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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
The recent extension of scientific psychology to religious life could not leave the theologian unconcerned. “What theological problems can the psychological treatment of religion solve?” “According to what method must the psychology of religion proceed?” These and other questions have become, especially among German theologians, frequent topics of discussion.
1 Th. Flournoy, Le Génie Religieux, a lecture to the Swiss Students' Christian Association, Sainte-Croix, 1904. P. 34.
2 Wobbermin, Georg, Die Religionspsychologische Methode in Religionswissenschaft und Theologie. Leipzig; Hinrich, 1913, pp. 388–391.Google Scholar This is the most formal effort made so far to set forth a psychological method for the use of theology. (Reviewed by the author in the Psy. Bull., Dec. 15, pp. 462–470.)
3 Le Divin, Expériences et Hypothèses, Marcel Hebert, p. 130.
4 Der Christliche Glaube, p. 85.
5 Theism and Humanism. 1914. Pp. 20–21. For an attempted demonstration of the correctness of this distinction, see chapter xi, especially pages 245 to 254, of my book, A Psychological Study of Religion; its Origin, its Function, and its Future. Macmillan, 1912.
6 Sabatier, A., Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, James Pott & Co., N.Y. 1902. P. 308.
7 Digamma, An Aspect of Prayer, an Address before a “Society in a certain College in Oxford,” Oxford, Blackwell, B. H..Google Scholar The italics are mine.
8 See Inter. Jr. of Ethics, 1904, vol. 14, pp. 323–339; or A Psychological Study of Religion, pp. 237–239; 272–274.
9 K. A. Busch, vol. 5, 1911, pp. 209–218.
10 John Watson, The Interpretation of Religious Experience, I, p. 345.
11 I am well aware that much of the religious and theological language is in a sense figurative even for those whom I have designated as naïve realists. But symbolism does not reach for them the more fundamental dogma of religion. I know also that there is a sense in which all speech can be said to be symbolic. But the realists of whom we speak give to the term another than that general meaning, for they discriminate in theological formulae between figurative and non-figurative expressions. One reads, for instance, in an Outline of Christian Theology by W. N. Clarke (15 ed., pp. 3, 65, 13) much used by students: “In a definition of God it is best as far as possible to avoid figurative language; for metaphors are ambiguous, and figurative language in a compact statement tends to destroy the proportion and draw undue attention to minor points.” And the author proceeds to define God as a Personal Spirit, Infinite, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Immutable, Holy, and Loving. These terms are not for him symbolic. Nor should we take him as speaking figuratively when he says, “Revelation to Israel through Moses was not made in writing; it was made in small parts by speech, but mainly by action, for Israel was taught to know God and His will mainly in what He did among them.”
Should I be criticised for a lack of historical sense, I should turn upon my critics with the remark that they suffer from an excessive wish to see likenesses and continuity. The philosopher should recognize both the likenesses and the differences characteristic of successive historical movements. There are points in social development separated by differences so important that to use the old terms in the new sense can lead only to misunderstanding.