nsequence of this establishment of the bible as the final court
of appeal was decidedly harmful since it set reason and experience over
against a supposed revelation. So far as Protestantism itself was
concerned, it did not have in it, as a consequence of this bibliolatry,
the intellectual vitality necessary to a true evolution. Had it not
been for the larger social, scientific and philosophical developments
which sprang up at the same time and founded themselves on reason and
experience, the protestant revolt would have ended in a blind alley.
There is every reason to believe, however, that it helped to break the
tyranny of the theological {94} view of the world and to free the human
spirit for new endeavors. Protestantism, just because it was a revolt,
could not attain sufficient unity and power to stamp out intellectual
freedom. The modern world was too complex to be dominated by religion.
But we have already indicated the conditions which gave rise to the
higher criticism whose results we have been summarizing.

We must frankly ask ourselves what features of historical Christianity
are congruent with our modern life. The Hellenistic world to which
dogma and ritual are mainly due is a thing of the past, existent for no
one but the scholar. Ours is a new world with new ideas, new problems
and new possibilities. Does the recognition of historical continuity
preclude the acknowledgment of very radical changes?

I am certain that the deification of Jesus will be given up step by
step. He was not born miraculously, nor was he preexistent as the Word
or Logos. These terms do not fit into an outlook dominated by science.
To call him the Son of God in an exclusive sense is not warranted by
the facts, nor has it any clear meaning for the present age. To the
old Greek, Egyptian, and Roman, the idea was familiar; many of the
patrician families traced their descent to Apollo or Jupiter. But such
a literal interpretation of the phrase has no sanction for us, and any
other than a literal meaning is essentially meaningless. Jesus was a
noble and tender-hearted man with the beliefs of his age. To speak of
him as ideally perfect and sinless is absurd just because these terms
are absolutes where relatives alone have meaning. Like most
theological terms they cut themselves loose {95} from their necessary
setting, which, in this case, is human nature and society.

When the necessary critical work has been done, what is le