Reason and Redemption [pp. 409-437]

410 REASON AND REDEMPTION. [July,
disposed to his conclusions. The mode of treatment is at once
popular and~houghtful, and the severity of logical analysis is
frequently relieved by picturesque description and happy ill ustration. Dr. White agrees with the great body of soberminded apologists in conceding that the supernatural doctrines
which lie at the:basis of our holy religion would have remained
unknown, had they not been suggested ab extra and by supernatural revelation:; but maintains that, when once thus sug
gested, they present in themselves and their "environment" a
problem which finds its solution only in the truth of the inspired oracles and the consequent divine origin of Christianity.
While meditating on the title of this book we have fallen on
a train of thought wholly disconnected from the particular argument unfolded in "Reason and Redemption," and which we
now proceed to lay before our readers. What we shall attempt
will be to show that the denial of Redemption involves in rigor
of logic a total surrender of the claims of Reason. It is hardly
necessary to set out with the statement that the facts and doctrines of Redemption may be said to constitute the core and
essence of the Christian system. We have thus undertaken to
point out that it is only by a renunciation of the claims of reason
that the so-called rationalism of infidelity can reject or question
the scheme of Christian Theism.
We presume it will be admitted on all hands that the body
of the Christian evidences furnishes a mass of proof as cogent
as any that can be adduced in support of any other proposition,
or series of propositions, whatever; unless we accept or establish the truth of certain fundamental assumptions, of which the
logical effect would be to impair or destroy the validity of the
whole apologetic argument. It follows, that if these assumptions are untenable, the apologetic argument stands upon a
secure foundation. The investigation of this one point is more
and more attracting the keenest interest and taxing the best
intellect of the present age.
It may be regarded, as a corollary of the proposition awhile
ago laid down, that none of the rival religions of mankind can
ever come into successful competition with Christianity. The
consideration of these may, therefore, be omitted in the discussion. The notorious exclusiveness of the claims of Christianity makes it evident, too, that those claims are not compati