. In a large way the
history of Christian thought, from earliest times to the end of the
eighteenth century, presents a very striking unity.

In contrast with this, that modern reflection which has taken the
phenomenon known as religion and, specifically, that historic form of
religion known as Christianity, as its object, has indeed also slowly
revealed the fact that it is in possession of certain principles.
Furthermore, these principles, as they have emerged, have been felt to
be new and distinctive principles. They are essentially modern
principles. They are the principles which, taken together, differentiate
the thinker of the nineteenth century from all who have ever been before
him. They are principles which unite all thinkers at the end of the
nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, in practically
every portion of the world, as they think of all subjects except
religion. It comes more and more to be felt that these principles must
be reckoned with in our thought concerning religion as well.

One of these principles is, for example, that of dealing in true
critical fashion with problems of history and literature. Long before
the end of the age of rationalism, this principle had been applied to
literature and history, other than those called sacred. The thorough
going application of this scientific method to the literatures and
history of the Old and New Testaments is almost wholly an achievement of
the nineteenth century. It has completely altered the view of revelation
and inspiration. The altered view of the nature of the documents of
revelation has had immeasurable consequences for dogma.

Another of these elements is the new view of nature and of man's
relation to nature. Certain notable discoveries in physics and astronomy
had proved possible of combination with traditional religion, as in the
case of Newton. Or again, they had proved impossible of combination with
any religion, as in the case of Laplace. The review of the religious and
Christian problem in the light of the ever increasing volume of
scientific discoveries--this is the new thing in the period which we
have undertaken to describe. A theory of nature as a totality, in which
man, not merely as physical, but even also as social and moral and
religious being, has place in a series which suggests no break, has
affected the doctrines of God and of man in a way which neither those
who revered nor those who repudiated religion at th