The Collapse of the Faith [pp. 339-360]

THtE COLLAPSE OF FAITH.
certain circumstances faith in Christ and in Christian truth may
increase in proportion as zeal for a system or a creed declines.
While it is certain that when faith in Christ declines or vanishes
faith in Christian creeds and theologies must go with it, the
converse is not necessarily true.
This increased catholicity, or it may be indifference, of
Christian believers in respect to theological definitions and controversies is not necessarily an indication of diminished loyalty
to Christian truth or to the great teacher of the Christian
church. It may, and to a large extent we think it does, arise
from a profounder reverence for his majesty, a more loving gratitude for his mercy, and a firmer faith in the power of his life and
death. The presence of these practical emotions may show that
the faith of the church is the more tenacious and fervent with
respect to what it holds just in proportion as it thinks less of
many of the propositions or catchwords which have been flaunted
so conspicuously on the banners of the church militant, or have
been shouted from the throats of its brazen-voiced leaders. It
does not necessarily follow because the five points of Calvinism
are made less of than formerly by those who call themselves Calvinists, or because the counter propositions of this or that
school of Arminians are less confidently asserted as containing
the last and best words of Christian truth, or because questions
of church organization or church millinery or church ritualism
are now esteemed of less vital importance than formerly-it does
not follow from all this that faith in whatever truth commends
God's authority or his love, or in the order and decency of worship as of supreme importance, is weaker now than it was two
generations ago. We ought to say more than this. We ought
positively to affirm what every enlightened philosopher or theologian knows and believes in his heart of hearts, that the methods of conceiving, stating, and defending theological truth have
immensely improved in the last two generations; that as
theology has become more modest and less dogmatical it has
become immeasurably more confident and strong; that what
it may have conceded as uncertain, and as possibly incapable of
positive definition or argument, has been more than supplied
by what it can affirm with augmented confidence and urge upon
the conscience and heart with fearless and rational positiveness.
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