Institute for
Christian Teaching
Education
Department of Seventh-day Adventists
IMPLICATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN
UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN NATURE
FOR THE WRITING AND TEACHING OF HISTORY
By
Gary Land
Department of
History and Political Science
Andrews
University
Berrien
Springs, Michigan
Prepared for
the
Faith and
Learning Seminar
Held at Union
College
Lincoln,
Nebraska
June 1989
040-89 Institute for
Christian Teaching
12501 Old Columbia Pike
In his analysis of why historians
disagree with one another, philosopher W.H. Walsh argues that differences in
historical interpretation result from contrasting presuppositions. Including among
these underlying moral and metaphysical beliefs is the historian's conception
of human nature which shapes his understanding of history.[1]
Essentially, Walsh is
stating that despite refinement of research techniques and analysis of data,
the discipline of history is unable to free itself from values. In fact, he suggests, differences of
interpretation will continue to occur until historians attain agreement on a
set of presuppositions, something not likely to be accomplished in the near
future.[2]
What Walsh recognizes
as the essentially personal nature of the historical enterprise has also been
argued by eminent practicing historians.
In 1933, Charles A. Beard, author of numerous works on American history,
told the American Historical Association in his presidential address: "Any
selection and arrangement of facts pertaining to any large area of history… is
controlled inexorably by the frame of reference in the mind of the selector and
arranger. This frame of reference
includes things deemed necessary, things deemed possible, and things deemed
desirable."[3]
More recently, John Higham, another historian of
the American experience, ventured further than Beard: "Discussion has not
ordinarily gone beyond the point of recognizing that the historian's own values
inevitably color his writing. At best, we have acknowledge this coloring as a
mark of our humanity. . . . Historical method acquires a new dimension when we
begin to speak of the criticism of life in addition to the technical criticism
of documents. Then moral evaluation
becomes a professional task, not just a predilection of our unprofessional
selves."[4]
Admittedly, not all
historians accept the view that presuppositions or values will always shape the
historical task. Those who have adopted
the use of social science techniques, such as the annales school in
France and Alan Bogue and Lee Benson in this country, hope through
concentration on quantitative data informed by the findings of such fields as
psychology and sociology to develop a history that minimizes or even escapes
the influence of pre-existing values.
Benson has gone so far as to say that "the main business of
historians is to participate in the overall scholarly enterprise of discovering
and developing general laws of human behavior."[5] But such a position is in the minority, even
among social science adherents. After
examining the impact of the concept of human nature underlying both humanistic
and social science oriented history, Merle Curti concluded:
Most of the
historians, I suspect, supposed that that such views of human nature as they
expressed or implied stemmed from the evidence. Few, it seems, were aware of the role of their own experience and
assumptions in the interpretation of evidence, in attributing motives, or in constructing
syntheses. Nevertheless, judgments of
the motivation and behavior of historical figures and the larger
generalizations, especially about national character, rested in part on these
personal views and assumptions interacting with social context.[6]
For the historian who is
also a Christian, recognition of this fact is of considerable significance, for
it indicates the possibility that there really is such a thing as a
"Christian history" or a "Christian approach to history." Such
awareness is not new. As one surveys
the essays in two anthologies[7]
of twentieth-century Christian discussions of history, the point appears over
and over. As the writers attempt to
delineate the content of these Christian presuppositions, a recurring theme is
that of human nature. George Marsden
states that "the Christian historian, with such knowledge that man is
capable of being both the crown and the scum of the universe, views man's
cultural achievements in this perspective."[8] Similarly, C.T. McIntire calls for a
Christian historiography that examines history "according to the sorts of
insights and values provided by a Christian view of people, society, norms,
history, the world and the whole of created reality."[9]
Even Arthur Link, a historian
generally skeptical of attempts to establish a Christian interpretation of
history, suggests that "Biblical faith gives additional vital insight to
the historian in its view of man."[10]
The recognition by secular historians that
underlying presuppositions, including our understanding of human beings, shape
the way we write and teach history, and the continuing emphasis by Christians
that the Biblical view of human nature is an important aspect of the way we
perceive history, behooves us to examine more closely the Christian
understanding of humans and its relationship to historical study.
Such
an endeavor, however, brings us up immediately against the problem that the
Bible, the source of Christian understanding, contains no developed statement
on human nature. Apart from an
occasional isolated statement and a few passages in the writings of Paul, the
Bible primarily portrays rather than analyzes human beings.[11] This necessitates that we turn to the
systematic theologians who, using the Biblical materials, have developed a
theological analysis of human nature.
Reinhold
Niebuhr, an American Lutheran theologian, has probably been the most
influential twentieth-century figure in the Christian theology of human
nature. Educated in the optimism of
theological liberalism, he discovered while pastoring a working class church in
Detroit after World War I that such hopefulness regarding people did not
address the realities of the human situation.
Reflecting on his own experience, he concluded that only the Bible
presents people in all their complexity, in their depths as well as their
heights. He therefore began rethinking his view of human nature, a process that
reached its fullest expression in his Gifford lectures presented on the eve of
World War II and published as The Nature and Destiny of Man.[12]
The
significant fact about the people, according to Niebuhr's interpretation, is
that while they are creatures they are also spirits. By virtue of this creatureliness they are a part of the natural
world, but by virtue of their spirit they are able to transcend the world, to
observe themselves from without.
Because they are part of nature they are finite, subject to limited
knowledge and limited perspectives.
Because they are also spirit they have freedom by which they become
conscious of their very finiteness. But
this finiteness and spirit are a unity, thus even in their freedom human beings
are limited by their finitude.
This position of human
beings as both in and above nature is the occasion for their sin. Through their spirit they realize what they
ought to be and also the impossibility of attaining that goal because of their
creatureliness. Thus they become
anxious. If they would accept their
finiteness and place their trust in God they would no longer be anxious. This they will not or cannot do. The alternative is rebellion against God,
the attempt to make something finite into something ultimate. This is humankind's sin and is expressed in
several ways.
Human beings are
anxious. Sometimes they succeed in
repressing or rationalizing their insecurity so that they are no longer
conscious of it; nevertheless it is still deep in their subconscious. Often this anxiety is revealed in the pride
of power. The ego forgets that it is
finite, only a small portion of the whole of existence, and attempts to
establish a security which is beyond the limits of human beings. The will-to-power involves the ego in
injustice by attempting to establish control over the lives of others.
A second manifestation
is intellectual pride. The self forgets
that it is part and parcel of the temporal process, that it can never gain
complete transcendence over history.
Thus it claims for its knowledge a completeness which it can never
attain. As with the will-to-power the
self attempts, consciously or unconsciously, to obscure the fact that it has a
taint of interest in whatever the matter may be.
Perhaps
the most serious manifestations of humankind's sin are moral and spiritual pride
in which its relative standards of values and morals are made absolute and in
which the human's own freedom of spirit is substituted for God. Niebuhr believes religion to be the final
battleground between God and humankind's self esteem. People in their
finiteness, but nevertheless, they continue in their attempts to make the
finite infinite.
Because
people are constantly involved in this vain attempt to make themselves supreme,
and because they are constantly defeated in their attempts as individuals, they
seek to establish their infiniteness in their group. Group pride is just an
extension of the pride and arrogance of the individual, but it is all the more
dangerous because it claims a certain authority over individuals and makes
unconditioned demands upon them. Through their involvement in the group, which
is larger than the individual and thus offers a seeming security, human beings
make their last effort to cast off their finitude. But it is forgotten that the
group is also involved in the processes of history and is thereby only
conditional in its claims.
This
is the manner in which human beings express their sin. All people do this, but
the extent to which it takes place is different in each individual. Thus all
people are equally sinners nut not all people are equally guilty. Sinners are
held responsible for their sins but the actual consequences can be judged only
by the ultimate standard of value that is beyond all human standards and lies
only in God. It should also be recognized that the position of a person in the
earthly spheres determines the temptation that comes to the individual. The
pride of power for instance, will tempt person in the position of power more
than it will tempt one of their subjects. But this is no excuse for succumbing
to the sin, and the guilt will be judged accordingly.
Niebuhr's
understanding of human nature, therefore, places human beings in the
uncomfortable position of being inevitably sinners yet nevertheless responsible
for their sins. This responsibility is revealed by the fact of their remorse or
repentance. Both are expression of human freedom, the former being freedom
without faith and the latter freedom with faith. Ultimately humankind's freedom
lies in its ability to recognize its finiteness and to see in God both its
limits and its fulfillment.
About
the same time that Niebuhr was rethinking his conception of human nature, Emil
Brunner, a continental theologian, was pursuing similar lines. Though some of
Brunner's emphases differed from Niebuhr's, he also portrayed human beings as
creatures continually attempting to put themselves in the place of God.
According
to Brunner,[13] despite their sin human beings retain
something of the image of God. This means that their very existence and
knowledge is grounded in God, that they define themselves through decisions
regarding their relationship to God. Humans, however, have chosen (are
choosing) to oppose their own origin in God, a choice that has produced a
conflict between their true nature and their actual nature or, in other words,
between what God created them to be and what they have chosen to become.
This choice to declare
their emancipation form God is humanity's sin, involving defiance, arrogance,
and a desire for equality with God. These elements lie at the root of all sin,
sins of weakness as well as power, for humans are anxious that they might lose
something of themselves if they rest in God. Therefore sin arises both out of a
crisis of confidence in God and an assertion of human autonomy. It can occur
only because of human beings are created in the image of God and thereby have
the power to rebel against their destiny.
The result is that while
people retain the good that comes from their origin, that good stands under the
rule of sin. Therefore all love and justice, for example, are tainted with
egoism. Furthermore, this sin is not
some static state of being but is an act. Each sin is a fresh decision against
God, which, because it rejects the real order of things for which there is no
substitute, creates a situation that cannot be reversed. People as sinners
cannot become non-sinners; they have put themselves in a situation from which
they cannot escape.
Humankind's
position as creatures made in the image of God and as rebels against that God
manifests itself in the actual world. Elements that reveal their divine origin
are their search for truth, quest for the ideal through technical and artistic
means, speech, reason, the drive for community, ethical thought, and the sense
for the holy. None of these aspects, Brunner argues, can be accounted for on a
naturalistic basis. But humanity's sinfulness, or contradiction, also manifests
itself in the ambiguous results of the pursuit of knowledge, technology's
enslavement of human beings, intellectualism's destruction of humanity, the
creation of alternative gods, the fear or feeling not being at home in the
universe, and finally the ambiguity of human history itself:
Since history has been in
existence this has been its theme: the contrast between individualism and
collectivism, freedom and authority, independence and submission, the predatory
man and the herd-man. Every movement which aims at helping the individual to
attain his rights ends in libertinism and the dissolution of community -- the
Athenians knew quite well why they give Socrates the cup of hemlock; and every
reaction which tries to assert community, authority, order, the whole over
against the caprice and the egoism, of the individual, ends in oppression,
violence and dull stupidity. The movements for freedom, at first full of
vitality at the outset, and splendid in their leaders, shatter community, and
the movements for community, at first full of a deep sense of responsibility
and of service, trample on the individual and his rights. It is not the
observation of the processes of nature, but contemplation of this tragic
element in human history, which is the school of pessimism, of despair of man,
and of his destiny.[14]
A contemporary continental
theologian, Wolfart Pannenberg, places the issue in somewhat more
"liberal" terms. Like Niebuhr and Brunner, he finds sin to arise out
of an inherent conflict within the human consciousness. In his terminology, this tension involves
the opposition of humankind's openness to the world and its egocentricity. The openness propels human beings to move
beyond themselves to engage in community with others, to control their
environment through technology, and ultimately to achieve their destiny,
community with God. But human ego often
interferes with human openness, which causes people to draw back within
themselves. As Pannenberg puts it,
"Left to ourselves, given up to our ego, we would have to smother in
indolence or arrogance, to consume ourselves in greed, envy, avarice, and
hatred, to sink into anxiety and despair."[15]
When the ego or selfhood, conflicts with humanity's movement toward its destiny
it becomes sinful. "The image of
the individual who takes himself or herself to be the center of his or her life
aptly describes the structure of sin."[16]
A harmony between humanity's openness and its egocentricity can only be
received from outside the self, namely from God. This is achieved through Christ who by the cross has reconciled
people to God. This idea of
reconciliation through Christ, Pannenberg asserts, "constitutes the
distinctively Christian perspective of human existence."[17]
This brief survey of the
thought of three representative Christian thinkers suggests that the Christian
view of human nature revolves around a tension between positive and negative
elements. The positive side, what
Bruner called the image of God and Pannenberg humanity's openness, is the
source of human achievements in intellectual, scientific, technological,
artistic, ethical, among other spheres.
Ultimately, whatever development and progress appears in history comes
from this side of humankind. Pannenberg
goes so far as to say that humanity's historicity is based on its inherent
openness to God.[18] At the same time that humans achieve so
that we may call good, another aspect of their nature often distorts or another
subordinate to the self. Known as sin
in the in the Christian tradition, it is the source of much of the suffering,
destruction and conflict in human existence.
While they may call this picture "human nature," all three
theologians emphasize that it is not some static mechanical structure but
rather forged anew through every human decision.
While Seventh-day Adventists
have always conceived of human beings as sinners, they have not often explored
this concept theologically. Instead,
Seventh-day Adventist's interest in human nature has focused on the issue of
dualism, the soul-body relationship.[19] Ellen White, however, described human beings
as having "a perception of right, a desire for goodness" against which
there struggles "an antagonistic power. . . . There is in his nature a bent to evil, a force which, unaided, he
can not resist."[20]
This viewpoint is developed theologically in Jack Provonsha's God Is With Us.[21] In his chapter "Strangers in a
Garden," Provonsha uses language quite similar to that of the theologians
previously examined. He interprets the
story of original sin in heaven and in the Garden of Eden in terms of attempts
at self-sufficiency and independence from God.
As he explains it, "The essence of both stories is that
creatureliness is perceived by creature as an inhibition or deprivation rather
than the basis of meaningful existence, thus calling the trustworthiness of God
into question."[22]
Provonsha distinguishes
between the original sin, the attempt at self-sufficiency, and its
consequences, the state of original sin into which each of us is born. This state is one of the isolation from the
creator, which is revealed in feelings of alienation, estrangement, guilt, and
unworthiness. Human beings attempt to
overcome these feelings through a number of strategems or particular sins:
pride, false moralism, escape, and inhumanity. Passed from generation to
generation, this self-perpetuating wheel of sin can be overcome only through
God himself who through grace restores the oneness lost in the Garden.
If what Provonsha has
written can be accepted as representative of Adventist theology, then his
similarity--despite perhaps some technical differences--to Niebuhr, Bruner, and
Pannenberg gives us some confidence in taking their perspective[23]
as we think about the relationship between the Christian concept of the human
nature and the work of the historian. From a theoretical standpoint, it appears
that their suggestions regarding the consequences of human goodness and sin in
the outward life of people would, if taken seriously, offer a distinctively
Christian view of the human past.
But it is one thing to look
at a problem theoretically and suggest a solution and another to indicate that
the theoretical solution has a practical significance. Because many Christian
writers, myself included,[24]
have argued that the Christian view of human beings provides a unique approach
to history it remains, now that we have some understanding of what the concept
means, to demonstrate whether this is indeed true.
As a test case, I am going
to examine the way in which several historians have looked at the abolitionist
movement in the nineteenth century United States and then attempt to determine
whether the Christian view of human nature would offer any distinctive
approach. I have chosen abolitionism because it strongly engages the emotions
of those who study it. If a historian's preconceptions regarding human nature
affect historical writing, it would seem that they would be clearest in a
subject that historians have found so difficult to write about dispassionately.
In approaching abolitionism
historians have been concerned with two major questions: why abolitionists
became abolitionists and the effects of their agitation. Both questions involve
assumptions about human nature, for they are asking what motivates human beings
and what determines their response to stimuli.
Historians of American
abolitionism comprise two broad classes. One group, generally of the generation
that did its writing from the 1930's to the 1950's, regards abolitionism as an
unfortunate movement that through its fanatical attachment to immediate
emancipation prevented a peaceful solution to the slavery problem. This
position as Thomas J. Pressley asserts regarding Avery O. Craven, assumes that
"conditions in the 1850's were such, and the nature of human beings were
such, that the individuals in that era should have remained calm and moderate.[25]
Within this framework a
number of historians have regarded those involved in abolitionism as primarily
self-seeking, though the specific nature of this personal interest in reform
has received differing interpretations. One of the earliest scholars to take
this stance toward the abolitionists was Gilbert H. Barnes. In The
Antislavery Impulse he made a major contribution by pointing to the
revivalistic origins of much of the antislavery movement. But he interpreted
the role of the revival in somewhat negative terms. Barnes argued that because
revivalistic conversion affected primarily young people it involved more a
change of attitude than behavior. Young
people then would take very negative attitudes against drinking or sexual
immorality, for instance, and believe that their religious duty was fulfilled
by denouncing these sins. Reform was
unnecessary, for they were too young to have indulged in these practices. As Barnes put it, "Denunciation of evil
came first; reform of the evil was incidental to that primary obligation."[26]
As a result of conversion a
number of young people needed to denounce sin and slavery became an obvious
target. Referring to the radical
followers of William Lloyd Garrison, Barnes stated that the New England
Anti-slavery Society "was primarily an association of independent abolitionists
for mutual self-expression."[27] In the west Theodore Dwight Weld's mission,
according to Barnes, was to denounce slavery as a sin.[28]
The basis of the whole movement,
in short, "was denunciation and not reform."[29] In Barnes's reading, therefore, religious
excitement generated an emotionalism that found release in moral reproof of
others but felt no need to pursue constructive reform.
Avery O. Craven similarly
disliked the denunciation of slavery as sin--he called such language
unreasonable[30]--but found
its source in the economic and social change that the United States was passing
through. Economic shifts in the
northeast, particularly the rise of a new wealthy class, challenged the
economic and social status of the common person. Reform movement arose "to unseat aristocrats and
re-establish American democracy according to the Declaration of the
Independence. It was a clear-cut effort
to apply Christianity to the American social order."[31] The fanaticism which Craven regarded as
characteristic of abolitionism was "a normal product of social phenomena
acting on certain types of personality."[32] The protest against slavery, therefore, was
an expression of the personal need for recognition.[33] To the slave owner "were transferred
resentments and fears born out of local conditions."[34] Abolitionism, craven concluded, became
the one great reform because it combined the moral and democratic appeal and
coincided with sectional rivalry: "To the normal strength of sectional
ignorance and distrust they added all the force of Calvinistic morality and
American democracy and thereby surrounded every Northern interest and
contention with holy sanction and reduced all opposition to abject
depravity."[35]
More recently, David Donald and
Stanley Elkins have explored variations on this self-interest theme. Donald, while recognizing that the decision
to become an abolitionist was one of conscience,[36]
sought for a deeper explanation of that decision. Making a social profile of abolitionist leaders, he concluded
that they were the younger sons of the old social elite--ministers, lawyers,
professors, etc., --who had been bypassed in status by the new business
entrepreneurs. Wanting to lead but
having no followers these young people were a displaced class.[37]
"Their appeal for reform, therefore, "was a strident call for their
own class to re-exert its former social dominance."[38] Victims of the status revolution, these
reformers sought through emancipation of the Negro in the South to restore
"the traditional values of their class at home. . . . Basically, abolitionism should be considered
the anguished protest of an aggrieved class against a world they never
made."[39]
Taking a more explicitly
psychological approach, Stanley Elkins focused on the element of guilt, which
he regarded as a necessary aspect of any reform. Pointing to the role that intellectuals played in abolitionism,
he noted:
A gnawing sense of
responsibility for the ills of society at large appears to be experienced most
readily in this country by groups relatively sheltered, by groups without
connection and without clear and legitimate functions, . . . and by people who
have seen older and honored standards transformed, modified, or thrown aside.[40]
Because the United States had no secular or religious institutions that
could absorb and transform this guilt, Elkins said that
it
accumulates like static electricity; it becomes aggressive, unstable, hard to
control, often destructive. Guilt may
at this point be transformed into implacable moral aggression; hatred of both
the sinner and the sin,[41]
Such was the story of abolitionism which was more interested in spreading its
gospel than in striking at slavery's vulnerable points.[42]
Each of these writers seems
to have believed that the strident moralism of the abolitionists prevented a
more reasonable approach to the problem of slavery, thereby bringing about the
Civil War. Barnes, reflecting Ulrich
Phillips's paternalistic view of slavery, implied that slavery had a function
"as a system of control and protection of a barbaric race"[43]
and stated that had a realistic program of reform been required of
abolitionism "the entire movement
would have soon ended."[44]
The other writers were less apologetic about slavery but just as condemnatory
of the abolitionist's methods. Craven
regarded colonization as a "sane" method and looked for a "temperate policy" that respected
property rights and pressed for liberty.[45] "Those who force the settlement of
human problems by war," he stated, "can expect only an unsympathetic
hearing from the future."[46] Donald much preferred the moral but
unmoralistic Lincoln to the unreasoning abolitionists who were "unburdened
with the responsibilities of power, unaware of the large implications of
actions."[47] And Elkins certainly wished that America had
the proper institutional channels to make guilt effective in dealing concretely
with social problems.[48]
Each of these individuals
assumed that slavery was a social problem that could be dealt with through the
arts of compromise so applicable to the issues of the tariff or western
lands. In so doing they minimized the
moral element and its emotional connotations, believing that slavery as a
problem could have been dealt with reasonably by reasonable people. Commenting on Craven and others of his
school, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. has summarized their ideas:
Revisionism has rested on the assumption that the
non-violent abolition of slavery was possible, such abolition could conceivably
have come about through internal reform in the South; through economic
exhaustion of the slavery system in the South; or through some government
project for gradual and compensated emancipation.[49]
Another group of historians,
however, has challenged this view of the abolitionists as primarily a
collection of frustrated or guilt-ridden individuals seeking an outlet for
their tormented spirits. Rather, these
historians, mainly younger people writing in the 1960's and 1970's, have taken
seriously the need for a moral-based reform in the nineteenth century and
regard abolitionism as a movement that ably met that social need.
A long-time student of
anti-slavery, Dwight L. Dumond, apparently reacting to the effort by his
colleagues to find some ulterior motive for anti-slavery, believed that the
moral element is sufficient reason of itself to explain abolition. After describing the role of westward
migration, revivalism, the communication of ideas, and political democracy, he
asked:
Need one look beyond these
impulses for the intellectual ferment of the three decades before the Civil
War? Need one wonder why an institution
at war with the natural rights of man, the cardinal principles of the Christian
faith, and the ideals of individual freedom and social progress was swept
away? Is it necessary to labor over the
source of opposition to the extension of slavery beyond the Mississippi and to
the colonization? The answer, of
course, is an emphatic no![50]
Similarly,
Russel B. Nye regarded the moral element as an adequate explanation for abolitionism. In his study of William Lloyd Garrison, the bete
noire of the first group of historians and an unfortunate character even to
Dumond, Nye pointed to the role of moral principle based on religious
faith. Garrison's sympathy for the
underdog, in this reading, had no more complicated origin than his hard and
lonely youth[51] and
"the central fact of Garrison's life was his religious faith."[52] This does not mean that Nye viewed
Garrison as some sort of demigod; he called the abolitionist morally self-righteous
and stated that he "lived in terms of his future epitaph, and carried his
own Westminster Abbey about with him."[53] Nevertheless, Garrison was a man who
followed principle wherever it led him, regardless of the consequences. He was a "true revolutionary
individualist."[54]
The more
recent studies by younger scholars, while looking favorably on the
abolitionists, have taken a somewhat complex view. In a sense, what they have done is combine the social and
psychological factors pointed to by Craven, Donald, and others with recognition
of the power of moral principle and the implicit understanding that humans are
moral beings. James Stewart, for
instance, saw provincial New England culture in a defensive position,
challenged by economic change, urbanization, democratic politics, and
communication. Within this context,
social discontent and political alienation found expression through the
conversion experience. The crusade
against slavery sprang from this "defensive setting."[58]
As there were social stimulants, so Stewart found
psychological antecedents--self-confidence, a sense of individually, and
"a deadly earnestness about moral issues."[59]
Events of the early 1830's,
including slave rebellions and the Nullification Crisis, moved these
individuals from gradualism to abolitionism.[60] Adoption of immediatism was an act of
self-liberation similar to conversion:
By freeing themselves from the shackles of gradualism,
American abolitionists had finally triumphed over their feelings of
selfishness, unworthiness, and alienation.
Now they were morally fit to take God's side in the struggle against all
the worldliness, license, cruelty and selfishness that slaveowners had come to
embody.[61]
Ronald G. Walters has also seen an interplay between social and
psychological factors that "push" the reformer and the moral element
that "pull" him into action.
Abolitionists, he found, assumed a sense of responsibility for national
affairs, believed in the Democratic ideal of a state free of coercion, stressed
the individual conscience, and accepted revivalistic millennialism.[62] For them abolitionism "defined their
role in society, whom they associated with, what they surrounded themselves
with, and--for a few--how they died."[63] In Walter's view, abolitionism became a
church whose broad reform theology offered direction to individual
dissatisfactions and" a sense of personal meaning and moral direction
reformers no longer found within the formal structure of American
religion."[64] In the end, Walters concluded, the
antislavery appeal involved a complex of meanings:
Caught in social and economic processes they did not
fully understand, they fashioned what they could from the materials of the
time. Abolitionism became for them a
cause in which to find personal meaning and direction; it provided solidarity
and moral certainty no longer available from the state, the churches, or
conventional social relationships, all fragmented and seemingly corrupted by
fearsome and promising America. Slavery
and the South, for the abolitionists, became reference points by which to
organize a general, yet emotionally compelling pattern of perception; in
slavery and the South moral men and women could see the negation of their own
progress, their ideals, and their hopes.
And so reform always is: as much for the reformer as for the
reformed--an interplay between
widely-held values, social conditions, events, and the mystery of
personality. It is also, we should not
forget, a noble glimpse of the disparity between common ideals and reality.[65]
Along
with this more favorable view of abolitionist motivations, these historians
also took a positive position regarding abolition's relationship to the Civil
War. Just as they recognized the role
that moral principle played in motivating abolitionists so they also realized,
in the words of Schlesinger, that "a society closed in the defense of evil
institutions thus creates moral differences far too profound to be solved by
compromise."[66] Thus Nye described Garrison as a part of the
moral cause of the war.[67] Filler concluded that extremists were as
necessary as moderates to the ultimate success of abolition.[68] Walters found that "the most
irresponsible men were those who fanatically refused to take the issue of
slavery seriously, who ignored it whenever possible and compromised it when it
could not be ignored."[69] Finally, Stewart concluded that a moderate
approach to slavery was impossible in Jacksonian America.[70]
In any case,
Without this romantic faith that God would put all things
right, abolitionists would have lacked the incentive and creative stamina
necessary for sustained assaults against slavery. Moreover, by stressing intuition as a sure guide to reality,
abolitionists made an unprecedented attempt to establish empathy with the
slaves.[71]
We now return to the
original question with which we began this survey of historical opinion: Will
the Christian historian interpret history any differently because of his
understanding of human nature? That
understanding, let us be reminded, views humans as creatures created in the
image of God who are at the same time sinners, beings who seek to live
independently of that God. Thus even
humanity's good is corrupted by humanity's ego.
Before going further, however, a few caveats must be
offered. First, of those historians
surveyed we do not know the degree to which they may have been directly
influenced by Christianity; if there has been such influence we cannot expect
that our determination of a Christian view will necessarily be distinct. Secondly, any view of history must be
controlled by documentary evidence used in as objective a fashion as possible. We cannot here examine that evidence; but
any suggestions of a distinctive Christian view must recognize that all
interpretation is limited by its evidential basis. Thirdly, a Christian view is not necessarily a distinctive
one. There are at least two reasons for
this. On the one hand, ours is a
culture shaped historically by Christian thinking. Therefore Christian understandings of human nature may well
continue to pervade even the secular form our contemporary culture has
taken. On the other hand, if the
Christian view of human nature fits what has happened in human history, general
revelation perhaps, then it should not be too surprising if secular students of
that history have been driven to it, whether they recognize their understanding
as Christian or not. Finally, I doubt
if there is one "correct" Christian view of history, for the
individual personality of the scholar and his position in society and time
affect how he uses the Christian tradition and the materials of history.
With these limitations in mind we pursue the
problem. It appears to me that a Christian
would have difficulty accepting the arguments of abolitionism's critics. Their tendency to see spiritual and moral
forces within human society as little more than unconscious devices for the
anxieties of the self might fit the Christian view of human beings as sinners
but holds little in common with human beings as the image of God. The Christian regards people as spiritual
and moral beings and therefore takes seriously--if the evidence warrants
it--claims to spiritual and moral commitment. Furthermore, with the
consciousness of the struggle between good and evil, the Christian historian
finds it impossible to view an institution such as slavery with moral
indifference. The Christian therefore would regard abolitionism as something
more than a movement of self-seeking fanatics who brought on the nation an
avoidable war. A Christian historian, I believe, would be an unlikely candidate
for the school of Craven, Barnes, Donald and Elkins.
On the other hand, the pro-abolitionist position of
Dumond, Nye, and Filler, from a Christian standpoint probably takes a little
recognition of the corrupting elements of self-righteousness, moral absolutism,
and ego-fulfillment. At the same time that the Christian accepts spiritual and
moral commitment as a reality, he recognizes that it is mixed with sin. As Brunner argued, all love and justice are
tainted with egoism. Abolitionism with its schisms and sense of moral
superiority offers plenty of evidence to support such a view.
In
short, the Christian views of human beings as complex, as creatures with
intertwined elements of good and evil that thread their ways in varying degrees
through the individual decisions that make up human experience. The
interpretations of historians such as Walters and Stewart, therefore, with
their emphasis upon the mixed elements of personal fulfillment and moral
impulse appear to be close to if not identical with a Christian understanding
of man.
Rather than offering a pre-determined interpretation of
historical events, I believe, the Christian understanding of man should sensitize
the believing scholar to the multiple components that may appear in any
historical situation. Judgments of what those components are, their relative
importance, and their interrelationship can legitimately be made only after the
historian has engaged in a dialogue with the evidence.
It might be objected that the foregoing statements are
simply descriptive of good history. But we must remember that all the books
reviewed here have been praised by the significant portions of the historical
community. What I am suggesting is that Christian historians, sensitive to
man's complexity, should critically examine fashions of historical
interpretation, especially when they emphasize one-sided and amoral viewpoints.
That the most recent books are those with which I am most
comfortable should not be too surprising for at least one reason. As Gene Wise
pointed out, the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr have had great influence on
post-World War II historical writing in America.[72]
He observed that The Nature
and Destiny of Man is "one of
the fullest statements available of basic counter-Progressive assumptions about
the dialectical nature of man."[73]
Thus our own time is one in which a Christian view of man is likely to appear
in works of history.
This view of man leads to a certain tone in historical
writing. Discussing the situation in which post-World War II America found
itself, Reinhold Niebuhr drew attention to the element of tragedy. He wrote,
Could there be
a clearer tragic dilemma than that which faces our civilization? Though
confident of its virtue, it must yet hold atomic bombs ready for use so as to
prevent a possible world conflagration. It may actually make the conflict the
more inevitable by this threat; and yet it cannot abandon the threat.
Furthermore, if the conflict should break out, the non-Communist world would be
in danger of destroying itself as a moral culture in the process of defending
itself physically.[74]
In addition to tragedy,
Niebuhr found in history even stronger elements of irony. Whereas in tragedy men are not wholly
responsible for what they do, in irony they are fully in control of their
choices. Summarizing Niebuhr, Wise states, irony "comes only because human
beings make certain kinds of choices in essentially open circumstances. When
intention here fails to produce the desired consequence, then it is people
who must bear the burdens of failure." [75]
Did
not nineteenth century abolitionists find themselves in a situation holding both
of these elements? Remaining silent they would have allowed slavery to continue
to poison the soul of the nation. Yet, in opposing it, abolitionists risked the
unity of the nation they sought to purify. The largely unintended war that
culminated their efforts, bringing their goal of emancipation to fruition, left
its own bitter legacy to be worked out and through in succeeding decades. The
Christian historian will always write or teach, for underlying assumptions
affect the teaching as well as the writing of history, with a sense of these
tragic and ironic elements, this awareness that the " paradoxical relation
between the possible and the impossible in history prove that the frame of
history is wider than the nature-time in which it is grounded."[76]
But such an
observation leads us to the conclusion that the Christian view of history will
always become clearest when history's meaning is conceived in its totality. At
such a point, it becomes theology and that leads us back to where we began this
essay: that theology--indeed faith--contains the basic assumptions or worldview
with which the Christian approaches historical study.
[1]W. H. Walsh, Philosophy of History: An Introduction (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1958), 100-101, 104-108.
[2]Ibid., 118.
[3]Charles A. Beard,
"Written History as an Act of Faith," in The Historian and the
Climate of Opinion, ed. Robert Allen Skotheim (Reading, Mass.: Addison-
Wesley Publishing Company, 1969), 19.
[4]John Higham, " The
Historian as a Moral Critic, " in Ibid., 206-207. Further evidence that
historians do make assumptions regarding human nature appears in Floyd W.
Metson, The Idea of Man, (New
York: Delacorte Press, 1976), 164-180.
[5]Lee Benson, "Quantification, Scientific History, and Scholarly Innovation," American Historical Association Newsletter, 4 (June, 1966), 12.
[6]Merle Curti, Human Nature
in American Historical Thought (Columbia: University of Missouri Press,
1968), 108.
[7]George Marsden and Frank
Roberts, eds., A Christian View of History? (Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1975). C.T. McIntire, ed., God, History and
Historians: Modern Christian Views of History (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1977).
[8]George M,
Marsden, "A Christian Perspective for the Teaching of History," in Marsden
and Roberts, 41.
[9]C.T.
McIntire, "The Ongoing Task of
Christian Historiography," in Marsden and Roberts, 41.
[10]Arthur S. Link, "The
Historian's Vocation," in McIntire, 387.
[11]For a discussion of the
Biblical materials see Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A
Christian Interpretation, Vol.1: Human Nature (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1964), 151-166.
[12]The following discussion is
based on Ibid., 150-264.
[13]The following discussion is
based on Emil Brunner, Man in Revolt: A Christian Anthropology, tran.
Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1947), 82-211.
[14]Ibid., 183-184.
[15]Wolfart Pannenberg, What is Man? Contemporary
Anthropology in Theological Perspective, trans, Duane A Priebe
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1947), 82-211.
[16]Wolfart Pannenberg, Human
Nature, Election , and History (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977),
p.26.
[17]Ibid., 14.
[18]Pannenberg, What is man?, p. 141.
[19]See Le Roy Edwin Froom, The
Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers: The Conflict of the Ages Over the Nature
and Destiny of Man, 2 Vols., (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald
Publishing Assn, 1965-1966. Carsten Johnsen, Man--- The Indivisible:
Totality Versus Disruption in the History of Western Thought (Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget, 1971). J.R. Zurcher, The Nature and Destiny of Man:
Essay on the Problem of the Union of the Soul and the body in Relation to the
Christian View of Man , trans. Mabel R. Bartlett (New York: Philosophical
Library, 1969).
[20]Ellen G. White, Education
(Mountain View: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1903), 29.
[21]Jack W. Provonsha, God Is
With Us (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1974).
[22]Ibid., 116.
[23]V. Norskov Olsen's Man, The
Image of God: The Divine Design, The Human Distortion (Washington, D.C.:
Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988) describes human nature as
paradoxical and quotes both Niebuhr and Brunner approvingly. See 31-33, 65, 73,
119-120.
[24]See " An Adventist
Conception of History, "Journal of Adventist Education, 36
(October-November, 1973), 19-22. "Providence and Earthly Affairs: The
Christian and the Study of History," Spectrum: A Quarterly Journal of
the Association of Adventist Forums, 7 (April, 1976), 2 - 6.
[25]Thomas J. Pressley,
Americans Interprets Their Civil War. (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1961; reprint ed., New York: The Free Press, 1965), 318.
[26]Gilbert Hobbs Barnes, The
Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (Washington D.C.: The American Historical
Association, 1933; reprint ed., Gloucester, Mass., Petere Smith, 1957), 25.
[27]Ibid., 89.
[28]Ibid., 79.
[29]Ibid., 101.
[30]Avery Craven, The Coming of The Civil War (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941: reprint ed., Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1957), 120.
[31]Ibid., 134.
[32]Ibid., 117.
[33]Ibid., 136.
[34]Ibid., 150.
[35]Ibid.
[36]David Donald, Lincoln
Reconsidered; Essays on The Civil War Era (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1956), 22.
[37]Ibid., 33.
[38]Ibid., 34
[39]Ibid., 35-36.
[40]Stanley M.
Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional & Intellectual Life
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959; reprint ed., New York: Grosset
& Dunlap, The Universal Library, 1963), 161.
[41]Ibid.
[42]Ibid., 186.
[43]Barnes., 79.
[44]Ibid., 101.
[45]Craven, 119.
[46]Ibid., 118.
[47]Donald., 19.
[48]Elkins., 206.
[49]Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.,
'The Causes of the Civil War: A Note on the Historical Sentimentalism, " Partisan
Review, 16 (October, 1949), 973. See Also Curti, 99-100.
[52]Ibid.,199.
[53]Ibid., 202-204.
[54]Ibid., 201.
[55]Louis Filler,
The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860 (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1960),
277.
[56]Ibid., 30-32.
[57]Ibid., 46.
[58]James Brewer
Stewart, Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists And American Slavery, American Century
Series (New York: Hill and Wang, 1976),
34-36.
[59]Ibid., 39.
[60]Ibid., 41-43.
[61]Ibid., 43-44.
[62]Ronald G.
Walters, The Antislavery Appeal: American Abolitionism after 1830
(Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1976), 18.
[63]Ibid., 33.
[64]Ibid., 52-53.
[65]Ibid., 144-145.
[66]Schlesinger, 977.
[67]Nye, 206. Nye
also notes that Garrison was a factor in convincing the South that the
approaching conflict was irrepressible.
[68]Filler, 279.
[69]Walters, xvi.
Walters also notes that abolitionism did help created a cast of mind that
accepted disruption of the government, even war, as a means of ending the slave
institution.
[70]Stewart, 47.
[71]Ibid., 49.
[72]Gene Wise, American
Historical Explanation: A Strategy for Grounded Inquiry (Homewood, IL.: The
Dorsey Press, 1973), 270 ff. See also Robert Allen Skotheim, American
Intellectual Histories and Historians (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1966), 251-252 and Curti, 26-34. Niebuhr' s primary influence occurred
during the 1950's and early 1960's but he seems to have helped push historical
thinking in a direction from which it has not yet turned, for the most part.
[73]Ibid., 272. This Christian
understanding of man has pervaded even the writing of an avowed atheist such as
Perry Miller who availed himself "of Niebuhr's conclusion without
pretending to share his basic and, to him, indispensable premise." Perry
Miller, " The Influence of Reinhold Niebuhr (review of Pious And
Secular America By Reinhold Niebuhr)," The Reporter, 18 (May 1, 1958),
39-40. See also Curti, 31-33.
[74]Reinhold Niebuhr, The
Irony of American History (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961), 1-2.
[75]Wise, 298.
[76]Niebuhr, The Irony of
American History, 144.