Encroachments of Secularized History
The lessons of history teach unerringly, if rightly interpreted, the outworking of God's immutable purpose for the human race. When rightly understood, the conclusions to be drawn from the study of history point unmistakably to the triumph of God's eternal purpose, and forecast the outcome of the struggle between Christ and Satan, and the setting up of God's eternal kingdom. But the secular historian misses all this and merely records what to him are largely unrelated facts, divested of their real meaning, their sequence, and their sequel. Realizing the danger that grows out of this secularization of history, Elder Froom presented a paper in the Theological Seminary on the subject of "Secularized History, an Encroaching Menace." This study is a valuable contribution to a theme of surpassing importance to every Seventh-day Adventist worker. Believing, that all ministers and teachers in our ranks should share in its benefits, we have asked that the presentation be reproduced in The Ministry, and it begins herewith.--J. L. McElhany.
What we live in a world growing increasingly hostile to the distinctive message committed to Seventh-day Adventists for this remnant of time, is a commonplace, among us.. We perhaps sense this most keenly in the theological and ecclesiastical realms. More and more we have become a people separate and apart, as concerns doctrine. This is not because of changes upon our part, but because of increasing departures upon the part of others. With the devastating ascendancy of religious liberalism in all the great Protestant denominations, we are being automatically separated farther and farther from their dominant attitudes and current teachings.
There is similarly an estrangement relative to certain positions of the scientific world about. The well-nigh universal substitution of the evolution hypothesis for the doctrine of creationism, permeating likewise the entire realm of theology, has been so flagrant a perversion of revealed truth, that we have been increasingly aware of its phantasies and its departures, particularly in the fields of geology, biology, and cognate sciences. But the evolution issue has been "so, sharp and clear that our perception and avoidance of its ruinous influence have been both decisive and satisfactory.
Even more subtle and dangerous for us than some of the patent theological and scientific perversions current are structural changes that have come in the university classroom and current historical treatises. In the field of history, there is danger that we shall not as clearly sense the subtle, subversive character of fundamental changes. This is true not only as to secularization of content, but also as to method of investigation and appraisal such as have taken place within the last few decades, profoundly affecting us as a movement at every vital point in our program and witness.
Believing as we do in the divine hand of God in human affairs, in His overruling providences in the life of mankind during the long conflict between good and evil, and that He has foretold the great, outstanding events of this conflict as waymarks to the children of the covenant, history is a vital consideration in our preaching, and occupies a central place in the curriculum of the separate denominational school system that we were compelled to build up to preserve our own distinctive concepts. So we are vitally affected by this subtle but foundational departure. Here, then; is a threatening danger that demands our most earnest consideration.
Compelled, as we must be, to repudiate the worldly interpretation of the present-day history teaching and investigative method, we shall find ourselves more and more estranged and isolated from those committed to the dictums of the paganized historical attitude. A crisis is coming over this very issue, and we must not be taken unawares. As I view it, a break with the secularized historical postulates of the scholarly world is as inescapable as was our break with the permeations of evolution in the field of science. This we must expect and be prepared for, and in this battle we must acquit ourselves like men. We must be able to defend our "antiquated," "outmoded" allegiance to the Bibliocentric history thesis even more convincingly than we have opposed the whole evolutionary scheme. And our fundamental attitude and positions will in both instances be much the same,
We have as yet scarcely "scratched the surface" in revealing to the world the handwriting of God in history, in constructing what may and should be one of the mightiest arguments yet devised in behalf of truth, and in unanswerably justifying our existence as a separate movement. Thus we are to persuade and win the honest, open-minded seeker for truth. Research in the distinctive fields of history and prophecy will vindicate our thesis, for truth witnesses to truth; and evidence—ample and inescapable—supports the revealed outline vouchsafed to this people. With such a general statement of the case, let us now turn to a more specific consideration of the problem.
The peril of the situation lies in the fact that the secularized historian ignores the divine element in history—an element all-essential in formulating a true appraisal. He ignores or repudiates the inspired, and therefore only inerrant, key or interpretation of recorded history extant. There is for him no "far-off, divine event" toward which the whole creation moves, no clear unfolding of divine purpose springing from the councils of eternity, no divine drama with its human, celestial, and demon actors, no supernatural restraint of nations, no controlling relationship to immutable moral purpose that determines the destiny of nations, the world, and the universe.
This attitude profoundly affects his entire outlook, and thereby inevitably controls his method of historical appraisal. Neither recognizing nor admitting revealed truth,—and thus having no inspired criteria to guide him,—he gropes for historical truth and certainty by human deduction alone. He regards all historical data as merely relative, and therefore not to be wholly relied upon. He knows that the records with which he works were written by biased minds, often with an ulterior purpose to serve. This causes him to take an ostensibly scientific, impartial, detached, and almost challenging position as regards all data and documents, sedulously balancing, weighing, and evaluating all available evidence to find a residuum of truth. Thus Professor Edwin P. Booth, of the Boston University School of Theology, recently declared:
"History is not an exact science. Time was when men hoped it would become so, when with the increasing exactness of scientific method one might hope to lay the measuring rod against the actions of men. But it cannot be. It is the story of men, prejudiced in mind and body, told by men of the same prejudiced structure. The good historian accounts for the presuppositions and prejudices in his subject and in himself."—Zion Herald, Feb. 23, 1938.
The expounders of history are, as all concede, subject to the frailties and prejudices common to humanity. This creates a very real problem. Take the Protestant Reformation, for instance: Read stanch Roman Catholic sources, and it would seem to have been a tragic revolution, or apostasy, from truth and right; read stalwart Protestant authors, and it was obviously the greatest spiritual revival and advance among men in a thousand years. Or, take the French Revolution: Read Michelet, and it seems glorious; read Taine, and it appears to be one of the most horrible transactions in history. Yet both appraisals were formed from essentially the same body of data.
Faced by the dilemma of conflicting documentary accounts, the historian is often compelled to make his choice between alternative positions. He finds reputable, able chroniclers speaking with assertive but opposing voices. Which shall he believe and follow ? Human judgment alone is inadequate here. There must be some safe guidance, some inerrant clue, some inspired specification, if his conclusions are to be more than the uncertain chance of arbitrary choice.
The secular chronicler deals with the Papacy, for example, as with a purely human institution, seeking by comparison of Catholic charges with Protestant claims to reach what is considered a just understanding and intermediary evaluation of its actual status and relationship historically. Many a historian has, of course, been disgusted with the gross caricatures of Christianity that have marred the past. But he takes for granted that both sides are biased and distorted in statement, and assumes that he must find the accurate mean. He is driven to this expedient because he is without the inspired clues that give direction to his investigations, and certainty to his findings. Thus he fails to recognize the Papacy's real place and relationship in the course of human affairs. Such is the fruit of historical relativity, with its denial of the existence of the divine element in human affairs.
Voiltaire once said, "History is a nightmare, from which I am glad to awaken." Prophecy is the only key that unlocks the mysteries and intents of history. But for the profane historian there is no divine philosophy that explains time's apparently tangled maze of events. For him no prophetic finger has written, no divine panorama is unfolding. Therefore he gropes toward what seems to him to be sound conclusions and plausible explanations for a strangely behaving world. The predetermined succession of prophetically named world powers,—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome,—followed by Rome's division and the Papacy's ascendancy, its wounding, resurgence, climax, and overthrow (with related factors and time periods that for us integrate all history and give its large meanings), has no especial meaning or fundamental significance for him. The relentless controversy between truth and error does not for him rotate around the divine plan of human redemption and the moral law with its Sabbath seal,
The central issues in church history are consequently not perceived. Episodes are seen as a series of unrelated events, rather than as the unfolding of a connected plan and counter-plan with definitely known causes and effects. The Papacy is just a cunning, religio-political institution that has spanned the centuries. Its real genius is not discerned, nor are the fundamental principles and implications of its rise, continuance, and overthrow relative to divine truth perceived. Such is the secularized historian's misconception and limitation. He misses the really essential point of history. His is an essentially pagan and wholly secular view that depreciates the Christian view in general, and the Adventist view in particular. This is the sinister element that, once accepted to any appreciable degree, leads into the wilderness of human speculation. We are clearly told:
"Philosophical speculation and scientific research in which God is not acknowledged are making skeptics of thousands of the youth. In the schools of today the conclusions that learned men have reached as the result of their scientific investigations are carefully taught and fully explained; while the impression is distinctly given that if these learned men are correct, the Bible cannot be. Skepticism is attractive to the human mind. The youth see in it an independence that captivates the imagination, and they are deceived. Satan triumphs; it is altogether as he meant it should be."—"Testimonies," Vol. VIII, p. 305.
________ To be continued in September
