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CHAPTER III.

I.

METHOD OF THEOLOGY.

REQUISITES TO THE STUDY.-The requisites to the successful study of theology have already in part been indicated in speaking of its limitations. In spite of some repetition, however, we mention the following:

(a) A disciplined mind. Only such a mind can patiently collect the facts, hold in its grasp many facts at once, educe their connecting principles by continuous reflection, suspend final judgment until its conclusions are verified by Scripture and experience.

On opportunities for culture in the Christian ministry, see N. Englander, Oct., 1875: 644. Chitty, to a father inquiring as to his son's qualifications for the law: "Can your son eat sawdust without any butter?"

(b) An intuitional as distinguished from a merely logical habit of mind—or, trust in the mind's primitive cognitions, as well as in its processes of reasoning. The theologian must have insight as well as understanding. He must accustom himself to ponder spiritual facts as well as those which are sensible and material; to see things in their inner relations as well as in their outward forms; to cherish confidence in the reality and the unity of truth.

Vinet, Outlines of Philosophy, 39, 40-"If I do not feel that good is good, who will ever prove it to me?" Pascal: "Logic, which is an abstraction, may shake everything. A being purely intellectual will be incurably sceptical." Calvin: "Satan is an acute theologian." Dove, Logic of Christian Faith, 1-29, and esp. 25: Demonstration of the impossibility of motion. Hazard, Man a Creative First Cause, 109: Bottom of a wheel does not move. Cf. 1 Tim. 3: 2-the bishop must be σopwv=sober-minded, well-balanced.

(c) An acquaintance with physical, mental, and moral science. The method of conceiving and expressing Scripture truth is so affected by our elementary notions of these sciences, and the weapons with which theology is attacked and defended are so commonly drawn from them as arsenals, that the student cannot afford to be ignorant of them.

Advantage to the preacher of taking up, as did F. W. Robertson, one science after another. Chemistry entered into his mental structure "like iron into the blood." See article by A. H. Strong, on Philosophy and Religion, in Baptist Quarterly, 2: 393 8q. Sir Wm. Hamilton: "No difficulty arises in theology which has not first emerged in philosophy.' N. W. Taylor: "Give me a young man in metaphysics and I care not who has him in theology." Meaning of the maxim: "Ubi tres medici, ibi duo athei." Talbot: "I love metaphysics, because they have to do with realities."

(d) A knowledge of the original languages of the Bible. This is necessary to enable us not only to determine the meaning of the fundamental terms of Scripture, such as sin, righteousness, atonement, but also to interpret statements of doctrine by their connections with the context.

Instance the dià TOûTO and è', in Rom. 5: 12. Dr. Philip Lindsay to his pupils: "One of the best preparations for death is a thorough knowledge of the Greek Grammar." The dead languages are the only really living ones-free from danger of misunderstanding on account of changing usage. Divine Providence has put revelation into fixed forms in the Hebrew and the Greek. Sir Wm. Hamilton, Discussions, 330-"To be a competent divine is in fact to be a scholar."

(e) A holy affection toward God. Only the renewed heart can properly feel its need of divine revelation, or understand that revelation when given. Neander's motto: "Pectus est quod theologum facit." Goethe: "As are the inclinations, so are the opinions." Fichte: "Our system of thought is very often only the history of our heart;" "truth is descended from conscience;" "men do not will according to their reason, but reason according to their will." Hobbes: "Even the axioms of geometry would be disputed, if men's passions were concerned in them." Pascal: "We know truth, not only by the reason, but by the heart." "Human things need only to be known in order to be loved, but divine things must first be loved before they can be known." Aristotle: "The power of attaining moral truth is dependent upon our acting rightly." W. C. Wilkinson: "The head is a magnetic needle with truth for its pole. But the heart is a hidden mass of magnetic iron. The head is drawn somewhat toward its natural pole, the truth; but more it is drawn by that nearer magnetism." See Theodore Parker's Experiences as a Minister. Cf. Ps. 25: 14— "secret of the Lord": John 7: 17-"willeth to do his will"; Rom. 12: 2-"prove what is the will of God." Also Ps. 36: 1-"the transgression of the wicked speaks in his heart like an oracle." The preacher cannot, like Dr. Kane, kindle fire with a lens of ice.

(f) The enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit. As only the Spirit fathoms the things of God, so only he can illuminate our minds to apprehend them.

Cicero, Nat. Deorum, 66—“ Nemo igitur vir magnus sine aliquo adflatu divino unquam fuit." See Adolphe Monod's Sermons on Christ's Temptation, addressed to the theological students of Montauban, in Select Sermons from the French and German, 117-179.

II.

DIVISIONS OF THEOLOGY.-Theology is commonly divided into Biblical, Historical, Systematic, and Practical.

1. Biblical Theology aims to arrange and classify the facts of revelation, confining itself to the Scriptures for its material, and treating of doctrine only so far as it was developed at the close of the apostolic age.

Instance DeWette, Biblische Theologie; Hofmann, Schriftbeweis; Nitzsch, System of Christian Doctrine. The last, however, has more of the philosophical element than properly belongs to Biblical Theology. Notice a questionable use of the term Biblical Theology to designate the theology of a part of Scripture severed from the rest, as Steudel's Bib. Theol. of O. T.; Schmid's Bib. Theol. of N. T.; and in the common phrases: Bib. Theol. of Christ, or of Paul. See Reuss, Hist. Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age.

2. Historical Theology traces the development of the Biblical doctrines from the time of the apostles to the present day, and gives account of the results of this development in the life of the church. By doctrinal development we mean the progressive unfolding and apprehension, by the church, of the truth explicitly or implicitly contained in Scripture. As giving account of the shaping of the Christian faith into doctrinal statements, Historical Theology is called the History of Doctrine. As describing the resulting and accompanying changes in the life of the church, outward and inward, Historical Theology is called Church History.

Instance Cunningham's Historical Theology; Hagenbach's and Shedd's Histories of Doctrine; Neander's Church History. See Neander's Introduction, and Shedd's Philosophy of History.

3. Systematic Theology takes the material furnished by Biblical and Historical Theology, and with this material seeks to build up into an organic and consistent whole all our knowledge of God and of the relations between God and the universe, whether this knowledge be originally derived from nature or from the Scriptures. It is to be clearly distinguished from Dogmatic Theology. Dogmatic Theology is the systematizing of the doctrines as expressed in the symbols of the church, together with the grounding of these in the Scriptures, and the exhibition, so far as may be, of their rational necessity. Systematic Theology, on the contrary, begins, not with the symbols, but with the Scriptures. It asks first, not what the church has believed, but what is the truth of God's revealed word. It examines that word with all the aids which nature and the Spirit have given it, using Biblical and Historical Theology as its servants and helpers, but not as its masters. Systematic Theology, in fine, is theology proper, of which Biblical and Historical Theology are the incomplete and preparatory stages.

Symbol, from συμβάλλω, = a brief throwing-together, or condensed statement, of the essentials of Christian doctrine. Synonyms are: Confession, creed, articles of faith. Dogmatism argues to foregone conclusions. The word is not, however, derived from 'dog,' as Douglas Jerrold suggested: "Dogmatism is puppyism full-grown."

4. Practical Theology is the system of truth considered as a means of renewing and sanctifying men, or, in other words, theology in its publication and enforcement. To this department of theology belong Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, since these are but scientific presentations of the true methods of unfolding Christian truth, and of bringing it to bear upon men individually and in the church.

It has sometimes been asserted that there are other departments of theology not included in those above mentioned. But most of these, if not all, belong to other spheres of research and cannot properly be classed under theology at all. Moral theology so-called, or the science of Christian morals (ethics, or theological ethics), is indeed the proper result of theology, but is not to be confounded with it. Speculative theology so-called, respecting, as it does, such truth as is matter of opinion, is either extra-scriptural, and so belongs to the province of the philosophy of religion, or is an attempt to explain truth already revealed, and so falls under the province of Systematic Theology.

"Speculative theology starts from certain a priori principles, and from them undertakes to determine what is and must be. It deduces its scheme of doctrine from the laws of mind or from axioms supposed to be inwrought into its constitution." Bib. Sac., 1852: 375-"Speculative theology tries to show that the dogmas agree with the laws of thought, while the philosophy of religion tries to show that the laws of thought agree with the dogmas." H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 18-Philosophy is "a mode of human knowledge-not the whole of that knowledge, but a mode of it-the knowing of things rationally." Science asks: "What do I know?" Philosophy asks: "What can I know?" See Luthardt, Compend. der Dogmatik, 4; Hagenbach, Encyclopaedie, 109. Theological Encyclopædia (instruction in a circle) = a general introduction to all the divisions of Theology, together with an account of the relations between them. Hegel's Encyclopædia was an attempted exhibition of the principles and connections of all the sciences. See Crooks and Hurst, Theological Encyclopædia and Methodology.

III. HISTORY OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.

1. In the Eastern Church, Systematic Theology may be said to have had its beginning and end in John of Damascus (700–760).

Ignatius (+115-Ad Trall., c. 9) gives us "the first distinct statement of the faith drawn up in a series of propositions. His systematizing formed the basis of all later efforts" (Prof. A. H. Newman). Origen of Alexandria (186-254) wrote his Пepi 'Apxwv; Athanasius of Alexandria (300-373) his treatises on the Trinity and the Deity of Christ; and Gregory of Nyssa in Cappadocia (332-398) his Aóyos katηxntikòs ò μéyas. While the Fathers just mentioned seem to have conceived the plan of expounding the doctrines in order and of showing their relations to one another, John of Damascus (700-760) was the first who actually carried out such a plan. His 'Εκδοσις ἀκριβὴς τῆς ὀρθοδόξου πίστεως, or Summary of the Orthodox Faith, may be considered the earliest work of Systematic Theology. Neander: "The most important doctrinal text-book of the Greek Church." John, like the Greek Church in general, was speculative, theological, semi-Pelagian, sacramentarian.

2. In the Western Church, we may (with Hagenbach) distinguish three periods:

(a) The period of Scholasticism,-introduced by Peter Lombard (died 1164), and reaching its culmination in Thomas Aquinas (1221–1274) and Duns Scotus (1265-1308).

Though Systematic Theology had its beginning in the Eastern Church, its development has been confined almost wholly to the Western. Augustine (353-430) wrote his Encheiridion ad Laurentium and his De Civitate Dei, and John Scotus Erigena († 850), Roscelin (1092-1122), and Abelard (1079–1142), in their attempts at the rational explanation of Christian doctrine, foreshadowed the works of the great scholastic teachers. Anselm of Canterbury (1034–1109), with his Proslogion de Dei Existentia and his Cur Deus Homo, has sometimes, though wrongly, been called the founder of scholasticism.

But Peter Lombard (+1164), the magister sententiarum, was the first great systematizer of the Western Church, and his Libri Sententiarum Quatuor was the theological textbook of the Middle Ages. Teachers lectured on the "Sentences," as they did on the books of Aristotle, who furnished to scholasticism its impulse and guide. Every doctrine was treated in the order of Aristotle's four causes, the material, the formal, the efficient, the final. (“Cause" here = requisite: (1) matter of which a thing consists; (2) form it assumes; (3) producing agent; (4) end for which made). Thomas Aquinas (1221-1274), the Dominican, doctor angelicus, Augustinian and Realist,-and Duns Scotus (1265-1308), the Franciscan, doctor subtilis,-wrought out the scholastic theology more fully, and left behind them, in their Summæ, gigantic monuments of intellectual industry and acumen. Scholasticism aimed at the proof and systematizing of the doctrines of the Church by means of Aristotle's philosophy. It became at last an illimitable morass of useless subtleties and unintelligible abstractions, and it finally ended in the nominalistic scepticism of William of Occam (+1347). See Townsend, The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages.

(b) The period of Symbolism,-represented by the Lutheran theology of Philip Melancthon (1497-1560), and the Reformed theology of John Calvin (1509-1564); the former connecting itself with the Analytic theology of Calixtus (1585-1656), and the latter with the Federal theology of Cocceius (1603-1669).

The new religious life of the Reformation led to intellectual revival. The churches were compelled to formulate their belief in symbols, and to define and expound Scripture doctrine in systematic treatises. The theology of this period, like the Reformation which produced it, had two branches, the Lutheran and the ReformedLutheranism being based on the material principle of the Reformation, justification by faith instead of by works; the Reformed theology being based on the formal principle of the Reformation, the supreme authority of the Scriptures instead of that of the Church.

The Lutheran theology.- Luther himself (1485-1546) was preacher rather than theologian. But Melancthon (1497-1560), "the preceptor of Germany," as he was called, embodied the theology of the Lutheran Church in his Loct Communes (first edition Augustinian, afterwards substantially Arminian; grew out of Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans). He was followed by Chemnitz (1522-1586), "clear and accurate," the most learned of the disciples of Melancthon. Leonhard Hutter (1563-1616), called 'Lutherus redivivus," and John Gerhard (1582-1637), followed Luther rather than Melancthon. George Calixtus (1586-1656) separated ethics from systematic theology and applied the analytic method of investigation to the latter, beginning with the end, or final cause, of all things, viz.: blessedness. He was followed in his method by Dannhauer (1603-1666), Calovius (1612-1686), Quenstedt (1617-1688), whom Hovey calls "learned, comprehensive, and logical," and Hollaz († 1730).

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The Reformed theology.-Zwingle, the Swiss reformer (1484-1531), differing from Luther as to the Lord's Supper and as to Scripture, was more than Luther entitled to the name of systematic theologian. Certain writings of his may be considered the beginning of the Reformed theology. But it was left to John Calvin (1509-1564), after the death of Zwingle, to arrange the principles of that theology in systematic form. Calvin dug channels for Zwingle's flood to flow in, as Melancthon did for Luther's. His Institutes (Institutio Religionis Christiana), is one of the great works in theology (superior as a systematic work to Melancthon's Loci). Calvin was followed by Petrus Ramus (“ Peter Martyr"-in Saint Bartholomew, 1572), Chamier († 1621), and Theodore Beza (1519–1605). Beza carried Calvin's doctrine of predestination to an extreme supralapsarianism, which is hyper-Calvinistic rather than Calvinistic. Cocceius (1603-1669), and after him Witsius (1626-1708), made theology centre about the idea of the covenants, and founded the Federal theology. Leydecker (1642-1721) treated theology in the order of the persons of the Trinity. Amyraldus (1596–1664) and Placeus of Saumur (1596–1632) modified the Calvinistic doctrine, the latter by his theory of mediate imputation, and the former by advocating the hypothetic universalism of divine grace. Turretin (1671-1737), a clear and strong theologian whose work is still a text-book at Princeton, and Pictet (16551724), both of them Federalists, showed the influence of the Cartesian philosophy.

In general, while the line between Catholic and Protestant in Europe runs from west to east, the line between Lutheran and Reformed runs from south to north, the Reformed theology flowing with the current of the Rhine northward from Switzerland to Holland and to England, in which latter country the Thirty-nine Articles represent the Reformed faith, while the prayer-book of the English Church is Arminian; see Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theologie, Einleit., 9. On the differences between Lutheran and Reformed doctrine, see Schaff, Germany, its Universities, Theology and Religion, 167– 177. On the Reformed Churches of Europe and America, see H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 87-124.

(c) The period of Criticism and Speculation,-in its three divisions: the Rationalistic, represented by Semler (1721-1791); the Transitional, by Schleiermacher (1768-1834); the Evangelical, by Nitzsch, Müller, Tholuck and Dorner.

First Division-Rationalistic theologies: Though the Reformation had freed theology in great part from the bonds of scholasticism, other philosophies after a time took its place. The Leibnitz- (1646-1716) Wolffian (1679-1754) exaggeration of the powers of natural religion prepared the way for rationalistic systems of theology. Buddeus (1667– 1729) combatted the new principles, but Semler's (1725-1791) theology was built upon them, and represented the Scriptures as having a merely local and temporary character. Michaelis (1716–1784) and Doederlein (1714–1789) followed Semler, and the tendency toward rationalism was greatly assisted by the critical philosophy of Kant (1724-1804), to whom "revelation was problematical, and positive religion merely the medium through which the practical truths of reason are communicated" (Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 2: 397). Ammon (1766-1850) and Wegscheider (1771-1848) were representatives of this philosophy. Storr (1746-1805), Reinhard (1753-1812), and Knapp (1753-1825), in the main evangelical, endeavored to reconcile revelation with reason, but were more or less influenced by this rationalizing spirit. Bretschneider (1776-1828) and DeWette (1780– 1849) may be said to have held middle ground.

Second Division-Transition to a more Scriptural theology. Herder (1744–1803) and Jacobi (1743-1819), by their more spiritual philosophy, prepared the way for Schleiermacher's (1768-1834) grounding of doctrine in the facts of Christian experience. The writings of Schleiermacher constituted an epoch, and had great influence in delivering

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