Essays in Unitarian Theology by Kenneth Twinn Lindsey - General ...

26 ESSAYS IN UNITA~IAN THEOLOGY BELIEF IN GOD
and once any doubt on the point arises, then he
obviously loses the value of God. For Ritschl, the
Christian revelation was true because it worked. But
many people do not want to know whether it works.
They want to know whether it is true. In any case,
how can we tell whether Christianity " works " unless
we are first agreed on the nature and destiny of man
and the purpose of the universe ?
4.
Traces of kitschlianism still persist, despite the con-
temporary repudiation of the Liberalism which sprang
A
from it. ~udolf Otto's famous book, The Idea of the
Holy, is, in some respects, an off-shoot of the Ritschlian
school-though it should be noted to Otto's credit that
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he does insist that religion demands convictions about
the nature of the world. The contention of many
psychological pragmatists. that it does not matter
whether religion is true or not so long as it is useful, is
also good ~itschlianism. Perhaps we can see the ghost
of Ritschl, too, in that modern example of theological
escapism which takes the form of a tentative acceptance
of the strictures of what was once called Logical
Positivism, but is now more often known as linguistic
analysis. Linguistic analysis, with its insistence that
the language of theology is at best prescriptive and - not
descrl ptive, and at worst mere nonsense, stems, in a
sense, from Kant's repudiation of metaphysics, though
bv a different route from that which runs through
~chleierrnacher and Ritschl-and just as Kant accepted
the criticism of Hume and attempted to find
some other ground - of belief, so some modern liberals
are auite prepared to surrender to the onslaught of
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linguistic analysis. It may very well be, they say in
effect, that the language of theology is nonsense-but
this does not necessarily invalidate religious belief. It
merely serves to remind us that we must seek some non-
metaphysical basis for religion-a basis such as feeling
or experience-the direct encounter with God, or the
numinous awareness which comes at moments of crisis
in the cycle of human life.
'Unfortunately, this attitude ignores the all-important
fact that the linguistic analysts are not the only ones
who are sceptical of religious belief. There are also
the psychological analysts, and they are just as ready
to dismiss so-called religious experience as their philo-
sophical colleagues are to dismiss metaphysical state-
ments. What guarantee have we, after all, that so-
called religious experience-even the encounter with
God-is anything more than a neurotic delusion?
And what about the man who says that he has no such
experiences? Are we to conclude that religion has no
claims upon him? To accept certain modern critiques
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of religion, and ignore the equally cogent psychological
critiques, is clearly a case of special pleading. If it be
argued, on the other hand, that the psychologists have
not made out their case, cannot the same be said of the
philosophers ? In other words, we ought to be pre-
pared to challenge not only the psychologists, but also
the philosophers as well. The defeatist notion that '
rational argument has no place in religion must be
rejected. As Professor Leonard Hodgson has pointed
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out, all real progress in religion has always depended
upon the appeal to reason and conscience. The essen-
tial unreasonableness of contemporary religion was,
for example, the constant theme of the Hebrew
prophets, and it was thanks to their influence that
a higher and a more reasonable religion ultimately
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