66 REV. A. R. WHATELY, D.D., ON THE DEMAND 



what the Christian thinker must logically claim for his 

 religion. 



Troeltsch is significant for our purpose, for he is so 

 intensely historical, just until he comes to the crucial point. 

 Eeligious history is, in his view, a competition of values. It is 

 not the unfolding, in time, of a Hegelian Absolute. The abiding 

 eternal Keality is present, though partially, in actual experi- 

 ence, and makes itself felt, not merely in the organic growth of 

 the Whole, but at the various points where new spiritual forces 

 break in upon the scene. This is a movement of philosophy in 

 the right direction ; but a Christian philosophy, such as we are 

 asking for, does not yet find standing-room. The idea of a his- 

 torical competition, so to speak, between religions, decided by the 

 spiritually enlightened individual as such, is premature till the 

 question is answered : " What think ye of Christ ? Whose Son is 

 He ? " Christianity is an historical religion in a further sense 

 than this. It is historical because its centre of gravity is an 

 event, that is to say, a fact of specific experience. Not that 

 this fact is historical first and spiritual afterwards : a mere 

 marvel in the first place ; a Divine act by inference. 'No 

 indeed. It is historical and spiritual at once. Its spiritual 

 evidence for the individual is, in fact, the deepest foundation 

 of its authority. But tiiis involves belief in a spiritual society 

 possessing as such the abiding consciousness of its own historico- 

 supernatural origin. 



And here let me sum up the position adopted in this paper. 

 A Christian philosophy, while availing itself to the full of the 

 work of the great thinkers, must proceed from the heart of the 

 Christian Church, and must be primarily an expression of its 

 experience. And since that experience normally finds its centre 

 of gravity, not in general truths, but in a specific Divine event, 

 so the corresponding philosophy must take primary account of 

 those central doctrines, which, as a matter of historical fact as 

 well as of personal realization, define and assert that event. 

 Therefore that philosophy will take its start fi'om experience, 

 not in its lowest and most inchoate form, but in its highest. It 

 will not therefore be a new foundation, but will be continuous 

 with the definite Christian thought of all ages. It will carry on 

 that thought, not in a spirit of submission to external authority, 

 but from a sense of inward solidarity and continuity of life and 

 intuition. I endeavoured to show that this involves a different 

 doctrine of experience in general from that planted by Kant 

 deep in the soil of modern thought : and that the discontinuity 

 of experience and reason, or de-rationalizing of experience as 



