Religious Experience and Theological Development

Abstract

The great inheritance which the intellectual life of this century derives from the last century is the idea of development. It is a commonplace to say that this conception has revolutionized our way of regarding nature, life, and human society. And no one today would approach the study of a type of plant or animal, or a particular human institution, without considering it from the evolutionary standpoint. As Aristotle remarked long ago, the best way to philosophize about the nature of a thing is to study its process of growth. The genetic method has been successfully applied to the study of religions, and the progress of the religious consciousness has been traced from its lowly beginnings in animism and spiritism to its culmination in ethical and spiritual religion. One of the results of this investigation has been to show how essentially a process of development is a feature of a living religion. When a religion becomes stereotyped and mechanized the vital spirit ebbs from it, even though it may linger long as an external institution. So perished the ancient faiths of Greece and Rome, and so must perish any religion which is divorced from the spiritual life and culture of the age. For life means growth and fruitful interaction with the environment; and the living thing has the capacity to select and appropriate elements which nourish its inner being and promote its development. To those who have entered into this way of thinking the position of theology at the present day gives much ground for reflection. While the other sciences are undergoing a rapid development, it has remained stationary, if not absolutely, yet to a very great extent. Most, if not all, of the churches are burdened with a theology which grew up and assumed form in what may be termed a prescientific age, and the right to modify and reconstruct is by