1311.Subscription

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In rereading Maurice's Subscription No Bondage, I've been struck, as I haven't been before, by the close convergence not only between his lU1derstanding ofeducation and my own, but also between it and-by implication, at least-what seems to be H. R. Niebuhr's understanding.

This convergence is no doubt most striking when Maurice says that "all knowledge" begins in "implicit faith" and argues that "in order to educate a people," one must lead them on from "that implicit faith, in which all knowledge begins, to that actual faith, which alone is knowledge" (6). A few pages later, it becomes clear that, on his use, very much as on Niebuhr's, "implicit faith" may be distinguished not only from "actual faith," but also from "explicit rational faith"the latter two terms being synonymous (20). Aside from the clarity with which_"all_ knowledge" is here said to begin in "implicit faith." and "knowledge" itself or as such is Wlderstood to be "actual faith," or "explicit rational faith," which is to say, "belief," Maurice would evidently agree with Niebuhr in distinguishing different kinds offaithlbelieflknowledge, even ifhe is not as systematic as Niebuhr was, or could be, in explicitly differentiating the principal kinds. This is evident, I say, from the statement of his beliefthat "there are three objects ofordinary human interest, GOD, MAN, NATURE; and that our education is not universal, ifthere is not a distinct branch ofstudy corresponding to each ofthese objects" (24). It is also evident from what he says about theology-that it is "a science" which, because it "manifestly concerns Humanity as such, and in which it [sc. Humanity] discovers its own foundation and laws," is "the groundwork ofHumanity and ofall studies concerning Humanity" (56, 58)and about "the knowledge ofGod"-that it is "the highest and deepest knowledge which men can enjoy, the sum of all knowledge, that in which alone knowledge finds its full and satisfactory meaning" (88).