The Place of Philosophy in the Theological Curriculum [pp. 103-124]

PHIL 0 SOPH Y IN THE THE OL~ 0 GIC L CURRICULUM. I I 9
struggled for expression, until in thinking, praying man it comes
to recognize itself; when the individual self, the self of analysis,
reaches out unto and realizes the universal self, the self of synthesis,-it does not save me from the disastrous consequences of
such a faith to be reminded, as I am reminded by Mr. Wallace,
that this philosophy is a theology throughout. It makes no
difference how my personality is obliterated, whether by pantheism or materialism, the effect is just the same. And when it
comes to the question whether Christian life shall be strangled
by the python of Hegelianism or the python of positive philosophy there is but little to choose.
A valid defence of Christianity must be a defence of knowledge as knowledge. It is bad enough to offer us an unauthorized
faith, but it is worse to give us our choice, as Mr. Balfour does,
between two inevitable doubts. No service is rendered either
science or religion by an attempt to show that there is no valid
reason for either, but that we are free to hold to them through
what he calls the "practical need of both." This, however, is a
large subject, and its development would involve not only the
discussion of fundamental truth, but also the processes of proof;
the laws of evidence; the province of analogy; the influence of
authority; the ethics of belief; the distinction between probability and certitude, and the place of both in religion. In short,
it would be the logic of theology. Next in logical order would
come the discussion of theism; and we need not say how much
interest centres here. The constructive side of the theistic discussion has lost none of its importance in recent years; for while
mere illustrations of design in nature cannot be said to meet
the exigencies of current debate, the discussion of the teleological principle is becoming more and more important. And when
we find men admitting the teleological principle, but denying
the theistic conclusion to which it logically leads, it is impossible
to avoid the feeling that their anti-theistic utterances are after
all important concessions to the theistic position. But antitheistic literature abounds in these concessions, and when we
read of Matthew Arnold's "Stream of Tendency," Spencer's
"Unknowable," Schopenhauer's "World as Will," and Hartmann's elaborate defence of finality as the product of uncon