Rationalism

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

as a "system of belief regulated by reason," might be expected to mean the opposite of irrationality, crass ignorance, and perverse pretionalism would then judice; and the rationalism mean the progress of civilization, the development of the intellectual_and moral nature of men and nations. It is nearly in this sense that Lecky uses the word; attributing to its wholesome influence the decay of the belief in magic, witchcraft, and other hideous superstitions, and the substitution of a kindly tolerance in place of blind zeal for persecution. But in ordinary English usage, general as well as theological, the connotation of the word is substantially different. It is generally employed as a term of reproach for those who, without utterly denying or attempting to overthrow the foundations of religion, make such concessions to the enemy as tend to subvert the faith; who admit the thin end of a wedge that pressed home will rend and destroy the fabric. They rely, more or less exclusively and blameworthily, on mere human reason instead of simply, frankly, and fully accepting the dicta of the divine word. An atheist would not be spoken of as a rationalist, nor would an irreligious, blaspheming Rationalists in ordinary freethinker. parlance are those who are more "liberal" or "advanced" than the main body of the orthodox; in especial those who take a "low" view of inspiration, and minimize or explain away the miraculous details of the history of revelation and redemption. Rationalism is not SO much a body of doctrine as a mood of mind, a tendency of thought shown in the attempt to apply to religious doctrine, the sacred story, and the sacred Scriptures the same methods of research and proof as are used in mere human science and history, and the literatures of all times and peoples. This feature is also recognized, though with approval, by Lecky in his wid wider use of the word: "Rationalism," he says, "leads men on all occasions to subordinate dogmatic theology to the dictates of reason and It predisposes men conscience. in history to attribute all kinds of phenomena to natural rather than to miraculous causes; in theology to esteem succeeding religious systems the expression of the wants and aspirations of that religious sentiment which is implanted in man; and in ethics to regard as duties only those which conscience reveals to be such." Rationalism, not being a system but a temper or drift of mind, has different aims at different times; just as "liberalism" in politics was not the same thing before 1832 as it came to be after, or in 1832 what it was in 1867, 1885, or 1900. Opinions are heard in sermons and expounded in books by theological professors in 1902 without proving serious stumblingblocks to the majority, which in 1860 would by all but a small minority have been regarded as distinctly rationalistic. Thus, till lately it was alarming rati rationalism to dispute of Genesis, the the Mosaic author authorship the Song of Solomonic authorship orship of of Songs, and the Davidic authorship view any of the Psalms, now the newer teachers. is assumed by many orthodox And in the last quarter of the 19th century scholars earnestly supported views which they themselves treated as highly dangerous 20 or 30 years earlier. Rationalism of this kind is a transition a transition stage, but not necessarily to unbelief. The rationalistic temper may be traced his in almost every age of the Church's tory; no doubt the extremer representatives of the Petrine party in sub-aposas lax tolic times regarded Paul's views and rationalistic. If the Reformation was not rooted in rationalism (as to Catholics it seems to have been), many of the contentions of the reformers were such as all rationalists accept and sympathize with. Zwingli was a rationalist Socinus to Luther and the Lutherans; extreme was of course a rationalist of an type. The dry and barren dogmatic orthodoxy of Germany in the 17th century fostered a rationalism as cold and unthe 18th spiritual. In the England of century, during the deistic controversies, , the Evangelicals of Germany thought not altogether unjustly, that some of the of the deists most conspicuous opponents were not themselves free from the charge of rationalism; and the Evangelicals of Scotland regarded the "moderates" of the 18th century, however orthodox in dogma, as thoroughly rationso alistic in spirit. Rationalism is not much opposed to orthodoxy as to the mysticism, and what was called variflyously fanaticism, enthusiasm, "highing," and methodism. A soulless orthodoxy has not seldom been opposed by a fervent piety that by a not unnatural heretantithesis has tended to run into ical extremes; while, on the other hand, been foreactual rationalists have often most among the champions of religion, and of revealed religion, against radical freethinking, deism, naturalism, and materialism. In Germany the term rationalism is more definite in its reference than in England, but is not always used in quite the same sense. The two defective and mutually opposed schools of thought that Kant sought to supersede by his critical philosophy were, on the one hand, a shala low empiricism, and on the other, baseless and overweening metaphysical dogmatism or rationalism. Bacon also contrasted empirical philosophers with rationalists who spin their systems as spiders do cobwebs, out of their own con- Wolff presents the most bowels. spicuous example of the philosophical held that all that is rationalism which could in heaven above and earth beneath be "proved" by pseudo-mathematical , and methods; and as God, responsibility things that immortality were among the and in could be proved at endless length various ways, this philosophical rationthealism led directly up to a rationalist series ology, which consisted mainly in a of dogmas to be demonstrated from the some at philosophical axioms, including revealed relileast of the doctrines of gion. What in revelation could not be scheme demonstrated according to this away. was disallowed or explained in the Auf- Practical religion became, utilitarian klärung, a system of mere morals. Kant prepared the way for a deeper view of man, history, and the universe; but his own explicit statements on positive religion were pronouncedly rationhis philalistic; and the negative side of osophy was well calculated to lay the theofoundations of another school of logical rationalists (often called vulgar rationalism), of whom Tieftrunk (died 1837), Bretschneider (1776-1848), and be taken Wegscheider (1771-1849) may as representatives. De Wette (1780- 1849) shows the transition to Schleiermacher, who (though in the English was an outspoken sense of the word he in rationalist) combined what was best the opposing schools of rationalists and supernaturalists, founded a higher and truer religious philosophy, and heralded medieven the "pectoral theology" of the ation school. But it was not in the sphere of speculation and dogma, but in that of Biblical criticism, that German rationalism accomplished its main work, and left its deepest mark on subsequent theological development. In the early 18th century sadly to the "Germans in Greek were seek," as English scholars thought; Ger study mans themselves admitted that in . ing the Scriptures they failed to escape from dogmatic presuppositions, and that approachit was the English divines who historical ed the New Testament in a spirit, which in the Germany of that day that caused misgivings. It is noteworthy Semler (1725-1791), "the father of rationalism," obtained the doctorate for a , thesis written against Whiston, Bentley and other English scholars in defense of the "three heavenly witnesses" of I John, , supported by v: 7. Semler in the schools Lessing and Herder in literature, was of the soon teaching that the books Bible must be studied as human producthoroughly tions: Eichhorn (1752-1827) accepted and applied that principle. Rationalist criticism was carried to an absurd length by Paulus (1761-1851), who taught that the Gospels contained natural and not supernatural events, and whose most ingenious but inept "explanations" of the miracles of the New Testament, "retaining everywhere the husk but surrendering the religious kernel," were made a laughingstock by Strauss. Strauss' "mythical theory" (excessively rationalist in the English sense of the term) was in its turn superseded by Baur, and the new Tübingen school, whose epoch-making work marks the opening of the most recent period in Scriptural criticism. The "notes" of the newer criticism, whether more or less rationalist from the older English point of view, are the conviction that all truth is one, whether derived from the natural sciences, historical research, the dictates of conscience, or the records of divine revelation, and the willingness to accept established by the what is apparently consensus of scholars even where this involves giving up the belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. Many of the contentions of self-confident and aggressive rationalism have long since mutually destroyed one another. Nothing can be more contrary to the true historic and scientific spirit than the assumptions of a reckless sciolism: there is a false and a true rationalism; and it should be remembered that much that is now most surely believed by all has at one time or another been branded as rationalistic.