necessarily conceived in the Catholic manner as the submission of the mind to a proposition on the ground of its authority. But if the Reformation has taught us anything, it is that faith is not assent to a doctrine, but trust in the living God. F'aith is no product of our own activity ; it is God- created — the result of the contact of the soul with Divine reality. In the Person of Christ, God so reveals Himself to us as to command our reverence, trust, and devotion.
Not a doctrine, therefore, but a life is for Ritschlian theology the medium of Revelation and the object of faith. But the further question arises. What are the facts in the life that clothe it with Divine meaniu" and power? In traditional theology the main empliasis falls upon the element of the miraculous. This follows necessarily from the position assigned to doctrine. Doctrine is the object of faith, and it is the miraculous facts — Virgin-birth, Miracles, Sinlessness, unique Know- ledge of Goiid, bodily Resurrection — that supply the basis for the dogmatic structure. But in the Ritschlian system no importance is attached to the miraculous as such. The attempt to demon- strate the Divine significance of Jesus in a theo- retical (or causal) way is abandoned) as at once imix)ssible and mistaken. It is not possible, it is maintained, by means of the facts to \yhich tradi- tional theology appeals, to prove scientifically that Jesus cannot be explained by the causes operative in history, and that the hypothesis of a transcen- dental origin and nature must be brought into the field. Only for faith is a miracle a proof of God's working ; for science it is either an unexplained fact or a deceptive appearance. Moreover, it is not through breaches in the continuity of nature or of history that God makes His presence and activity certain to us. The religious view of nature or history is no product of causal explana- tion. To faith alone does God reveal Himself, and the judgment that God is in Christ is a judg- ment of faith. To consider Jesus in the light of a problem that has to be explained is to abandon the religious attitude for the scientific.
The vital facts in Christ's life are, for Ritsch- lianisni, those that exhibit the living Person, and His activity in His vocation. The Christ who knew God as Father, who never turned aside from doing the Father's will, who never in the darkest vicissitudes of His life lost His confidence in the Father's Avisdom, power, and love, and who by His faith overcame the world and conqiiered death ; the Christ who, understanding and feeling the evil of sin as none else, in holy love and pity sought out the sinful, making them His com- panions and opening for them the door into the Kingdom of God, and who for their sakes sur- rendered His life as an ottering, enduring the cross and despising the shame — this is at once the Christ of liistory and the Christ of faith. His unique consciousness of God and His sinlessness — or, as it is better described. His moral perfection — do not owe their religious importance to their serviceable- ness as proofs of a transcendental ' nature ' ; their importance lies in their inherent worth and power as elements in His personality. That there is something inscrutable in Jesus' consciousness of God is strongly maintained ; only it is not our inability to account fur Him that give.s Him His religious significance. Similarlj- the miracles are not to be viewed as proofs, but as exhibiting His gracious activity in His vocation. What of the Resurrection ? Within the Ritschlian school there are some who include this as part of the historically given ground of faith. The view of the majority, however, and the one that seems most consistent with the general position, is that lielief in Jesus' eternal existence is rather the final outcome of
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faith than its preliminary condition. Apart from the diliiculties which the llesurrection narratives present, our helief that Jesus lives is not one that rests on human testimony. It depends on the impression produced on us by His Person, — He could not be holden of death (Ac 2=^),— and on our acceptance of His revelation of the Father-God.
The question has been raised whether it is the historical or the exalted Christ that is the object of faith. These alternatives are not, however, so opposed as they seem. Most would admit that our conception of the exalted Christ, if it is not to pass into the region of pure phantasy, must derive its content from the historical life ; and also, that the historical Christ must be thought of, not merely as a figure of the past, but as alive for evermore. The exalted Christ is the Christ of history, with the superadded thought that He is not dead but risen, and at the right hand of God.
The gospel, the glad message of God's Fatherly love and forgiveness, is, according to Ritschlian thought, already given in the simple proclamation of Jesus. To complicate this simple nroclamation with doctrine is to pervert it. But this is not to say that Christ has no place in His gospel. In the first place, it is from Christ's Personality, and from His activity in His vocation, that the gospel de- rives its meaning. Apart from His ministry of love, our conception of the Fatherly love of God can have but little living content. That historical ministry in its inexhaustible richness stands as the enduring exhibition of what Divine love means. The dogmatic conception of the Father surrender- ing His eternal Son to death is much poorer as an exhibition of love than the historical reality. So also one can rise to the height of the gospel con- ception of God's righteousness and mercy only as one keeps in view the mind and character of Christ, and His treatment of sinners. The reconciliation of these two attributes is not a matter of juris- prudence, as the Atonement doctrine makes it ; it is the secret of a personal life. We see them re- conciled in the mind and ministry of Jesus, \\\\o, undefiled and separate from sinners, yet received them into His fellowship.