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Charles Hodge | |
|---|---|
 Hodge, circa 1850–60 | |
| 2nd Principal of Princeton Theological Seminary | |
| In office 1851–1878 | |
| Preceded by | Archibald Alexander |
| Succeeded by | Archibald Alexander Hodge |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1797-12-27)December 27, 1797 |
| Died | June 19, 1878(1878-06-19) (aged 80) |
| Spouse(s) | Sarah Bache (married 1822; died 1849) Mary Hunter Stockman (married 1852) |
| Relations | Hugh L. Scott (grandson)[1] |
| Children | Archibald Alexander Hodge,Caspar Wistar Hodge Sr. |
| Parent(s) | Hugh Hodge Mary Blanchard |
| Alma mater | Princeton College Princeton Theological Seminary |
| Signature | .png) |
Charles Hodge (December 27, 1797 – June 19, 1878) was aReformedPresbyteriantheologian and principal ofPrinceton Theological Seminary between 1851 and 1878.
He was a leading exponent of thePrinceton Theology, an orthodoxCalvinist theological tradition in America during the 19th century. He advocated for the authority of the Bible as the Word of God. Many of his ideas were adopted in the 20th century by Fundamentalists and Evangelicals.[2]
Charles Hodge's father, Hugh, was the son of Andrew Hodge who was a successful international businessman emigrated fromNorthern Ireland early in the eighteenth century. Hugh graduated fromPrinceton College in 1773 and served as a military surgeon in theRevolutionary War, after which he practiced medicine inPhiladelphia. Hugh married Bostonian orphan Mary Blanchard, Hodge's mother, in 1790.
Hodge's two brothers died in theYellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 and anotheryellow fever epidemic in 1795. Hugh Lenox, was born in 1796 and survived his childhood. He is Charles Hodge's brother. Hugh Lenox became an authority inobstetrics. He maintained a good relationship with Charles and provided financial assistance to him. Charles was born on December 27, 1797. His father died seven months later of complications from the yellow fever he had contracted in the epidemic of 1795. They were brought up by relatives and Mary Hodge. She, with the help of the family's ministerAshbel Green, also provided the customaryPresbyterian religious education using theWestminster Shorter Catechism. They moved toSomerville, New Jersey in 1810 in order to attend a classical academy, and again toPrinceton in 1812 in order to enter Princeton College, a school originally organized to train Presbyterian ministers. As Charles prepared to enter the college,Princeton Theological Seminary was being established by thePresbyterian Church as a separate institution for training ministers in response to a perceived inadequacy in the training ministers were receiving at the university as well as the perception that the college was drifting from orthodoxy. Also in 1812, Ashbel Green, the Hodge's old minister, became president of the college.[3]
Archibald Alexander, the initial president of Princeton Seminary, offered help to Hodge. He instructing him Greek and accompanying him on itinerant preaching excursions. Hodge named his first son after Alexander. Hodge developed close friendships with futureEpiscopalian bishopsJohn Johns andCharles McIlvaine, as well as future Princeton College presidentJohn Mclean. In 1815, amid a period of intense religious fervor among the students inspired by Green and Alexander, Hodge joined the local Presbyterian church and resolved to enter the ministry. He enrolled at the seminary shortly after finishing his undergraduate studies in 1816. The course of study was tough, forcing students to recite scripture in its original languages and employ the dogmatics written in Latin in the 17th century byReformed scholasticFrancis Turretin as a theological textbook. Professors Alexander andSamuel Miller also inculcated an intense piety in their students.[4]
After Hodge graduated from Princeton Seminary in 1819, received additional instruction privately from Hebrew scholar Rev. Joseph Bates in Philadelphia. He was licensed to preach by thePresbytery of Philadelphia in 1820, and he preached regularly as a missionary in vacant pulpits in theEast Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia, theFrankford Arsenal in Philadelphia, andWoodbury, New Jersey over the subsequent months.[5][citation needed] In 1820 he accepted a one-year appointment as assistant professor at Princeton Seminary to teach biblical languages. In October of that year he traveled throughout New England to speak with professors and ministers includingMoses Stuart atAndover Seminary andNathaniel W. Taylor atYale Divinity School. In 1821 he was ordained aminister by thePresbytery of New Brunswick, and in 1822 he published his first pamphlet, which allowed Alexander to convince the General Assembly to appoint him full Professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature. Financially stable, Hodge married Sarah Bache,Benjamin Franklin's great-granddaughter in the same year.[6] In 1824, Hodge helped to found theChi Phi Society along withRobert Baird andArchibald Alexander.[citation needed] He founded the quarterlyBiblical Repertory in 1825 to translate the current scholarly literature on the Bible from Europe.[7]
Hodge's study of European scholarship led him to question the adequacy of his training. The seminary agreed to continue to pay him for two years while he traveled in Europe to "round out" his education. He supplied a substitute,John Nevin on his own expense. From 1826 to 1828 he traveled to Paris, where he studied French, Arabic, and Syriac;Halle, where he studied German withGeorge Müller and made the acquaintance ofAugust Tholuck; and Berlin where he attended the lectures ofSilvestre de Sacy,[citation needed]Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, andAugust Neander. There he also became personally acquainted withFriedrich Schleiermacher, the leading modern theologian. He admired the deep scholarship he witnessed in Germany, but thought that the attention given to idealist philosophy clouded common sense, and led to speculative and subjective theology. Unlike other American theologians who spent time in Europe, Hodge's experience did not cause any change in his commitment to the principles of the faith he had learned from childhood.[8]
In 1833, Hodge suffered severe leg pain and lost the use of his limbs. He continued to write articles forBiblical Repertory, now renamed thePrinceton Review. During the 1830s he wrote a majorcommentary onRomans and a history of the Presbyterian church in America. He supported the Old School in theOld School–New School Controversy, which resulted in a split in 1837. In 1840 he became Professor of Didactic Theology,[9] retaining, however, the department ofNew Testament exegesis, the duties of which he continued to discharge until his death. He wasmoderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Old School) in 1846.[10] Hodge's wife died in 1849, shortly followed by Samuel Miller and Archibald Alexander, leaving him the senior professor of the seminary. He was recognized as the leading proponent of thePrinceton theology. On his death in 1878 he was recognized by both friends and opponents as one of the greatest polemicists of his time.[11] Of his children who survived him, three were ministers; and two of these succeeded him in the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary,C. W. Hodge, in the department of exegetical theology, andA. A. Hodge, in that of dogmatics. A grandson,C. W. Hodge, Jr., also taught for many years at Princeton Seminary.[12]
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Hodge wrote many biblical and theological works. He began writing early in his theological career and continued publishing until his death. In 1835 he published hisCommentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Although considered to be his greatest exegetical work, Hodge revised this commentary in 1864, in the midst of theAmerican Civil War, and after a debate withJames Henley Thornwell about state secession from the Union.
Other works followed at intervals of longer or shorter duration –Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (1840);Way of Life (1841, republished in England, translated into other languages, and circulated to the extent of 35,000 copies in America);Commentary on Ephesians (1856);on First Corinthians (1857);on Second Corinthians (1859). Hismagnum opus is theSystematic Theology (1871–1873), of 3 volumes and extending to 2,260 pages. His last book,What is Darwinism? appeared in 1874. In addition, he contributed upward of 130 articles to thePrinceton Review, many of which, besides exerting a powerful influence at the time of their publication, have since been gathered into volumes, and as Selection ofEssays and Reviews from the Princeton Review (1857) andDiscussions in Church Polity (ed. W. Durant, 1878) have taken a permanent place in theological literature.[13][14][15]All of the books that he authored have remained in print over a century after his death.
Hodge has great influence in his time. He was granted the uncommon privilege of achieving distinction as a teacher, exegete, preacher, controversialist, ecclesiastic andsystematic theologian over the course of a long existence, and 3,000 ministers of the Gospel underwent his instruction. He was a great teacher who displayed popular gifts in the pulpit and revealed homiletic powers of a high order in the "conferences" onSabbath afternoons.
Hodge has made great contributions to thePrinceton Theological Review, many of which are acknowledged masterpieces of controversial writing. They cover a wide range of topics, fromapologetic questions that concern common Christianity to questions of ecclesiastical administration, in which onlyPresbyterians have been supposed to take interest. But the questions in debate among American theologians during the period covered by Hodge's life belonged, for the most part, to the departments of anthropology andsoteriology; and it was upon these, accordingly, that his polemic powers were mainly applied.
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Devotion to Christ was the salient characteristic of his experience, and it was the test by which he judged the experience of others. Hence, though a Presbyterian and a Calvinist, his sympathies went far beyond the boundaries of sect. He refused to entertain the narrow views of church polity which some of his brethren advocated. He repudiated the unhistorical position of those who denied the validity of Roman Catholic baptism. Those who knew him well described him as "luminous with the spirit of the indwelling Christ," as well as his "devout, reverent, sincere, fearless, intensely earnest, and honest" personality. People agreed that his "genuine kindliness of heart and largeness of soul" contradicted Calvinist notions of strictness and severity. Others described him as "the sweetest, gentlest, and most lovable of men." His face alone was a blessing." William Green, Hodge's colleague, recalled people who had known him of his "cheerful affability, rising at times into hilarity."[16]
He was conservative by nature, and his life was spent in defending the Reformed theology as set forth in theWestminster Confession of Faith andLarger andWestminster Shorter Catechisms. He was fond of saying that Princeton had never originated a new idea; but this meant no more than that Princeton was the advocate of historical Calvinism in opposition to the modified and provincial Calvinism of a later day. Hodge is classed[by whom?] among the great defenders of the faith, rather than among the great constructive minds of the Church.[citation needed] He had no ambition to be epoch-making by marking the era of a new departure. But he earned a higher title to fame in that he was the champion of his Church's faith during a long and active life, her trusted leader in time of trial, and for more than half a century the most conspicuous teacher of her ministry. Hodges' understanding of the Christian faith and of historical Protestantism is given in hisSystematic Theology.
Hodge supported the institution ofslavery in its most abstract sense, as having support from certain passages in the Bible. He held slaves himself, but he condemned their mistreatment, and made a distinction between slavery in the abstract and what he saw as the unjust Southern Slave Laws that deprived slaves of their right to educational instruction, to marital and parental rights, and that "subject them to the insults and oppression of the whites." It was his opinion that the humanitarian reform of these laws would become the necessary prelude to the eventual end of slavery in the United States.[17]
The Presbyterian General Assembly of 1818 had affirmed a similar position, that slavery within the United States, while not necessarily sinful, was a regrettable institution that ought to eventually be changed.[17] Like the church, Hodge himself had sympathies with both theabolitionists in the North and the pro-slavery advocates in the South, and he used his considerable influence in an attempt to restore order and find common ground between the two factions, with the eventual hope of abolishing slavery altogether.
Hodge's support of slavery was not an inevitable result of his belief in the inerrancy and the literal interpretation of the Bible. Other 19th century Christian contemporaries of Hodge, who also believed in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, denounced the institution of slavery.John Williamson Nevin, a conservative, evangelical Reformed scholar and seminary professor, denounced slavery as 'a vast moral evil.'[18] Hodge and Nevin also famously clashed over polar-opposite views of the Lord's Supper.
Hodge was a leader of the Old School faction of Presbyterians during the division of thePresbyterian Church (USA) in 1837. The issues involved conflicts over doctrine, religious practice, and slavery. Although prior to 1861 the Old School refrained from denouncing slavery, the issue was a matter of debate between Northern and Southern components of the denomination.
Hodge held a resistant opinion to the Civil War in 1861. Hodge was a strong nationalist and led the fight among Presbyterians to support the Union. In the January 1861Princeton Review, Hodge laid out his case against secession, in the end calling it unconstitutional.James Henley Thornwell responded in the January 1861Southern Presbyterian Review, holding that the election of 1860 had installed a new government, one which the South did not agree with, thus making secession lawful.[19] Despite being a staunch Unionist politically, Hodge voted against the support for the "Spring Resolutions" of the 1861 General Assembly of the Old School Presbyterian Church, thinking it was not the business of the church to involve itself in political matters; because of the resolutions, the denomination then split North and South. When the General Assembly convened in Philadelphia in May 1861, one month after the Civil War began, the resolution stipulated pledging support for the federal government over objections based on concerns about the scope of church jurisdiction and disagreements about its interpretation of the Constitution. In December 1861, the Southern Old School Presbyterian churches severed ties with the denomination.[20]
In 1874, Hodge publishedWhat is Darwinism?, claiming thatDarwinism, was, in essence, atheism. To Hodge, Darwinism was contrary to the notion of design and was therefore clearly atheistic. Both in theReview and inWhat is Darwinism?, (1874) Hodge attacked Darwinism. His views determined the position of the Seminary until his death in 1878. While he didn't consider all evolutionary ideas to be in conflict with his religion, he was concerned with its teaching in colleges. Meanwhile, atPrinceton University, a totally separate institution, President John Maclean also rejected Darwin's theory of evolution. However, in 1868, upon Maclean's retirement,James McCosh, a Scottish philosopher, became president. McCosh believed that much of Darwinism could and would be proved sound, and so he strove to prepare Christians for this event. Instead of conflict between science and religion, McCosh sought reconciliation. Insisting on the principle of design in nature, McCosh interpreted the Darwinian discoveries as more evidence of the prearrangement, skill, and purpose in the universe. He thus argued that Darwinism was not atheistic nor in irreconcilable hostility to the Bible. The Presbyterians in America thus could choose between two schools of thought on evolution, both based in Princeton. The Seminary held to Hodge's position until his supporters were ousted in 1929, and the college (Princeton University) became a world class center of the new science of evolutionary biology.[21]
The debate between Hodge and McCosh exemplified an emerging conflict between science and religion over the question of Darwin's evolution theory. However, the two men showed greater similarities regarding matters of science and religion than popularly appreciated. Both supported the increasing role of scientific inquiry in natural history and resisted its intrusion into philosophy and religion.[22]
Charles Hodge was often critical of the traditional understanding ofdivine simplicity, instead teaching a more moderate form of simplicity. He argued that the views of simplicity taught byAugustine,Aquinas andScotus "destroy any true knowledge of God".[23] Charles Hodge also rejected the traditional notion ofdivine impassibility, rejecting traditional notions that God's love is not to be understood as a feeling.[24] He however affirmed the doctrine ofeternal generation, as taught by theCouncil of Nicaea.[25]
As in reference to the subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father, as asserted in the ancient creeds, it is not to the fact that exception is taken, but to the explanation of that fact, as given by the Nicene fathers, the same is true with regard to the doctrine of Eternal Generation. It is no doubt a Scriptural fact that the relation between the First and Second persons of the Trinity is expressed by the relative terms Father and Son. It is also said that the Son is begotten of the Father; He is declared to be the only begotten Son of God. The relation, therefore, of the Second Person to the First is that of filiation or sonship. But what is meant by the term, neither the Bible nor the ancient creeds explain. It may be sameness of nature; as a son is of the same nature as his father. It may be likeness, and the term Son be equivalent to εἰκών, ἀπαύγασμα, χαρακτήρ, or λόγος, or revealer. It may be derivation of essence, as a son, in one sense, is derived from his father. Or, it may be something altogether inscrutable and to us incomprehensible.
This article includes content derived from thepublic domainSchaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1914.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Principal ofPrinceton Theological Seminary 1851–1878 | Succeeded by |
| Religious titles | ||
| Preceded by The Rev.John Michael Krebs | Moderator of the 58th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Old School) 1846–1847 | Succeeded by The Rev.James Henley Thornwell |
| Pre-schism (1789–1837) |
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|---|---|---|
| Old School (1838–1869) |
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| New School (1838–1869) |
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| After reuniting (1869–1958) |
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