THE IDEA OF THEOLOGY.

The term ' Theology ' is used for the scientific expression of the truths of Divine revelation. As nature has to be distinguished from science, so has revelation from theology. Science is the technical expression of the laws of nature; theology is the technical expression of the revelation of God. It is the province of theology to examine all the spiritual facts of revelation, to estimate their value, and to arrange them into a body of teaching. Doctrine thus corresponds with the generalisations of science, and theology, as the science of religion, is concerned with the phenomena of revelation recorded in Holy Scripture.

Special attention has been given of recent years to what is known as Biblical theology, which means theology drawn direct from the Bible and formulated along the lines in which it is there presented. Its value lies in the fact that it stands midway between exegesis and dogmatics. It affords a historical interpretation, and it recognises the progressiveness of revelation. It thus possesses at once variety and unity: variety, because it was not given all at once, but at stages; unity, because the Bible is held to provide a complete view of theological thought. It is the work of Biblical theology to set forth this variety and unity of truth. The doctrine has to be considered at each stage, the separate facts must be noted, and then the material must be studied as a whole, observing its substantial unity.

From Biblical theology we pass to Dogmatic theology, (which may be defined as the systematised statement of truth deduced from the Bible and interpreted by the Christian consciousness through the centuries. It is the intellectual expression in technical language of what is contained in the Word of God, the articulated statement of the Biblical revelation, and the explicit statement of what is implicit in experience. Martensen defines dogmatics as ' the science which presents and proves the Christian doctrines regarded as forming a connected system.' A theological statement of what the Church believes on such a subject as the Holy Spirit is necessary and inevitable.

The source and authority of Dogmatic theology are found in the Biblical revelation, and no theology is to be considered as true which is not derivable from the Biblical data. Then the witness to and confirmation of Dogmatic theology is found in the Christian consciousness of the whole Church. Although a contrast is sometimes made between Biblical theology and Dogmatic theology. Dogmatic theology is not necessarily non-Biblical, and indeed. Biblical theology itself will depend on the standpoint of the writer.

' Now and then we find a man who still gives vent to his dislike of Dogmatic Theology by professing great devotion to Biblical Theology, as though the latter were a protest against the former, and were a little more loyal to the authority of the Bible. It is true that Biblical Theology takes little or no account of ecclesiastical controversies and is silent about the decisions of Councils. Still it must be remembered that Biblical Theology does not consist in grouping the teaching of the Scriptures under certain loci communes, such as sin and redemption. That would be a Biblical Dogmatic. The Biblical Theologian seeks to trace the development of doctrine as revealed truth. His subject is the crowning Discipline of Exegesis, but it is an historical Discipline too. It is the task of the Dogmatic Theologian to exhibit the logical unfolding of the Covenant of Grace, but it is the task of the Biblical Theologian to exhibit its chronological unfolding.'1

The character and limitations of Dogmatic theology are patent to all. There is, of course, an obvious danger in the attempt at systematising Christian truth, for the human mind seems unable to find a place for every single doctrine, and it is probably wiser to be content with separate though connected truths, or ' articles ' with gaps unfilled, than to attempt to include everything within the limits of a system. General lines of Christian truth are safer, and also truer to the growth of thought and experience through the ages. No theological statement which tends to harden teaching into a rigid system of doctrine can ever be true to the genius of New Testament Christianity. But if our statements of theology are regarded as landmarks rather than goals, there will be ample opportunity of growth and development, and as the mind of man will always make the attempt to systematise truth, dogmatic or systematic theology is inevitable.

' The legitimacy of the Systematic Theologian's undertaking cannot be called in question. Even when men have given form to systems foreign to our mode of thought and far away from what we believe to be true it is impossible not to admire and to wonder at the vast constructive power their systems manifest. The first question is, of course, whether or no God has spoken. For if He has spoken, it is certain that He has not said one thing or two. He has said a great many things. And these parts of the Divine message sustain relations to one another. What are these relations? It is said that God has not given us a Systematic Theology in the Bible. Neither has He given us a ready-made Astronomy nor a ready-made Biology. Linnaeus had to work for his classification. God has not planted nature like a park with studied reference to orders, genera, and species.'2

The history of the Christian Church is sufficient justification of the attempt to correlate and combine the truths of the Christian religion into a theological system. The Creeds and controversies of the early Church, the great treatises of the Schoolmen, the works of the Reformers, and the elaborate systems of post-Reformation theologians are proofs, not merely of the necessity of systematic theology, but also, and chiefly, of the vitality of the Christian truth in occupying the minds of the best thinkers in the Christian Church. It means that theology is a reality, possessing a substance and worthy of thorough attention.

' I know that Systematic Theology is discredited in some quarters; some seem to think that it stands as a barrier to religious fervour and practical piety; some tell us that we must get ready for a theological reconstruction and that the time for that reconstruction is at hand. But the only consistent despisers of Systematic Theology are those who in their hearts believe, however slow they may be to confess it, that in the light of history as it is now read, and of philosophy as it is now studied, and of science as it is now proclaimed, there is little or no rational content for Systematic Theology.'3

Dogmatic theology is therefore essential and inevitable.

' Theology must be dogmatic, and it is only a choice of the right and wholesome kind of dogmatism.... By its nature it is dogmatic, as conscience is, as science is about nature's uniformity, or as society is about marriage. It is not the deduction of a system from an innate principle which Christ brought to the surface, nor is it the analysis of the Christian consciousness, but it is the exposition of what the living conscience of the Church finds in the fact and act of Christ, creative and historic. It is not progressive argument so much as enlarged statement, not the movement of a dialectic but the exposition of a corporate experience. Everything turns on what the soul does, or does not, find in the objective fact of Christ as the self-donation of God to our case. Not otherwise do poetry or science deal with the gift in nature. We are always more sure of the reality than satisfied with the rationality of the matter. Living faith is always more of a moral miracle than a mental sanity. It is a will's mysterious choice and not a mind's lucid flame.'4

Dogmatic theology, as expressed in the Christian Creed, is represented chiefly in the threefold form of the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian. These documents gather out from Scripture, and illustrate by the experience and usage of the early centuries what is germane to the subject, and then present it as an organised whole. The documents of the sixteenth century deliberately express their adherence to these earlier statements, and on the particular subject of the Holy Spirit they only seek to elaborate and apply what is found therein. For the theology of the Holy Spirit we therefore turn naturally to the three creeds. The Apostles' Creed is a mere statement of belief; the Athanasian Creed is an elaborated form of what is to be understood by the Nicene Creed. It will therefore suffice for our present purpose if we look at the subject primarily as it is stated in the last-named document. Combining the formulas of Nicaea and Constantinople, we have the following:

' I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Life-Giver, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spake by the prophets.'

This statement will suffice as a starting-point for the consideration of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit under several aspects.

1 Patton, ' Theological Encyclopaedia,' Princeton Biblical and Theological Studies, pp. 12, 13.

2 Patton, op. cit. p. 24.

3 Patton, op. cit. p. 30.

4 Forsyth, ' Intellectualism and Faith,' The Hibbert Journal, January, 1913, p. 328.