The psychological foundations of faith

During the 1840s Baden Powell's writings became characterized by the discussion of current theological doctrines. As the Noetics had warned since the early 1820s, the danger facing contemporary Anglican apologetic was that of over-reacting to the social and intellectual challenges of the day. The alleged failure by rational and evidential apologists to preserve the faith of the nation was taken by many to indicate the failure of all kinds of rational discourse on religious subjects. Alternative strategies were avidly sought for. Many of the solutions put forward were however opposed to what Baden Powell and Whately regarded as the dominant spirit of the age.

The Tractarians invoked the millenarian tradition of assent to Christianity and its doctrines. They answered difficulties by demanding submission to the teaching of the Anglican Church. At the opposite side of the theological spectrum, the ‘mystics’ – a term employed by Baden Powell to indicate the followers of the American transcendental school, or individual thinkers like Blanco White, Francis Newman, John Daniel Morell (1816–91) or John Sterling (1806–44)–made religious ideas and feelings the basis of their philosophy of religion.

In numerous essays and tracts devoted to theological polemic Whately and Baden Powell pointed out that both groups of theologians wrongly believed that the ‘external’ rational evidence of Christianity was untenable, ineffective or dangerously weak. Joining hands with the infidels, these groups proclaimed ‘the dissociation of religion and reason, of Christianity and its evidences’. In the papers he contributed to various quarterlies during the 1840s Baden Powell insisted on the validity and security of his demonstration of the rational evidence of Christianity.