OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS INTRODUCTION THEOLOGIES “HEOLOGIES are judged, in the long run, not by their symmetry or elaborateness, but by their contribution to the solution of human problems. On the shelves of every theological library there are works of divinity which are far more neatly constructed and minutely wrought out than anything that the theological writers of our day are putting forth. But to most of us they are as objects in a museum. They are, indeed, to be studied by all who would have full mastery over present thought, but they cannot be largely appropriated and applied to the present. They rest from their labors, and the works of others do follow them. Their symmetry and elaborateness do not condemn them, but neither do they preserve them. They have ceased to speak to us simply and directly; their language is archaic and foreign, and we turn to those whose speech has the accents of our mother tongue. Most of these elaborate theological writings of the past are for our time what the wooden frigates of our navy were for the Civil War. On a certain day in Hampton Roads one monitor proved to be worth twenty frigates for the protection of the cause of the Union. The more intricate the scheme of spars and rigging on those stately vessels, the more fatally did they carry their crews down into the sea. There was a new situation to cope with, and hence new methods of defence and attack were required. In a similar way new situations confront us in the world of thought, and the church militant must have its Ericssons and its Edisons as well as its officers of the line if it is to hold its ancient place in our civilization. Let me not speak, however, as though the issues of life with which theology is concerned are necessarily all new. On the contrary, many are as old as the human heart, out of which they proceed. The point for us to bear in mind is simply that, whether the issues be new or old, the capacity to help in meeting them is that by which theologies are judged. The problem burdening the spirits of men to-day may be the one with which the thinkers of Israel struggled more than two millenniums ago, "Why do the righteous suffer?" or it may be the modern problem, "How can a man be just, when he is a member of an unjust industrial system?" It matters not, so long as the issue is one that tries men's souls. Whatever that issue may be, our theology will be judged in the light of it. Theology may indeed repudiate the demand that it furnish instant and final solutions for all such problems, but it cannot repudiate the demand that whatever it has to say should bear upon those problems, and that its right to a hearing be proportionate to the adequacy of the solutions it offers. The one who attempts to form his theology in forgetfulness of the turbid stream of human life is thus foredoomed to failure. The theologian cannot live unto himself. He must see the visions and feel the burdens of his age, he must vibrate responsively to the great passions and aspirations of his kind, he must |