ECLECTIC THEISM
The early Christian writers, so far as they assumed any philosophical
position, were invariably Eclectics. In this, as we have seen, they were
the true children of their age, whose most striking characteristic was
that it had deserted the older systems, while attempting to preserve out
of their ruins the particular truth for which each of the schools had
contended. But with the Christian philosophers it was not merely the
negative influence of scepticism which drove them to Eclecticism. Their
conviction of a sure knowledge of things divine--the final question for
all philosophy--exerted a positive influence as well, which led them to
formulate more or less explicitly a view of the function of philosophy
as an organon of the truth, not merely with reference to the past
history of Greek thought, as their contemporaries outside of the
Christian Church were accustomed to do, but with a view to all possible
speculation on the Deity. For this deposit of revealed truth, to which
they gave assent as the most certain of all knowledge, they regarded as
the _whole_ truth, of which the various speculations of philosophy on
the existence and attributes of God, were but "portions" and
"fragments"--true and trustworthy so far as they went, and from their
own particular standpoint, but, nevertheless, essentially and
necessarily partial, and hence productive, not of certainty, but of mere
opinion.
And this estimate of the function of philosophy with respect to
theological truth, which the Fathers worked out on the basis of the
concrete example of the course of Greek thought, though with a view to a
much wider application, has its justification in the very nature and
conditions of thought itself. For philosophy is essentially a
_process_--its very life depends on its being in motion, in process of
change and development. Each system is evolved out of its predecessors,
and contains within itself the germs of its successors--it is the link
which connects the past with the future. It expresses the
"common-sense," the unconscious convictions and instinctive tendencies
of the time, and the man who first gives voice to this unspoken message
is the philosopher. He utters the truth which the times demand--that
which satisfies the conditions. Thus with Professor Erdmann[92] the
patristic writers would say that each statement of philosophical truth
is "the final truth only for that time." It is the phase or aspect or
particular statement of the truth which the times demand, which the
situation calls forth, and which appeals most strongly to the minds that
make up part of that situation. Changed conditions demand a different
statement of the truth to satisfy them, and furnish the data upon which
such a statement is based. Philosophy, like science, "does not really
accumulate, but is entirely transformed by each fresh hypothesis. It is
only the data that accumulate; and when we say that a new hypothesis is
'truer' than that which preceded it, we mean merely that it enables us
to co-ordinate a larger number of these data."[93] And this
transformation takes place, in reality, not only by addition, but by
subtraction of data. For it is a phenomenon common to the thought of all
ages, that each school not only calls attention to new data, ignored by
its predecessor, but also shuts its eyes to more or less of the valid
data set forth by the earlier system. In no period of the history of
thought were men more commonly led into abstractions by being dazzled by
the brilliancy and novelty of the latest idea than in the pioneer age
represented by Greek philosophy, when men had not yet attained to a
clear perspective, and the foot-hills often hid the lofty mountain peak.
It is this trait, so evident in the naïve thought of the Greeks, that
makes it possible for the early Christian thinkers to take the attitude,
at once appreciative and critical with regard to the Hellenic theology.
They borrowed much, not only from the form, but also from the results of
the speculations of the philosophers, but always with a deep sense of
the limitations which the conditions imposed upon them. Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle and the rest had spoken the truth, but each only from one
point of view, and on the basis of only one method of approach. The
conclusions of each were the result of a process of more or less
complete abstraction, and in abstractions the Fathers, true to the
genius of Christian thought, could never rest content, but could only
accord to them the appreciation which belongs to a temporary and
preliminary stage in the search for the final unity.
To this partial, temporary, "relatively final," and constantly changing
content, the revealed doctrine of God, manifested in due relations,
unity and completeness by the Incarnate Word, stands with the Fathers as
the principle to the particular rule or application--as the whole to the
part. As the revelation of God it came to them, not as the result of
man's investigation and speculation, colored by every change of time,
place and environment, a mere momentary phase of a process; but as
eternal verity, viewed, so far as man's powers would allow, in its
entirety and unity. Dorner expresses their position well when he says
that in Christianity "as the organism of the truth, the elements of
truth, elsewhere here and there to be met with in a scattered form or a
disfigured guise, come together in unity--a unity which, as it
personally appeared in the God-Man, so in the course of history ever
more and more rises upon the consciousness of mankind." The Fathers
think that in the Christian doctrine of God they find all the true
elements contributed by previous thought, and besides these an infinite
depth of truth unthought of by the Greeks, all unified and harmonized in
a way that makes it a sharp contrast to the fragmentary and abstract
character of the Hellenic theology. Christian doctrine represents to
them the stable, absolute truth, so far as it was revealed by the
Incarnate Word, the eternal verities in their completeness and unity, so
far as man is able to comprehend them. Philosophy represents the phase
or aspect of the truth which the conditions of thought at the time
demands and emphasizes, which will co-ordinate the data at present in
the foreground of consciousness. Thus they conceive of the facts of
Christian Theology as the goal towards which philosophy is (often
unconsciously) striving, but at which it can never arrive without the
"leap of faith." Once this leap is taken, however, these theological
verities become the major factors in the data to be co-ordinated, and
philosophy and theology come into that union and harmony which, in the
eyes of the Christian philosophers, is their normal relation.
This Eclectic attitude of the Fathers, and their deprecation of any
abstraction or partial statement usurping the place of the truth,
explains to some extent their treatment of the theistic argument.
In the first place it led them to distrust and reject any argument for
the existence of God which proceeded on the basis of reason alone, apart
from any content furnished by sensibility. While the Fathers do not make
any explicit and scientific distinction between Epistemology and
Ontology, such as has in modern times been the bane of any attempted
natural theology, yet they seem to have made a pretty constant
_practical_ separation between the two. St. Clement of Alexandria, as we
have seen, holds that by a method of abstraction of specific
characteristics we can arrive only at an "Unknown," to which meaning can
be given only by combining with this rational process some content
furnished directly by the senses or, indirectly, by testimony, and he
further states that God is not a subject for demonstration--_i.e._, the
science that depends on primary and better known principles--for "first
principles are incapable of demonstration."[94] This position seems to
be tacitly assumed by the patristic writers throughout, and even where
they speak of Plato with gratitude and admiration they never seem to be
at all inclined to make any use of his "Idealogical" argument or
anything related thereto. They seem to take a common-sense stand for the
testimony of the whole man, as well as for the whole truth, and to
instinctively distrust any rational concept in the formation of which
sensuous content had been ignored.
The Eclectic character of the patristic thought is seen also in the
frequency with which they use the different forms of the theistic
argument in conjunction, or present it in mixed forms. The Greek
philosophers, as we have seen, each selected some one of the forms of
the argument, and by means of it, attempted to establish the sort of an
{Archê}, to which such a course of reasoning would lead, ignoring, or
attacking the forms in use by their rival school. Thus early, however,
as in modern times, Christian theology, in contrast with the attempts of
rational theology, began to emphasize the interdependence of these
different forms of the theistic argument, and the cumulative character
of their evidence. Each one of itself could bring no conviction, nor
even high degree of probability, and furthermore, even if all its claims
be admitted, would lead to a result far short of theism--a mere
indefinite first cause, an Architect of the universe, etc. Each one,
however, adds its quota to a great _cumulative_ argument, which, taken
in its entirety, raises an exceedingly high presumption, which amounts
to "_moral_" though possibly not intellectual proof. And, after all,
"probability is the guide of _life_."
And this is all that the Fathers, or Christian apologists, generally,
would claim for the theistic argument. It is a _practical_, not a
theoretical proof, and it is in this way that the early Christian
writers seem to regard it. They resort to it most frequently to show
that the Christian doctrine of God is not contrary to reason nor
inconsistent with the nature of things, and to demonstrate that such a
conception is demanded by man's very nature. In a word, their use of the
argument is confirmatory and explanatory rather than by way of absolute
proof and demonstration.
This attitude towards and use of the theistic argument, so radically
different from that of the Greek philosophers, perpetuated itself in the
post-Nicene literature of the Christian Church, and, in its main
features, remained unaltered, until the time when men who had abandoned
the faith in the Word which had been the main stay of the ante-Nicene
writers, and who yet were unwilling to abandon the great theistic idea
for which the world was indebted to Christianity alone, sought to
justify this idea on the basis of reason. It took the scepticism of a
Hume and the criticism of a Kant, and the re-adjustment of all their
followers to bring us back at the close of this nineteenth century into
substantial agreement with the common-sense estimate placed upon the
theistic argument by the ante-Nicene Fathers.
FOOTNOTES:
[92] _History of Philosophy_, Vol. I, § 4.
[93] Burnet: _Early Greek Philosophy_, p. 25.
[94] _Stromata_, II, iv.
VITA.
The writer was born April 24, 1869, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended
the Ann Arbor Public Schools and the Ann Arbor High School. In 1892 he
received the degree of A. B. from the University of Michigan. In 1895 he
graduated from the General Theological Seminary, New York, and was
awarded the degree of B. D., which was formally conferred in accordance
with the rules of the Seminary one year later. In 1896, he received the
degree of A. M. from the University of Michigan. He pursued studies in
Philosophy at Harvard University during the first term of the year
1896-7, and at Columbia University from February, 1897, to February,
1898. He has been the post-graduate scholar of the Church University
Board of Regents from July, 1895, to the present time.