The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-12-31
VIRGIN BIRTH OF CHRIST
 DISCUSSED BY REV. WARE

at the evidence dispassionately. it becomes evident that the virgin birth is possible. but not certain. The Question.
 The only real question is, What degree of probability can be ascribed to the virgin birth?" The answer will depend upon the man. If he is of a mystical and emotional turn of mind. the virgin birth will seem very probable indeed. If he is constantly concerned with pure science, and in- clned to think scientifically" the virgin birth will seem very much less probable. For most of us the degree of probability will depend upon. our mood. When we come to some grand Christmas service, and are deeply moved by the lights and the music, when we mediate upon the grandeur of our Lords person. ality, upon His goodness, His sweet ness, His strength, His moral per- lection. His uniqueness, the virgin birth will seem very probable. But when we turn our minds to the doubts which scholarship suggests, and allow our critical faculties to predominate, we shall find the virgin birth hard to believe" In word, we tend to alternate between faith and doubt
 All this is only what everyone in the Episcopal church who makes any pretense to scholarship, whether he be conservative or radical, fundamen- talist or modernist, agrees in.
 We have now to study what it is which has caused the violent con troversies chronicled in he press.
 As l remarked two weeks ago, the unfortunate Dallas Pastoral of the house of bishops is very ambiguous. What 1t means to say, no one knows. What it seems to say is that the vir gin birth is a fact, both certain and necessary.
 In calling the virgin birth d, cer- tain fact, I do not suppose the bish- ops meant to fly in the face of facts and deny that there are capable scholars who have found reasons to doubt it. They probably meant that good scholars admit the possibility of the virgin birth, that they them selves ascribe to 1t high degree of probability; and that we must accept 1t as certain in view of the further fact that it is affirmed in both the Apostles and the Nicene creed What is in the creeds, the bishops pas toral seems to say. Is certain fact The Difference.
 Here is the first real difference between fundamentalists and the modernists in the Episcopal church. The fundamentalists hold that the two creeds. representing the mind of the undivided church, must be re- ceived as containing the certain truth which has been handed down from the beginning of Christianity. The modernists hold that these creeds were composed by councils of bishops sitting some hundreds of years after Jesus lived and that they
 
 TOT. The Bible contains mistakes; why should not the creeds? Are they inspired in a way that the Bible is not? Why should not men be free to inquire whether or not what the creeds say is true?
 Does being in the creeds make the virgin birth. or anything else certain regardless of the evidence of history? Are we free to inquire whether or not what is in the creeds is true? This Is the first ground of contro- versy between the fundamentalist and the modernist in the Episcopal church.
 The other question at issue is: "Is the virgin birth necessary Episcopal church holds that Jesus must have been born miraculously of the virgin since only so could He have been free from the taint or original sin. Man is, the fundamen- talist insists, "by nature born in sin and child of wrath" If Jesus had been born naturally He, like other men, must have inherited this cor rupt nature. Therefore what the scriptures and the creeds tell us or the virgin birth must be so. regard less of the evidence of history, since only so could Jesus have been per fectly holy.
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 But, asks the modernist, is hu- man nature thus vile and corrupt naturally? True, man inherits sim ful tendencies. But this by no means proves that human nature Is fallen and that man is incapable of turning toward God by his own powers. on the contrary the sinful tendencies which we inherit are largely defects in a nature which is in process or development from animality to spir- duality. Human nature, insists the modernist is not fallen from an orig inal perfection and vile, but holy, Tn that 1t is in process of becoming di- vine. Far from miracle being necessary in order that the divine might be made manifest in the hu- man, there is naturally divinity in human nature which fits 1t to be the vehicle of divine revelation.
 Further, asks the modernlst, II Jesus were virgin born, would He not have inherited a corrupt human ma ture from his mother? Or, are we, like the Roman Catholics, to invent another miracle, and assert that Mary also was born miraculously? And if the pious desire to protect Jesus from any possible taint of original sin, led to the invention of the mir acle of the immaculate conception, may not a similar desire in an earlier age have led to the insertion in the Bible of the account virgin birth? Far from the virgin birth being nee essary, it's supposed necessity makes it a little harder to believe it is not pious legend.
 Let me sum up.
 No one denies the virgin birth. On the basis of historical evidence 1t Is possible, but not certain. The only question is that of it's probability. This will vary with the nan and his mood.
 But there arises these two further questions.
 The creeds say Jesus was con ceived of the Holy Ghost and born Of the Virgin Mary. Do these credai statements make an otherwise un- certain doctrine certain?
 Is human nature so vile and cor rupt that the virgin birth was neces- sary. if Jesus were to be perfectly holy?
 O o O
 Churchmen's Union.
 The Modern Churchman's union, of which have been a member since its beginning, has no official teaching to which its men, bers assent. But they do not, as has been asserted so often. deny the virgin birth. They do deny that, because the virgin birth is in the creeds, therefore it Is cH tain. They do deny that God Co d not have become man except by b miraculous birth On the evidenc1