An Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant | Page 3

Kant's distinction of two worlds and two orders of
reason. That distinction issued in a new theory of knowledge. It laid a new foundation for
an idealistic construing of the universe. In one way it was the answer of a profoundly
religious nature to the triviality and effrontery into which the great rationalistic
movement had run out. By it the philosopher gave standing forever to much that prophets
and mystics in every age had felt to be true, yet had never been able to prove by any
method which the ordered reasoning of man had provided. Religion as feeling regained
its place. Ethics was set once more in the light of the eternal. The soul of man became the
object of a scientific study.
There have been thus indicated three, at least, of the larger factors which enter into an
interpretation of Christianity which may fairly be said to be new in the nineteenth century.
They are new in a sense in which the intellectual elements entering into the
reconsideration of Christianity in the age of the Reformation were not new. They are
characteristic of the nineteenth century. They would naturally issue in an interpretation of
Christianity in the general context of the life and thought of that century. The
philosophical revolution inaugurated by Kant, with the general drift toward monism in
the interpretation of the universe, separates from their forebears men who have lived
since Kant, by a greater interval than that which divided Kant from Plato. The
evolutionary view of nature, as developed from Schelling and Comte through Darwin to
Bergson, divides men now living from the contemporaries of Kant in his youthful studies
of nature, as those men were not divided from the followers of Aristotle.
Of purpose, the phrase Christian thought has been interpreted as thought concerning
Christianity. The problem which this book essays is that of an outline of the history of the
thought which has been devoted, during this period of marvellous progress, to that
particular object in consciousness and history which is known as Christianity.
Christianity, as object of the philosophical, critical, and scientific reflection of the
age--this it is which we propose to consider. Our religion as affected in its interpretation

by principles of thought which are already widespread, and bid fair to become universal
among educated men--this it is which in this little volume we aim to discuss. The term
religious thought has not always had this significance. Philosophy of religion has
signified, often, a philosophising of which religion was, so to say, the atmosphere. We
cannot wonder if, in these circumstances, to the minds of some, the atmosphere has
seemed to hinder clearness of vision. The whole subject of the philosophy of religion has
within the last few decades undergone a revival, since it has been accepted that the aim is
not to philosophise upon things in general in a religious spirit. On the contrary, the aim is
to consider religion itself, with the best aid which current philosophy and science afford.
In this sense only can we give the study of religion and Christianity a place among the
sciences.
It remains true, now as always, that the majority, at all events, of those who have thought
profoundly concerning Christianity will be found to have been Christian men. Religion is
a form of consciousness. It will be those who have had experience to which that
consciousness corresponds, whose judgments can be supposed to have weight. That
remark is true, for example, of æsthetic matters as well. To be a good judge of music one
must have musical feeling and experience. To speak with any deeper reasonableness
concerning faith, one must have faith. To think profoundly concerning Christianity one
needs to have had the Christian experience. But this is very different from saying that to
speak worthily of the Christian religion, one must needs have made his own the
statements of religion which men of a former generation may have found serviceable.
The distinction between religion itself, on the one hand, and the expression of religion in
doctrines and rites, or the application of religion through institutions, on the other hand, is
in itself one of the great achievements of the nineteenth century. It is one which separates
us from Christian men in previous centuries as markedly as it does any other. It is a
simple implication of the Kantian theory of knowledge. The evidence for its validity has
come through the application of historical criticism to all the creeds. Mystics of all ages
have seen the truth from far. The fact that we may assume the prevalence of this
distinction among Christian men, and lay it at the base of the discussion we propose, is
assuredly one of the gains which the nineteenth century has to record.
It follows that not