As we have already pointed out, the alterations introduced on the theological side were by no means revolutionary from an intellectual standpoint. And yet the spirit and mood of religion was deeply altered. The process of salvation was differently conceived, and this led to the thought of a more direct relation between man and God than had been admitted in the older Church. God was believed to have guaranteed redemption to those who had faith in Jesus Christ as the redeemer. This tenet led to an emphasis on the bible and on personal experience. It was through a study of the bible that men were led to this personal faith, and the bible was accordingly conceived as the representative of God upon earth. What wonder that it was { 204} substituted for the Church and tradition as an infallible and unchanging authority! The logic of the movement is clear. It has been pointed out by one scholar that Protestantism introduced the doctrine of infallibility before the Roman Catholic Church did. Calvinism selected the Augustinian dogmas of election and original sin as its foundation, and used them in such a way as to become a fighting church, a congregation of the elect, fearless and self-reliant.
Bibliolatry soon flourished, and sects sprang up on every hand, ready to suffer persecution for their particular interpretation of passages. Theology became a series of fanatically held dogmas supported by copious quotations. And the intellectual atmosphere within which these dogmatic theories arose was of the most conventional and limited sort. Broadness of outlook upon life was the exception rather than the rule. The general assumption of the Christian scheme of the world remained unchallenged, while the bitterest disputes broke out in regard to points which seem to the educated man of to-day quite unimportant. Such a course of events was to be expected, and could not have been prevented. Perhaps it did more good than harm, because it encouraged independence on the part of the masses. Its only cure was not authority but education. And the world was not yet ready for universal education. At certain periods, a tremendous waste of mental and moral energy is simply inevitable: men cannot help going around and around in the same circle of ideas in the most pathetically earnest fashion. The conditions of progress are not always ready. Take the knowledge of the clergy. It was confined to the classics, the patristics, to massive tomes of theology, to { 205} the bible in its Hebrew and Greek original. It was not from these fields that enlightenment was to come. The truth is, that Protestantism was slowly modified and mellowed, almost in spite of itself, by the pervasive influence of the great world civilization that grew up around it and to which it was more susceptible than was the reorganized Catholic Church. Let us look at this point more closely.