SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.

PART I.

PROLEGOMENA.

CHAPTER I.

IDEA OF THEOLOGY.

I. DEFINITION.-Theology is the science of God and of the relations between God and the universe.

Though the word 'theology' is sometimes employed in dogmatic writings to designate that single department of the science which treats of the divine nature and attributes, prevailing usage, since Abelard (A. D. 1079-1142) entitled his general treatise " "Theologia Christiana," has included under that term the whole range of Christian doctrine.

Theology, therefore, gives account not only of God, but of those relations between God and the material and spiritual universe in view of which we speak of Creation, Providence, and Redemption.

John the Evangelist is called by the Fathers' the theologian,' because he most fully treats of the internal relations of the persons of the Trinity. Gregory Nazianzen (328) received this designation because he defended the deity of Christ against the Arians. For a modern instance of this use of the term 'theology' in the narrow sense, see title of Dr. Hodge's first volume: "Systematic Theology; Vol. 1: Theology." But theology is not simply "the science of God," nor even "the science of God and man." It also gives account of the relations between God and the universe.

Yet theology does not properly include other sciences-it merely uses their results; see Wardlaw, Theology, 1: 1, 2. Physical science is not a part of theology. As a mere physicist, Humboldt did not need to mention the name of God in his "Cosmos" (but see Cosmos, 2: 413, where Humboldt says: "Psalm 104 presents an image of the whole Cosmos"). On the definition of theology, see Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 1, 2; Blunt, Dict. Doct. and Hist. Theology, art.: Theology; H. B. Smith, Introd. to Christ. Theol., 44; cf. Aristotle, Metaph., 10, 7, 4; 11, 6, 4; and Lactantius, De Ira Dei, 11.

II. AIM.-In defining theology as a science, we indicate its aim. Science does not create; it discovers. Science is not only the observing, recording, verifying, and formulating of objective facts; it is also the recognition and explication of the relations between these facts, and the synthesis of both the facts and the rational principles which unite them, in a comprehensive, rightly proportioned, and organic system.

Theology answers to this description of a science. It discovers facts and relations, but does not create them. As it deals with objective facts and

their relations, so its arrangement of these facts and relations is not optional, but determined by the nature of the material with which it deals.

In fine, the aim of theology may be stated as being the ascertainment of the facts respecting God and the relations between God and the universe, and the exhibition of these facts in their rational unity, as connected parts of a formulated and organic system of truth.

Scattered bricks and timbers are not a house, and facts alone do not constitute science. Science facts relations. Whewell, Hist. Inductive Sciences, I., Introd., 43: There may be facts without science, as in every common mind; there may be thought without science, as in early Greek philosophy. Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 14"The pursuit of science is the pursuit of relations." Everett, Science of Thought, 3: "Logy" (e. g. in "theology"), from Aoyos, word reason, expression thought, fact idea; cf. John 1: 1-"In the beginning was the Word."

Because theology deals with objective facts, we refuse to define it as "the science of religion"; versus Am. Theol. Rev., 1850: 101-126, and Thornwell, Theology, 1; 139. Both the facts and the relations with which theology has to deal have an existence entirely independent of the subjective mental processes of the theologian. A true theology thinks over again God's thoughts and brings them into God's order, as the builders of Solomon's temple took the stones already hewn, and put them into the places for which the architect had designed them. We cannot make theology, any more than we can make a law of physical nature. As the natural philosopher is “naturæ minister et interpres," so the theologian is the servant and interpreter of the objective truth of God. On the Idea of Theology as a System, see H. B. Smith, in Faith and Philosophy, 125-166.

III. POSSIBILITY.-A particular science is possible only when three conditions combine, namely, the actual existence of the object with which the science deals, the subjective capacity of the human mind to know that object, and the provision of definite means by which the object is brought into contact with the mind.

In like manner, the possibility of theology has a threefold ground: 1. In the existence of a God who has relations to the universe; 2. In the capacity of the human mind for knowing God and certain of these relations; and 3. In the provision of means by which God is brought into actual contact with the mind, or in other words, in the provision of a revelation.

We may illustrate the conditions of theology from selenology-the science not of “lunar politics," but of lunar physics. Selenology has three conditions: 1. the objective existence of the moon; 2. the subjective capacity of the human mind to know the moon; and 3. the provision of some means (e. g. the eye and the telescope) by which the gulf between man and the moon is bridged over, and by which the mind can come into actual cognizance of the facts with regard to the moon.

1. In the existence of a God who has relations to the universe. It has been objected, indeed, that since God and these relations are objects apprehended only by faith, they are not proper objects of knowledge or subjects for science. We reply that faith is only a higher sort of knowledge. Physical science rests also upon faith-faith in our own existence and our own faculties, in our primitive cognitions and in human testimony-but is not invalidated thereby, because this faith, though unlike sense-perception or logical deduction, is yet a cognitive act of the reason, and may be defined as certitude with respect to matters in which verification is unattainable.

The objection to theology mentioned and answered above is expressed in the words of Sir William Hamilton, Metaphysics, 44, 531: "Faith-belief-is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond our knowledge." But science is knowledge, and what is beyond our knowledge cannot be matter for science. Pres. E. G. Robinson says well,

that knowledge and faith cannot be severed from one another, like bulkheads in a ship, the first of which may be crushed in while the second still keeps the vessel afloat. Hamilton consistently declares that the highest achievement of science is the erection of an altar "To The Unknown God." This however is not the representation of Scripture. Cf. John 17: 3-"this is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God;" and Jer. 9: 24"let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me." For criticism of Hamilton, see H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 297-336. Fichte: "We are born in faith." Goethe called himself a believer in the five senses. Balfour, Defence of Philosophic Doubt, 277-295, shows that intuitive beliefs in space, time, cause, substance, right, are presupposed in the acquisition of all other knowledge. Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 14: If theology is to be overthrown because it starts from some primary terms and propositions, then all other sciences are overthrown with it. Mozley, Miracles, 104, defines faith as "unverified reason."

So the faith which gives fit material for theology is not to be confounded with opinion or imagination. It is simply certitude with regard to spiritual realities, upon the testimony of our own rational nature and upon the testimony of God. Its only peculiarity as a cognitive act of the reason is, that it is conditioned by holy affection. As the sciences of æsthetics and ethics, respectively, are products of reason as including in the one case a power of recognizing beauty practically inseparable from a love for beauty, and in the other case a power of recognizing the morally right practically inseparable from a love for the morally right, so the science of theology is a product of reason, but of reason as including a power of recognizing God which is practically inseparable from a love for God.

In the text we use the term 'reason' to signify the mind's whole power of knowing. Reason, in this sense, includes states of the sensibility, so far as they are indispensable to knowledge. We cannot know an orange by the eye alone; to the understanding of it, taste is as necessary as sight. Love for the beautiful and the right precedes knowledge of the beautiful and the right. Ullmann draws attention to the derivation of sapientia, wisdom, from sapère, to taste. So we cannot know God by intellect alone; the heart must go with the intellect to make knowledge of divine things possible. By the word "heart," the Scripture means simply holy affection, or sensibility + will. Cf. Ex. 35: 25" the women that were wise-hearted"; Ps. 34: 8-0 taste and see that the Lord is good" a right taste precedes correct sight; Jer. 24: 7-"I will give them a heart to know me"; Mat. 5: 8- Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"; John 7: 17-"If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself"; Eph. 1: 18" having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know "; 1 John 4: 7, 8" Every one that loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God."

This recognition of invisible realities upon God's testimony, and as conditioned upon a right state of the affections, is faith. As an operation of man's higher rational nature, though distinct from ocular vision or from reasoning, it is a kind of knowing, and so may furnish proper material for a scientific theology.

Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 1:50, follows Gerhard in making faith the joint act of intellect and will. Hopkins, Outline Study of Man, 77, 78, speaks not only of the aesthetic reason but of the moral reason. Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 91, 109, 145, 191– "Faith is the certitude concerning matters in which verification is unattainable." Emerson, Essays, 2: 96-"Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul-unbelief in rejecting them." Morell, Philos. of Religion, 38, 52, 53, quotes Coleridge: "Faith consists in the synthesis of the reason and the individual will, . . . and by virtue of the former (that is, reason), faith must be a light, a form of knowing, a beholding of truth." Faith, then, is not to be pictured as a blind girl clinging to a cross-faith is not blind-"else the cross may just as well be a crucifix or an image of Gaudama."

If a right state of heart be indispensable to faith and so to the knowledge of God, can there be any "theologia irregenitorum," or theology of the unregenerate? We reply: Just as the blind man can have a science of optics. The testimony of others gives it claims upon him; the dim light penetrating the obscuring membrane corrob

orates this testimony. But as, in order to make his science of optics satisfactory or complete, the blind man must have the cataract removed from his eyes by some competent oculist, so in order to any complete or satisfactory theology the veil must be taken away from the heart by God himself (cf. 2 Cor. 3: 15, 16-"a veil lieth upon their heart, But whensoever it [marg. ‘a man '] shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away"). See Foundations of our Faith, 12, 13; Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 1: 154-164; Presb. Quarterly, Oct., 1871, Oct., 1872, Oct., 1873; Calderwood, Philosophy of the Infinite, 99, 117; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 2-8; New Englander, July, 1873: 481; Princeton Rev., 1864: 122; Christlieb, Modern Doubt, 124, 125; Grau, Ueber den Glauben als höchste Vernunft, in Beweis des Glaubens, 1865: 110; Dorner, Geschichte prot. Theol., 228; Newman, Univ. Sermons, 206; Hinton, Art of Thinking, Introd. by Hodgson, 5.

2. In the capacity of the human mind for knowing God and certain of these relations. But it has been urged that such knowledge is impossible for the following reasons:

A. Because we can know only phenomena. We reply: (a) We know mental as well as physical phenomena. (b) In knowing phenomena, whether mental or physical, we know substance as underlying the phenomena, and as manifested through them. (c) Our minds bring to the observation of phenomena not only this knowledge of substance, but also the knowledge of time, space, and cause, realities which are in no sense phenomenal. Since these objects of knowledge are not phenomenal, the fact that God is not phenomenal cannot prevent us from knowing him.

Versus Comte, Positive Philosophy, Martineau's transl., 26, 28, 33-“In order to observe, your intellect must pause from activity-yet it is this very activity you want to observe. If you cannot effect the pause, you cannot observe; if you do effect it, there is nothing to observe." The phrase "Positive Philosophy" implies that all knowledge of mind is negative. This view is refuted by the two facts of (1) consciousness, and (2) memory; see Martineau, Essays Philos. and Theol., 1: 24-40, 207–212. By phenomena we mean "facts, in distinction from their ground, principle, or law"; "neither phenomena nor qualities, as such, are perceived, but objects, percepts, or beings; and it is by an afterthought or reflex process that these are connected as qualities and are referred to as substances"; see Porter, Human Intellect, 51, 238, 520, 619637, 640-645. Phenomena may be internal, e. g. thoughts; in this case the noumenon is the mind, of which these thoughts are the manifestations. Qualities, whether mental or material, imply the existence of a substance to which they belong-mind or matter: they can no more be conceived of as existing apart from substance than the upper side of a plank can be conceived of as existing without an under side; see Bowne, Review of Herbert Spencer, 47, 207-217. Without substance in which they inhere, the qualities of an object have no ground of unity. The characteristics of substance are (1) being, (2) power, (3) permanence; see McCosh, Intuitions, 138-154 (Eng. ed., 161). "The theory that disproves God, disproves an external world and the existence of the soul"; see Diman, Theistic Argument, 337, 363. We know something beyond phenomena, viz.: law, cause, force-or we can have no science; see Tulloch, on Comte, in Modern Theories, 53-73; see also Bib. Sac., 1874: 211; Alden, Philosophy, 44; Hopkins, Outline Study of Man, 87; Fleming, Vocab. of Philosophy, art.: Phenomena; New Englander, July, 1875: 537-539.

B. Because we can know only that which bears analogy to our own nature or experience. We reply: (a) It is not essential to knowledge that there be similarity of nature between the knower and the known. The mind knows matter, though mind and matter are opposite poles of existence. (b) Our past experience, although greatly facilitating new acquisitions, is not the measure of our possible knowledge. Else the first act of knowledge would be inexplicable, and all revelation of higher characters to lower would be precluded, as well as all progress to knowledge which surpassed our present attainments. (c) Even if knowledge depended upon similarity of