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Continuing
LEHRE UND WEHRE
MAGAZIN FUER Ev.·LuTH. HOMILETIK
THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY.THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
Vol. XII March, 1941 No.3
CONTENTS Page
" "---- 161 The Altenburg Debate. P. E. I{l'eiznunm _"" ______ " ___ _
Making the Sermon Interesting. John H. C. Fritz ___ "_""_" _______ """ _________ "" 173
The Resurrection of Saints at the Death of Christ. Martin Graebner 182
New Validations of Theism. Theodore Graebner '"" ______ """" __________ " __________ 188
Outlines Oil the WUcrttembel'g Gospel Selections _""""_, ______ , ____ " ___ " ____ 195
Misccllauea _____ """" ____ """"_"_" ___ " ____ " ____________________________ " __ ~ _____________________ .. " ____________ 207
Theological Observer. - Kirchlich-Zeitgcschichtliches " ___________ " _______ 219
Book Review. - LiteI'atul' ___ "" _____ , ___ .. ____________________________________ "" ________________ "" _________ 233
Ein Prediger muss nicht allein wet-
den, also dass er die Schafe unter-
weise, wie sie rechte Christen sollen
sein, sondern ouch daneben den Woel-
fen wel.ren, dass sie die Schafe nlcht
angreifen und mit falscher Lehre ver-
fuehren und Irrtum elnfuehren.
Luther
Es 1st kein Ding, das die Leute
mehr bei der Klrche behaelt denn
die gute Predlgt. - AplIlogie, Art. 24
If the trumpet give an uncertain
sound, who shall prepare himself to
the battle? -1 Cor, 14:8
Published for the
Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States
CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, St, Louis, Mo.
188 New Validations of Theism
New Validations of Theism
The age-old problem of the rational proofs for the existence
a God has been given prominence in recent philosophical literature ..
The subject has long been in abeyance, and, in general, interest in
philosophical theism has been on the wane ever since the tradi_
tional evidences were subjected to the devastating scrutiny of
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Only in Roman Catholic hand_
books of systematic theology and of metaphysics the time-honored
arguments for the existence of God are submitted as scientifically
valid. Revival of interest in the subject is chiefly due to contribu-
tions of certain English philosophers to the discussion of natural
theism. Among these the works of Dr. F. R. Tennant, Cambridge
theologian, have aroused considerable discussion.
Dr. Tennant published a volume of lectures in 1902 under the
title The 01'igin and Propagation of Sin, and another, entitled The
Sources of the Doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin, soon after.
Among his important later essays were The Being of God in the
Light of Physical Science (1905), and his Philosophical Theology
(1928 and 1930) and Philosophy of the Sciences (1932) exhibited
vast learning and called forth many articles in endorsement and in
criticism. The latest contribution to the subject is a volume by
Delton Lewis Scudder, Ph. D., entitled Tennant's Philosophical
Theology, and published by the Yale University Press last year.
While our present study is not a complete summary of the argu-
ments either of Dr. Tennant or of his American critic, the analysis
of Tennant's argumentation by Mr. Scudder supplied the ground-
work for the following discussion.
Modern interest in the proofs for the validation of the concept
of God is chiefly apologetic. In one of the chapters of Philosophical
Theology, Tennant expresses deep concern for the fact that circles
of educated people are alienated from the Church and from re-
ligious faith. Because much of the doctrinal teaching of the Church
"cannot be assimilated by the modern mind"; because "everywhere
the suspicion is abroad that religious faith starts somewhere in the
air and is wholly distinct, not only in degree but also in kind, from
knowledge," -for these and other reasons liberal thinkers have
been led silently to ignore the truth of religious tenets, and the
Church's ministration comes to be concerned with the half educated.
Tennant particularly finds cause for this tendency in the claim
which has been made for religious belief as being derived from
"specific emotions or instincts" or from "non-reasonable, immediate,
religious experience." The entire argument of Tennant's later
works is directed against this position. Unless we give up the
notion, he argues, that religion is to be explained only by a natural
New Validations of Theism 189
mystic religious experience, we have nothing to
as an answer to the representatives of science. Scientists
have taken the position that there are two fields of knowl-
in which they could become interested. The one is the great
of knowledge based on observed facts or data, enriched by
rendered possible by the application of mathematics and
all the unconditional certainty or necessity which be-
to the pure sciences, such as mathematics. The second is the
of "possible knowledge" awaiting invasion and annexation
further application of the method of positive science; this is the
of scientific research. But distinguished sharply from both
these there is "a dreamland of unproven and unprovable the-
in which the theologians are laboring. It was from this
AnlW81cn that Professor Tennant tried to save the rational approach
the belief in a God.
The new apologetics lays heavy stress on the faith element in
It purposes to show that the particular faith-venture
which is theological belief is really not different in kind from the
faith which scientific knowledge assumes. Naturally, the term
"faith" is here used in the sense of trust, a trust not based on
a reasoning process or on observation. For instance, consider such
generalizations of science as the law of cause and effect. In this
principle, that every event has a cause, several postulates are con-
cealed which "are neither self-evident nor mutually independent,
nor are they capable of complete proof or disproof by experience."
Then there is the principle of uniformity of nature. These prin-
ciples are simply taken for granted by science; they are taken on
faith. Tennant points out that it is gross dogmatism to insist that
materialistic mechanism is the only concept which explains what
we call the uniformity of nature; it may be the result of divine will
ordering the world according to some end. "But," continues the
argument, as restated by Scudder, "if science is not certain knowl-
edge but a matter of faith and probability, faith entering into the
very foundation of its so-called facts and pervading its entire gen-
eralizations, then it may be that the theistic explanation is not
essentially different in type but only in degree from those theo-
retical and reasonable conceptions which are scientific." 1) And
1) Tennant's Philsophical Theology, p.35. Compare also Hastings,
The Clwistian Doctrine of Faith, p. 94: "Before science can proceed to
investigate a single question, she must make a number of pure acts of
faith. She must make, for example, (1) an act of faith in the trust-
worthiness of human reason, that is, in its ability to lead the inquirer
to true conclusions; (2) an act of faith in the trustworthiness of human
memory, for unless memory is trustworthy, it is impossible either to
amass facts or to construct a chain of arguments; (3) an act of faith
in the trustworthiness of the senses, for unless the senses can be trusted,
knowledge of the external world is impossible; (4) an act of faith in a
190 New Validations of Theism
so it is with the assumption of a world made up simply of dead
atoms, without any spiritual force permeating the universe. Ten-
nant "does not think that science can deny the possibility of their
being self-active living monads any more than it can state dog-
matically that they are microscopic units characterized by inertia
and operating according to impressed forces. The entire operating
ground-plan of metaphysical nature may be quite as well conceived
as moved in process by a supreme end held in view by a world-
mind as by a conception of mechanical action." 2) The burden of
Tennant's analysis of scientific knowledge is to show that no scien-
tific proposition is absolutely certain or true,' for scientific con-
ceptions, facts, and generalizations are all derived from an inter-
pretation of a non-logical "given" element in sense perception.
Of this reality which is presented in sense-experience for concep-
tual interpretation by the mind, "the scientist can have only
probable truth. Propositions about reality are never self-evident
but only relatively evident or probably certain. They depend
objectively upon the control of sense-given data and subjectively
upon a volitional faith or trust in the applicability or correspon-
dence of the mind's creative interpretation to external reality."
The argument against makirig a fundamental distinction be-
tween science and religion is summed up with great force by
Dr. Scudder as follows: "An unprovable assumption undergirds all
scientific endeavor; namely, the assumption that nature is uniform,
its sequences regular and repetitious, and, in spite of appearances,
its regularities discoverable. Certainly this assumption that nature
is orderly and intelligible throughout is not given in anyone bit of
experience. No one has examined nature as a whole to know
whether or not uniformity prevails throughout the universe. Fur-
thermore, there are signs of genuine indeterminacy in physical
theories of nature which mayor may not be assignable to uniform
sequence. This assumption, that nature is orderly, goes far beyond
number of unprovable principles, generally summed up in the phrase
'the uniformity of nature.' All these propositions are assented to by
acts of faith of the most absolute kind. They are not only not proved
by science but never can be proved." Albert Einstein, discussing his
"cosmic religion," has said: "There is no doubt that all but the crudest
scientific work is based on a firm belief - akin to religious feeling-
in the rationality and comprehensibility of the world." And in a New
York Times Magazine article: "What a deep faith in the rationality of
the structure of the world and what a longing to understand even a
small glimpse of the reason revealed in the world there must have been
in Kepler and Newton to enable them to unravel the mechanism of the
heavens in long years of lonely work!" It is clear that Einstein, like
all great scientific workers, is deeply imbued with the sense that in
reading the fragments of the universe that are intelligible to him, he is
deciphering meaningful symbols and catching glimpses of the operation
C'f a universal rationality immeasurably greater than man's.
2) Op. cit., p. 52.
New Validations of Theism 191
experience. To the naturalist it cannot be derived from a-p1'iori
factors in mind. To such a person it is a pure act of will based per-
haps upon the desire to discover or to explain facts according to the
causal sequences and upon the practical need to know such
sequences in order to predict future events from observed condi-
tions. This situation gives the lie to any assertion that science is
free from ?ssumption and from human interest. As a matter of
fact, science is based upon both faith and human needs. Naturalism
is unable to prove its claim to absolute certainty and absolute dis-
interestedness." fi)
The reader will observe that both Tennant and his American
interpreter ignore the principle of authority in religion as dis-
tinguished from the rational principle governing science. And this
is the weakness of the new apologetics. The authOl;ty of Scripture
is scrapped at the outset and religion made to stand for its vindi-
cation on a process of reasoning. Reason, to Tennant as to the
Deists, - though Tennant's understanding of reason differs from
that of the Deists, - "is to be the sole instrument for the acquisi-
tion, appropriation, and judging of truth in religion as in any other
field of thought." 4) He goes so far as to say that the truth of
religious belief can be established only by philosophical arguments
which exclude the data of religious experience. Scudder defmes
Tennant's position as follows: "Reason is the sole judge of truth in
religion because Reason constructs the idea of God by a complex
process of synthesizing inferences from empirical facts of the
natural world." 5) In other words, science is first. Religion arises
by reflection upon the facts ascertained by science. If the resulting
conclusion of this reflection is "demonstrated" to be valid on the
grounds of a "probability," which is not different in kind but only
in degree from that lmderlying the concepts of scientific fact and
theory, then the central object of religion is validated.
Now, even from the standpoint of philosophy this is a very
hazardous position, and Scudder has every good reason on his side
when he says that from a contemplation of nature as it is inter-
preted by physics and chemistry, astronomy, biology, etc., "it is
impossible to rise to valid thought and experience of God by way
of inferences from such data." G) It is not possible to develop re-
ligious ideas out of the facts of scientific research. Scientific theo-
ries and interpretations "may lead to a discovery of new facts, but
these new facts are always of the same general order as those which
suggested the hypothesis. Inferences from sensa may lead to a dis-
covery of new sensa but never to underlying active causes. In-
3) Op. cit., p. 228. 5) Op. cit., p. 88.
4) Scudder, op. cit., p.28. 6) Op. cit., p. 98.
192 New Validations of Theism
ferences from bodies may lead to a discovery of more facts about
bodies but not to discovery of other mind."7l In other words,
religion cannot be validated by reasoning out the existence of
a God and His attributes from a study of the phenomena and laws
of so-called nature.B) The modern deism has no more rational
merit than the deism of the early British freethinkers, against which
Kant directed his criticism in the chapter on the "Antimonies of
Reason."
With reference to the appeal of theologians to rational proofs of
God's existence Scudder quotes Rees Griffiths \) as follows:
"The ideal-construction theory of religion makes much USe of the
theistic proofs. Time was when the philosophy of religion was com-
prised in an examination of such proofs. The certitude of faith was
taken to depend, in the last resort, on rational arguments that could
be considered valid on philosophical grounds. This natural inclination
to resort to such proofs is evidence that underlying this view of religion
there lurks an implied belief that the nature of religious faith is govemed
by the same logic as that employed in the proofs themselves. The
proofs are taken and used as if they were a more explicit application of
the categories that are involved in the religious attitude to the world and
life. This, I would urge, is a perfectly unwarranted assumption. Though
the arguments which produce the proofs may all be legitimate and help-
ful, constituting an effective defense of faith's citadel, they certainly do
not provide a complete and satisfactory vindication of faith. Few indeed
would claim perfect cogency for any of them."
In his discussion of Tennant, Dr. Scudder takes up the protest
of Tennant against deriving assurance in religious belief from the
data of religious experience. By this is meant the immediate,
mysticaJ apprehension of God. Scudder suggests that there are two
difficulties involved in this line of proof. In the first place, the
mystic does not experience any other type of God-concept than the
one which he has acquired from tradition 01' authority before his
experience. That is to say, the Christian mystic experiences Christ,
God, 01' the Trinity but never Mohammed, Buddha, Brahma, or
Nirvana. He experiences what he thinks, i. e., his particular con-
cept of religious reality. In the second place, who is to distinguish
absolutely "valid" from a "fallacious" religious cxperience? - a line
of thought which is not, however, given sufficient attention by
Dr. Scudder in his further discussion. His argument finally resolves
itself into acceptance of certain evidences of design in natuj'e, which
demand a "cosmic" explanation, that is to say, make belief in the
existence of a Supreme Being unescapable.
He notes first of all the fact that nature is adapted to human
thought and reason. Study nature closely, and it becomes a me-
dium through which thought and meaning are conveyed to the
7) Op. cit., p.130.
8) This may be accepted without in any way weakening the cos-
mological argument suggested by Rom. 1: 18 fl.
9) God in Idea and Expel'ience, pp. 66, 67.
New Validations of Theism 193
human mind. "It is as if nature itself sought to convey thoughts
which are first entertained in a mind within nature." To assume
that behind it all is a mindless mechanism is too strong a burden
on skepticism. Nature plainly exhibits the powers of intelligence.
Next in order is the marvelous adaptation of the cosmic en-
vironment to living organisms. "Out of countless possible elements
and distributions just certain elements (carbon, hydrogen, and
Oxygen) in sufficient quantities and temperatures were selected to
compose an environment in which living organisms can dwell. The
selection may have been the outcome of chance or of unconscious
purpose, but to the theist the collocations are too complex, unusual,
and intricate to be the outcome of chance."
In the evolution of organisms from lower to higher types
Scudder finds a further validation of purpose since pure chance
could not have made the organisms differ according to such pre-
arranged order and plan. Other arguments are deduced, also in-
volving purpose, from esthetics and ethics, concerning which
Scudder asks; "Whence come these standards which individual
minds do not create out of themselves alone, but which they recog-
nize through their judgments and realize in conduct?"
And so we reach the conclusion that "theism comes to be a
more reasonable world-explanation than mechanism, chance, or
unconscious purpose." 10)
The details of the validation of theism from the standpoint of
the contemplation of purpose in nature - the "visible things" in
which man may contemplate certain attributes of the invisible God,
Rom. 1: 18 ft. are supplied by such handbooks of the philosophy of
science as Bernard Bavink's The NattLmL Sciences (Century Press,
1936) and Ronald Campbell Macfie's Science Rediscovers God, or
The Theodicy of Science (Edinburgh: R. & T. Clark, 1930). Macfie's
is the more popular presentation. He emphasizes the marvelous
adaptation observable in organic life and in the relations of the
organic to the inorganic. In each phenomenon of life, he says,
"there occur apparently purposive reorientations and rearrange-
ments of structural units which are never seen in any chemical
mixtures or compounds and which cannot be explained by chem-
istry or physics. I refer to processes of growth, of repair, of loco-
motion, and reproduction. All these processes display a wonderful
versatility and a wonderful adaptation of means to ends. Cells that
never did such a thing in their lives before reconstruct organs and
tissues according to correct plan and, if the old way of reconstruc-
tion be debarred, even invent new ways of reconstruction." 11) Re-
garding man and his environment he says that they fit together as
10) Op. cit" p. 247.
13
11) Op. cit., p.70.
194 New Validations of Theism
accurately as a million keys and a million keyholes
slightest alteration in a single key or keyhole would '
possible to unlock all the gates of life, at least as
Regarding the evidence of intelligence in the
nature, Macfie says: "I can, with some difficulty,
who had never before seen a typewriter finding one on
and saying, 'It is a very wonderful machine, and the
marvelously well together and work well together, but
evidence of intelligence in it, all the same,' but I
understand how any rational man finding beside the
a beautiful type-written poem could still maintain that
no intelligent purpose behind the machine. Personally,
imagine nothing more certain, more scientifically and
tain, than that no casual variation could have possibly
apparatus of vision in its multiform relationships, and the
ritions in consciousness associated with the apparatus."
ingly he holds that evolution by casual variation and
an altogether unreasonable assumption.
Or consider the larger coordinations and adaptations:
activating correspondence between sun, ether waves, and
plasm; the synthesizing correspondence between chlorophyll,
light, and starch; the chemical correspondence between
ferments and foods; the mechanical and chemical cOJrrE~sponde!nc
between red blood cells, the blood, the heart, the air, were
necessary to lead to the correspondence between the electrons of
cells of sight and the ether waves of light resulting in sight. A
clysm, a sun, a planet, volcanoes, clouds, rivers, plant cells,
germ cells, red blood cells, digestive cells, eyelids, eyelashes,
mal glands, ether waves of certain lengths, are all in relation
correspondence with the visual cells of the brain and all ,.." .... n.'.,,"
in the final visual epiphany." 12) The deeper we delve into
secrets of the universe, the more evidence that a grand teleology
runs through the whole. The entire existence of the animal and
plant kingdoms depends on ingenious contrivances and on elements
and parts that fit together as purposively and precisely as a million
locks and a million keys. And this evidence has become so over-
whelming, says Macfie, "we are compelled to postulate a Maker's
mind to account for the rational world, even as we are compelled
to postulate an author's mind to account for rational words." 13)
12) Op. cit., p.137.
13) Op. cit., p. 261. Even with his own rudimentary knowledge of
the universe, Francis Bacon was led to exclaim: "Certainly a little phi-
losophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but 'depth' in philosophy
bringeth man about to religion; for when the mind of man looketh upon
secondary causes scattered, sometimes it resteth in them; but when it
beholdeth them confederate and knit together, it flieth to providence
and Deity."
195
insistence on reason may yield
God, devoid of religious significance, and
experience for the demonstration of
of the question and is veiled in many
the impossibility to distinguish between
experiences, there is accumulating a great
the constitution of matter and the phenomena
the student of science to acknowledge the
Being, the Creator of all things. For the
there is a validation higher than that of any
He knows God not only as the Absolute but
Lord Jesus Christ, and that by an inner wit-
comes with an assurance given by the Holy
witness with our spirit that we are the children
8: 16. THEODORE GRAEBNER
-HI.