A Compendium of Christian Theology
By William Burt Pope, D.D.,
Volume One
Chapter 1
Definition of Theology
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PRELIMINARIES.
CHRISTIAN Theology is the
science of God and Divine thing’s, based upon the revelation
made to mankind in Jesus Christ, and variously systematized
within the Christian Church.
(General Definition)
All that belongs to the preliminaries of our study may be
distributed under the several
heads suggested by this definition, which is so framed as to
include, first, Theology
proper; secondly, its limitation to the relations between God
and mankind; thirdly, its
essential connection with Christ; fourthly, its characteristics
as developed under various
influences within the Christian Church; and lastly, its title to
the name of a science. The
introductory remarks which will be made on these several topics
have for their object
simply to prepare the mind of the student for what lies before
him; and to give a few hints
which will all afterwards be expanded in due course.
God is the source and the subject and the end of theology. The
stricter and earlier use of
the word limited it to the doctrine of the Triune God and His
attributes. But in modern
usage it includes the whole compass of the science of Religion,
or the relations of all
things to God. This gives it its unity and dignity and sanctity.
It is
1. The only adequate definition of this subject embraces
2. There is a sense in which universal theology is concerned
simply with the relation of
all things to God: if we carefully guard our meaning we may make
this proposition
include the converse, the relation of God to all things.
Relation of course must be mutual;
but it is hard in this matter to detach from the notion of
relation that of dependence. The
Eternal One is the Unconditioned Being. When we study His nature
and perfections and
works we must always remember that He is His Perfect Self
independent of every created
object, and independent of every thought concerning Him. But
there is not a doctrine, nor
is there a branch or development of any doctrine, which is not
purely the expression of
some relation of His creatures to the Supreme First Cause.
3. Hence every branch of this science is sacred. It is a temple
which is filled with the
presence of God. From its hidden sanctuary, into which no high
priest taken from among
men can enter, issues a light which leaves no part dark save
where it is dark with excess
of glory. Therefore all fit students are worshippers as well as
students. In the heathen
world there was a true instinct of this. The highest tribute the
ancients could pay to their
poets and philosophers, from Homer and Hesiod downwards, was to
call them Theologoi.
Their philosophy was their theology. So in the early Church,
when theology put on its
perfection, its relation to God was the seal of that perfection:
St. John was called the
Divine, Ho Theologos,
because his writings contained most of the manifestation of the
Holy Trinity in its internal and external relations. What has
been said of God Himself
may be said concerning the theological study of God: He is the
centre everywhere of a
science which has its circumference nowhere. The remembrance of
this must exert its
influence upon our spirit and temper in all our studies. Who shall ascend into the hill of
the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath
clean hands, and a pure
heart.
1
DIVINE THINGS MADE KNOWN TO MAN.
Theology is mainly concerned with the things of God as they are
related to man and his
destination. This proposition implies the capacity in our nature
to receive Divine truth;
indicates both the extent and the limits of its range as
revealed especially for man; and
explains the essentially human character which is impressed on
its form and invests it
with a profound human interest.
1. Man is in a certain sense the centre of this science. He is
specifically the centre of
one branch of it, technically called
(1) Theology is concerned with the destiny of man in the
universe. Its first lessons, the
opening of the volume of the book, presents him as the head of
the creation of God: the
history of the origin of all things, and of the slow formation
of this world, is only the
preface to his introduction as the representative of his Maker
upon the earth. His fall and
his redemption are blended in one; the whole sequel of
revelation is the record of the
Divine method of retrieving in the Second Adam what in the first
was marred,
(2) But the same general principle may be referred to man as the
recipient of revelation.
Created in the image of God, he is an intelligent, free and
responsible creature, capable of
separation from the Divine will and also capable of restoration
to the Divine communion.
The two first postulates of all theology are the Personality of
the Infinite Being and the
personality of man His creature. Neither of these is matter of
demonstration in the holy
oracles: both are assumed or taken for granted everywhere. To
renounce either is to
annihilate theological knowledge properly so called. Although in
the prosecution of this
study methods of proving both may be adopted, under the pressure
of a necessity
imposed on us by the waywardness of human skepticism, yet must
we finally and always
beg the question here God is a Person who condescends to man;
and man is a person who
is capable of God.
(3) The objective and subjective relations of man as the centre
of theological science
meet in the word
Men have never been without a religion, for God has never left
Himself without witness
2. Hence the limitation that everywhere meets us. The relations
of the vast universe,
and of other creatures in it, with God, are included only so far
as they concern mankind.
Revelation brings us tidings from without, from the outside
universe; and its
communications concerning the earlier probation of spiritual
intelligences, their division
into orders, their interest and agency in the development of the
Divine purposes, amount
when systematized to a considerable department of revealed
truth, to which the name
What is that to thee?
3. There is an impress upon theology, whether in its Divine
records or in its human
science, which results from its adaptation to human faculties.
We must here take it for
granted that man is a creature capable of religion, that is, of
communion with God, as a
person related to a Person. The Scripture which does not prove
that God is does not prove
that man is capable of knowing God: both are the fundamental
presuppositions of
theology. But, reserving the fuller demonstration of this, we
must mark that as he is a
creature in probation, his knowledge of Divine things is given
in probationary forms,
testing his character at every point. All is expressly adapted
to his limited faculties, and
imparted to him in a way suitable to his present stage of
existence. God has come down to
us in the likeness of men,
4. As human students of our own truth, we may be assured
Sufficient that we shall have
full and sufficient guidance. Nothing that it concerns us to
know has been or will be
hidden from us: what is reserved is reserved for our discipline,
as what is revealed is
revealed for our instruction. He hath showed thee, 0 man, what is good:
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
Our knowledge comes to us through One who is Man and also God;
His incarnation in
the fullness of time explains the Anthropomorphism of the Old
Testament; and it is in
Him that the theology of God and the theology of man become one.
Jesus Christ is Himself in Person and in Word the revelation of
God. He has confirmed
and supplemented Natural Theology, or that which is independent
of supernatural
revelation. He has consummated the preliminary disclosures of
His own earlier
dispensations. He has discredited and condemned all teachers and
teaching that reject His
authority. Hence the science which we study is essentially
Christian theology.
The postulates of the general proposition will be more fully
established hereafter: they
are now only stated and assumed.
1. In its technical sense, the term
2. The Supreme Revealer confirms and absorbs into His teaching
the original revelations
of nature: or what is called
3. Christian Theology is the consummation of its own earlier
economies. Christ was the
Revealer from the beginning. But His revelations have been given
by progressive stages;
and now in the end of the world He has gathered the whole into
one great system of truth.
We may therefore regard His perfect teaching as the consummation
of its preliminary
forms. It is the fulfillment of
1
The theological systems of religious teaching which are thus
condemned are those which
have been based upon perversions either of natural or of
revealed religion.
(1) The former has assumed many forms, all of them having some
common relation to the
only truth. There has always been a
(2) The perversions of revealed religion have assumed also many
forms. The most
gigantic is that of R
5. Christ, the Centre of theology, is its Living Teacher also.
As the test of all opinion and
faith is the place it assigns to Him, —Whom
say ye that I am? being the question that
follows Whom do men say
that I am?
1
The Lord has been pleased to commit His revelation, as finished
in the Scriptures, to the
keeping of His Church, under the control and supervision of the
Holy Spirit. The
Scriptures are the rule and standard and test of theology, which
in this relation must be
regarded as the whole sum of the Church's Christian literature,
gradually produced and
variously modified: an extension of the term which is absolutely
necessary, but requires
to be guarded by the proviso that all sound theology is that
which has its foundations and
evidences in the Word of God.
The former part of this proposition must now be assumed: its,
discussion is reserved for a
future place. Meanwhile, it may be said that there is nothing in
theology which does not
seek its authority in the Word of God: our science is the
arrangement, development, and
application of facts and principles given by inspiration. The
authoritative volume has
from the beginning been lodged in the Church. The early oracles
were in the keeping of
the covenant people; and the Christian Faith has been delivered unto the saints.
But religious truth, as molded within the Church, must be
developed according to some
laws. First, the requirements of teaching would insure the
creation of a large body of
various theology. Again, this has assumed specific forms as
conformed to different types
of doctrine within the Church: giving birth to a great mass of
what may be called
Confessional theology. And, further, there is a rich development
that is governed by the
law of adaptation to the internal and external circumstances by
which the truth may be
surrounded. The idea of evolution is all-pervading in this
science; and we are safe in
applying it if we remember that there is one law of development
peculiar to Scripture, the
law of progressive revelation, and another that governs the
human systematization of this.
Divine doctrine is developed in the Bible; in the Church human
dogma.
I. Both as teacher and as defender of the Faith the Christian
Church was from the
beginning under a necessity to create a theology: whether as the
teacher of its converts or
as their defender against error. Didactic divinity was the
necessary expansion of what in
Scripture is termed the
Apostles' doctrine.
This is the normal development of the science within
Christendom, and common to all its
branches. Every Christian community presents in its own
literature more or less systematically
all these various forms of fundamental teaching.
II. There is a development also which has been conducted
according to the law of distinct
types of doctrine, issuing finally in what has been already
termed
1. Such a survey must include the New Testament itself; but
marking the essential
difference between its several types of doctrine and those that
appear in the Church after
inspiration had ceased. It is important to have a clear
conception of this. The sum of
Scriptural teaching is the combination of many elements which
the Holy Ghost fashioned
into unity. As the history of the redeeming government of
mankind runs on, the gradual
evolution of doctrine generally and of individual doctrines runs
on with it; and as all
events converge to the fullness of time so all doctrines
converge to the fullness of truth.
Multiplicity and variety are for ever tending to simplicity and
unity. The preparatory
teaching of the Old Testament and the perfect teaching of the
New are one in the unity of
prophecy and fulfillment. The same may be said of the
predictions of the Gospels before
the Pentecost, and their accomplishment afterwards. And there
are different types of
doctrine in the Apostolic circle. St. John, St. Peter, St.
James, St. Paul contribute their
several distinct exhibitions of Christian truth, each of which
is sharply marked off from
its fellows, while all conspire to the unity of the faith.
The Apostle Paul, who seems to introduce so many new elements
into his teaching that
he is claimed by very opposite parties as the real founder of
Christian theology, is the
most strenuous of all in asserting that unity, and in denouncing
every tendency to divide
the Christian Faith into several types. Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that
there be no divisions among
you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind
and in the same judgment .
. . Is Christ divided?
2. In Christian history the case is different. Christendom soon
was partitioned into
provinces: the period of perfect unity in theological teaching
was very brief. This is not
the place to discuss the moral character of this fact: it is
with the fact alone we have to do,
and with that only in a preliminary way.
(1) During the first six hundred years, the Patristic age
proper, the unity of the Faith was
expressed by the Ecumenical Creeds: the
From the Roman Catholic it differs by rejecting the doctrine of
the Papacy, by some
modifications of the Seven Sacraments, by denying the Immaculate
Conception of the
Virgin, by circulating the Bible in the Vernacular, and, as a
consequence of the first of
these differences, by the assertion of its own absolute
supremacy as the only orthodox
and true representative of Christianity on earth Classing
Romanism among the schisms
and heresies as the eldest born among them, it nevertheless
agrees with Rome in the great
bulk of its doctrines, and has no affinity with Protestantism
save in its rejection of an
infallible human authority and the consequent possibility of its
own reformation.
(2) The Romanist and Protestant types of theology have divided
the Western world for
three centuries: united as they undoubtedly are in many of the
most fundamental
verities, their differences touch almost every essential topic
in the administration of
redemption and the presence of Christ in His Church. Those
differences will meet us only
too often: meanwhile it is enough to say that each type of
doctrine is developed into a
large body of theology. The basis of Romanism was until lately
the
(3) In the beginning of the seventeenth century the
But the immediate successors of Arminius declined from sound
faith in some particulars;
and in its own country the system is deeply tinctured with
Socinianism and Rationalism.
(4) All these Confessional types are exhibited in the systematic
teachings of the larger
communions into which the modern Church is divided. Nor are
there any other, unless a
(5)
III. There is a third view to be taken of development in the
theology of the Christian
Church: having reference to the form it has in all ages taken
from external circumstances.
This also will be best seen in such a brief review as may serve
to indicate the importance
of the study of the ecclesiastical history of doctrine or dogma,
and, at the same time,
prepare the way for those historical summaries which will be
given under the several
heads of the following course.
1. In the Patristic Church—including the ante-Nicene and
post-Nicene periods down to
Gregory, A.D. 600—there were schools of theological thought,
which represented almost
all the later tendencies. For instance, Asia Minor and Antioch,
Alexandria, and North
Africa were severally centers of three very distinct kinds of
teachings: the first, more
faithful to Scripture and Apostolical tradition; the second,
blending philosophical
speculation, allegorical interpretation, and the mystical
element with its Christianity; and
the third, hard, real, and dialectic. The early writers in these
distinct schools betray their
influence in every age, and in all their views of Christian
doctrine, and the same influence
extends downwards, more or less, through subsequent times. These
schools reign still
without the names.
2. During the earlier part of the Middle Ages, superstition
molded tradition into forms of
doctrine that more and more diverged from the Scriptural
standard. This was a period,
however, of comparative stagnation, as contrasted with the
luminous activity of the post-
Nicene age and with the deep theological devotion of the
Schoolmen beginning with
Anselm about 1100. The Scholastic divinity in the universities
of Christendom wrought
up the materials it inherited into systematic forms, which
carried dialectic subtlety and
philosophical speculation to their highest point. By the toil of
many indefatigable minds it
laid the foundation of the complete system of Roman Catholicism
as formulated in the
Council of Trent; while, at the same time, it transmitted its
methods to Protestantism, the
first century of which almost rivaled the work of the medieval
doctors in analytical
severity and completeness. Whatever deductions may be made from
the value of its
results, the Christian Church owes very much to the industry and
devotion of the
Schoolmen. Systematic theology had its origin in their labors.
3. Through all these, however, struggled the Mystical spirit,
which controlled a large part
of the Scholastic theology, and penetrated every branch of the
Christian Church,
influencing the doctrines of each by turns. Its law of
development is the independent
teaching of God in communion with the human spirit: independent,
first, as without the
external means of grace, and, secondly, as given to the
individual apart from all others.
The theology of every period, and of every region of
Christendom, has received the
impress of this law working lawlessly: its operation has touched
Pantheism at the one
pole, and at the other merely imparts a mystical coloring to
Christian doctrine and
devotion. Consequently, it is impossible to characterize
Mystical theology as one distinct
whole; and still more evidently is it wrong to brand it with
indiscriminate condemnation.
Its earliest Christian representative, the pseudo-Dionysius,
teaches with all his errors a
sublime doctrine of the Supreme and of man's communion with Him;
and the purest spirit
of self-renouncing consecration pervades the writings of Scotus
Erigena and other
Mystics who held the leading doctrines of the Christian Faith.
The Theologia Germanica,
a work which transmitted to modern times the ancient Mysticism,
was made by Luther
almost one of the textbooks of the Reformation. From that time
downwards Mystic
devotional theology reappears in every region of Christendom.
Romanism has had its
several types in Spain, France, Italy, and Germany; and its
Mystical writers, apart from
their unevangelical and quietistic errors, carry devotion into a
very high region. Every
community of Protestantism has had its representatives both of
the sound and of the
unsound Mysticism. In some it has passed into a transcendental
theosophy, Jacob
Behmen being their expositor; in others, into a fanatical
independence of external
revelation, and indifference to the common fellowship of the
Church; in others into a
visionary religion of intuitional sentiment and feeling. But its
healthiest manifestations
have been simply a tribute to the pure Mysticism of the New
Testament; a protest against
the mere form and externality of godliness; and the true
expression of all that is high and
unearthly in communion with God.
4. In every age, but especially in these last times, theology in
the Church has been
influenced by a tendency the opposite of that of Mysticism: the
spirit of Rationalism,
which makes the human understanding the measure of the truth it
accepts. Rationalism is
either philosophical or critical: the former has aimed to recast
Christian doctrine, and
make it the manifold expression of its own ideas; the latter has
been destructive,
eliminating from the faith everything that human reasoning
cannot explain. In both these
forms it has widely influenced the development of Christian
theology, though both may
be said to carry their doctrine to a region altogether outside
of Christendom. The term
Rationalism, as signifying one of the elements that mould
religious thought, may be
restricted to the latter meaning. It is the spirit which
perpetually labors to make the truths
of revelation acceptable to the human understanding. In a very
different sense from that
of the Apostle, it testifies only that which it has seen: seen
with the eye of reason alone.
Accepting the Christian Faith as a whole, it claims to give a
good account of it to the
intuitions and judgments of men; but this at the expense of all
that is transcendent,
mysterious, and past finding out in the ways of God with
mankind.
5. The other aspect of Rationalism may more appropriately be
termed Speculation in
theology. Speculation starts from certain a priori
determinations which thought finds in
itself as the necessary and primary ground of all being and
thinking. It fixes upon its
point of observation, and speculates or regards attentively the
whole field of possibilities
from that point of view. Hence it constructs its own philosophy
of religion from
subjective principles. It aims to understand Christianity as the
expression of eternal laws
governing the universe. The result has been an ever-shifting
variety of theological
conceptions of the sum of things. The characteristics of each
system have been marked
by some primary category or law of thought to which all is
reduced: in that of Scotus
Erigena it was the idea of Nature uncreated, creating and
created; in Leibnitz the Monad;
in Spinoza, the one eternal Substance, with its attributes of
thought and extension; in
German transcendental philosophies, all more or less
theological, the idea of the absolute,
the Ego and non-Ego, the Idea, Each makes the Christian
revelation the eternal and
necessary expression of its own self-gendered thought. But
another application of the
term speculative in relation to theology requires to be
mentioned: that which simply
implies a disposition to push inquiry into the fringe of thick
darkness which encompasses
the circle of every revealed doctrine, and to fill up the chasms
in the system of truth at
every point. It is the undue exercise of imagination in the
religious domain; and it differs
from Rationalism only in this, that it does not reduce faith to
knowledge, as if we must
perfectly know in order to believe, but rather strives to
include within the sphere of
knowledge what is left to the acceptance of naked faith. With
speculative theology,
however defined, we ought to have but little to do.
6. Finally, there are healthy developments in theology, and
especially in some branches
of it, which are guided by the general advancement of human
affairs. With the progress
of human culture theology progresses. In its relation to
science, philosophy, learning, and
civilization generally, it both gives and receives. It absorbs
the good influences, and
counteracts the evil, of the times. It begins, as it were,
afresh in every land in which it is
planted and grows with its growth. The tree is everywhere the
same, and its fruit the
same; but its development varies with the influences of soil and
culture. In every
Christian Church theology is, at this moment, undergoing as a
science manifold and
obvious improvement; and each community contributes its part to
the general advance.
But this leads to the last branch of our general proposition.
Christian Theology is the systematic arrangement of the truths
pertaining to the revelation
of God. It may lay claim to the character of a science: its aim
is scientific, as it is the
basis of practical religion: its methods also are scientific, in
the best and only legitimate
sense. But theological science has peculiarities which
distinguish it from all others, and
must be kept in view by every student.
I. The aim of theology is to exhibit the grounds and principles,
the connection and
harmonies, the results and applications, of the facts of
revelation. In common with every
science, it obeys the law of the human mind, which demands that
the materials of its
knowledge should be inductively generalized and systematically
arranged; and, in
common with every science, it arranges its materials for use and
practical application.
Theology is the science, and Religion is the art. The two
derivations of the word
R
II. The methods of theology are scientific. It observes, tests,
and arranges facts and makes
generalizations; it uses both the inductive and deductive
processes of argument; it
depends upon the same primary laws of thought upon which those
processes rest; and it
sets out, as all legitimate human inquiry must set out, with a
firm faith in certain truths
which lie behind experience, being inwrought into the fabric of
our minds: such as the
primary law of causation and all that it involves, and the
validity of those laws of belief
which are innate. But the facts of our science are gathered from
regions some of which
are thought to be interdicted to scientific observation. There
is the sacred deposit of
original truths in the constitution of man's nature. There are
the economies of Creation
and Providence. There is the boundless storehouse of the Word of
God; and there are the
innumerable testimonies of common experience, of which Scripture
is the test, while they
confirm the Scripture. Strictly speaking, all these regions of
observation are one,
inasmuch as every element of religious consciousness, and every
lesson of the external
universe, is wrought up into the fabric of Divine revelation. We
cannot take a step further
without the assurance that these are legitimate fields of
observation, the facts or
phenomena of which are as real as the facts with which physical
science has to do.
Theological science is dissipated at once if this is denied.
Supposing it granted, then there
remains only the careful, honest, and religious observance of
the accepted laws of
reasoning. The result, whether by analysis or synthesis, is the
scientific presentation of
each doctrine and class of doctrine and the entire compass of
theology. In this way, that is
by the rigorous processes of induction and deduction, systematic
theology arrives at a
clear and distinct apprehension of every article of the Faith.
For instance, its doctrine of
sin is the result of a wide and exhaustive examination of a
large number of testimonies in
Scripture and in experience which force conviction on the mind
that one, and one only,
theory can account for all the facts. The same may be said of
its doctrine of the Person of
Christ, which is inductively established by a comparison of many
passages, none of
which individually contains a formal statement. Of this we shall
have manifold other
illustrations as we proceed.
III. Hence a distribution of the truths of revelation in
systematic forms, which combine
into a complete encyclopedia of theological science. A
comprehensive view of this
divides it into Biblical, Historical, and Dogmatic; each of
these, however, more or less
penetrating the others, and all combining to form what may be
called Systematic divinity.
1.
2.
3.
4.
It has this peculiarity, that, while the other three may be
independent of any particular
standard, every work on systematic theology more or less bears
the impress of one
confessional stamp.
5. Of this fact the present course will be an illustration:
exhibiting the compass of Divine
truth, whether as presented in Scriptural forms, or as molded by
ecclesiastical
development, or as dogmatically stated in its results. It will
first treat of the Christian
Religion, and of its Documents as the
IV. It is of great importance that the mind should be imbued at
the outset with a sense of
the possibility and the advantage of a well-articulated system.
In the organic unity of
Christian truth every doctrine has its place in some cycle of
doctrines, while all the lesser
systems revolve around their common centre. And it is one of the
fruits of theological
study to enable the student to locate every topic at once. But
not only so. There are rich
and profound harmonies among these truths; and every doctrine,
having its proper place,
has also its relations to almost every other: the quick
discernment of these relations is
another fruit of devout and earnest inquiry. Putting the two
together, the high aim of the
proficient in this study should be to discover all the
affinities and connections of the
truths of the Christian system. It may be objected that such
scientific precision in the
definitions and demarcations of doctrine is out of keeping with
the free spirit of Christian
theology. It is customary to point to the rich and irregular
luxuriance of Scripture. But the
Scripture is altogether on the side of order. Some parts of it
are as systematic as they
could be made; and none are without system. It has, and bids us
have and hold, the
ugiainontwn, the form of sound words.
V. It remains only to mark the sacred peculiarities of this
study. True as it is that its
methods are the same which are employed in the inductive
sciences, it is also true that its
materials are partly or mainly collected in a region which
merely human science cannot
penetrate, and where a special kind of demonstration is alone
attainable. It is wrong to
place theology on a level with the inductive sciences: it is
either below them, or above
them, or both, according to the spirit in which it is viewed.
1. There is a sense in which the entire round of theological
truth is matter of faith: even
those facts which belong to the consciousness of every man are
connected with great
verities that are delivered to faith from the invisible world,
Now, faith is the inward
assurance of things not seen, and makes the materials of
theology as real and certain as
the things that physical science has to deal with. But that
faith is not altogether common
to man; it is connected with certain moral conditions; and, to
those who have it not,
theology in every form is only an incomprehensible
pseudo-science. They retort upon it
its own words, and brand it as science falsely so called.
2. Mystery is everywhere in this knowledge: its simplest
elements are things
unsearchable by the faculties of man. This is to some extent
true of all other sciences;
they all have their mysteries, in both the Scriptural senses of
the term: things brought to
light that have been long hidden, and things unsearchable, the
signs of which only are
seen. The latter always wait on the former; when the mystery
ceases to be a matter
reserved from knowledge, it ceases not to be a matter reserved
from reason. This is true
of the impenetrable things of nature; it is a mistake to think
that when science has
discovered the laws that govern the wonderful phenomena with
which it deals, the
mystery ceases. The simplest elements of every department of
knowledge are things
unsearchable by human faculties. Supposing scientific research
to be successful in
penetrating every secret of nature, so far as to find the
secondary cause of every effect,
there is still a large residuum over which it broods, waiting
for light which probably will
never come. But the theological mystery is confessedly great.
3. Like every other science, but in a peculiar sense, theology
has much in it of the "
petitio principii." It assumes many irreducible first axioms.
The consciousness of self, the
consciousness of a world not self, the consciousness of God
neither self nor the world, we
may seek to demonstrate, but they are postulated in the
demonstration. It will appear, as
we proceed, how often and in what various ways theology seems,
in its general
credentials and in its defense of every doctrine, to argue in a
circle. This is a necessity of
which it need never be ashamed, and no truly philosophical or
scientific mind will charge
this as an offence.
4. In common with all the sciences, theology has its phraseology
of conventions: partly of
scriptural precedent or suggestion, partly of human appointment.
Conventional terms are
necessary in all knowledge: the symbols of ideas once settled
are, and ought to be,
unchangeable. The systematic arrangement of Divine truth
requires them, and has
enlisted them in great variety. It has its precise technical
terminology, the fixing of which
has been the result of sound inductive processes, and the
accurate maintenance of which
gives its precision to our study. Revelation, Inspiration,
Scripture, Faith, Trinity,
Substance, Person, are instances of terms which have their
established conventional
meaning. The importance of this may be illustrated in the case
of two of these terms in
particular. Inspiration is a word in common use to signify an
influence breathed upon or
flowing into the mind from any external source, as opposed to
its own inherent
operations: hence it has a current philosophical and literary
application. In religious
matters it also signifies any influence or energy of the Holy
Spirit in the awakening of
spiritual feeling. But it has in theology a conventional
meaning, which is limited to the
direct and specific discipline of the Inspiring Spirit preparing
the writers of Scripture for
their task; and to that use of it the term is strictly to be
appropriated. Again, the word
Person has a variety of applications. It signifies generally the
ground of personality, or of
independent, conscious, responsible action. But it has in
theology a specific relation both
to the doctrine concerning God and to the doctrine concerning
Christ. As to the former, it
is used conventionally to distinguish the Three Persons in the
unity of the one Divine
essence. The personal God is known to us as Three Persons; and
the term which has been
long established stands simply as the symbol of an
incomprehensible mystery. As to the
latter, the indivisible Person of Christ signifies the result of
the union of His two natures.
The conventional term has here another and distinct use, being
again the symbol of a
mystery equally unfathomable with that of the Triune
personality. The same term has its
different conventional use in these two supreme subjects: and
its applications must be
remembered and respected. But every department has its own
specific theological
vocabulary. They will defend themselves as we proceed:
meanwhile, the student should
be impressed with their importance, making it a law of his study
to define them carefully
and hold them fast tenaciously.
5. Theological science, in conclusion, has a Divine sanction,
influence, and control,
which no other can claim.
There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty
giveth them under-standing in every department of knowledge.
But in theology, which
seeks in all truth its relation to God and eternity, there is
the guarantee of a special
guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. His witness is not given
only to the personal
acceptance of the believer; it is a testimony to the doctrine on
which his experience rests.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the
Spirit which is of God; that we
might know the things that are freely given us of God.
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