THE TEACHING OF THEOLOGY 309 



The responsibility resting upon all lovers of truth is to take mea- 

 sures for preservation of this spirit in our time and for the projection 

 of its influence into the time to come. The question of procedure 

 to this end evidently is one of high importance. It involves a theory 

 of teaching those who are to be the professed religious leaders of the 

 coming time. Shall the teaching of theology continue to be viewed 

 chiefly as the communication to the candidate for a denominational 

 ministry of the formulas of belief authorized by the ecclesiastical 

 tribunal under whose jurisdiction he is to serve? Or shall the primary 

 interest in the teaching of theology be the encouragement and direc- 

 tion of the student in research into the sources of knowledge and in 

 the coordination and use of his findings in whatsoever part of the 

 Church he can ultimately enter with moral sincerity and intellectual 

 self-respect? The presentation of these alternatives is not for the 

 purpose of discriminating against schools of denominational theology, 

 but of pointing out that those schools, however excellent, the out- 

 growth of a distant past, cannot be held to have provided in advance 

 for certain needs increasing in urgency at the present time. The 

 growth of scientific knowledge and the reconstructions in philosophy 

 have invested the major problems of religion with new and large 

 interest on lines of thinking not followed, perhaps not anticipated, in 

 the historic symbols of Catholic and sectarian Christianity. Venera- 

 tion for those symbols does not offer an equivalent for the neglect of 

 large regions extending beyond them. Many earnest men are growing 

 restive under the effort to conform to the predetermined statement 

 of doctrine, for the sake of ecclesiastical regularity, when mind and 

 soul are filled with the glory of what seems a larger and richer vision 

 of the truth of God. The conventions of ecclesiastical opinion dis- 

 countenance variations from confessional uniformity. Meantime 

 men think, think for themselves, and although their thinking may 

 issue in results substantially identical with the standards of ortho- 

 doxy, it may be regarded as probable that the strongest minds in 

 the future will prefer to reach those results by independent investiga- 

 tion and apart from a commitment in advance to conclusions defined 

 by authority of the Church. 



If this be so, a place must be found where such minds, the choice 

 product of noble and liberal culture, can pursue research in the 

 science of theology without disloyalty to their own sense of mental 

 honesty and equally without the discomfort of living under ecclesias- 

 tical censure. It is contrary to reason that one should be made to 

 feel, even by indirection, that it is reprehensible to be fearless and 

 free in the study of the most sublime of all the sciences. The way 

 out from this difficulty is in the more intimate alliance of theology 

 with the university; in the alignment of theology with the other 

 pursuits of the university; in the more general interchange of work, 



