The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-10-16
The Real Cause OF the Prevailing
lnfidelity.

| Ut. PATTON, Ia his ADDRESS aG MS IN
stallstion as president of the Princeton
Theological Seminary, on Wednesday,
again went to the root of the matter Of
the Christian religion. Eliminate the
Incarnation, he said, and you have left
only an emotional morality, associated
with the name of JESUS. In its last
analysis. it is not religion, but "a moral
philosophy in competition with other
moral PHILOSOPHERS. and defended by
atheistic metaphysics that has TO cope
with another metaphysics which denies
GoD'
The question of education. with or
without religion, is under discussion by
many Of our correspondents. and in
England, in France, and very generally
throughout Chvistendom, it is receiving
foremost confederation from many Of the
best minds Of this time. The religious
theory, az expressed by Roman Catho-
lies, more particularly, is that the
contemporary tendency to infdelity Is
due to the divorce Of religion from edu-
| cation, and especially from the ele-
mentary education Of children. Our
public schools, according to their argu-
ment, are spreading an infidelity of
| which the consequences to society In
the destruction Of the religious incentives
to morality and obedience to law will
be terrible.
The forces which are working most
efficiently for the stimulation of religious
unbelief, however, are not in the school
system. Neither are they in any avowed
infdel propaganda. They come rather
from the camp Of professed and COM
missioned defenders Of religious faith.
In very large part of our theological
seminaries there is diffllsed spirit of
criticism which undermines and destroys
religious faith. 1t is also active in the
pulpits Of the new theology, and gen.
, orally they are the most eloquent or. at
least, the most successful in attracting
listeners. To that theology the Bible is
only literature, in which is expressed
the profoundly religious sentiment Of
the Jewish nation Of the Old DISPENSE
ton. The Prophets were merely wise and
far-seeing men, men Of genius, who dis
cerned the consequences which must
come from tenden cies Of their time, with
out other illumination than their natural
perception. The miracles of the Bible, OF
the Old Testament and the New Testa-
ment, are mythical not actual happen
ings, but visions, figuratve and sym
bolio. To the Incarnation, the Virgin
Birth, is given a metaphysical explana-
ton purely which denies it as an histori-
cal fact and relegates it to the domain
Of mythology, as a poetic imagining
which, with the license of poetry, defies
possibility and outrages natural and ir-
reversible scientific law.
Such Ia the new theology 40 popu-
lar at this time in both pulpit and pew.
1t takes away from religion all super
natural basis and. as DR.. PATTON says,
the residuum is only moral philosophy.
OF course, that is all nfdelity has ever
contended for
The Incarnation passes from fact into
the realm Of the poetic imagination, and
Christianity becomes m oral philosophy
of merely human Origination, and there
fore debatable on it's merits Criticism
repla ces faith. With all dogmatic All
thority discarded as an exploded super
stition. there succeeds an analytic and
comparative examination from which
Christianity energies with flaws in ts
philosophic system exposed by many
critics. Inquest il il open TO
such criticism if it il measurable m sim
ply u construction OF the human intellect
and moral sense. Perfection can be pred
icated Of no work Of mortal man. If
Christianity il rot Of COP, il the Incarna-
ton WAS not fact but only q poetic
picture, it cannot properly be approached
in spirit Of devout faith but must be
regarded in IA spirit Of unprecedented
criticism.
That il, the new theology" reIegates
Christianity ~ a religion TO the domain
Of superstition. TO the category in which
belong the mythologies and PHILOSOPHERS
| Of paganism. II gives up the whole case
! Of religion and goes over to the side Of
ipfdeity.
There, good friends who are writing
to us so voluminously on the question Of
] religion, is the seat from which springs