, as I have reviewed the article, that it is largely written in the first person. It has thus unconsciously assumed the character of a personal confession. I let it stand so. Perhaps I may thus avoid the suspicion that I am attempting to speak for anybody besides myself.

First, then, to the books. Professor Gilbert’s has been so long before the public that a brief review of it with reference to a single feature, will be all that need be intro-

BSac 58:230 (April 1901) p. 210

duced here. He proposes an entirely objective investigation of the individual teaching of our Lord. He is aware that his results will seem strange to his readers, and he deprecates at the outset all comparison with “traditional beliefs.” “A theological test for a historical work is no test at all” (p. 8). The ring of loyalty to Christ is heard in the next following sentence, when he says: “We can get forward in Christian thought only as we become better grounded in the thought of Jesus”; but there is the implication that as yet the church knows very little of the true thought of its Master. The damaging effect of such an intimation to the worth of the church, and through that to the teaching efficiency and worth of the Master himself, does not seem to have occurred to our author.

The literary competence of Professor Gilbert is beyond question. He displays intimate familiarity with the leading writers in every department of his subject. The emphasis laid on the historical setting of the teachings of Christ becomes apparent as soon as the book is opened (p. 6 ff.). But an historical fallacy is immediately committed which runs through the whole, the fallacy of neglecting the peculiar elements of this history, which either is or is not fundamentally like all other history. It professes on its face to be unlike, for it is introduced by miracle, and teems with the supernatural, and presents an altogether unique personality to our view. But Professor Gilbert, while he does not deny this, makes no affirmation of it, and from the beginning leans very decidedly to the silent assumption that Jesus was a man like all others. Jesus’ teaching comes out of his “experience” (p. 14 ff.). At twelve he possessed “a knowledge of the h...