Conjectural Criticism - W.G.T. Shedd

There are two views of the origin of the Bible, 1. That it is the production of a limited circle of authors mostly contemporaneous with the events, whose names are mentioned in the work itself, and who were divinely inspired for the purpose of producing a book having infallible accuracy and authority. 2. That it is the production of late and unknown editors, who gathered up oral traditions from unknown and often mythical sources, and put them in the form in which they now appear. The first is the Historical view, or that commonly held in ancient, mediaeval, and modern Christendom. The second is the Fragmentary theory, and is confined to individuals and schools in modern Christendom. According to the historical theory, the Pentateuch has Moses for its responsible and inspired author. According to the fragmentary theory, with the exception of a few parts which perhaps may be ascribed to Moses, no man knows who wrote the Pentateuch, any more than where the sepulchre of Moses is. According to the historical theory, the four Gospels are the inspired productions of four men, Matthew, Peter-Mark, Paul-Luke, and John, who received and obeyed their Lord's commission to prepare his biography for the use of the church in all time. According to the fragmentary theory, the four Gospels are the uninspired product of unauthorized persons, later than the apostles, who gathered up the traditions concerning Christ that were floating about in the church, and wrought them into their present shape. Such, briefly stated, is the substantial difference between the two theories. One ascribes the Bible to known and infallible authors; the other to unknown and fallible editors.

1. The first objection to the fragmentary theory of the origin of the Scriptures is that it is late and modern. This, to some persons, is a recommendation. But in estimating theories, if time is to be taken into account, one that has all time behind it is preferable to one that has only a fraction. To be modern and new is a good recommendation for the fashion of a hat, but not for an opinion in science. The latest intelligence from the stock market is more valuable than the latest intelligence in Hebrew. The superficiality characteristic of the present decade is due to a rage for "the last thing out," and the neglect of ancient and standard learning. If a person's reading is confined to works composed in his own time, he will become the victim of a theorist or a coterie of them. His knowledge will be narrow, while he supposes it to be omniscient.

The hypothesis that the Scriptures are a collection and combination by unknown editors is a modern conjecture. Though occasionally broached in the Ancient church, it obtained no currency. It dates from Spinoza and Hobbes, in the seven teenth century, and more particularly in the eighteenth century from Astruc (1725), who applied it to the Pentateuch, and Semler (1750), who applied it to the Gospels and the canon generally. The newness of the theory is an objection to it. For it is highly improbable that all the investigations of Biblical philologists for seventeen hundred years, which corroborate the traditional theory of the origin of the Bible, should suddenly be invalidated by the alleged discoveries of a few theorists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sudden conversions in religion, like that of St. Paul, are possible, but they suppose an Almighty Author. Such a sudden revolution in Biblical criticism as the refutation of the historical theory and the demonstration of the fragmentary, would be a phenomenon without parallel in literary history.

2. A second objection to the fragmentary theory is, that it is wholly conjectural. Conjecture has its place in all investigation, but it is a very narrow place. It must be employed cautiously and sparingly, and only by the most learned, balanced and judicial minds. That which now goes under the name of "higher criticism" was formerly known as "conjectural criticism," when those standard editions of the Greek and Roman classics were being prepared by the great scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which it would now be beyond the power of the nineteenth century to produce, because of its neglect of classical literature and overestimate of physical science. But when these erudite editors of the classics used the conjectural method, it was infrequently and timidly. Whoever ventured to declare a passage to be spurious, or to suggest a new reading that differed from the manuscripts, or new interpretations that departed from those of previous scholars, must furnish strong and conclusive reasons. His ipse dixit would not do. Individual opinions when contradictory to historical were looked upon with suspicion, even when there was extraordinary learning and acumen. Bentley was the most learned classical scholar of his century, and was better qualified to make use of conjecture in editing the Greek and Latin classics than any other one of his tim; but Pope, probably with some of the extravagance and injustice of satire, said of his editions of Milton and Horace:

"To Milton lending sense, and Horace wit,

He made them write what poet never writ."

But this fear of conjectural criticism, and caution in its use, is not characteristic of those modern schools of Biblical philology which are now employing it for the purpose of recasting the Scriptures, in order to force them into the service of anti-supernaturalism and infidelity. In endeavoring to disprove the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and the Apostolic authorship of the Gospels, they rely chiefly upon the inventiveness and ingenuity of their own intellects in constructing schemes that are unsupported either by documents or testimony. The utmost rashness and recklessness characterize their work. It would be startling, and a refutation of the whole procedure, to see a Hebrew text of the Pentateuch actually edited and published in accordance with the conjectural criticism of Kuenen and Wellhausen, or a Greek text of the Gospels in accordance with that of Baur and Strauss. Critics of this class make hypothesis the substance and staple of their method, employing it excessively and almost exclusively. The Hebrew text of the Pentateuch, without regard to the manuscripts and the history of the text, and with no support from them, is arbitrarily parcelled out into sections and fractions designated by letters of the alphabet, and this fragment is assigned to the "Elohist," and that to the "Jehovist," this to Moses and that to an unknown editor after the exile, and a fifth to the time of Josiah, purely upon the individual guess of a man living three thousand years after Moses. The Greek text of the four Gospels, without regard to the authority of numerous, and some of them very ancient manuscripts, and in contradiction to the early testimony of scholars like Origen and Jerome, and the consensus of Christendom for fifteen hundred years, is declared to be spurious in all such Gospels, and also in such Epistles, as the scheme of the critic requires.

Such effrontery and dogmatism in claiming that the ipse dixit of an individual or a party outweighs the evidence of documents and historical data, and the learning of all the Christian centuries, would not be endured for a moment within the province of secular literature. Nor is such "higher criticism" as this attempted in this department. No one has endeavored to disconnect the Platonic dialogues from the name of Plato, and to prove that they are the production of later editors working over oral discourses of Socrates that were floating in fragmentary form among the circles of the Academy. No one has pretended to a knowledge of Greek literature so much superior to that of the Cudworths and Porsons, the Hermanns and Stallbaums, as to be able to reverse their judgment and demonstrate the spuriousness and late origin of large portions of the Phaedo, Symposium, and Laws. No one has composed a new life of Socrates, evincing that the traditional account of him is erroneous. The credulity that trusts such assurance as this is to be found only among students of the Bible. "The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." The only important attempt of this kind in classical literature, that of Wolf, though made by the most eminent German philologist of the eighteenth century, was a failure. He did not succeed in persuading the classical circles that the Iliad and Odyssey were not the work of Homer, but of a school of rhapsodists whose oral poems were collected and combined by later editors.

3. A third objection to the fragmentary theory of the origin of the Bible is that it is fatal to its inspiration. If, as a conjectural critic asserts, "the great body of the Old Testament was written by authors whose names are lost in oblivion" (Briggs-Inaugural, p. 33), it was written by uninspired men. Because inspiration, from the nature of the case, was always bestowed upon a particular known person, and is so represented. "God spake unto Moses." "The Lord said unto Samuel." "The word of God came to Nathan." "The word of the Lord came unto David." "The vision of Isaiah which he saw concerning Judah." "The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel." "God at sundry times spake unto the fathers by the prophets," and the names of these prophets were well known to those to whom they spoke. Inspiration is not an indiscriminate gift of God, like air and water, to anybody and everybody, in any age and every age. It is an extraordinary and rare gift to only a few persons, chosen out of the common mass for the purpose of Divine communications to mankind. The "holy men of God" who "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" were not anonymous authors, like Walter Scott when he was the great Unknown. They belonged to the Jewish people, and their names are generally mentioned in the Bible in connection with the fact of their inspiration and the time of its occurrence. The moment therefore that inspiration is severed from known individuals, the moment it is disconnected from the college of prophets and apostles, it becomes inspiration "in the air," without locality, history, or evidence. The self consistent advocates of the fragmentary theory, like Kuenen and Wellhausen, perceive that it is incompatible with inspiration, and deny inspiration; but some who are less logical, or more under the restraints of an evangelical connection, try to retain the inspiration of the Pentateuch while denying that Moses is its author. The Pentateuch, they say, was composed long after Moses by some persons no one knows who; but whoever they were they were inspired. This is the inspiration of imaginary persons like John Doe and Richard Roe, and not of definite historical persons like Moses and David, Matthew and John, chosen of God by name and known to men.

The notion that there is an inspiration outside of the Biblical circle of the prophets and apostles, existing anywhere and at all times, and that the unknown collectors and redactors of the Scriptures partook of it, was invented by the recent latitudinarian party in the Presbyterian church who adopted the critical principles of Rationalism, but who from their ecclesiastical connection did not venture to draw the logical conclusion of all Rationalists and deny inspiration altogether. The assertion that an utterly unknown person was an inspired person is absurd on the face of it, and untenable because it is not only destitute of proof but is absolutely incapable of proof. No testimony is possible in the case. No one has ever seen an unknown man work a miracle as evidence of a divine commission; has heard him speak a prophecy or deliver a divine message while under a divine afflatus; or can attest that he was the author of a particular book of Scripture. No proof whatever on such important points as these can be furnished by eye-witnesses and contemporaries. An unknown man, virtually, has no con temporaries; for as no one knows when the man himself lived, so no one knows when his contemporaries did. The only testimony conceivable in the case is that of the conjectural critic, living two or three thousand years later, who merely asserts that the unknown author of the Pentateuch, or Psalms, or Isaiah, was inspired. This, of course, is not of the nature of testimony, because the critic "is of yesterday and knows nothing" of ancient events, and has observed nothing with any of his senses, in the case.

The absurdity of this notion is apparent, when it is considered that nothing whatever can be predicated of an utterly unknown person, any more than of a non-existent one. Attributes and characteristics of every kind are impossible in both cases alike. No one would think of asserting that an utterly unknown man, any more than a non existent man, is black, or has a large nose, or underwent a surgical operation. Such particulars as these can neither be affirmed nor denied in these instances, because nothing at all is known about the person in question, and consequently nothing can be testified to. But an inspiration that cannot be proved is worthless. Mankind demand evidence when the claim to this unique and extraordinary gift of God to the human mind is made. And in the instance of that limited circle of prophets and apostles whose names are mentioned in Scripture as the authors of most of the books, and are copied from Scripture into the catalogue of the canonical books given in the Westminster Confession (i. 2), and into all the Christian creeds that contain articles upon this point, the proof is forth coming. That Moses, Samuel, David and Isaiah were inspired, rests upon testimony of two kinds: first, that of Jesus Christ, who authoritatively indorses the inspiration of the traditional authors of the Old Testament; secondly, that of contemporaries and those who were nearest to contemporaries. These latter do not authoritatively indorse like the Son of God, but only give witness respecting the prophetical and apostolical authorship. The evidence in this last instance relates only to canonicity, and is precisely like that for the authorship of the writings of Plato and Cicero, respecting which there is no scepticism in the literary world. The evidence in the first instance is wholly unlike anything in secular literature, and infinitely higher and more trustworthy, provided that Jesus Christ was not an impostor, but God incarnate. The assertion of the critic to whom we have referred, that it is "not of great importance that we should know the names of those authors chosen by God to mediate his revelation" (Briggs-Inaugural, p. 33), overlooks the fact that in revealed religion the credibility of a doctrine depends upon its source, as well as upon its nature and contents. For example, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, judged by its mere contents, is the same in the Egyptian Book of the Dead (Rawlinson's Egypt, I. 319) as in 1 Cor. 15:51, 52. Resurrection is resurrection. But when Egyptian priests assert a resurrection of the body, and St. Paul asserts it, the ground of belief for the doctrine is wholly different in the two instances. And the difference is due to the difference in the author ship. In case of an ipse dixit like this, it is important to know who ipse is. St. Paul is a known man, and his inspiration can be proved. The Egyptian priests are unknown men, and if they were known there is no proof that they were inspired. Hence the questions of authorship, and genuineness of authorship, have always been regarded in Christian apologetics as vital; and the endeavor from the first has been to connect every one of the books of the Old and New Testaments with some known inspired prophet or apostle. The sceptical criticism, on the contrary, has from the first endeavored to disconnect them. That the first endeavor is difficult in regard to a few of the books, is no reason why the whole position of Christian apologetics should be surrendered, and the authorship of the Bible be ascribed to utterly unknown persons, living no one knows where, and no one knows when.

A deadly thrust is given to the doctrine of infallible inspiration, by the denial that "the Scriptures were written by or under the superintendence of prophets and apostles." (Briggs-Inaugural, p. 32.) This severs them entirely from that particular circle of persons who were called of God by name, and inspired by him to receive and record his supernatural communications. The Westminster Confession, as well as the creeds of Christendom generally, teaches that the Scriptures were composed by or under the superintendence of the prophets of the Old dispensation, and the apostles of the New, and that these persons, and these only, were "the holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." One of the principal endeavors of Christian apologetics from Eusebius down, has been to present the proof of this. And there is a general consensus in Christian apologetics, respecting the authorship of the canonical books mentioned in the Westminster Confession (i. 2). Its contention is, that they were composed by the persons to whom from the first they have been ascribed by both Jewish and Christian tradition. Respecting the authorship of a few of these books, there is a difference of opinion among Christian apologetes. But the author ship in these instances is still kept within the inspired circle of prophets and apostles, and the endeavor is always made to give the name of the prophet or apostle. It is assumed that if it could be incontrovertibly proved that a particular book was not written by or under the guidance of a prophet or apostle, it is not inspired. Rationalistic criticism dissents from and combats this consensus of Christian apologetics. The reason for this constant aim and office of all the learning of evangelical as opposed to rationalistic criticism is: first, because the books themselves generally claim to be the composition of these particular persons to the exclusion of all other extraneous persons known or unknown; and second, because there were no other inspired persons but the prophets and apostles. If the Bible cannot be proved to be written by the prophets and apostles, it cannot be proved to be inspired at all; because it cannot be proved that there were ever any human beings whatever, excepting these prophets and apostles, that were "moved by the Holy Ghost." The origin of an inspired writing must therefore be brought by competent testimony within this inspired circle or nowhere. And if it is thus brought by ancient Jewish testimony in the case of the Old Testament, and by ancient Christian testimony in the case of the New, it cannot be said to be the product of an utterly unknown author even in the instances when the name of the particular prophet or apostle is debated. For this testimony connects it with a definite circle of inspired per sons whose nationality, time, and place are known. If, for illustration, there is sufficient reason for believing, from Patristic testimony, that the epistle to the Hebrews was composed under the supervision of St. Paul, the doubt whether the penman was Luke, Apollos, or Barnabas, does not make it the product of an "unknown inspired man." The maintenance of this position in apologetics is vital, and has always been so considered. In disconnecting, as the conjectural critic does, the Pentateuch from Moses as its responsible and inspired author, and connecting it with an unknown editor or editors a thousand years later than Moses, he has destroyed its inspiration, because, as we have seen, an unknown man cannot be proved to be one of the "holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." There is no testimony or tradition, either for him or against him, in regard to this point. In algebra, the value of the unknown x can be determined, but there is no assignable value to an unknown inspired man. The denial that the Pentateuch is what our Lord frequently called it, "the book of Moses " (Mark 12:26; Luke 24:27; John 7:19, 22, 23), has the same effect upon its inspired authority and credibility, which the denial that the four Gospels were composed by the four Evangelists has upon the inspiration and credibility of the only source the world has for the life of its divine Redeemer. There were no infallibly inspired persons upon earth between a.d. 33 and a.d. 100, excepting the company of the Apostles chosen by Christ to be the founders of his church, and, if we may so say, his literary executors to write his life for the church in all time; and if the four Gospels were not composed by them, or under their superintendence, they are neither inspired nor infallible. No persons but these were authorized or qualified to prepare the memoirs of his marvellous origin and generation, and of his merciful and sorrowful life (Luke 24:49; John 14:26; 15:26; Acts 1:8). Whoever denies this, and enlarges the circle of New Testament inspiration by asserting that others than the Apostles were inspired by the Holy Ghost, is bound to prove his assertion. As the four Evangelists do in the instance of the "Twelve Apostles," he must mention the names of the persons, the circumstances under which they were called to this office, and the supernatural signs of their inspiration (Matt. 10:1-5; Mark 3:14-19; Luke 6:13-16). The burden of proof is upon the affirmative, not upon the negative. The inspiration of a Biblical writing, therefore, stands or falls with its authenticity and genuineness. If its authorship is forged and spurious; if it is falsely ascribed to the prophets and apostles, and is not their work; it was not written by "holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

W.G.T. Shedd, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy (1893)

R.L. Dabney on Using Fiction to Defend Truth

The following paragraphs come from a book review written by R.L. Dabney. The book in question was entitled “Theodosia Ernest,” - the protagonsist's name. The book was written by a Baptist minister, who by use of a fictional story, attempted to defend the doctrine of believer's baptism and refute the Presbyterian doctrine of infant baptism. Dabney rightly takes issue with the author's innumerable misrepresentations of Presbyterian doctrine, practice, and polity. But, in this particular section, he raises the question of the legitimacy of using fiction as a method for presenting and defending theological truth. To be sure, no leading Reformed theologian that I can think of raises this question.

“The folly and unfairness of such a mode of inculcating or defending what is supposed to be religious truth, can scarcely be too strongly represented. In the first place, a moment's consideration should have taught the author, that his selecting such a vehicle for his discussion was really a confession of weakness and defeat. Having failed to overthrow the sturdy Presbyterian champions in the fields of true and legitimate discussion, he is compelled to manufacture fictitious adversaries, in the pretended persons of Pastor Johnson, Dr. McKought, and elder Jones,who should be stupid and foolish enough to give this doughty Don Quixote a chance to claim the victory — If he wished to try conclusions with a veritable Presbyterian champion, why did he not select a bonafide and live controversialist, in the person of some N. L. Rice, or Wm. L. McCalla? Ah; it was easier to gain a seeming victory over a man of straw! And this is not all: Conscious, as it seems,of the intrinsic weakness of his argument,the author must needs throw around it the factitious and illegitimate interest of a love-story. He did not believe, it seems, that his principles were important and interesting enough, to make Christian people read an honest and straightforward discussion of them for its own sake: he must needs sugar the nauseous dose, to make it go down. And then, one of his foremost champions forsooth, is a young, pretty and ingenuous girl, who is painted as attractively as the author's bungling hand knew how; in order to gain the unfair advantage of the feelings of readers for youth, beauty and sex. Sophistries from the mouth of a bearded man would be handled as they deserved; but when they drop from the pretty mouth of a pretty woman, gallantry forbids our testing them too narrowly! So that the author, afraid to meet men, and as a man, skulks behind the petticoats of his heroine.

“And indeed: what is the intrinsic absurdity of sending Christian people to hunt for truth (and that sacred truth), in a work of fiction? It is an insult to the understandings of readers; and a disgrace to the denomination which is judged to need such a mode of defense. No seeming triumph gained over an imaginary antagonist can prove anything; for, as the same author constructed both his adversary's argument and his own, of course he would make the victory fall on his side. Æsop tells us, in one of his fables, how the man and the lion were once, during a truce in their warfare, amicably walking out together to take the air. They passed a picture where a lion was represented as bound, and crouching under the cudgel of a man. The man says to his lion friend: 'You see there the superiority of our race to yours.' 'Nay,' quoth the lion, 'it is because a man was the painter. If a lion had held the brush, the parties would have been in a rather different position.' Let the reader make the application.

“It is said indeed, that Immersionists justify the circulation of the work by saving, that though there is a fictitious plot to make the book readable, all is fair, because the arguments put into the mouths of the Presbyterian characters are the standard arguments which we use when defending ourselves, and that they are fairly stated. But we beg leave to dispute both facts. According to all fair forensic rules, our mere word, repudiating those arguments as fair and full statements of our side, entitles us to arrest a debate conducted on such a plan. When plaintiff and defendant come into court, each party has a sovereign discretion in selecting his own advocate. If the defendant says that the counsel who has volunteered in his cause is not the man of his choice; and that, instead of representing him fairly, he is betraying him, this is enough. It is only necessary for the defendant to say that he considers this volunteer advocate as unfaithful; it is not necessary for him to prove him such. He is entitled to make his own selection of a defender. So, we Presbyterians now and hereby notify Messrs. Graves, Marks & Co., and Messrs. Sheldon, Blakeman & Co., and all Immersionist preachers, colporteurs, members and proselyters, in these United States and the British Provinces, and wherever the far famed Theodosia may be running, that we do not consider, and never have considered the fair water-nymph (who was a full blooded Immersionist before she began the investigation) nor the Presbyterian elder, Uncle Jones, (who was evidently fishy, i. e. indulging partial tendencies to go under the water, from the beginning,) nor poor, old parson Johnson, (who confesses he had never examined the subject much,) as suitable advocates of our cause; that we hereby repudiate them as such; and that we now lay our formal 'injunction' on the progress of the discussion in such feeble and treacherous hands. Now, will our Immersionist neighbors arrest the debate; will they suspend the circulation of the ex parte and repudiated discussion, until the justice of our assertion can be tested; as they are forensically bound to do, in all fairness and honesty? We shall see. But if they are very anxious to prosecute this great cause of Immersionism versus Presbyterianism, at once; let them take the arguments of some real, actual Presbyterians, such as Dr. John H. Rice's Irenicum, Dr. John M. Mason's Treatise on the Church of God, or Dr. N. L. Rice's Debate with Campbell; print the whole of the Presbyterian argument in Presbyterian works, [and not a few disjointed scraps, falsely and treacherously torn from them] along with the best refutations they can get; and lay these two pleas before the great jury of the Religious Public. This, if fairly done, might be fair.

“The real motive and design of this advocacy of pretended truth by fiction, is this: It was hoped that the love-tale, the pictorial illustrations, the influence of sex and youth in the heroines favor, would make a multitude of ignorant people swallow the book, with its whole dose of misrepresentations, false issues, and unfounded assertions; who would never have taste, patience, or capacity, to read any such reply as Presbyterians could condescend to write. These readers would gulph down the low novel, but they would be very secure from the danger of reading a manly, straight-forward discussion of its pretended arguments and statements, unseasoned with fiction or demagogueism. The whole enterprise is a calculation on the gullibility of mankind; and it must be confessed, a calculation which was certain of realization to a large degree. But then it is also true, that the very element which ensures this partial success to the book, is the element also of its unfairness. It is successful because it is so unfair. So, in crimes of blacker character, the very treachery of the assault is oftentimes the thing which makes resistance ineffectual. When an honorable enemy meets us fairly by daylight, and face to face, we have a chance of successful self-defense, according to that measure of prowess which God has given us. But if our adversary is wicked enough to turn assassin, and waylay our path, we are very free to confess that we are in his power; except so far as a good Providence interposes, the strength and skill of a Hercules will not avail.

“Let it be distinctly understood then, that we neither hope nor expect to be attentively and dispassionately read by the persons for whom the shrewd managers of Theodosia Earnest have set their trap. People who are foolish enough to go to a work of fiction to learn sacred truth, are not likely to attend to a scholarly and solid discussion.” - R.L. Dabney, Fiction, No Defense of Truth

John Foxe on Defeating Islam

This is what the great martyrologist John Foxe says about Islam, why we should be knowledgeable about it, and the only successful way to combat it.

“If it were not that I fear to overlay this our volume with heaps of foreign histories, who have professed chiefly to treat of Acts and Monuments here done at home, I would adjoin after these popes known above rehearsed, some discourse also of the Turks’ story; of their rising and cruel persecution of the saints of God, to the great annoyance and peril of Christendom. Yet, notwithstanding, certain causes there be, which necessarily require the knowledge of their order and doings, and of their wicked proceedings, their cruel tyranny and bloody victories, the ruin and subversion of so many christian churches, with the horrible murders and captivity of infinite Christians, to be made plain and manifest, as well to this our country of England, as also to other nations.

“First, For the better explaining of the prophecies of the New Testament, as in St. Paul's Epistle to the Thessalonians, and also in the Revelation of St. John; which scriptures otherwise, without the opening of these histories, cannot so perfectly be understood: of which scriptures, we mind hereafter (Christ granting) orderly, as the course of matter shall lead us, to make rehearsal.

“Another cause is, that we may learn thereby, either with the public church to lament, with our brethren, such a great defection and decay of christian faith, through these wicked Turks; or else may fear thereby our own danger.

“The third cause, that we may ponder more deeply with ourselves the scourge of God for our sins, and corrupt doctrine; which, in the sequel hereof, more evidently may appear to our eyes, for our better admonition.

“Fourthly: The consideration of this horrible persecution of the Turks rising chiefly by our discord and dissension among ourselves, may reduce us again from our domestical wars, in killing and burning one another, to join together in christian patience and concord.

“Fifthly: But chiefly, these great victories of the Turks, and un- prosperous speed of our men fighting against them, may admonish and teach us, following the example of the old Israelites, how to seek for greater strength to encounter with these enemies of Christ, than hitherto we have done. First, we must consider that the whole power of Satan, the prince of this world, goeth with the Turks; which to resist, no strength of man's army is sufficient, but only the name, spirit, and power of our Lord Jesus the Son of God, going with us without in our battles; as among the old Israelites the ark of God's covenant and promise went with them also fighting against the enemies of God. For so are we taught in the Scripture, that we christian men have no strength but in Christ only. Whether we war against the devil, or against the Turk, it is true that the Scripture saith, ‘Sine me nihil potestis facere,’ that is, ‘Without me you can do nothing.’ Otherwise there is no puissance to stand against the devil, or to conquer the world, ‘nisi fides nostra,’ that is, ‘our faith only,’ to which all the promises of God touching salvation be annexed; beyond which promises we must not go, for the word must be our rule. He that presumeth beyond the promises in the word expressed, goeth not, but wandereth he cannot tell whither: neither must we appoint God how to save the world, but must take that way which he hath appointed. Let us not set our God to school, nor comprehend his Holy Spirit within our skulls. He that made us without our council, did also redeem us as pleased him. If he be merciful, let us be thankful. And if his mercies surmount our capacity, let us therefore not resist but search his Word, and thereunto apply our will; which if we will do, all our contentions will be soon at a point. Let us therefore search the will of our God in his Word, and if he will his salvation to stand free to all nations, why do we make merchandise thereof? If he have graciously offered his waters to us, without money or money-worth, let us not hedge in the plenteous springs of his grace given us. And finally, if God have determined his own Son only to stand alone, let not us presume to admix with his majesty any of our trumpery. He that bringeth St. George or St. Denis, as patrons, to the field, to fight against the Turk, leaveth Christ, no doubt, at home.

“Now how we have fought these many years against the Turk, though stories keep silence, yet the success declareth. We fight against a persecutor, being no less persecutors ourselves. We wrestle against a bloody tyrant, and our hands be as full of blood as his. He killeth Christ's people with the sword, and we burn them with fire. He, observing the works of the law, seeketh his justice by the same: the like also do we. But neither doth he, nor do we, seek our justification as we should, that is, by faith only in the Son of God. And what marvel then, our doctrine being as corrupt almost as his, and our conversation worse, if Christ fight not with us, fighting against the Turk? The Turk hath prevailed so mightily, not because Christ is weak, but because Christians be wicked, and their doctrine impure. Our temples with images, our hearts with idolatry are polluted. Our priests stink before God for adultery, being restrained from lawful matrimony. The name of God is in our mouths, but his fear is not in our hearts. We war against the Turk with our works, masses, traditions, and ceremonies: but we fight not against him with Christ, and with the power of his glory; which if we did, the field were won.

“Wherefore, briefly to conclude, saying my judgment in this behalf, what I suppose. This hope I have, and do believe, that when the church of Christ, with the sacraments thereof, shall be so reformed, victory, that Christ alone shall be received to be our justifier, all other religions, merits, traditions, images, patrons, and advocates set apart, the sword of the Christians, with the strength of Christ, shall soon vanquish the Turks' pride and fury. But of this more largely in the process of this story.

“The sixth and last cause, why I think the knowledge of the Turks' cause, history requisite to be considered, is this: because that many there be, who, for that they be further from the Turks, and think therefore themselves to be out of danger, take little care and study what happeneth to their other brethren. Wherefore, to the intent to excite their zeal and prayer to Almighty God, in this so lamentable ruin of Christ's church, I thought it requisite, by order of history, to give church this our nation also something to understand, what hath been done in of Christ. Other nations by these cruel Turks, and what detriment hath been, and is like more to happen by them to the church of Christ, except we make our earnest invocation to Almighty God, in the name of his Son, to stop the course of the devil by these Turks, and to stay this defection of Christians falling daily unto them, and to reduce them again to his faith, who are fallen from him: which the Lord Jesus of his grace grant with speed! Amen.

John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Book VI

Why Christians Cannot Be Dispassionate Toward Attacks on the Faith

If man has a soul, a God, and a hereafter, and is a fallen being, then, indisputably, every good man must deem the bearings of any code of speculative opinions upon the doctrine of Christian Redemption as unspeakably its most important aspect. For it is impossible for any professed humanitarianism to advance any praiseworthy purpose or motive whatsoever, assuming to tend to the well-being or elevation of our race, but that I will show, if man is to have any future, that motive is bound to urge the well-wisher to seek his fellow-creatures' future good, as much more earnestly, as immortality is longer than mortal life. But has the Sensualistic philosophy any proposal to offer for redeeming men from a disordered and mortal estate, as plausible or promising as Christianity? Unless it has, a mere decent regard for humanity should prevent all disrespect to this doctrine, from which, it is manifest, the larger part of all the virtue, hope, and happiness in a miserable world now spring. I freely declare, therefore, not as a clergyman, but as a human being not simply malignant toward my suffering race, that my main impeachment of the Sensualistic philosophy, and especially of the Positivist and Evolution doctrines, in which it now chiefly appears, is grounded upon their anti-Christian tendencies. I have pointed to that gulf of the blackness of darkness, and of freezing despair, toward which they thrust the human soul; a gulf without an immortality, without a God, without a faith, without a Providence, without a hope. Were it not both impossible and immoral for a good man to consider such a thing dispassionately, it would appear to him odd and ludicrous to witness the pretended surprise and anger of the assailants at perceiving, that reasonable Christian people are not disposed to submit with indifference to all this havoc.

There is a great affectation of philosophic calmness and impartiality. They are quite scandalized to find that Christians cannot be as cool as themselves, while all our infinite and priceless hopes for both worlds are dissected away under their philosophic scalpel. Such bigotry is very naughty in their eyes! This conduct sets Christianity in a very sorry light beside the fearless and placid love of truth displayed by the apostles of science! Such is the absurd and insolent tone affected by them. J. S. Mill coolly argues, that, of course, we clergy are wholly unfitted for any pursuit of philosophy, because they are bound beforehand by their subscription to creeds, which have taken away their liberty of thought in advance; and it is quietly intimated that mercenary regard for salaries and dignities dependent on that subscription, will prevent their accepting or professing the Sensualistic gospel. To this arrogance and injustice I, for one, give place by subjection, not for a moment. It is a composition of hypocrisy and folly. For we observe that whenever these philosophic hearts are not encased in a triple shield of supercilious arrogance, they also burn with a scientific bigotry, worthy of a Dominic or a Philip II. of Spain. They also can vituperate and scold, and actually excel the bad manners of the theologians! The scientific bigots are fiercer than the theological, besides being the aggressors!

If we were about to enter upon an Arctic winter in Labrador, with a dependent and cherished family to protect from that savage clime, and if "a philosopher" should insist, in the "pure love of science” upon extinguishing by his experiments all the lamps which were to give us light, warmth, and food, and to save us from a frightful death; and if he should call us testy blockheads because we did not witness these experiments with equanimity, I surmise that nothing but compassion for his manifest lunacy would prevent sensible people from breaking his head before his enormous folly was completed. When a wilful, absurd person chooses to dignify his novel (or stale) vagaries, which contradict not only my most serious and honest judgment, but that of the best and wisest of human kind, with the reverend names of "Truth" and "Science," I submit that I have at least as much right to reject them as no truth and no science, as he has to advance them. Let us suppose a case perfectly parallel. I had an honored father, whose virtue, nobleness, and benevolence were the blessing of my life. That exalted character and all that beneficence were grounded in certain professed principles. Now, I know that father; I know, by their fruits, that his principles were noble. But here come a parcel of men who did not choose to become acquainted with him, and so really do not know his memory, and they indulge their vanity, or some other caprice, in disparaging his person and principles. But they expect me, his son and beneficiary, to "take it all coolly!" It is quite naughty to have any heat toward gentlemen who are proceeding so purely "in the interests of the Truth!" Now, every right heart knows that it is not only my. right, but my sacred duty to defend the sacred character of my father and benefactor with zeal and righteous emotion. If I were capable of really feeling the nonchalance which his gratuitous assailants profess, I should be a scoundrel.

There is no righteous room for neutrality or indifference of soul when righteousness is assaulted. It is impossible for man to love truth and right as it is our duty to love it without having sensibility when they are injured! Such is precisely the relation of the honest-minded Christian when his God and Saviour is disparaged! If men choose to exercise their right of free discussion by waging this warfare on our God and His cause, they need not expect anything except the resistance of honest indignation; it is a piece of hypocrisy as shabby as shallow to pretend to a right to outrage other people's clearest convictions without the provocation of their disapproval. We shall, of course, give them the full privilege of doing this wrong untouched of civil pains and penalties: this is the liberty of thought which Protestantism asserts, to its immortal honor. God forbid that any sinful abuse of the truth should ever provoke any Christian to infringe that liberty by persecution. And it is plainly our duty, under the bitterest provocation of these gratuitous assaults upon the most precious principles, to see to it that we "be angry and sin not;" that our indignation may not go farther than the evil desert, and our condemnation may contain none of the gall of personal spite.

But there is an affectation abroad, among the assailants of Christianity, which demands far more. It claims the privilege of speculating as unchristianly as they please, not only without being molested, which we freely concede, but without being disapproved. They say that the very emotion of disapprobation is a persecution; that this zeal is precisely the motive which, in more bloody days, prompted churchmen to visit civil pains and penalties upon dissentients; that this motive will do the same thing again, upon opportunity, if it be allowed to exist ; and that, therefore, we are not true friends of liberty of thought until the very emotion is banished, and all speculation, no matter what holy and righteous thing it may assail, is considered without feeling and weighed with the absolute impartiality and initial indifference which they affect.

Upon this claim my first remark is, that it is violently inconsistent. With these men, this license of thought is a holy thing (possibly their only one.) And when they imagine it assailed, or in the least restrained, do they entertain the question of the restriction with that dispassionate calmness? Not at all; they are full of an ardent zeal; and they believe that they "do well to be angry." They can argue the cause of charity most uncharitably, and can be most intolerant in their advocacy of toleration. Why? Because the encroachment is unrighteous. Aha! Then we have the sanction of the nonchalant gentlemen for the truth, that righteousness ought to be not only professed, but loved; that moral truth and right are the proper object, not only of judgment, but of moral emotion. They have found out that it is good to be "zealously affected" in a good cause! This is precisely my doctrine, provided only one is entitled to be sure that the cause is good. My second answer is: That this species of indifferentism is unnatural and impossible. Man's soul is formed by its Maker not only to see moral truth, but to love it upon seeing it. It is an unnatural soul, a psychological monstrosity, which does not. But love for that which is reasonably valued must have its counterpart emotion toward the opposite. One might as well demand to have a material mass with a top, but no under-side; or a magnet with a North pole to it, but no South, as a reasonable soul which loved the right (as it ought) and yet did not hate the wrong. Last: I argue, that such a state of soul would be criminal, if it were possible. Such moral neutrality would be intrinsic vice. In order to be capable of it, man must be recreant to the positive claims of virtue. If I find a man who is really able to hear the question debated, whether Jesus Christ was an impostor, with the same calmness, the same utter absence of emotion with which he would properly debate the species in botany to which a certain weed should be referred, I shall be very loath to trust my neck or my purse with that man in the dark. The demand for this actual indifferentism as essential to true liberty of thought and philosophic temper, is absurd; it is impossible it should exist. The speculative world needs to be reminded again of that doctrine of liberty of thought which Bible Protestantism enounced - when she bestowed that boon on mankind (for it was nobody's gift but hers.) That men are responsible for their opinions, but responsible not to society, but to God: that charity for evil and error is a universal duty; but the object toward which we are to exercise it is the person and not the error of "the misleading fellow-creature. Charity had its incarnation in Him, who shed His tears and His blood for the persons of the Scribes, while He denounced their principles with inexorable severity.

Taken from: R.L. Dabney, The Sensualistic Philosophy of the 19th Century Considered, Chapter 12

Dabney: We Can Be Glad Atheism Is Inconsistent With Its Own Principles

From, R.L. Dabney, The Sensualistic Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century, Considered - Chapter 9

Further Critique of Evolutionism

“They ask us: 'Since blind chance may, amidst the infinite multitude of its experiments, happen upon any results whatsoever, why may it not at times happen upon some results wearing these appearances of orderly adaptation?' I answer: the question puts the case falsely. Sometimes? No. Always. The fact to be accounted for is, that Nature's results have always an orderly adaptation. The question we retort, then, takes this crushing form: How is it that in every one of Nature's results, in every organ of every organized creature, which is known in living or fossil Natural History, if the structure is comprehended by us, we see the orderly adaptation? Where are Nature's failures? Where the vast remains of that infinite mass of her haphazard, aimless, orderless efforts? On the evolution theory, they should be myriads of times as numerous as those structures which received some successful adaptation. Let us recur to the illustration of the Frenchman employing an eternity in throwing a basket of printer's type abroad blindly, until, after perhaps an infinite number of throws, he happened to get precisely that collocation which composed the martial poems of Ennius. Why might it not happen like at last? Suppose, I reply, that the condition of his experiments were this: that he should throw a different basket in each trial, and that a considerable part of all the types thrown in vain should remain heaped around him; then, he and his experiments would have been buried a thousand times over beneath the rubbish of his failures long before the lucky throw were reached. But this is the correct statement of the illustration. The simple making of this statement explodes the whole plausibility, leaving nothing but a bald absurdity. For, as has been already stated, Evolution must admit the teachings of Paleontology. But the later asserts that the organized beings of vast ages still exist, in the form of fossils. Now, will the Evolutionist pretend that the durable remains of the hurtful variations were less likely to continue in the strata than those of the naturally selected? Not one whit. Then, there should be, on his supposition, as large a portion of the printer's types from every unsuccessful 'throw' left for our inspection as from the sole successful one. Where are they?”

R.L. Dabney, The Sensualistic Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century Considered, Chapter 9  

Don't Lump Christianity in When You Blame Religion For the World's Trouble

It has long been a tactic of the enemies of Christ's Church to lump Christianity in with the rest of the world's religions when they claim that religion has caused nothing but trouble for the world. 

When I say that this has long been a tactic, I mean it. Arnobius of Sicca, a Christian apologist who died in 330 AD, responded to this very accusation when it was raised in his day. He writes:

"There have actually been fewer calamities since Christians appeared.

"Actually, regarding the wars which you say were begun on account of hatred for our religion, it would not be difficult to prove that after Christ was heard on earth, not only did they not increase but in great measure were reduced as a result of the repression of fierce passions.

"For when we, so large a number as we are, have learned from His teachings and His laws that evil should not be repaid with evil; that it is better to suffer wrong than be its cause, to pour forth one's own blood rather than to stain our hands and conscience with the blood of another: the world, ungrateful as it is, has long had this benefit from Christ by whom the rage of madness has been softened and has begun to withhold hostile hands from the blood of fellow beings.

"And if all without exception who understand that are men, not through the form of their bodies but through the power of reason, would for a little while be willing to lend an ear to His wholesome and peaceful commandments, and would believe not in their own arrogance and swollen conceit but rather in His admonitions, the whole world, long since having diverted the use of iron to more gentle pursuits, would be passing its days in the most placid tranquility and would come together in wholesome harmony, having kept the terms of treaties unbroken."

Arnobius of Sicca, The Case Against the Pagans, Book I, Chapter 6

Source: Ancient Christian Writers, Volume 7, The Newman Press 1949

Review of William Whitaker's "A Disputation on Holy Scripture"

Imagine the most lop-sided competition you can think of - Rocky Marciano versus a 0-100 light flyweight, the 1927 Yankees versus the 1962 Mets, Garry Kasparov versus Homer Simpson - that's what this book feels like. 

Whitaker’s magnum opus is a reply to the Jesuit hero of the Counter-Reformation, Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621). As good a controversialist as Bellarmine may have been, he was so overwhelmingly outclassed by Whitaker that it was almost embarrassing. Whitaker takes on Bellarmine’s defense of the Roman Catholic “unwritten tradition,” and pounds it into cream. The reason that Whitaker’s work is so overpowering is that he takes Bellarmine apart point by point. This work is not simply a reply to any single work of Bellarmine, but against his career-long apology for Romish ‘tradition.’ 

Whitaker wastes no effort in his manhandling of Bellarmine. A key feature is that, rather than stack up countless Patristic citations against Bellarmine, Whitaker goes to the exact same Patristic sources Bellarmine cites to demonstrate that Bellarmine has both cherry-picked his citations and ignored the larger context of the actual citation. He does this so often that you feel tempted to either pity Ballarmine or simply despise his as a rank fool. 

Whitaker points out the ways in which the Fathers used the word tradition. There are 4 ways, says Whitaker, in which the word ‘tradition’ is used by the Fathers: (1) In reference to the Scriptures, (2) in reference to the doctrines of Scripture, (3) in reference to indifferent traditions, regarding which the Fathers are often at odds with each other, (4) in reference to traditions highly valued by the Fathers which Rome does not practice. Uses 1 and 2 are twisted by Bellarmine into an argument from silence in defense of unwritten tradition. This is something Whitaker shows cannot be sustained by either the immediate context of the Patristic citation in question or the overall work of the Father cited. Uses 3 and 4 are conveniently ignored by Bellarmine. Whitaker gives no quarter.

Another defense Bellarmine has recourse to is the claim that Scripture is not intended to be the rule of doctrine and practice, but merely a ‘commonitory’ i.e., a manual for good living. Whitaker mops the floor with this argument as well. First he notes how deceptive Rome is because they themselves refer to the Scriptures as the “canonical’ Scriptures. ‘Canon,’ by definition means a RULE. Plainly, Bellarmine is being duplicitous, and Whitaker wastes no time pointing this out. Secondly, Whitaker points out that if Scripture were merely meant as a rule-book or manual for good Christian living, it could stand to be a lot shorter. Anyone can see, that by this standard, Scripture contains much that is either irrelevant or superfluous. 

Bellarmine then flips and says that Scripture is indeed a rule, however, not the only rule. Whitaker shows the logical fallacy involved in this position as well. First of all, Bellarmine’s duplicity shows itself in bright colors here since he has just asserted that Scripture is not a rule. When he gets schooled on the very Patristic sources he has used (rather, abused) to promote this assertion, he then attempts to sidestep Whitaker by saying that Scripture is a rule, just not the sole rule. This is, of course, logically inconsistent. Scripture cannot serve as a rule unless it is the only rule. Bellarmine is too smart to get away with such poor reasoning, and Whitaker won’t let him.

A most amusing feature about Bellarmine's defense of 'tradition' against the sufficiency of Scripture, relegating Scripture to functioning as a ‘commonitory,’ is that this is exactly the position argued by so-called ‘Evangelicals’ today. Who would’ve thought that people who are supposedly on Whitaker’s side would be treating Scripture exactly as the Counter-Reformation Jesuit enemies of the Gospel of Whitaker’s day? The feel-good evangelical preachers of our day constantly refer to Scripture as God’s “owner’s manual” for life. I’ve heard it a million times from the popular TV preachers and their multitudinous mimics. Joel Osteen=Robert Bellarmine – who knew? Whitaker must by turning in his grave! 

This is an excellent book and worth the effort on every level. It contains a wealth of Scriptural arguments for the sufficiency of Scripture. I have tangled with a few Romish apologists who like to assert that Scripture doesn't teach our doctrine of ‘sola Scriptura.’ Five minutes with the book will explode that assertion for the idiocy that it is. If you are looking for a defense of the sufficiency of Scripture, look no further.

My Favorite Forms of Argumentation

One of my favorite features in apologetics is where a view is demonstrated to be false by virtue of its own principles. This is sometimes called a self-stultifying or self-defeating position.

An example would be Bill Clinton’s notorious remark that belief in absolutes is wrong. For that statement to be true, it would have to be absolute. So, in order in order for it to be true it would have to be false!

Another example is the contention of many existentialists that nothing has meaning. I imagine that they assume that that statement is a meaningful statement about reality. But if that statement were true it would be false.

Yet another example is the central monistic assumption of pantheism. Pantheism believes that everything is God and God is everything. The sum total of all that exists is God. Now, if this were strictly true, a pantheist would affirm, “God exists and I don’t,” because “I,” like everything else in existence, am merely a mode of God’s existence. But to say that you don’t exist is self-stultifying. If you don’t exist, you can neither affirm nor deny anything.

Another feature of apologetics that has always impressed me is when it is show that one position is rejected based on supposed ramifications which are actually truer of the opposing view.

For example, people often accuse the Calvinist doctrine of Divine sovereignty of being fate. This is an old accusation. During the semi-Pelagian debates of the 5th Century, Faustus of Riez wrote, “In the name of grace Augustine preaches fatalism.” However, if one thinks this through carefully, the Arminian view is more fatalistic. If the Arminian view of Divine foreknowledge is true then God’s knowledge is not based upon His decree but rather upon the free-will of the creature. So when something bad happens to man, God can only say, “You poor thing. You must simply grin and bear the bad fortune that has come upon you. I could do nothing about it. I had to consent to these contingencies that come, whether I will them or not.” Is this not more fatalistic? In the words of Christopher Ness, “What else is this but to overthrow all those graces of Faith, Hope, etc., to cast off all vital godliness; and to pull the great Jehovah Himself out of His throne of glory, setting up Dame Fortune to be worshipped in His stead?”

Another example is the accusation that Open Theists make that “traditional Christianity” was corrupted by Greek philosophy. Yet the roots of the Open Theism’s ideas regarding God’s foreknowledge are easily traceable to Calcidius a 5th Century philosopher and interpreter of Plato.

For some reason, these kind of logical and internal inconsistencies simultaneously intrigue me and irritate me. There are many forms of argumentation in apologetics and polemics, but these are my favorites.