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

PHILOSOPHY IN THE THEOLOGICAL CURRICULUM. I2I
ber that this world has been ruled by theistic conceptions. Its
literature has been written, its governments maintained, its
social institutions established, under the dominating influence
of this conception. If atheism is to succeed it has a great
revolution to accomplish. And there are sad indications that
the men who, like Professor Clifford, believe that the "great
companion is dead" already see the natural consequences of
their creed. They must reconstruct history and explain the
Bible according to the principles of naturalism. They must
have a system of criminal jurisprudence to match their automatism. They must take obligation out of ethics and say with
Bentham that the word ought ought not to be in the dictionary.
Life with them is the life that now is, and it is a question
whether it be worth living. The poor man will make the best
of this world, and as matters cannot be much worse he will take
the chances of socialism, nihilism, and regicide. The man of
learned leisure will look out of despairing eyes upon a worrd
that gives no pleasure and a future that has no hope. Pessimism will be his philosophy, consentaneous suicide his gospel of
peace for a suffering world, a "calculus of hedonics," to use Mr.
Sully's phrase, that shall assure him of a slight surplus of pleasure over pain, the one mitigating circumstance in the discomfort with which he looks upon the problem of life.
Theism on its philosophical side is a theory of the universe,
but on the side of our religious nature it is belief in a Being
whose personality is set over against our personality-a Being
upon whom we are dependent and to whom we are responsible.
It contains materials, therefore, that belong also to the department of the philosophy of religion; and yet the philosophy of
religion is a subject that especially at the present day deserves
separate treatment at least to the extent of what Pfleiderer
calls the psychology of religion. This is a question which the
evolutionists should not monopolize; for if religion is the fruit
of fear or superstition, or be a form of homage to dead ancestors, the religious feeling cannot be an ultimate fact in our
nature, and cannot be appealed to in support of doctrine. We
are interested as Christians in showing that these interpretations of religion are wrong. And conceding even that the