Revealed Truth and Quaker History

Basil Willey in a book written in 1934 asserted that the English in the 17th century were caught between asking the medieval question of “why” events happened and the modern or scientific question of “how.” Even Isaac Newton wanted to answer both questions and spent much time deciphering the Book of Revelation. We do not honor Newton for his insights into the why question. Dudiak believes that historians in the academic community are too much interested in the “facts or what happened, unlike the 17th-century Friends who discerned the acts of God in religious and political events. His contrasting description of what he wants and how most historians operate is right.

Dudiak would like us to recapture the early Friends’ ability to “see by means of the light of God,” to “access pure, eternal Truth by the means of the Inward Light” and to free the “Light of Christ” from the light of reason. Of course, William Penn at times argued that there was no incompatibility between the Light of God and right reason and Elias Hicks allowed intellect to be used in judging the content of religion.

The enterprise Dudiak is asking us to do is to be like the history and prophetic books in the Bible, or, as he phrases it: to see “the hand of God in history.” Here the God who acts is portrayed in the life of individuals, in the kingdom of Israel, and in a religious community. Their story is sometimes called salvation history or, in German, Heilgeschichte. It is an inner history and described by H. Richard Niebuhr as he difference between saying the U.S. was founded 87 years ago and “our forefathers brought forth a new nation conceived in liberty. . . .” The Puritans called this providential history and they searched for extraordinary and also ordinary events to show the hand of God. Unlike Cotton Mather, however, we do not see sympathy for Quakers as the reason God punished Massachusetts with Indian wars, witchcraft, and bad harvests. Thomas Maule and Friends saw the persecution of Quakers as the reason for the troubles of New England. Penn saw the hand of God in his receiving the charter for Pennsylvania from King Charles but the Bishop of London and many royal officials saw mistaken policy. Should the Quaker historian decide which party described God accurately?

There is clearly a proper place for Dudiak’s kind of history: in meeting for worship, in First Days Schools, in the Friends Journal, in a Quaker’s spiritual autobiography. But even in doing this kind of history there are difficulties in using specific religious experiences and interpretations of events. All churches have established criteria in judging the facts of salvation history. Friends use scripture, tradition, theology, sense of meeting, weighty Friends, even common sense, and we still often disagree. For example, are religious experiences of only one kind? Certainly the languages of Fox, Woolman, Joseph John Gurney, Rufus Jones, or fundamentalist or universalist Friends are very different. Can one assume that all religious experience is the same within the boundaries of Quakerism, let alone that of Mormons, or Christian Scientists, or Adventists?

The answer I would argue is that salvation history and religious experience are flawed tools to use in historical research. The historian can describe something of what individuals or the community he or she is investigating said they had experienced and try to access the impact of the religious experiences in terms of a community’s norms, but cannot determine the truth or falsity or even the fact basis of the religious experience. William James argued that an outsider can never be equipped to assess the certainty of an individual’s claim to the Inward Light, but he can look at the outward effects of that claim. This is all that can be expected of either the history of Quakers or Quaker history.

When I wrote a chapter on the Hicksite/Orthodox schism for the 300 anniversary of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, a prominent Friend—a member of FHA—told me my account was not of “service” to Friends. I wrote an accurate story based...