Chapter 2
ORIGIN OF THE
CREEDS
Abel Leighton
Allen
The Message
of New Thought
"No! such a God my worship
may not win,
Who lets the world about his finger
spin,
A thing externe; my God must rule
within,
And whom I own for Father, God,
Creator,
Hold nature in Himself, Himself in
nature;
And in his kindly arms embraced, the
whole,
Doth live and move by his pervading
soul."
GOETHE.
THAT there may be a better
understanding and clearer comprehension
of the fundamental
principles of New Thought, and wherein
it differs from the recognized systems
of orthodox theology, I shall undertake
to institute a comparison between some
of its teachings and the doctrines of
orthodox religions. This plan of
statement is adopted, because in no
other manner can the distinctions and
divergencies between the principles of
New Thought and those of the recognized
theologies be so accurately measured
and determined.
At this time there seems to be an
imperfect and mystified conception and
understanding, in the minds of many
persons, adherents both of New Thought
and the orthodox religions, of the real
message of New Thought and what it
represents and teaches. This is not
surprising since the Christian
religion, although its followers claim
for it a different origin, and to be
founded on different ideas and
conceptions, adopted in a more or less
modified form many of the ceremonials
and rituals and some of the teachings
of the ancient pagan religions, and
persistently adhere to them and treat
them as essential, even to the present
day. It is not, therefore, anomalous
that there should be a tendency among
the followers of both New Thought and
the orthodox adherents to combine some
of the philosophy of New Thought with
the dogmas and creeds of the orthodox
religions.
The plan of comparing the principles of
the philosophy of New Thought with
those of the orthodox religions is
adopted not for a critical purpose, but
with a view to finding the initial and
important points of difference between
the two and clearly differentiating
them, so that they can be more readily
and clearly comprehended.
Ecclesiastical authorities both in the
past and present have not encouraged a
critical or careful research and study
of the foundations upon which
theological structures are built. The
theologian has been able to vault over
great gaps in history with the
nimbleness of an athlete, but the
inquiring and careful layman might not
be able to accomplish the same feat. In
the Catholic Church the adherents have
been told, in unmistakable language,
that they must accept the dicta and
authority of the Church as conclusive
and final.
In the orthodox branches of the
Protestant churches a critical review
of the origin of the creeds is not
encouraged, and particular beliefs and
dogmas are enjoined as paramount and
absolutely necessary to salvation, and
that any doubts thereof would
unmistakenly incur the Divine
displeasure. With them the search for
truth is of less importance than the
acceptance of certain beliefs.
This may be called an incredulous age,
but it is nevertheless a reasoning,
thinking, and investigating age. Mind
is at last becoming free. It is
asserting itself as never before. It is
refusing to be bound by the edicts and
commands of authority, which we shall
discover in a later page was invented
for the sole purpose of silencing the
reasoning and investigations of
man.
In this twentieth century, too, men are
asking why they must be bound by fixed
beliefs, which the reason rejects, and
why it is wrong to question them. Man
finds himself endowed with reason and
is conscious of his reasoning
faculties, the one quality and divine
gift that raises him above the animal,
and asks why he may not exercise those
powers in the investigation of
religious questions as well as all
others. Men are asking this question,
why are the exponents of the creeds so
persistent in enforcing their beliefs
upon others? Why are they so
uncharitable to those who differ, when
the mind cannot accept their beliefs?
Why the manifestation of so much
displeasure at what are called
unbelievers?
Many worthy persons are deeply grieved
at what seems to be a growth of
independent thought. They look upon
modern progressive thought as an
evidence of a decline in religion. They
worship creeds in the name of religion.
They reject truth in the name of
creeds. They see in ceremonials and
forms the highest expression of
religion. They worship the old and
distrust the new. They assume that a
change of thought cannot be productive
of any good, but must result in the
subversion of all religious thought.
They assume that it will lead man from
all true considerations of a religious
life.
All religion is based on man's
conception of God. Because my
conception differs from yours, is it
fair to quarrel with me because of
that? That our views of an infinite God
differ should cause no surprise. It
does not follow, because men question
existing beliefs, that they are not
deeply religious themselves, that they
are thinking at all about religion is
evidence that they are in fact
religious. That they are not satisfied
with the old is evidence that they are
trying to find a better and more
satisfying religion. Man ought not to
be blamed for seeking the religion that
best satisfies the wants of his own
soul. Carlyle said: "We will understand
that destruction of
old forms
is not destruction of everlasting
substances; that skepticism is not an
end, but
a
beginning."
It has been well said that man never
really understands a truth until he has
contended against it. In this age of
intellectual and religious liberty we
ought to be able to discuss in a
dispassionate manner all subjects to
which the mind is directed, whether
religious or secular. In that spirit
let us proceed to a study of New
Thought and the orthodox religions and
find the important lines of divergence:
"He who will not reason is a bigot, He
who dares not reason is a stave."
The theology of all so-called orthodox
churches, the Roman Catholic, the Greek
Catholic, and the various branches of
the Protestant Church, is fundamentally
and in all essential points the same.
Their basic principles are the same,
and they draw their life and
inspiration from the one identical
source. The Reformation was not caused
by any important differences between
the fundamental creeds and doctrines of
the Church. When Protestantism broke
away from the Catholic Church, it was
not because it disputed the underlying
principles of the Church, but mainly
and essentially because of certain
abuses and practices it was claimed had
grown up in the Catholic Church. The
sale of indulgences and like practices
contributed largely to the
separation.
When Luther separated from the Catholic
Church, he still clung to the
theological ideas of the separation of
God and man, original sin, the
vicarious atonement, that none outside
the Church could be saved, the doctrine
of transubstantiation in reference to
the sacraments, the denial of the
freedom of the will, all of which, as
we shall hereafter find, were first
promulgated by the Church while under
the dominion of the Latin bishops. He
announced the doctrine of justification
by faith and greatly magnified the
functions and importance of Satan, so
much so that we are told that he once
hurled an inkstand at the phantom he
called the devil.
John Calvin declared that God was
outside the framework of the universe
and denounced the idea of an immanent
God. He adopted from the Catholic
Church all the doctrines of a vicarious
atonement, including that of election,
which was first announced by Augustine
in the fifth century A.D.
The creeds of both the older and newer
churches after the Reformation
continued substantially the same, and
they remain the same today. The creeds
of the Roman Catholic, the Greek
Catholic, and the several branches of
the Protestant Church are based on the
following fundamental ideas and
declarations: First, that man was
estranged from God and became a fallen
being by reason of Adam's sin in
partaking of the forbidden fruit, when
the serpent said to Eve: "Your eyes
shall be opened and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil;" second,
that by reason thereof man became by
nature sinful and lost; third, that
because of his lost condition, it
became necessary to have a vicarious
atonement to reconcile God to man;
fourth, that God brought forth Jesus
for that purpose; that Jesus was
conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of
the Virgin Mary, and became the
vicarious atonement for man's
redemption; fifth, that Jesus was
crucified, was buried, and resurrected
and ascended into Heaven, and there
sits on the right hand of God, to
judge the quick and the dead; sixth,
that a belief in all this is necessary
and essential for man's salvation and a
life of happiness in a future world;
that if man will repent of his sins and
believe this, his offenses will all be
blotted out and he will be saved in
heaven.
The three basic ideas are the fall of
man, the vicarious atonement, and an
absolute belief in these propositions.
This statement might be enlarged and
amplified, but in the end we should
come back to the same propositions.
This will no doubt be accepted by
theologians as a fair and impartial
statement of the underlying principles
of the creeds of all the so-called
Orthodox denominations. It is true the
Catholic Church, in addition to the
dogmas above expressed, still holds to
the doctrines of the authority of the
Church, Apostolic succession, priestly
intervention, etc., which some of the
Protestant churches have omitted from
their creeds. But in substance the
theologies of the Orthodox Protestant
and Catholic churches are the
same.
The adherents of New Thought cannot
accept these views of orthodox
theologians, for two reasons: First,
because they do not rest upon any
adequate or sufficient historical
basis. Secondly, because these dogmas
find their only support in the theory
and supposition of the separation of
God from man, which the advocates of
New Thought cannot admit or concede.
How many modern Christians know
anything of the origin and history of
the creeds and dogmas to which they
yield implicit faith and obedience?
They have been unqualifiedly accepted,
without inquiry, doubt, or
investigation. For fifteen centuries
every doubt and inquiry about their
origin, their reasonableness and truth
have persistently been frowned upon by
priest and theologian alike. They have
held up doubt as a deadly offense and
investigation as treason to the
authority of the Church, that is,
divine authority. They said, "Believe
what we tell you or we will burn you as
a heretic at the stake." Such
superstitions still grip the minds of
millions who call themselves
free.
Many illusions vanish when we take a
survey of history and look into the
origin of beliefs and the dogmas upon
which they are based. We hear much even
in the twentieth century about the
early history of the Church, its
beliefs, its doctrines, and
revelations, with the plain inference,
if not with the positive statements,
that they were all given to the early
Fathers of the Church by the Apostles
themselves. To support that claim the
theory of apostolic succession was
invented as a valuable and necessary
expedient.
As a starting-point in this inquiry it
is well to remember that there is a
vast hiatus in the early history of the
Church, and no historical data of any
value exist to bridge it over. Between
the Apostles and the first of the
so-called Fathers of the Church there
is an interval upon which no historical
light is shed. From the fall of
Jerusalem, A.D. 70, to the middle of
the second century, more than two
generations lived and passed from the
stage of existence, and yet that whole
period furnishes no authentic history
of the early Church. During that
interval there is not
a word of Church
history that can be drawn from writers
who have been designated as Apostolic
Fathers. The first mention of the
doctrine of apostolic succession was by
Cyprian, about the middle of the third
century.
It is proper to keep in mind that St.
Augustine in the fifth century first
formulated the modern doctrines of the
Church, invented many of its creeds and
dogmas, and adopted the Latin idea of
establishing a church to govern and
rule the world. From that date Roman
theology governed the Church and gave
to the West its creeds and
dogmas.
Greek thought prevailed in the first
centuries of the Church--Clement,
Origen, and Athanasius being among its
most able exponents. It was mainly
their thought that shaped the theology
of the early Church. They lived nearer
the age of the Apostles than the Latin
theologians, and it is a reasonable
inference that if the creeds and dogmas
later announced by the latter had had
any existence in their day, they would
have heard of them and given them to
the world.
It is interesting to modern progressive
thinkers, who teach the immanency of
God, that God is a universal
intelligence, expressing Himself in all
nature, indwelling in man, that the
early Fathers of the Church taught the
same great truths. Like the Stoic
philosophy which on the very eve of its
decline produced such men as Seneca,
Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, they
taught that God is indwelling in
Nature, that the world was directed and
controlled by an immanent life, of
"whose beauty and glory outward Nature
is the direct manifestation," and that
the spirit of man expressed the highest
revelation of the actual presence of
the divine. They said man was created
in the spiritual image of God; that
because he was made in the spiritual
image of God, it is the law of his
being that he may rise into the
likeness of God and respond to the
divine call; that the law of God is not
found in external commandments, but is
written in the consciousness of man
himself. Nowhere did they teach the
fall of man or that he was separated
from God, or that God was displeased
with his conduct. They saw in Jesus the
normal man, the master idealist of the
race, the exemplar set before man as a
pattern toward whose perfection he
should strive and aspire in the
experience of life.
The theology of St. Augustine reversed
all this and made Adam and not Jesus
the normal man, and this is the view of
the Orthodox theologies, even to this
day, Protestant and Catholic
alike.
The Greek Fathers also taught that the
mission of Jesus was to reveal man to
himself and illuminate his soul with a
consciousness of man's own divine
nature. They did not speculate on the
origin of evil and knew nothing of the
doctrine of total depravity, of a
vicarious atonement, endless
punishment, infant damnation, election,
Purgatory, and many other beliefs and
dogmas that are still clung to by both
Catholic and Protestant and regarded by
them as essential to salvation. To them
the resurrection was the immediate
standing up again in the greater
fullness of life,--a spiritual
resurrection, not a resurrection of the
body. They said the only revelation is
within human consciousness, and not in
anything external to man's nature; that
the kingdom of God, as Jesus taught,
was within; that it is not through
grace coming from without but by
a voluntary preparation of the
soul in the discipline and education of
life, that man comes into a harmonious
and conscious relationship with
God.
These views were presented with
substantial unanimity by Clement,
Origen, and Athanasius, and reflected
the prevailing theological sentiments
from the latter part of the second
century until the latter part of the
fourth. Although Clement proclaimed the
immanent and universal God indwelling
in man, and knew nothing of the fall of
man and a vicarious atonement, yet the
Catholic Church saw fit to canonize him
as a saint and revered him as such
until the close of the fourteenth
century, when his name was stricken
from the calendar of saints under the
pontificate of Clement VIII. It would
be interesting to know in which
instance the Catholic Church manifested
its infallible wisdom, when it placed a
halo around his name as a saint, or
when it discovered his teachings were
contrary to the doctrines of the Church
and on that account struck his name
from the calendar of saints.
Soon after the passing of the Greek
theologians, the Church came under the
influence of Latin theology. The Greek
loved philosophy, the Roman loved
power. The Greek revered truth and saw
in the visible objects of Nature God's
symbols and gave their meaning to man.
The Roman cared little for philosophy,
but loved to exercise his genius for
purposes of dominion, conquest,
splendor, power, and obedience. It took
as its prototype the Roman government,
whose genius was conquest, power, and
slavery. Roman theology was formulated
to that end.
It found its champion in Augustine, the
so-called St. Augustine who flourished
and wrote in the fifth century A.D. It
is to him that both the modern Catholic
and Protestant churches of the orthodox
faith owe the origin, existence, and
establishment of their present dogmas
and creeds. He taught that man is
wholly separated from God. He was the
author of the doctrine of original sin
and the total depravity of man, the
only basis upon which a vicarious
atonement could be sustained. He also
invented the doctrine of
predestination. His fertile mind also
formulated the dogma of eternal
punishment, as well as the idea of
Purgatory after death. He promulgated
the doctrine of apostolic succession,
which was first invented, as we have
seen, by Cyprian.
Tertullian, the Roman lawyer, who lived
in the early part of the third century,
in his "Prescription of Heresy" first
proclaimed the idea of the absolute
authority of the Church. The following
language is ascribed to Tertullian at a
later date: "It is a fundamental human
right, a privilege of Nature, that
every man should worship according to
his own conviction. It is no part of
religion to coerce religion. It should
be embraced freely and not forced."
Nevertheless, his original argument was
so valuable that the Church adopted it
bodily and made use of it even down to
the present.
Augustine found the idea of absolute
authority convenient to silence
questioners he could not satisfy and to
dispose of inquiries he could not
answer; hence he proclaimed the
authority as supreme over the wills and
consciences of men. With him, none
outside the Church could be saved, and
unbaptized infants and heathen were
eternally lost. The necessity of
baptism, sacraments, inspiration of the
Bible, priestly mediation, and other
dogmas originated with Augustine; in
other words, they were invented by him
as conveniences in making the Church a
dominating power in the world.
It might be of interest to the orthodox
Protestant to stop and contemplate the
point that all the important tenets of
his creeds had their origin with
Augustine; that he also promulgated the
doctrine of the authority of the
Church, which subordinates the wills
and consciences of men to its control,
as well as priestly mediation and other
cherished doctrines of the Catholic
Church.
But, someone says, what authority have
you for these bold assertions? What
proof have you of these startling
statements? In good faith it may be
answered that all these statements are
supported by historic data of the
highest order. If our orthodox friends
wish to read them in concrete form,
they can find them in a volume written
by a man orthodox in every respect, a
professor in an orthodox theological
institution. In a volume entitled "The
Continuity of Christian Thought,"
written by Alexander V. G. Allen,
professor at the Episcopal Theological
School of Cambridge, all the foregoing
statements and many interesting facts
relating to the early Church
may be found. Let us read from the
volume some of the thoughts of
Athanasius, who lived from 296 to 373
A.D.: "The revelation of God is written
in the human consciousness; the ground
of all certitude is within man, not in
any authority external to his nature.
In order to know the way that leads to
God and to take it with certainty, we
have no need of foreign aid, but of
ourselves alone. As God is above all,
the way which leads to him is neither
distant nor outside of us, nor
difficult to find. Since we have in us
the kingdom of God, we are able easily
to contemplate and conceive
the King of the Universe, the salutary
reason of the universal Father. If
anyone asks of me what is the way, I
answer that it is the soul of each and
the intelligence which it encloses."
The sublimity of these thoughts cannot
be harmonized with the dogmatic
utterances of an Augustine. They leave
no room for the dogma of the separation
of God from man, a necessary premise
for the hypothesis of a vicarious
atonement. The teachings of Athanasius
would find ready response with the most
advanced of modern, progressive
thinkers.
Let us quote further from the same
volume: "None of the individual
doctrines or tenets which have so long
been the objects of dislike and an
imadversion to the modern theological
mind formed any constituent part of
Greek theology. The tenets of original
sin and total depravity, as expounded
by Augustine and received by the
Protestant churches from the Latin
Church; the guilt of infants, the
absolute necessity of baptism in order
to salvation, the denial of the freedom
of the will, the doctrine of election,
the idea of a schism in the divine
nature, which required a satisfaction
to retributive justice before love
could grant forgiveness, the atonement
as a principle of equivalence by which
the sufferings of Christ were weighed
in a balance against the endless
sufferings of the race, the notion that
revelation is confined within the book,
guaranteed by the inspiration of the
letter or by a line of priestly
curators, in apostolic descent, the
necessity of miracles as the strongest
evidence of the truth of a revealed
religion, the doctrine of a sacramental
grace and priestly mediation, the idea
of a church as identical with some
particular form of ecclesiastical
organization, these and other tenets
which have formed the gist of modern
religious controversy find no place in
the Greek theology and are
irreconcilable with its spirit."
Again, the same authority says:
"Clement does not speculate on the
nature or origin of evil. He knows
nothing of the later dogma of the fall
of man in Adam, nor of Adam as the
federal representative of mankind." The
Same author further observes that the
Rev. J. M, Neale, in the preface
of his translation of the Eastern
Liturgies, remarks that he finds no
trace in them of the modern theory of
the atonement as it has been held in
Latin and Protestant churches,
according to which the sufferings of
Christ were an equivalent for human
punishment.
To show that Grecian theological
thought was predominant in the
Christian Church until the Augustine
era, it is interesting to note that St.
Augustine himself once advocated the
doctrine of the immanent, the
omnipresent, universal God--ideas,
directly at variance with those he
afterward proclaimed when he conceived
the idea of establishing an
ecclesiastical hierarchy to rule the
world.
At one time in his career, apparently
without difficulty he wrote as follows:
"For God is diffused through all
things. He said Himself by the prophet,
'I fill heaven and earth,' and it
is said unto Him in a certain psalm,
'Whither shall I go from thy spirit or
whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven thou art
there; if I make my bed in hell, behold
thou art there,' because God is
substantially diffused everywhere." At
a later date Augustine without
difficulty could separate God from man
and supply priestly intermediaries
without number, as
ecclesiastical middlemen between man
and God.
In the same volume we read: "For a
thousand years those who came after him
[Augustine] did little more than
reaffirm his teaching, and so deep is
the hold which his long supremacy has
left upon the Church, that his opinions
have become identified with divine
revelation and are all that the
majority of the Christian world yet
know of the religion of Christ."
It is evident that these creeds and
beliefs could not have been perpetuated
through fifteen centuries save for that
convenient dogma that the wills and
consciences of men must be
subordinated to ecclesiastical
authority, and that other doctrine,
observed and fostered by
orthodox Protestantism, that a belief
in certain formulas is necessary to
salvation and that all reasoning and
inquiry about their truth must be
effectually and forever stilled.
A historical review of the creeds and a
religion professedly based upon the
teachings of the Gentle Master reveals
many strange situations and anomalies.
The creeds of the Christian Church
originated among dissensions, and they
have bred contentions, strifes and
quarrels from their beginning to the
present. We read in Galatians, that all
was not peace and harmony between Paul
and Peter. Their unseemly quarrel was
presumably due to a profound jealousy
on the part of Peter, over the fact
that circumstances had not brought Paul
into the company and society of Jesus
during his sojourn in Palestine.
Perhaps one of the serious faults of
humanity has been unduly to value and
emphasize the lives and characters of
those who lived in the distant past. We
find Tertullian in the early part of
the third century condemning heretics
and asserting the authority of the
Church. At the great council of the
Church at Ephesus, A.D. 431, violent
quarrels ensued over the question
whether Christ had two natures or one,
and similar questions. Let a modern
historian tell the result: "A bishop
was kicked to death by another bishop
in the course of their arguments, and
one hundred and thirty-seven corpses
were left in a church, to attest the
convincing reasons by which the most
ruffianly side proved its orthodoxy. At
the fifth general council, by a decree
the Church expressed its gentleness as
follows: "Whoever says that the
torments of the demons and impious men
will at length come to an end, let him
be damned. Anathema to Origen,
Adamantius, who taught these things."
Even the former head of the Church did
not escape their fury.
The various creeds are as widely
separated and no nearer a union than at
any period since the first creed was
promulgated. Their peace is outward
only. Their love and respect for each
other are no greater than when the
Roundheads contended against the
Cavaliers. My orthodox friend, is it a
pleasant picture to contemplate? Are
these contentions, strifes, and
differences to continue forever?
Why this tenacity over the
shading of creeds and beliefs? Why
this jealousy over speculative
theories? The philosopher looking for a
cause for every effect is prompted to
make this inquiry: Does any part of the
entire structure stand on a foundation
of truth?
Chapter
3
* * * * *
The Message of New Thought
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