visions might have been made from other standpoints, but this scheme has the virtue of distinguishing the cases where doubt is of value from those where doubt ends disastrously. Doubt is thus not an unmixed evil, nor an inevitable source of good. The emphasis is usually placed on the destructive element in it; perhaps we might tarry for a moment to indicate some of its good features. Doubt stimulates investigation, thereby freeing religion from past errors and passing on to new intellectual victories. Mixed as it usually is with a certain amount of faith, it maintains a balance which assists in a symmetrical and harmonious development; this is especially true in adolescence. Beliefs never become so really ours as when, receiving them not on the authority of others but after a period of doubt, we decide on their truthfulness. Truth usually carries its authority with it, and a careful search stimulated by doubt not unusually betrays its stamp of genuineness. Potentially, if not actually, "There lies more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds." The exaltation of faith by Jesus and the New Testament writers has necessarily made it an important factor in religion. Its importance as a practical element has been somewhat minimized by the lack of exact definitions and the consequent multitudinous interpretations both theoretical and practical. It has been opposed to or connected with almost all mental activities by different theologians and in different ages. The exact chronological position of faith has also been the cause of much discussion. "Augustine laid down the maxim that 'faith precedes knowledge'; that is, a living experience of the gospel is requisite for insight into its meaning. . . . The priority of faith to religious science is at the basis of the scholastic philosophy of religion. 'I believe in order that I may understand,' is adopted as a ruling maxim by Anselm. 'He who has not believed,' he tells us, 'has not experienced, and he who has not experienced will not understand.' The heart anticipates the analytic work of the understanding. There is an inward certitude, founded on love to the contents of the gospel, and this love is the light of the soul. "The merit of faith,' says Hugo of St. Victor, 'consists in the fact that our conviction is determined by the affections, when no adequate knowledge is yet present. By faith we render ourselves worthy of knowledge, as perfect knowledge is the final reward of faith in the life eternal.' As to the capacity of reason, Duns Scotus distinguishes between its power to discover truth for itself, and its power to recognize and accept truth when it is communicated. Acquinas divides religious truths into two classes; Such as are above reason, like the doctrine of the Trinity, and such as are accessible to reason, like the doctrine of the being of one God." 1 Among the recent attempts to solve the difficulty Leuba has divided the experiences into two classes, under the captions of Faith-state and Faith-belief. Faith-state involves the whole man, similar to the emotions, and Faith-belief is the effect of this upon the intellectual life. "Faith-state is a particular emotion (probably identical with asexual love), specifically distinct from other emotions or sentiments, but entirely like them in what is distinctive in that class of experience. From the point of view of development, Faith may appear as an inner adaptation, by which is established a living sense of relationship, nay, a union, between the individual and ideal powers. By this inner adaptation man 1G. P. Fisher, History of the Christian Church, pp. 140 and 219. 2 J. H. Leuba, "Faith," American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, I, pp. 65-82; "Studies in the Psychology of Religious Phenomena," American Journal of Psychology, VII, pp. 337-364. enters, to some extent, into possession of the virtues he conceives to adhere in the object of his faith and which he needs in order to satisfy his higher cravings." "The core of the Faith-state is a particular attitude and an increased efficiency of the will in consequence of which an ideal of life becomes realizable. It is a constructive response to a need; a specific emotion of the sthenic type, subserving, as emotions do, a particular end.” It has long been recognized that belief, in the technical sense, could never be reduced to a simple assent, as Faraday and his sect maintained; but that faith must be vital and active, springing from the depths of the nature and controlling external actions and conduct. It is this conception which justifies the above distinction, recognizing that faith is something more than belief, but less than knowledge, and having in it a motive power which incites to action. Far from the intellectual being the only factor in faith, in what is designated as faith-state there may be a minimum of intellectual content, and then the state is largely emotional, akin to love. The idea of faith as an intellectual makeshift, to be substituted when knowledge fails us, is to be deprecated. In this way faith has been placed in antithesis to knowledge; religion has extolled faith as being an intellectual process of value where knowledge could not reach, while science has put forth the intellectual claims of knowledge as more certain than faith. Faith, however, is still more comprehensive and contains in addition an important volitional element. Were it not for this, the Christian demand for faith would be without excuse. He who follows the commands of Christ, and uses his time and talents faithfully, is a man of faith. A certain state, then, which comprehends all our mental factors, seems to be more descriptive of faith than any one element, and shows further how the different terms, love, faith, and doing, are but different view points of the same life-embracing condition. Any one of these carried to its logical conclusion, includes all the rest.1 We must not, however, eliminate the intellectual element, and thereby take a view as extreme as that which sees nothing but intellect in faith. In the intellectual realm, faith is more nearly related to belief than to cognition. The Object of religion, God, on account of characteristics as an Ideal, is more properly spoken of as an object of rational faith than as an object of knowledge. Faith, here, is not equivalent to mere belief, much less credulity, but is more comprehensive and authoritative than either. This does not mean that faith may at any time be irrational and be of much service to religion; rational faith is the ideal which is or should be set before Christians. If this is true, then dogma must follow. If the content of our faith is rationally defensible, some authoritative formulation is inevitable, however much this may need to be changed as new facts are revealed, and however much error may creep into religion thereby. Faith carries with it two convictions concerning its object; first, it is convinced of its reality-something corresponding in reality to that in which it believes; second, the trustworthiness of the object as one in which it can place confidence. In Christianity this is best manifested in the filial attitude. The true sons of God believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. When this state is reached, then dogma is imperative. Faith may become a kind of self-knowledge, when it reveals the relation in which the self stands to its ideal; then judgments of worth are not the least of its value. Faith in the perfection of God and His rule is the final triumph of righteousness, and is only achieved when the truths of revelation are coupled with the loftiest religious experience. 'B. B. Warfield, Art. "Faith," Hastings's Bible Dictionary, I, pp. 827 ff. CHAPTER XXII KNOWLEDGE "Give me the ocular proof; Make me see 't; or at least, so prove it, That the probation bear no hinge, no loop, -SHAKESPEARE. In the previous chapter we have discussed Belief and Faith and now come to consider knowledge. What is the distinction to be drawn between these three? In some minds it may be clear, but with a large majority of people a great vagueness exists. So lax have been the definitions that what one would define as belief or faith another would consider knowledge. One writer presents a series, "according to the measure of assurance, or the nature and cogency of the grounds," as follows: "knowledge, belief, faith, opinion, assumption, postulate, and finally, whim, prejudice, and superstition." Whether this series would be accepted by any one or not depends upon the definition and examples of each member of the series, and on these probably few would agree. These different factors would be in agreement in that all would be held for true by those experiencing them, but there would be a difference in the attitude of mind toward them or in the nature of the grounds on which they were held. As these different forms shade off into one another, it is quite impossible to draw any hard and fast lines, and, in fact, it will be found that many writers so confound knowledge and belief, or that different writers use these B. P. Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, p. 367. |