RIGHT RELATION OF REASON TO RELIGION 26 1 



Doctrine of Authority can be maintained. We 

 should abandon, as consistent thinkers, and still 

 more as consistent Christians, the imperative author- 

 ity both of Church Tradition and of Scripture. 

 There is nothing left, then, but the Doctrine of 

 Reason — the Method of Conviction as the only 

 real method of determining religious belief and 

 practice, resting on the use of the human rational 

 powers taken in their entire compass. 



The form of our proof for the Rationalist method 

 in religion, with a promise of which I set out upon 

 our discussion, is therefore, at least thus far, only 

 indirect : we have found but two alternative methods 

 possible in religion, — Declaration and Conviction, 

 Authority and Reason ; we have shown the one to be 

 invalid and unchristian, and therefore the other alone 

 remains. Formally, this indirect proof is conclusive 

 enough, and clears the ground for our general propo- 

 sition that the only right relation between reason 

 and religion is for reason to be the source and 

 religion the derivative, for reason to legislate in 

 the whole doctrine, and consequently in the whole 

 practice, of religion. 



But it may perhaps be said that the material 

 question is still untouched ; that our reasoning, thus 

 far, simply assumes that the Method of Reason is a 

 method possible with religion, whereas this possibility 

 needs to be shown real. Those who would raise 



