Evolution and the Doctrine of the Trinity

Excerpt from Evolution and the Doctrine of the Trinity

It is occasionally possible to disarm a critic by anticipating his criticisms. There is a frank ingenuousness about the proceeding that is somewhat disconcerting. That fact, however, is not my main reason for using this Preface to draw attention to two characteristics of the pages that follow, which may very likely, and perhaps justly, be selected for adverse comment. Anyone who tries to think honestly can only be grateful when his theories are subjected to criticism. There comes a stage when he can no longer act as his own critic. Then he must get the help he needs from others. In those conditions he is justly entitled, as it seems to me, to explain why he has set out his theories in the particular form in which they are submitted to the critics; and it is only this liberty I claim.

There is, unquestionably, full room at present for a restatement of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity in terms that are consonant with modem thought. Indeed, it is not too much to say that there is urgent need of such a restatement. A vague pantheism is the characteristic product of the religious speculation of to-day, and Christian doctrine, if not Christian ethics, is in danger of losing its hold on the minds of the most able among the younger men and women of England. Pantheism, with its emphasis on ultimate Unity, is not impressed by the tritheistic expression of Christian belief which passes popularly for Trinitarian doctrine.

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