A scrupulous honesty in admitting the probable facts of
history, and a fresh upwelling of mystical experience, these are the
motives, creditable to any spiritual man, that have made modernists of
so many. But these excellent things appear in the modernists under
rather unfortunate circumstances. For the modernists to begin with are
Catholics, and usually priests; they are pledged to a fixed creed,
touching matters both of history and of philosophy; and it would be a
marvel if rationalistic criticism of the Bible and rationalistic
church history confirmed that creed on its historical side, or if
irresponsible personal speculations, in the manner of Ritschl or of M.
Bergson, confirmed its metaphysics.
I am far from wishing to suggest that an orthodox Christian cannot be
scrupulously honest in admitting the probable facts, or cannot have a
fresh spiritual experience, or frame an original philosophy. But what
we think probable hangs on our standard of probability and of
evidence; the spiritual experiences that come to us are according to
our disposition and affections; and any new philosophy we frame will
be an answer to the particular problems that beset us, and an
expression of the solutions we hope for. Now this standard of
probability, this disposition, and these problems and hopes may be
those of a Christian or they may not.
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