By the old theology we mean the type of theology which, whatever its date, ignores the modern scientific movement and is unaffected in method by the results of that movement. By the new theology, conversely, we mean the type of theology whose method is determined by the modern scientific movement and which is hospitable to its results. The purpose of this article is to ask what is the relation of the two, what they have in common, wherein they differ, and what ought to be the attitude of the representatives of the one to the other.

It was once remarked with much truth that the non-fulfilment of the expectation of the Parousia was the principal factor in the development of early Christianity. This is all the more important, because it was not the custom of the first Christians to speak of the “second” coming—that is a modern point of view—but of the “coming” of the Messiah. To them the Son of Man, Jesus, had come, and the resurrection proved that he was now the Messiah in heaven, but, as Professor Burkitt has recently pointed out, “Son of Man” does not mean “Messiah” in the full sense, but is rather the description given of the predestined and pre-existent Messiah, before he actually came as Messiah in function. The Parousia of the triumphant Messiah whom they expected was as much future for Christians as it was for Jews, and on this point the main difference between the two was that the former believed that they knew who the Messiah was.

More than a quarter of a century has elapsed since a letter, written by a passenger on an English railway train as he sat on the bank beside the track waiting for a broken-down engine to be repaired, resulted in the founding of the first Social Settlement. The writer was the Reverend Canon Samuel A. Barnett, then Vicar of St. Jude's Church, Whitechapel, in East London, and the settlement was Toynbee Hall. Mrs. Barnett has recently published an interesting account of the steps that led to the realization of the settlement idea. She describes the lack of knowledge of the poor on the part of earnest, thinking men, when she and her husband took up their work at St. Jude's, and tells of the visits they made to Oxford from time to time to talk to little groups of cultivated, serious young college men to get them to care about the poor and their problems. Some of these men came to Whitechapel for a visit, to see for themselves the conditions of poverty, and occasionally some would take lodgings in East London, when they left the university to begin their lifework. In this way a connection was established between Whitechapel and the university, and discerning spirits were able to see that each side had contributions of value to make to the other.

Like the appeal to faith at large, the tendency to conceive faith as emotion may proceed from various motives. In contrast to an arid intellectualism, or with a view to curing practical corruption, it is urged in furtherance of earnest religious experience. This was the case in the pre-reformation and the Reformation age, and again during the revival in the eighteenth century in England. In eras of doubt the faith of feeling is commended as a substitute for the halting processes of reason, with their dubious or negative conclusions. This motive also was active in the era of renascence and reform, and it has markedly influenced the religious development of later modern times. Such motives, moreover, rest upon a basis of truth. The heart has its rights as well as the head, and its deliverances possess an evidential value. In periods of intellectual change the witness of the heart gains special importance as an aid to faith until the reason can adjust itself to the new conditions. The faith which purifies and the faith which inspires is always the faith which is experienced. These principles need emphasis now less than ever before, for there has never been a period in which they have been so often advocated, and with so great authority, as in the last century and a half. In our own time, in part by voices which have only lately ceased to speak to us, they have been urged with a persuasive eloquence that has carried them throughout the civilized world. Formulated in technical fashion, they have entered into the reflection of the age until they have become one of its most characteristic and most significant philosophies of religion.

To be able to reflect the mind and sentiment of one's own generation and be the interpreter of its aspirations is a great thing, but to succeed in giving to a noble and enduring ideal of humanity its classic expression, to voice clearly the deepest needs and highest dreams of many centuries, is the supreme performance, which is beyond the power of all but the few geniuses who are large enough to represent our race. Of all the saints, sages, and saviours who have studied the drama of human life, no one has ever surveyed it from a greater height than Plato, nor has any mind surpassed his in comprehensiveness and insight. And his conclusion, his matured conviction, was that humanity's most urgent need is for adequate leadership. The goal of the ideal system of education which is outlined in the Republic was the discovery, selection, and training of what he calls “synoptic-minded men” to be the leaders of the state. The youths to be prepared for this high function were first to be selected from those apparently most promising, and then submitted to a course of physical and mental discipline lasting through the greater part of life. This was a sifting process, and from time to time the failures were dropped. The finer natures continued their elementary studies till the age of twenty, when they were submitted to a new test of their capacity for leadership. Up to that time their manner of study was to be appropriate to youth. Their knowledge, being necessarily a mass of unconnected and unrelated fragments, could not be embraced in a unitary view. But when the synthetic powers ripen, the time arrives to attempt an organization of the mental content, to put together the things that have been, and are being, learned, and comprehensiveness becomes an ideal of the mind.

The reviews of my recent book, The Development of Religion, have revealed certain misunderstandings both as to the general point of view and as to the meaning which it was intended to convey in specific places. The problems discussed are fundamental ones, and the present article aims to restate some of them in the hope of making more clear the precise points at issue.

Construction rather than destruction is, in its time and place, a good motto, but to attempt a reconstruction without first clearing the ground is likely to make the resulting building unstable. In the last quarter-century we have been attacking one by one the received views in theology, and now we are ready for constructive work, but unfortunately, as many students know who are in theological seminaries, even some marked as “liberal,” there is little fundamental criticism of the general basis of theism. Theology has made use of the philosophical progress, but has made comparatively little advance in its own field. So we find the traditional arguments for God's existence repeated in only very slightly modified form. It is in the attempt to bring home to us the necessity for a thorough-going criticism that this examination of one of the traditional arguments for God's existence has been undertaken.

In 1908 Harvard University began the exploration of the large hill in central Palestine which marks the site of the ancient Hebrew capital Samaria. The chief results of the year's work were the discovery of a Roman statue of heroic size (probably representing Augustus), a well-preserved Roman altar, an imposing stairway, about eighty feet broad, and the massive foundation-walls of a large building, the connection of which with the Herodian temple to Augustus was considered possible.