Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/284

Rh 266 THEOLOGY apprehend that the essential question at issue is not, What or how many appearances of order and of adaptation may be traced in the various provinces of nature 1 but, Do such appearances in any case warrant an inference to a super natural intelligence and purpose ? In like manner many dogmatic theologians have seemed to think that in order to establish a doctrine it was enough to cite a number of texts in its favour. Often their doctrines would be more easily believed if their texts were fewer. Often in the Westminster Confession, for example, where the doctrine causes no difficulty, the texts cited in connexion therewith are quite inadmissible as proofs. Induction requires the strictest regard to relevancy. Whether the data for the proof of general truths in theology must be many or may be few &quot;will largely depend, as in physical and mental science, on the nature of the truths. When Newton had made out that the law of gravitation explained a single fact, applied to the moon, no person who fully compre hended his demonstration could seriously doubt either of the certainty or of the universality of the law. It was a case of a vast intellectual conquest achieved by one decisive victory. What remained was merely to take possession of what had been won, and to explain certain apparent anomalies. On the other hand, when Mr Darwin published his Origin of Species, he had already accumu lated, with amazing industry and ingenuity, and through the uninterrupted investigations of many years, a multi tude of observations and considerations in support of the general propositions therein enunciated as laws of bio logical evolution. Of similar observations and considera tions there has since been an enormous increase. Yet the so-called Darwinian laws are still under discussion. Why has their proof or disproof been so different a process from that of the establishment of the law of gravitation ? Largely because they are in themselves so different in nature. Laws of evolution can only be reached through the minute investigation of a far greater number of changes and appearances than laws of persistence. The discovery of truths of becoming may not be a more difficult but it is certainly a more delicate and complex process than the discovery of truths of being. Now this distinction not only emerges in theology but pervades it. In some de partments of theology the laws to be discovered are laws of evolution, while in others they are laws of existence. Hence the method to be followed in the former must be predominantly chronological and genetic, in the latter predominantly analytic and synthetic. For example, in Biblical theology and comparative theology the inductive process must be of the kind appropriate in historical inves tigation, whereas in natural theology and Christian dog matics it must be of the kind appropriate in systematic investigations into which considerations of time, place, and circumstance do not enter. The faculties of mind and processes of method implied in the complete comprehension of religion as a concrete manifestation of spirit are those which are of prime moment in the historical disciplines of theology ; the faculties of mind and processes of method involved in the clear apprehension of the truths and laws of religion in its abstract or essential nature are those chiefly requisite in the theoretical disciplines of theology ; and, speaking generally, complete comprehension of the concrete presupposes a more minute and exhaustive ac quaintance with particulars than does a clear apprehension of the abstract. To determine with scientific precision and thoroughness, for example, what were the stages of the development of doctrine in the Bible, or even to trace with such accuracy and completeness as the data supplied by the Bible and auxiliary sources permit the growth of single important ideas, as, e.g., election, holiness, atone ment, and kingdom of God, demands laborious critical investigation and comprehensive and minute historical knowledge. Given, on the other hand, the Christian ideas of God and of man, and the fundamental relation between God and man cannot be otherwise conceived by enlightened reason and conscience than as one of salvation through faith and not by works. True, as all physical nature obeys the law of gravitation, so all Scripture and spiritual experience testify to the power of the principle of faith ; but then, also, as the decisive proof of the former lies in the thorough elucidation of any phenomenon which ex emplifies it, not in the collection of numerous illustrative phenomena, so the decisive proof of the latter lies in an adequate analysis of any portion or form of the life of genuine faith, not in the accumulation of examples of faith drawn from the Scriptures or other records. The two methods of induction to which reference has Histo- just been made the historical and the thetical are to rical an( be carefully distinguished but not absolutely separated, * h !|tical and still less exhibited as antagonistic. Both have specific t i ons and appropriate functions ; neither is exclusively legiti mate or can alone accomplish the work of science. The historical method by itself can only yield history. It has done all that can in any circumstances be reasonably expected from it, when it has enabled us accurately to realize the course of the history studied, or, in other words, when it has given us a correct reflexion of the history. If, not content therewith, we would further ascertain the nature and laws of the factors which formed the history we must supplement the historical with the thetical method. The historical method leads only to history, and in no form or province is history science. Science even of history, or of any department of history, cannot be reached simply by the historical method, but further requires recourse to the processes of positive science. Comparative theology, Biblical theology, and the history of Christian doctrines are most valuable theological dis ciplines, but, inasmuch as their methods are purely histor ical, their results are also purely historical, and they are not, rigidly speaking, sciences, but only sections of the history of religion. The tendency to substitute history for science, and the historical method for the scientific method, is prevalent in the present day in theology, as well as in ethics and jurisprudence, social philosophy and political economy. Obviously, however, it rests on ex aggeration and illusion, and confounds things which ought to be distinguished. Neither history of the objects of a science, nor history of the ideas or doctrines of a science, is science, and the historical method of itself can only give us in connexion with science either or both of these forms of history. It is, therefore, inherently absurd to suppose that the historical method can be sufficient in such theological disciplines as natural theology and Christian dogmatics. In reality, it is not directly or immediately available in the study of these disciplines at all, and that just because it does not directly or immediately yield theory, doctrine, science. Only he who knows both the history of the objects and the history of the ideas of a science, and especially of a psychological, social, or religious science, can be expected to advance the science. In the sphere of religion, as in every other sphere, to confound history with science is to eliminate and destroy science ; but in no sphere is knowledge of history more a condition of the attainment of science, and historical research, properly conducted, more serviceable to scientific investigation, than in that of religion. To the historical method we owe, not only the historical disciplines of theology, but also in a considerable measure the recent progress of its positive or theoretical disciplines. It can never, however, be, as some fanatical disciples of the historical school would have us to suppose, the method of these last.