88 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
AND POLITICS
Thus
far
in
his life
he
had never
questioned the tenets
of the strict and simple theology
of his
immediate sur-
roundings. Indeed, he had
never met anybody who ques-
tioned it. Only
a
single episode
had
slightly
jarred his
complacency and
left
a
tiny scar behind.
At
one time
his
Sunday-school teacher
had been
a
young professor of
theology who
was much more liberal than his contem-
poraries.
A boy in the class had dared
to
ask something
about the authority
of the Bible, and the teacher,
without
the
least trace of
embarrassment, had replied
that author-
ity should
not rest
on
blind faith
but upon
clear reason.
"If the Bible
told
you to
kill your father and your mother,
you would not
do
it. You would
not
be bound to do
it.
The justification
of the Bible is that
its teachings prove
to be
sound
in the experience of all
reasonable men."
In
the
divinity school the first course
which
A attended
was on the authority of the Bible. It was taught by a
smug
and
full
person
of some eminence. A was accus-
tomed
to
distinguish himself
by
bold opinions, and
he
undertook
to
challenge several of
the
propositions which
were supposed
to be accepted and repeated by
rote. His
main
point
was that authority rested on reason, not
on
faith. F'or his pains he
got
the reputation of being
a
smart
and
troublesome
upstart of
doubtful
orthodoxy.
His
former Sunday-school teacher
was
a
member of the fac-
ulty, and A wrote
a
thesis on the authority of the Bible,
in which
he elaborated the line of argument
which
had
so
much impressed
him.
Only the constant intercession
of this professor kept A from being disciplined,
or
even
expelled, at
various times.
The young man was disposed
to
take rigid theology
none too
seriously on account of his increasing
disrespect
for his father. A and his brother both felt
duty bound