How much knowledge of truth must one have in order to be saved? I mean, how comprehensive an understanding of God's dealings with mankind and of His plans for the individual and for the race in the future, must a person have in order to become a true child of God? Does the Bible say, Believe the articles of some creed or formal statement of belief, and thou shalt be saved? Must everyone have a clear understanding of the twenty-three hundred days and the intricacies of the sanctuary question, possibly also a correct interpretation of the seventeenth chapter of Revelation, of Ezekiel's vision of the temple, and all the other more difficult parts of the Bible?
In one well-known instance, an inquiring sinner was told by one who surely knew what he was talking about, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." The record shows that this candidate for admission to the church must at that time have had only a very slender knowledge of what we term Christian theology. Subsequently he was instructed in the Christian way, and doubtless ultimately attained to a good knowledge of the truths of the gospel.
What, then, is the correct relationship between religious knowledge and saving faith? Prof. J. G. Machen, in his very instructive book, "What Is Faith?" (1925), points out that Christian faith is not a mere mental assent to a truth or a formula, but is always directed toward a Being, a Person. It is always of the nature of a trust in the plans of this Being, or Person, for our individual lives. With this agree absolutely the words of one whom we as Adventists respect profoundly:
"Many hold faith as an opinion. Saving faith is a transaction, by which those who receive Christ join themselves in covenant relation with God."—"Ministry of Healing," p. 62.
The connection in this instance shows clearly that the expression, "receive Christ," means to receive Him as a personal and individual Saviour. This, then, is the vital part of saving faith, the sine qua non, the absolutely indispensible part of the whole plan of salvation. This is the only invariable essential. Who, then, shall assign a minimum for the purely intellectual (or theoretical) requirement in the way of a knowledge of truth? I am confident that no one is wise enough to formulate any such minimum qualification in the way of a knowledge of theology or theological truth, and I am here using the term "theology" to cover all true knowledge of God and of the plan of salvation.
And yet, what about the other side of this question? What about God's demands on those who have an opportunity to learn the full details of Christian theology? Will God be satisfied with anything less than the very best we can do to master the truths of Christian theology, including all the fundamental relationships between the truths of the Bible and the truths of the great book of nature?
We as Seventh-day Adventists are committed to the idea that we must know the truth, or the delusions of the last days will surely deceive and ensnare us. Great hosts of conflicting teachings are all around us, both in pure theology and also in science, many of the latter having very important bearings upon theology. Must we master them all? And must we find the real truth on all these perplexing problems or be lost?
Most of my readers are aware that Modernism, or the fashionable type of religion almost universally prevalent throughout Europe and America among professedly Protestant peoples, is characterized by a repudiation of religious doctrine as being of any real importance. Modernists declare emphatically that it is Christian experience alone that matters. Theology is thus relegated to the dust heap of the past. What difference does it make, say they, whether we believe one creed or another? If we believe in God and in Jesus as the Saviour of mankind, that is all that is essential; the creeds of the churches should be forgotten and discarded.
This is the fashionable modern way of evading the cogent arguments of such doctrines as those of the Sabbath, the coming of the Lord, and all those other ideas which we include under the term "present truth." Professor Machen is fond of terming this Modernistic attitude an "anti-intellectualism;" and of course he is right. It is emphatically a repudiation of the intellect as being of any importance in the realm of religion. It is Ritschlianism with the additional twist acquired from belief in the theory of organic evolution. For Ritschl's system was characterized by the entire repudiation of all historical or scientific facts in support of religion, and the claim that religion has only a subjective validity. This is anti-intellectualism in its extreme form. It needed only the further absurdity of Bishop Berkeley's denial of the reality of the external world (which is now advocated in certain scientific quarters) to fortify these Modernists with a fashionable zeitgeist which makes them utterly immune to any presentation of truth from the Bible or from any facts or logic whatever.
On the other hand, we Adventists have often gone to the opposite extreme. How often have we argued as if the intellectual knowledge of truth were the only thing of real importance. As a people we have built on a platform of argument and evidence; we have always strongly emphasized the necessity of giving a mental assent to a body of teachings which are correct Scripturally, historically, and scientifically. It was the strong emphasis placed upon this aspect of our work which made Sister White warn us of becoming as "dry as the hills of Gilboa." And yet she herself was always emphasizing the need of strong intellectual training, the sin of mental laziness, and the necessity of being doctrinally correct.
Where, then, lies the truth, that via media which means salvation, which means our individual acceptance before God? The truth is that God deals with each of us individually. The first thing for each of us is to make sure that we are individually accepted before God through the sole merits of Jesus. This is that "saving faith," always an individual "transaction," by which each one joins himself "in covenant relation with God." After that, it is just a matter of following out that individual guidance as to duty which God always assumes over every one when he enters upon this "covenant relation" with Him. Each one then becomes responsible for improving all the opportunities for acquiring knowledge and for attaining intellectual development which God places within his reach, and also responsible for living up to all the light that he receives.
But this individual relationship between the soul and God makes it quite out of the question for any one to become a judge of another's responsibility before God. "To his own master he standeth or falleth." Neither you nor I can possibly know this intimate relationship of another with his God. For just as it requires the work of the Holy Spirit to send home any truth —when preached from the-pulpit, so it also requires this working of the Spirit to make effective any truth to the individual soul, whether this truth comes from the Bible, from nature, or from the teachings of God's providence, all of which are the regular, everyday methods by which God trains and educates each of His children.
What, then, is the relationship between knowledge and faith? Briefly, faith (in the Bible meaning of this term) is the one essential for every one. But no one can impart faith to any one else. What we can impart is knowledge. Also, God requires us individually and collectively to acquire knowledge, to improve all our opportunities for intellectual improvement, and then to live up to every scrap of real truth which we acquire. This last is an individual work, an individual responsibility. We are also responsible for imparting truth—objectively attested truth—to those around us.
But it is a great mistake to think that a mere intellectual assent to any truth whatsoever is sufficient to save any one. The dependence of the individual soul on the finished work of Jesus is the only method of getting right with God. It is an individual transaction, which no one can do for another, and which no one can possibly impart to another. But we are, every one of us, responsible for acquiring all the real knowledge of all truth which God's providences make it possible for us to acquire. And then this truth is to be imparted to all others, and must also be lived out in our own lives. This is the program of Christianity.
College Place, Wash.
