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The inner testimony of the spirit: locating the coherent center of E. Y. Mullins's theology: critics from disparate theological perspectives increasingly find the theology of E. Y. Mullins inadequate for contemporary Baptists.

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Conservative Baptist scholars have argued that Mullins's emphasis on subjective Christian experience undermines the primacy and authority of the Bible and that his emphasis on human freedom compromises the older Southern Baptist adherence to God's sovereign grace in salvation. (1) Criticism of Mullins also comes from more moderate Baptists concerned with the degree of individualism expressed in his theology. (2) "Communitarian" Baptists, in particular, contend that Mullins's theology is less representative of a healthy Christian theology than of Enlightenment individualism. Mullins's modernist conception of the competent soul lacks awareness of "the sort of community and spiritual formation that are necessary to initiate and sustain converted souls in the Christian life." (3) These criticisms attempt to expose weaknesses, but a stronger objection, if true, raises considerable doubt about the continuing usefulness of Mullins's theology.

Baptists of his time and Baptists today have admired Mullins's ability to mediate between diverse theological views. (4) Indeed, he demonstrated a remarkable capacity to quell complex theological disputes by emphasizing the primacy of religious experience over the secondary activity of theological formulation. Some critics argue, however, that Mullins's mediatory strength belies the fact that his theology was ultimately incoherent. (5) According to this view, what looks like mediation was actually vacillation between irreconcilable approaches. Mullins's tendency to employ emerging theological and philosophical perspectives for apologetic purposes conflicted at times with his more conservative Baptist theology. Mullins's defenders, however, argue that he chose only certain helpful aspects of more radical viewpoints, but that he did not incorporate the substance of these diverse views into the core of his theology. Russell Dilday stated that "Mullins 'redeemed' these emerging schools of thought for Baptists by sifting out the good and discarding the useless." (6) If it is true, however, that Mullins was carefully sifting through contemporary perspectives without discarding more orthodox Baptist convictions, we should be able to identify the sieve. In other words, we should be able to determine the central theological commitments that remained constant and enabled him occasionally to appropriate more peripheral ideas.

The contention here, therefore, is that a reexamination of Mullins's thought is necessary to attempt to identify a logically coherent center. This reexamination should expose first why Mullins is often misunderstood regarding the way he used new theological, philosophical, and psychological perspectives. Next, we should attempt to find where Mullins might more clearly state what was central to his thought. We then may be able to make some judgment as to the continuing usefulness of Mullins's theology for Baptist theological reflection.

How Mullins Used Contemporary Views in His Theology

Mullins attempted to weave a number of contemporary philosophical and psychological perspectives together with his more traditional Baptist theological heritage. He built upon that heritage by combining elements from such diverse viewpoints as those of the philosophical personalism of Borden Bowne, the pragmatism and voluntarism of William James, and the evidential apologetics of L. F. Steams to support his primary theological emphasis on Christian experience. Early in his presidency at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Mullins mustered this array of sources to form a multi-front apology to refute the reductionist philosophy and science characteristic of his day. At the same time that Mullins addressed these global threats to religion and moral responsibility, he also dealt with the crisis among Baptists in the South over their historical identity. The Whitsitt Controversy, the immediate occasion for Mullins's ascendancy to the presidency of Southern Seminary, was the driving force behind his search for another way to state Baptist identity. (7) In a rather fortuitous way, the same collection of philosophical, psychological, and theological resources helped Mullins shift the location of Baptist identity from the practice of baptism by immersion to the belief in the competency of the soul in religion. Thus, Mullins's synthesis of traditional and contemporary insights enabled him to address diverse threats and controversies.

Readers have not always understood that the way Mullins used many of his contemporary sources was highly selective and nuanced. This lack of understanding about Mullins's method is one reason why many have misinterpreted his theology and failed to look for the convictions that were more central to his thought. For example, Bernard Ramm observed that Mullins mistakenly appropriated a pragmatic view of truth: "Unfortunately E. Y. Mullins, when he wrote Freedom and Authority, was under the charm of pragmatism and pursued its faulty logic." (8) What Ramm and many interpreters failed to distinguish was that Mullins marshaled pragmatism and other modern views for apologetic or defensive purposes. He was most concerned to use pragmatism to dismantle certain atheistic systems of philosophy and science that he believed threatened the Christian faith. Ultimately for Mullins, however, Christianity was based on divine revelation, not human methods of discovery: "Pragmatism will not satisfy those of us who believe we have a revelation from God. It everywhere assumes too generally that man can by searching find out...

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