In like manner, the relation of religion and theology is quite different from what Dr. Machen holds it to be. The Christian religion is the filial fellowship with God through Jesus Christ. In this religion, and in the experience of the Christian, knowledge and truth are involved. Now it is the task of theology to interpret this experience, clarify and develop the knowledge, disclose the truth, and justify the whole in a systematic fashion. The theologian endeavors to get at the truth and to give it as adequate an interpretation and statement as possible. There may be finality in his facts and truths, but not in his theology.Once more we note Dr. Machen's conception of the nature of faith. In guarding against what he deems to be the error in mysticism and pragmatism, he goes to the other extreme of regarding faith as purely passive. In faith there is neither feeling nor willing, though these may follow upon faith. The fact is that faith as confidence, or trust in God or Christ, involves the whole personality. There is the intellectual element of conviction, the emotional element of love, and the volitional element of obedience or surrender. Even in faith as receptive in accepting the proffered salvation, if salvation is to mean anything and to have power in one's life, the whole mind must function. We may not agree with Huxley in the first half of his statement, but we certainly should agree with the second half, when he said: "It does not take much of a man to be a Christian, but it does take the whole of him." DANIEL EVANS HARVARD THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLA MODERN DEFENSE OF CHRISTIANITY1 Dr. Macintosh's book has been awarded the third decennial prize on the Bross Foundation, which was established in 1879 at Lake Forest University for the purpose of encouraging the production of books or treatises "on the connection, relation, and mutual bearing of any practical science, the history of our race, or the facts in any department of knowledge, with and upon the Christian religion." The first decennial prize was awarded in 1905 to Professor James Orr for a treatise on "The Problem of the Old Testament"; the second in 1915 to Dr. Thomas J. Thorburn, whose subject was "The Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels"; the prize essay now before us is distinguished from the other two in being an apologetic of a philosophical character.The author frankly parts company at the outset with the traditional
of the recognized importance of the movement in France, that considerably more than half the space is given to that country alone. But the inclusion of over fifty pages of notes interchanged between the French government and the Papacy prior to the severing of negotiations in 1904 seems out of proportion. The states of the American Union are taken up in alphabetic order, and, with the Colonies prior to the Revolution, furnish about sixty pages. Iowa is uniformly spelled with a capital J. Nordamerika is for the author bounded by the forty-ninth parallel. Canadians will wonder whether the Swiss scholar shares a common Old-World notion that their country possesses an established church. It is hard to see how the omission of Czechoslovakia or even of post-war Germany can be justified on the author's own criteria.Over against these strictures it is to be recognized that we have here a valuable collection of original sources, and Herr Giacometti has earned the gratitude of students for putting in such convenient form these useful documents, many of which are not elsewhere easily available. With the help of the books listed in the work and of other standard treatises on the larger aspects of the subject, the collection might prove very useful as the basis for a seminar.
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