The Influence of the Bible on Civilisation

In this way everything which loomed so large when viewed standing by itself in the Bible has been reduced to its natural size; the earth has lost its central position; man is only one in a long line of similar beings; the history of Israel enters the large field of universal history; and even the personality of Jesus is subject to comparison and analogy.

This reduction is the necessary complement of the independence and autonomy attained for human science as the result of a long development. Already in the sixteenth century the humanists claimed for science the right to follow its own rules without being led and limited by the church's authoritative doctrine. They aimed at a civilisation free from ecclesiastical tutelage; going back to the classicism of pre-Christian times, they did not want the guardianship of the Christian church and its clergy. But the time was not yet ripe for this view. Even the reformers, Luther as well as Calvin, while they broke with the authority of mediæval scholasticism and of the Roman church, were not prepared to acknowledge the autonomy of science; they established the primacy of the Bible in an even stricter sense than it had borne in the Middle Ages. The Bible was to rule everything, and it was the Bible in its plain and simple meaning, without the mitigations which tradition and allegory had allowed in former times. To be sure, Luther occasionally granted some independence to secular science. He was furious when Aristotle was quoted as an authority in matters of religion, but would himself introduce him as an authority for civil government or for logic. He had a curious proof for this from the Bible itself. It was on the advice of his father-in-law, Jethro, a pagan, that Moses appointed the seventy elders to help him judge the people. Therefore for secular organisation one may take the counsel of the heathen, of the philosophers. But Luther was not consistent; as we have already seen, against Copernicus he insisted upon the authority of the Bible. He did not see that it was a question of astronomy without any relation to religion. In the seventeenth century the philosophers began to claim independence for the human reason, and soon they established reason as the highest authority, even in religious matters. It is very interesting to see the effect of this claim at the beginning. Even the most advanced liberals were so convinced of the infallible authority of the Bible that they tried by all means at their disposal to reconcile with the contents of the Bible the principles which the rational philosophy of Descartes or Spinoza had established. They started a new method of interpretation in order to make the Bible agree with reason. A long time had to pass before it became obvious to all competent minds that the Bible and reason were not to be reconciled by means of a makeshift harmony. It was only in the nineteenth century that the view forced itself upon all scholars that the Bible has to be understood in an historical way; that it does not give inspired information upon natural science and history, its revelation dealing with God and religion only.

By recent discoveries it is proved that the creation story in Gen. 1 is by no means a unique and original one; there is something similar in the Babylonian mythology; it may have been taken from there. The same holds true regarding the story of the deluge and others. So there is no reason for claiming for these stories the authority of revealed science; the Biblical author simply shares the ideas of his time. We are not bound to the scientific notions of a period two thousand years before Christ and four thousand years before our own time. And yet there is something unique in this creation story, as told in Gen. 1, for which one looks in vain in all the alleged parallels in Babylonian and other religions; it is the idea of the one God Almighty, who by his supreme will creates heaven and earth. That is the revelation conveyed to mankind by this chapter. We must not trouble about the specific description of creation; that belongs to the historical form. We cling with all our heart to the wonderful idea of the one creating God, and we realise that here revelation is given to us.

It is only by comparison that the real importance of a thing comes out. On a map of America, made on a small scale, the distances may seem short; comparing a map of Europe on the same scale one realises how long they are in fact. We are always in danger of taking some accidental feature for the main point. The frame does not make the worth of the painting.

As the Bible has lost its exclusive authority in the domain of science, so in the fine arts it has ceased to be the single source of inspiration. Since the Renaissance motifs taken from ancient mythology and poetry have come into competition with the Biblical scenes; the Dutch school cultivated the illustration of the life of the people and presented even the sacred story in this fashion – the mystery of sacredness has gone; it is purely human, not to say profane. The French liked landscapes and used Biblical subjects only as accessories. Pictures of battles, triumphs, apotheoses filled the galleries. Art to-day is anything but Biblical; modern painters have, most of them, no sense for sacred art. I venture to think they do better to keep away from it. For if a modern painter, when trying to illustrate the parable of the prodigal son in a triptychon, puts in the large middle field the man feeding the swine, giving only the left-hand corner to the return to the father, he has proved himself incapable of a religious understanding of the story, however finished a work of art his painting may be.

By all this process of secularisation the Bible has been drawn back from general civilisation and restricted to its own proper domain, religion. We must not insist on the fact that even here the Bible seems to have lost somewhat of its infallible authority. It is in the domain of theology as distinct from religion that this holds true. Strange as it may seem, it is a fact that the Bible is no more the text-book of theology. Theology, of course, can never do without the Bible, but here also the Bible is the source of historical information, not the authoritative proof for doctrine. Already in the period when the orthodox Protestants vied with one another in asserting the inspiration of the Bible in the boldest terms and relied on the Bible for answers to every question, Samuel Werenfels (d. 1740), a professor at Basel, wrote the distich:

"Hic liber est in quo quærit sua dogmata quisque,Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua.""This is the book where each man seeketh his own ideas,In it accordingly each findeth his own beliefs."

It was the support given by the Bible to every doctrine and every theory which made critical people doubt the propriety of proving truth by adducing proof-texts; and this not only for dogmatical questions but also for moral ones. It is well known how both parties in the controversy over slavery appealed to the authority of the Bible, and it would be difficult to say which party found the stronger support in the letter of the text. The same holds true regarding other questions of modern life; one can argue from the Bible pro and con regarding the use of wine. The Bible has been adduced in the question of polygamy. It can be quoted on both sides with reference to woman suffrage. It is indicative of the present attitude toward the Bible that this is so seldom done. The use of the Bible for the settling of modern social problems has brought upon many Christian minds a pitiful confusion. It has proved impossible to deduce from the Bible, even from the teaching of Jesus, rules for modern life. Times have changed and the conditions of life have altered.

All this prepared the way for the historical view of the Bible. Then the period of higher criticism began. It was to many a hard lesson; but we had to learn it. It was started – curious to say – by Roman Catholic scholars in France. Having the authority of the church behind them, they felt more free as regards the Bible than the Protestants did. Richard Simon made it evident that the transmission of the Bible excludes a mechanical view of inspiration. Astruc, a doctor, the physician of Louis XIV, discovered that in the Pentateuch two different sources were used. During the eighteenth century the theories of literary criticism were applied to all the books of the Old and the New Testament, and the scholarship of the nineteenth century has taken up the task, perfected the method, and reached in some questions a general agreement. To-day the principles of literary criticism in their application to the Bible are generally acknowledged. The books of the Bible are like other books; they are not to be treated as divine Scriptures but as human writings. One has to inquire in each instance about the author, his methods of writing, the sources of his information, his tendencies, and so on.

Criticism did not stop here; it overstepped the boundaries of purely literary criticism; it became historical criticism, too. The historicity of the facts reported in the Bible was called in question; recently the historicity of Jesus has been denied; and where his existence was admitted, still his teaching was criticised. Some people found it too ascetic, to others it was purely eschatological; in either case it could not be adapted to our own time. So even in its central points the Bible seemed to be attacked and its authority shaken. Instead of being restricted to the domain of religion, the Bible seemed to be denied even to the uses of devotion. But the present situation is not so desperate for the pious Bible reader as it looks.

We have once more to face the two facts: the circulation of the Bible has grown rapidly – immensely – and the estimation of the Bible has been reduced in nearly every field. Many a pious Christian, while rejoicing in the first fact, is greatly troubled by the second. Has the Bible ceased to be authoritative? Has it lost its infallibility? If the Bible is not true from cover to cover, then it seems to be not trustworthy at all. We had better put it aside and leave it to deserved oblivion. That is an argument frequently brought forward nowadays, both by people who disbelieve in the authority of the Bible and the truth of the Christian religion and by those who eagerly try to assert the old authority of the Bible as the inspired Word of God which reveals everything. They argue, and apparently not without plausibility, that if you destroy the authority of the Bible at any point, it is lost altogether; there is no limit to the destructive energy of our time. Therefore do not touch this question; leave the Bible as it stands – the sacred book, undisturbed by profane hands. It is the book by which our fathers were taught. Why should we disbelieve in it? Both these positions seem to be logically consistent: everything or nothing; infallible or no authority. But, in fact, the truth is never on one side. Hard as it may sound to our philosophers, the truth is very seldom logical. What seems to be consistency is, in fact, a confusion of two different aspects which ought to be kept separate. The Bible is not a text-book for any science – nay, not even for the science of theology. It is the book for Christian devotion. This was its original intention, and I venture to think that it is not a loss but a gain if the Bible is once more applied to its proper purpose.

As we have seen in the first chapter, the Bible proved itself to be an inexhaustible source of comfort and strength, of exhortation and inspiration to the Christians of the first period. They would not leave this book for any consideration – nay, they would even die for it. And so whenever the Bible was read by a pious Christian a new stream of life flowed through him and through the church. And this new life has always caused a strong desire for the Bible. There is a reciprocal influence between Bible and piety; the Bible creates piety, and piety demands the Bible. This is the experience of nineteen centuries; it is impossible that the twentieth century should alter it. As long as a pious Christian lives on earth, the Bible will exercise its influence upon him, and as long as there is such thing as the Bible there will be Christians. That is sure! It is not always easy to measure this private influence of the Bible on individual piety and devotion. People who read the Bible for edification usually do not talk much about it. In biographies it is not mentioned, either because the biographer took it for granted or because he did not care for it himself. Seldom do we have an opportunity, like the one given in Bismarck's letters to his wife, where he mentions frequently what Psalm or passage of the Bible he read before going to bed and discusses some points which have struck him. It is impossible to say how many people read the Bible privately for their own edification. Seeing how few know the Bible thoroughly, we might suppose that very few read it, but it is said that Bible reading among the boys in the English public schools is again increasing. And I feel sure that the time must come, and will come, when private reading of the Bible will again be a common practice among Christians.

But the Bible's task is not only to sustain individual piety; it has a second duty to perform. Christianity is not a mere aggregation of Christian individuals but a community – a church, if you will. It is necessary for any community to have a standard, for any church to have a creed. It is the Bible which has to supply this. Herein lies the danger of aberration, as we have seen in the second and the following chapters. The history of the church and of its doctrine gives ample proof of the fact that, taking the Bible as a rule for the church's dogma, Christianity not only missed the right path for the development of doctrine, but even lost the right use of the Bible. It is only by aiming at an historical orientation that the church can gain from the Bible the right direction for the setting forth of its doctrine. The doctrine of the church never can be, and never has been, identical with the doctrine of the Bible, because it is impossible to stop the development of history; besides, there are as many doctrines in the Bible itself as men who wrote the several books of the Bible, or even more. Saint Paul has not one doctrine of the atonement but half a dozen theories about it. The church has to formulate its own doctrine consistently with the Bible; that means a doctrine which keeps to the main line of religious development as testified to by the Bible; or, rather, to do justice to the variety of Biblical doctrines, permits a modern adaptation of the several modes in which religious experience is expressed. This seems vague, but it is the path which Christianity is bound to follow; and it promises success.

The modern view is that it is the religious experience of men, as testified to in the Bible, from which both the individual and the church take their start. But Christians believe that through this human experience God himself is revealing his grace. Therefore it is still, as our fathers said, God's Word. And God will teach the church to formulate the common experience by the help of his Word. That is the present position.

But now what of the influence of the Bible on civilisation? Has it gone? It seems under present conditions reduced to very small proportions, if not made impossible altogether. I am prepared, however, to declare that just the opposite is true. The influence of the Bible on civilisation still continues, and it will grow greater the more the Bible is used in the proper way, as an influence not on outward form but in inward inspiration.

The results of the influence exerted by the Bible in former centuries, when it was an outward rule of life, still go on. We cannot imagine what would have become of mankind if there had been no Bible. We cannot drop the previous history out of our life. We still speak the language which was modelled by our Bible; we still quote many proverbs which originate in the Bible, even without knowing that they come from the Bible. Our artists will go on choosing motifs from the Bible. The civilised nations will never give up Sunday, although not keeping it as a Sabbath. They will continue to aim at a fuller measure of legal and social equality, convinced as many may be that it is impossible to create an outward equality among men as long as there is no equal sense of responsibility and duty in all members of the nation.

The influence of the Bible in its present position as the book of devotion is of supreme importance for civilisation. Progress in civilisation is guaranteed not by constitution nor by law but only by the spirit which rules the individual and through the individual the community. We need strong characters who know the great truth of self-sacrifice. Such characters are formed by the inward inspiration given by devotional reading of the Bible. Making men devout, it makes them strong and influential in the common effort to promote civilisation by removing everything which is contrary to the welfare of others. That is the most important influence which the Bible can have; and that influence it still exerts and ever will exert on civilisation.

1

Didascalia, ch. ii, p. 5 in Mrs. M. D. Gibson's translation.

2

Cf. C. T. Hoadly, Records of the Colony and Plantation of New Haven from 1638 to 1649, Hartford, 1857, and Records of the Colony or Jurisdiction of New Haven from May, 1653, to the Union (1665), Hartford, 1858.

3

Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, edited by N. B. Shurtleff. Boston, 1853.