THEOLOGICAL PUZZLES by W. N. Glenn

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 15, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 27.

"THEOLOGICAL PUZZLES."

By W. N. Glenn

At the yearly meeting of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, recently held in New York, one of their ministers, Samuel Ash, in course of a sermon, said: "It is the peculiar distinction of our society that we are permitted to ignore theological puzzles. We have no doctors of divinity among us to vex us with those problems upon which the human intellect has for ages expended itself to so little purpose."

The New York Observer essays to comment upon this sentiment of Mr. Ash, but in order to get a starting point for criticism, is compelled to put a forced construction upon his words. It says, "Friend Ash regards doctrines as puzzles, hard to understand, and therefore useless to Christian faith and practice;" and having set up this man of straw, proceeds to knock it down. It is true the Society of Friends does "ignore" some doctrines, but it is equally true that some so-called doctrines which the Observer (Presbyterian) holds, are mere "theological puzzles."

On some doctrines the position of the Friends is more consistent than that of their Presbyterian critic, for instance on the matter of baptism. When the Friends ignore water baptism, they do so in toto, relying wholly on the baptism of the Spirit; while the Presbyterians, in ignoring water baptism, which according to the Scriptures represents a burial and a resurrection, have substituted the "theological puzzle" of sprinkling. The doctrines of the Bible are not nearly so puzzling as the theological substitutes upon which many denominations and divines have for ages expended their energies.

But the Friends do not take full advantage of their privilege in being "permitted to ignore theological puzzles." They hold to the eternal torment theory, in common with the Presbyterians, and in this matter would of course be beyond criticism by the Observer. In Ps. 37:10 we read: "For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." And in verse 20: "But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume, into smoke shall they consume away." Then in Malachi 4:1 it is declared: "For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch."

Then we learn from 2 Peter 1:19 that the sure word of prophecy is a light that shineth in a dark place, unto which we do well to take heed; and from Rom. 15:4, that "whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning"; and from 2 Tim.

3:16, that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine." How, in the face of the above inspired prophecies and the apostolic assurances, any doctor of divinity, or any other person, can by any legitimate inference draw out the dogma of the eternal consciousness of the wicked, is indeed a "theological puzzle."

W. N. GLENN.