RATIONALISM, as a "system of belief regulated by reason," might be ex pected to mean the opposite of irration ality, crass ignorance, and perverse" pre judice; and the rationalism would then mean the progress of civilization, the de velopment of the intellectual and moral nature of men and nations. It is nearly in this sense that Lecky uses the word; attributing to its wholesome influence the decay of the belief in magic, witch craft, and other hideous superstitions, and the substitution of a kindly toler ance in place of blind zeal for persecu tion.
But in ordinary English usage, gen eral as well as theological, the connota tion of the word is substantially differ ent. It is generally employed as a term of reproach for those who, without ut terly denying or attempting to overthrow the foundations of religion, make such concessions to the enemy as tend to sub vert the faith; who admit the thin end of a wedge that pressed home will rend and destroy the fabric. They rely, more or less exclusively and blameworthily, on mere human reason instead of sim ply, frankly, and fully accepting the dicta of the divine word. An atheist would not be spoken of as a rationalist, nor would an irreligious, blaspheming freethinker. Rationalists in ordinary parlance are those who are more "lib eral" or "advanced" than the main body of the orthodox; in especial those who take a "low" view of inspiration, and minimize or explain away the miraculous details of the history of revelation and redemption. Rationalism is not so much a body of doctrine as a mood of mind, a tendency of thought shown in the attempt to apply to religious doc trine, the sacred story, and the sacred Scriptures the same methods of research and proof as are used in mere human science and history, and the literatures of all times and peoples. This feature is also recognized, though with approval, by Lecky in his wider use of the word: "Rationalism." he says, "leads men on all occasions to subordinate dogmatic theology to the dictates of reason and conscience. . . . It predisposes men in history to attribute all kinds of phen omena to natural rather than to mirac ulous causes; in theology to esteem suc ceeding religious systems the expression of the wants and aspirations of that religious sentiment which is implanted in man; and in ethics to regard as duties only those which conscience reveals to be such." Rationalism, not being a system but a temper or drift of mind, has different aims at different times; just as "liberalism" in politics was not the same thing before 1832 as it came to be after, or in 1832 what it was in 1867, 1885, or 1900. Opinions are heard in
sermons and expounded in books by theological professors in 1902 without proving serious stumblingblocks to the majority, which in 1860 would by all hut a small minority have been regarded as distinctly rationalistic. Thus, till lately it was alarming rationalism to dispute the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, the Solomonic authorship of the Song of Songs, and the Davidic authorship of any of the Psalms, now the newer view is assumed by many orthodox teachers. And in the last quarter of the 19th cen tury scholars earnestly supported views which they themselves treated as highly dangerous 20 or 30 years earlier. Rationalism of this kind is a transition stage, but not necessarily a transition to unbelief.
The rationalistic temper may be traced in almost every age of the Church's his tory; no doubt the extremes representa tives of the Petrine party in sub-apos tolic times regarded Paul's views as lax and rationalistic. If the Reformation was not rooted in rationalism (as to Catholics it seems to have been), many of the contentions of the reformers were sulh as all rationalists accept and sym pathize with. Zwingli was a rationalist to Luther and the Lutherans; Socinus was of course a rationalist of an extreme type. The dry and barren dogmatic or thodoxy of Germany in the 17th century fostered a rationalism as cold and un spiritual. In the England of the 18th century, during the deistic controversies, the Evangelicals of Germany thought, not altogether unjustly, that some of the most conspicuous opponents of the deists were not themselves free from the charge of rationalism; and the Evangeli cals of Scotland regarded the "mod erates" of the 18th century, however orthodox in dogma, as thoroughly ration alistic in spirit. Rationalism is not so much opposed to orthodoxy as to the mysticism, and what was called vari ously fanaticism, enthusiasm, "high-fly ing," and methodism. A soulless ortho doxy has not seldom been opposed by a fervent piety that by a not unnatural antithesis has tended to run into heret ical extremes; while, on the other hand, actual rationalists have often been fore most among the champions of religion, and of revealed religion, against radical freethinking, deism, naturalism, and materialism.