Historic Documents in American Presbyterian History
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPIRITUALITY
IN SEMINARY STUDENTS
by Louis Berkhof
[excerpted from The Evangelical Student, 13.1 (January 1938): 10-14.]
The question is often asked in our day, what can be done to
promote real spirituality? Serious-minded church members raise
it from time to time, and the spiritual leaders of the people
often dwell on the subject in their sermons and public addresses.
The fact that this question ever and anon forces itself upon
the attention of Christian men and women does not testify to
the spiritualmindedness of the present generation, but rather
gives evidence of the conscious lack of spirituality. They who
enjoy vigorous health do not, as a rule, seek information as
to special exercises to promote their physical well-being. But
when a feeling of lassitude creeps over them, when their natural
vigour abates, and when their general health seems to decline,--then
they begin to show particular interest in special restorative
measures.
At the same time it is an encouraging sign to find Christian
people seriously asking, how they can improve their spiritual
health and promote their spiritual growth. The person who is
unconscious of the fact that his health is failing, and who
is for that very reason indifferent as to restorative measures,
is in a sadder plight than he who is deeply conscious of it
and therefore seeks medical advice. When Christian people ask
what may be done to improve their spiritual life, they are clearly
conscious of the fact that their present condition is not ideal
and manifest a desire for spiritual growth. They feel that they
have not yet reached the ideal, that their sanctification is
far from complete, and that their Christian life ought to move
on to higher levels. And this is encouraging, since it is a
necessary prerequisite for further spiritual advancement. It
is a true cause for rejoicing to find theological students frequently
raising the question as to how they may improve their spirituality.
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In any attempt to give
an answer to this question it is of the greatest importance
to determine the nature of true spirituality, especially since
there is considerable difference of opinion on this point.
Pantheistic idealism bases its conception of spirituality on
the immanence of God and conceives of it pantheistically. The
divine in man is struggling to gain the mastery over his lower
propensities; and the man who allows the higher elements of
his nature to control his life, is the truly spiritual man.
Man is spiritual in the measure in which he feels himself one
with God in the depths of his being. Spinoza, the God-intoxicated
man, may be held up as an ideal. Shelley and Tennyson were eminently
spiritual. "The spiritual life," says president Hyde of Bowdoin
College, "is the universal life; the life determined by reason."
And according to Gerald Birney Smith, late professor of systematic
theology at the Divinity School of Chicago "the essence of spirituality
consists in a direct, personal, and inner relation to God ...
As to content it is grounded in a good will and cannot be distinguished
from a truly moral life."
Humanism has a conception of spirituality based on its view
of the inherent goodness of man. All genuine human values, such
as science, art, literature, and philosophy, bearing on human,
especially social, relationships, are spiritual. Says Roy Wood
Sellars of the University of Michigan: "Wherever there are genuine
values, there is the spiritual. Is not loyalty to these spiritual
values of human life coming to be the sole meaning of religion?"
The spiritual man is the man who unreservedly devotes himself
to the welfare of his neighbors and of humanity, and who labours
for the social reconstruction of human society.
In Mysticism and mystical sects we meet with quite a different
conception of spirituality. It is characteristically mystical
to lay claim to spiritual independence of the Word of God and
to a special enlightenment by the Holy Spirit. Mystics sometimes
speak of being submerged in the infinite ocean of God. According
to them it is exactly their independence of the letter which
killeth, their special insight into the things of God, and their
mystical oneness with God, that constitutes their spirituality.
Evangelical sects of the present day occasionally manifest a
tendency to move in the same direction. They sometimes decry
the intellectual element in religion, speak of a special spiritual
light which the enjoy, and boast of a high, if not unique, degree
of spirituality.
There is a related view, very common in some Evangelical circles
today, which is based on the idea that religion has its seat
in the feelings, or in the heart conceived as the seat of
the emotions. They use the term "spirituality" to describe
the warmer religious emotions. The preacher who speaks with
special unction and a great deal of feeling, and the books that
stir the religious emotions, are regarded as pre-eminently spiritual.
The man who is deeply moved by the operations of the Holy Spirit
in his heart and delights to speak of the mercies of God, is
looked upon as a deeply spiritual man. Now this view certainly
calls attention to a real element of spirituality, but it is
one-sided and narrows the conception of spirituality unduly.
In fact, such emotional utterances may not be rooted in the
deeper life of the soul at all. Sad to say, some professing
Christians, whose speech gives evidence of this kind of spirituality"
lead wicked lives and do very unspiritual things. And yet it
is to be feared that this is exactly the kind of spirituality
which many regard as ideal in the present day. The underlying
assumption is that there can be no spirituality at all apart
from emotional effusions. Men who are by nature rather unemotional
are suspected of being unspiritual. This is doing them a great
injustice. Such men may be more truly spiritual than those who
are all warmth and emotion.
*
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We ought to learn from
Scripture just who the spiritual man is. Paul speak repeatedly
of believers as pneumatikoi (spiritual men). He places
the pneumatic man over against the psychic man as one who possesses
a life derived from the special operation of the Holy Spirit
and under the control of that Spirit, as contrasted with the
life of the natural man, who is a stranger to the special operations
of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual man is the man who is in possession
of the Holy Spirit, and therefore of a heaven-born life, who
is controlled in his moral and religious life by the Spirit
of God, and who adapts his life to the realities of the spiritual
world into which he was introduced by the work of regeneration.
Since the Holy Spirit dwells in the heart of man, He naturally
exercises a correspondingly extensive influence. In the present
day, as was said, many are inclined to think that Scriptural
psychology represents the heart exclusively as the seat of the
emotions, and therefore looks upon spirituality as a sort of
emotionality. The man whose emotions are stirred by the Holy
Spirit is the really spiritual man. But the Scriptural conception
of the heart is much broader. According to the Bible the heart
is the center and focus of the entire conscious life of man,
the organ of all possible states of consciousness, of all thinking,
feeling, and willing. Out of the heart are all the issues of
life. Among the Hebrews a brainy man was called "a man of heart."
Men understand with their hearts, Matt. 13:15; they have purposes
of heart, Acts 11:23; and are troubled in their hearts, John
14:1. The heart is the workshop of the soul in all its activities.
It is in the heart that the human spirit responds to the divine
Spirit. The spiritual man is the man who thinks the thoughts
of the Spirit, who grieves on account of all opposition to the
Spirit, whether in his own life or in that of others, who rejoices
in the fruits of the Spirit, who delights to speak of the Spirit
and his marvelous works, and who is deeply concerned about doing
the works of the Spirit.
There is a sense in which every child of God is pneumatikos (spiritual), but there is also a sense in which this appellative
applies to only a part of them. All Christians are pneumatikoi
(spiritual) as distinguished from psuchikoi (soulish
or natural) ; but in the manifestation of their life some of
them are somatikoi (carnal) rather than pneumatikoi (spiritual).
Paul writes to the Corinthians : "And I, brethren, could not
speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto
babes in Christ." This clearly implies that there are degrees
of spirituality in the manifestition of the life of believers.
While they are all essentially spiritual, they do not all reflect
the life of the Spirit of God as they should in their daily
life.
The guidance of the Holy Spirit, to which the spiritual man
gladly submits, is a guidance which is connected with and operates
through the Word of God. At this point we differ very decidedly
with all mystical sects, which have little use for the Word
of God and glory in the inner light and in the immediate operation
of the Holy Spirit. It is very dangerous to divorce the guidance
of the Spirit from the Word of God. There are indeed immediate
operations of the Holy Spirit, but these should always be submitted
to the test of Scripture. It is not always easy to distinguish
the voice of the Holy Spirit from that of the human spirit,
and sometimes even from that of the spirit of the abyss. History
testifies to it that Mystics often committed the grossest sins
in the name of the Holy Spirit. Think of the extravagances and
immoralities of Jan van Leiden and his followers. Spirituality
can only be developed by ever increasing sanctification, and
this is impossible apart from the Word of God.
*
* * * * *
There can be no doubt about
the importance of developing true spirituality. Every believer
should be very much concerned about this. Worldliness should
make way for heavenly-mindedness. This holds particularly in
the case of those who are preparing for the work of the ministry.
They should be preeminently spiritual, seeing that they aspire
to spiritual leadership. They should seek intellectual development,
but while doing this should not neglect the nurture of their
spiritual life. If they do, their scientific training may make
them increasingly unfit for the work of the ministry. We may
well seek an answer, therefore, to the question, how the theologian
should go in search of spiritual culture.
Let it be said first of all that for the development of real
spiritual life the responsibility rests primarily with the individual
concerned. The Spirit of God gives spiritual growth through
the means of grace, but not apart from the faithful and persistent
efforts of the spiritual man. Such growth depends on the exercise
of a living faith in Jesus Christ. Paul exhorts the Romans to
walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. He who does
not mind the things of the Spirit, but prefers to follow the
lusts of the flesh, will never grow spiritually. He does not
obey the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the very
condition of growth, and thus stunts the development of his
spiritual life. Such a person may be inclined to shift the responsibility
and to blame his lack of spirituality to others: to his parents,
his minister, his teachers, or his professors, but the fact
remains that he is to blame first of all. He seems to think
that the various extraneous influences to which he is subject
should make him spiritual in spite of himself; but this is an
utter impossibility.
In the second place it may not be unnecessary to stress the
fact, sometimes overlooked, that the student should never place
his spiritual training in juxtaposition to his regular school
work. When Phillips Brooks entered the Seminary, he once attended
a prayer meeting of the students and was deeply impressed by
their devotion and prayers. But the next day he found that they
did not know their lessons, and realized that there was something
wrong their spirituality. Students for the ministry cannot develop
their spiritual life by neglecting the very work for which they
attend school, or by any show of devotion which does not affect
the roots of their conduct and make them more consecrated and
painstaking in their regular work. A glow that does not issue
from living fire is apt to be very evanescent. True spirituality
will make the student regard his work as a God-given task, as
a religious duty, and prompt him to perform it as in the presence
of God. It will give his work a higher sanction.
All this does not mean, however, that there are no means which
may minister to the spiritual growth of those who are studying
for the ministry. There are, and students should be diligent
in the use of these means. At the same they should remember
that the effectiveness of the means will largely depend on the
use which they make of them. The Bible clearly reveals this.
There are some who hear the Word of God, but do not respond
to it; there are those who pray but pray amiss. In general it
may be said that the means which the student has at his disposal
are no other than those employed by Christians in general. Permit
me to call attention to some of the most important.
The first great means which God has placed at our disposal is
the public ministry of the Word of the Sacraments. Students
who really desire to develop their spiritual life should be
diligent in church attendance. Moreover, they ought to go to
church with the right purpose: to commune with God in His house,
Ps. 42, and 84. They should listen to the Word, not with a critical
ear but in a receptive mood, seeking for themselves spiritual
edification. Right at this point students, and especially theological
students, are often exposed to a particular danger. Pope once
said : "A little learning is a dangerous thing." That truth
applies here also. Students are often a minister's most critical
hearers. They have a little theological learning, and have just
been put in possession of certain exegetical and homiletical
standards, which enable them, as they think, to take the preacher's
exact measure. With their newly acquired measuring rod they
pass judgment on all the sermons heard. And in the measure in
which they listen with a critical ear, they fail to catch the
spiritual import of the message that is brought to them. They
should fix their minds prayerfully on those elements in the
sermon that edify and elevate the soul. This will make them
more appreciative and yield greater spiritual returns.
Next I would point to private devotion, including Bible reading,
meditation, and prayer. Students should make it a point to set
aside a small portion of their time for daily devotional Bible
reading. In the Seminary they are engaged from day to day in
scientific and often critical Bible study. And if they are not
careful, this may cause them to lose sight of the sacredness
of Scripture and of its spiritual significance. It is after
all the greatest of the means of grace and should be read for
its spiritual messages. In connection with such Bible reading
a practical commentary, such as that of Matthew Henry, may be
of great value. There should also be seasons of quiet meditation
on the truths of Scripture and on the ways of God. This tends
to focus the attention on God and spiritual things, and frequently
brings home to us lessons that would have escaped us in the
hustle and bustle of life. Did you ever notice how often the
book of Psalms speaks of the meditation of the Old Testament
saints? Private prayer is another important means for cultivating
spiritual life. In it we seek contact with Him who is the source
of all spiritual strength. We are not always sufficiently conscious
of the tremendous significance of prayer. Luther used to say:
"If I have prayed well, my work is half done."
The question may be raised, whether the Seminary itself can
contribute something to the spiritual growth of its students.
And the answer is affirmative. If professors and students are
diligent in cultivating spiritual graces (not to be confused
with mere emotionalism), the atmosphere of the Seminary itself
will be conducive to the development of spirituality. But let
the students constantly bear in mind that they largely determine
the atmosphere of the Seminary.
The regular devotional exercises can certainly contribute to
the spiritual growth of the students. They will help them to
enter into the presence of God, and bring them messages from
the Word, which are messages of the Spirit. A great deal will
of course depend on the way in which the student participates
in these exercises. He should not for a moment allow himself
to think that they cannot be helpful, unless they are of an
emotional nature. A stirring of the emotions certainly has its
legitimate place in religion, and is often very pleasing, but
is not absolutely essential to spiritual growth.
Dr. Warfield says in his lecture on "Spiritual Culture in the
Theological Seminary", that the entire work of the Seminary
deserves to be classed in the category of means of grace. What
we are dealing with in the Seminary is primarily the study of
God's Word and of His dealings with His people. The matter presented
is real spiritual nutriment. The work done may be a powerful
means of grace, if prosecuted in the right spirit and with due
regard for its spiritual or religious value. If theological
students pursue their work in the right spirit, everything will
serve to lift the soul to God and to lead them on to ever greater
heights of spirituality. May our students so labor during the
years of their Seminary training that their very increase in
knowledge may be for them a source of rich spiritual blessings,
and that they may attain ever increasingly to "the unity of
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." |