Introduction

The words “The Higher Criticism” used in the title of this book are not altogether satisfactory, for “The Higher Criticism” taken in its original and strict sense, as denoting literary criticism as distinguished from “the lower” or textual criticism, is not necessarily unscientific, nor unscriptural, nor unwholesome. There is a legitimate “higher” criticism of this kind. In actual usage, however, and in the common understanding to-day, the words “Higher Criticism” denote a certain type of literary criticism that follows unscientific and even absurd methods and has reached unwarranted and false results, and that is utterly mischievous. When the words “The Higher Criticism” are used to-day almost everyone understands them to apply to this type of criticism, and so we have used it in the title of the present book. The words “The New Theology” are not altogether satisfactory. This phrase came into quite common use something over thirty years ago to denote a certain type of theology that was not at all new even in those days, but was new in supposedly orthodox churches. A few years ago these words were taken up again as a battle cry in England by a school of erratic thinkers. We use these words in the title of the book because to the common mind they denote a certain type of theological thought that has proved fascinating to many ministers of the Gospel and to many laymen, and that has wrought terrible havoc in the life and work of our churches. It would be difficult to exactly define “the new theology,” but it stands in a general way for the denial or questioning of the authority of the Bible as the inerrant Word of God; for the denial or questioning of the real Deity of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ; for the denial or questioning of the virgin birth of our Lord and of His literal, bodily, resurrection from the dead; for the denial or questioning of the vicarious atonement; and for the denial or questioning of the eternal, conscious suffering of those who die impenitent. This book aims to put into succinct and readily usable form the proof that both “the Higher Criticism” and “the New Theology” are unscientific, unscriptural and unwholesome.

Many of the chapters in this book are taken by permission from a series of volumes called “Fundamentals” which are being published at the expense of two Christian laymen and sent without cost to ministers of the Gospel and some other Christian workers throughout the world. Other chapters and topics, which have not as yet been fully treated in “Fundamentals” are added by the compiler.