FOR A CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 



65 



hesitate to agree with Von Gerdtell's comment : " The Gospel is 

 not related to its world-view as the pulp of an orange to its peel, 

 out of which the inside of the fruit is cleanly extracted. The 

 relation of the two is rather that of two kinds of thread, 

 interwoven in one fabric. If we try to unpick one of these 

 two threads from this fabric, we have thereby annihilated the 

 fabric itself." 



Another writer on these general lines, but one who has come 

 closer, I think, to a satisfactory conclusion, is Troeltsch. He 

 stands out definitely for a religious philosophy that shall be 

 psychological and at the same time metaphysical. We cannot 

 here dwell on his adjustment of a priorism and Empiricism. 

 But his insistence on the significance of history and the value 

 of concrete historical religion is interesting and notable, if dis- 

 appointing in the end. In his Absohdheit des Christentums — a 

 title which raise hopes higher than the argument fulfils — he 

 shows an appreciation of the meaning of concrete historical 

 religion as such which is in decided contrast, if not opposition, to 

 Eucken. For instance : " The productive power of religion pul- 

 sates only in the historical religions, and, in fixing our attitude 

 towards the religious values of mankind, it is with these that we 

 have first to do " (p. 57). This is far better than, with many, to 

 reduce religion to a philosophy on the one hand, and a residuum 

 of emotion, sentiment, and cult on the other. And yet Troeltsch 

 pulls up short of the essential Christian position. He will not 

 allow that the absolute object of Christian Faith is realized as 

 such in history. He leaves no room for the supreme claim : 

 " He that hath seen Me has seen the Father." Now of course if 

 we start from the metaphysical side : if we begin by asking 

 whether the Absolute, or even the immanent a priori of 

 Christian experience, can be conceived as realizing itself in 

 history, the answer will not be favourable. But this is 

 intellectualism, however concealed, and it presupposes that very 

 view of the relation of Philosophy to historic religion which I 

 am criticizing. If, on the other hand, we begin with the actual 

 fact of Christ, and His self-impression as God upon a living 

 community and upon ourselves, then the case is entirely 

 different. God, in Theology, certainly answers to the Absolute of 

 constructive Idealism, but it is a fatal mistake to explain the 

 former through the latter. Theism is not the popular embodi- 

 ment of philosophic Absolutism, but Absolutism is the shadow of 

 Theism. Theology as such is less compromised by its symbols 

 and accommodations, than Idealism by its refusal to submit to the 

 dominant claims of Christian experience. This certainly is 



