An Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant | Page 2

of all relations of the life of man,
which once seemed possible to Renaissance and Reformation, was postponed to a much
later date. When it did take place, it was under far different auspices.
There is a remarkable unity in the history of Protestant thought in the period from the
Reformation to the end of the eighteenth century. There is a still more surprising unity of
Protestant thought in this period with the thought of the mediæval and ancient Church.
The basis and methods are the same. Upon many points the conclusions are identical.
There was nothing of which the Protestant scholastics were more proud than of their
agreement with the Fathers of the early Church. They did not perceive in how large
degree they were at one with Christian thinkers of the Roman communion as well. Few
seem to have realised how largely Catholic in principle Protestant thought has been. The
fundamental principles at the basis of the reasoning have been the same. The notions of
revelation and inspiration were identical. The idea of authority was common to both, only
the instance in which that authority is lodged was different. The thoughts of God and man,
of the world, of creation, of providence and prayer, of the nature and means of salvation,
are similar. Newman was right in discovering that from the first he had thought, only and
always, in what he called Catholic terms. It was veiled from him that many of those who
ardently opposed him thought in those same terms.
It is impossible to write upon the theme which this book sets itself without using the
terms Catholic and Protestant in the conventional sense. The words stand for certain
historic magnitudes. It is equally impossible to conceal from ourselves how misleading
the language often is. The line between that which has been happily called the religion of
authority and the religion of the spirit does not run between Catholic and Protestant. It
runs through the middle of many Protestant bodies, through the border only of some, and
who will say that the Roman Church knows nothing of this contrast? The sole use of
recurrence here to the historic distinction is to emphasise the fact that this distinction
stands for less than has commonly been supposed. In a large way the history of Christian
thought, from earliest times to the end of the eighteenth century, presents a very striking
unity.
In contrast with this, that modern reflection which has taken the phenomenon known as
religion and, specifically, that historic form of religion known as Christianity, as its
object, has indeed also slowly revealed the fact that it is in possession of certain
principles. Furthermore, these principles, as they have emerged, have been felt to be new
and distinctive principles. They are essentially modern principles. They are the principles
which, taken together, differentiate the thinker of the nineteenth century from all who
have ever been before him. They are principles which unite all thinkers at the end of the
nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, in practically every portion of the
world, as they think of all subjects except religion. It comes more and more to be felt that
these principles must be reckoned with in our thought concerning religion as well.
One of these principles is, for example, that of dealing in true critical fashion with
problems of history and literature. Long before the end of the age of rationalism, this

principle had been applied to literature and history, other than those called sacred. The
thorough going application of this scientific method to the literatures and history of the
Old and New Testaments is almost wholly an achievement of the nineteenth century. It
has completely altered the view of revelation and inspiration. The altered view of the
nature of the documents of revelation has had immeasurable consequences for dogma.
Another of these elements is the new view of nature and of man's relation to nature.
Certain notable discoveries in physics and astronomy had proved possible of combination
with traditional religion, as in the case of Newton. Or again, they had proved impossible
of combination with any religion, as in the case of Laplace. The review of the religious
and Christian problem in the light of the ever increasing volume of scientific
discoveries--this is the new thing in the period which we have undertaken to describe. A
theory of nature as a totality, in which man, not merely as physical, but even also as
social and moral and religious being, has place in a series which suggests no break, has
affected the doctrines of God and of man in a way which neither those who revered nor
those who repudiated religion at the beginning of the nineteenth century could have
imagined.
Another leading principle grows out of