The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-09-14
WHAT THINK YE OF OHRBT7*
BY REV. T. E. BALLARD.

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question has signaled the division of
intellectual forces. Primarily the
contest was between those within the
church and those on the outside. One
class of thinkers asserted, in some
form or other, the divinity of Jesus,
and that this divinity was attested by
the working of miracles and by his
own bodily resurrection from the
dead. The other class have uniform
ly contended that, at the most, Jesus
could not have been more than an
exceedingly good man and wise
teacher, and that nothing miraculous
actually pertained to either his birth,
life or death. Very recently, the
arena of this controversy has been
changed from without to within the
church, the issue remaining substan
TALLY the same. A class of religious
teachers, who have assumed the title
of higher critics, now contend that
belief in Jesus as one specially sent
of God, with authority attested by
the exercise of such power as only
God can exercise, including his bodily
resurrection from the dead, is not
essential to Christian faith, and is
not true. The intelligence, scholar
ship and piety of these teachers rend
ers the discussion of this subject of
far more Importance than ever before.
If they are right, Christianity must
be revolutionized and put upon an
entirely new foundation. They say
that when this is done, we will have
a better Christianity than ever before;
while the conservatives say that it
shall not be done, and that any at
tempt to do it is destructive of Chris
tianity itself. The issue is formed
and the contest is inevitable. 1t is
not contest between prejudice and
learning, but between the school of
Faith and the school of Philosophy.
Faith says God has spoken to the
world through Jesus, and has con
clusively attested the authority of the
messenger by specially giving him
the power to work miracles, and by
his bodily resurrection from the grave.
Philosophy says that any bodily res
direction from the grave is not scien-
tifc, and that the working of miracles
is not in accordance with the laws of
nature, as those laws are known and
understood; therefore, Jesus neither
rose from the grave nor worked mira
Giles. The weakness of this argument
lies in the assumption that Philoso.
ply knows what is scientific, and un-
derstands perfectly all the laws of
nature.
Admitting that God is self existing
without beginning, and that he ere
ated all life and is the unaided au
thor of all the phenomena and laws
with which science can possibly ever
become acquainted, and that he still
fills the universe with his thoughts
and power, what is there unscientifc
in his restoring life to dead body,
when by so doing he can fill sinful
and warning world with the righteous
ness and peace of his own being9
God might have moved the world
heavenward by other means, but he
has seen fit to do it by means of a
resurrected and miracle working
Christ. Substantially all that has
been accomplished in the name of
Christ has been done solely upon the
theory of the supernatural in his re-
ligion.
It is insisted that the industry of
modern scholarship has discovered
new facts which throw food of light
upon the pages whereon is recorded
the life of Christ. In answer to this,
it is encouraging to note that the
school of Faith has become school
of facts, and says-bring in your new
facts at once and let us have the ben
eft of the new light. When our
brethren of the higher critic school
are pressed upon this point, instead
of promptly producing the new facts
for an examination, they tell us that
we have been reading the Scriptures
wrong; that the supernatural which
we see in Jesus has no foundation in
the Scriptures; that they believe the
Scriptures but not the miracles. In
answer to this we say, come and let
us reason together about the Script
ures.
Suppose we take the accounts given
by the four Gospels of the resurrec-
ton of Jesus. They all agree that
he was actually dead and buried, and
that the same Jesus that was dead
and buried actually arose out of the
grave and lived on earth. To me be-
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