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336 336 DOGMATIC authority to any of them ; and he esteems them, not simply because of their antiquity or their official position, but in proportion to the evidence they have given of being really guided by the Divine Spirit, who is the Spirit of holiness- love, peace, and godliness. Christian This inward spiritual enlightenment of the believer conscious- corresponds very nearly to what has been called Christian consciousness, to which a prominent place has been assigned among the sources of theology by many modern divines. The currency of the phrase is due mainly to Schleiermacher ; and the form of it proceeds from his fundamental principle, that religion consists properly in feeling, by which we have an immediate consciousness of the divine a &quot; God-con sciousness.&quot; Whatever justification this view may have had, as a needed protest against the previously dominant intellectual view, that made religion virtually an affair of the understanding only, it is now generally admitted that Schleiermacher went to an extreme on the other side, and that no complete account of religion can be given that does not include the exercise of thought and will, as well as of feeling. In so far, therefore, as the phrase Christian con sciousness represents in its form the one-sided conception of Schleiermacher, it is insufficient; and that which really corresponds to it is the Christian life, with its full com plement of beliefs, emotions, and volitions. This, being the work of the Divine Spirit in the soul, may and must be recognized, on the principles already indicated, as the expression of the witness of the Spirit, by which the authority and meaning of the revelation in Scripture are established. In this sense, therefore, Christian conscious ness, or the knowledge that a Christian has of his own religious experience and of what is implied in it, is a legitimate means of obtaining doctrinal conclusions. But if the authority of Scripture is to be recognized as the objective and normative representation of what true Christianity is, Christian consciousness can only be a mediate and subordinate source of theology, a channel rather than the fountain-head. 1 By giving it this position we are also saved from the one-sided subjectivity and variable individualism that must result from its being made a primary and independent source of knowledge. The history of the church, especially as it presents to us the expression of Christian faith and devotion in different ages and countries, gives us an insight into the religious life of the church as a whole, and so exhibits the Christian con sciousness on a large scale as it were ; but if we do not believe in an absolutely infallible guidance of the church, we cannot regard this either as a primary or authoritative source of doctrins, but must always test it by the standard presented in Scripture. From these various sources, (1) God s manifestation of himself in nature, (2) His revelation in Jesus Christ authori tatively recorded in Scripture, and (3) His enlightenment of the believing soul by the Spirit in Christian life, when used, as they should be, in combination and in their proper order and subordination, we have a large supply of materials for the construction of a dogmatic system. letliod of What then is the method to be followed in order to .ogmatic. educe general principles and laws of mutual relation from the mass of facts and truths thus presented to us bearing upon God s character and dealings with men 1 This is the next question that arises in regard to dogmatic theology. Now, plainly, if this study is to have a scientific character at all, it must be pursued in the same methods that are proper in other sciences of a similar kind. Theology, no doubt, differs in some important respects from all other sciences ; but the difference lies in its matter rather than 1 This view of the nature and function of Christian consciousness is that taken by Martensen, Dogm., sec. 29 ; J. T. Beck, Einleitung in 2do &yste/n, der Chrisilichen Lehre; Oosterzee, Dogm., sect. 10. in the form of its elaboration. Its materials are not merely the phenomena of nature, but the great redemptive and saving works of God made known by revelation. In this respect it differs from all merely natural sciences. But if it is to have any analogy to them at all, it must apply to these facts of revelation the same processes by which the facts of nature are made to yield natural sciences. Now, there are just two essentially distinct methods by which general laws and principles can be ascertained, the analytic or inductive, and the synthetic or deductive. Neither of these, indeed, can be absolutely separated from the other. Induction in physical science, for example, calls in the aid of deduction, when hypotheses arc formed to explain certain phenomena ; and then it is tested by tracing them down wards to what would be their results whether they are true or not: and, on the other hand, geometric demonstration seeks the aid of analysis as a guide to the solution of its problems. And not only in subordinate points, but as wholes, the two methods supplement each other. There can be no concrete science that does not begin with induc tion ; and there is no complete science unless it ends in deduction. All knowledge of facts must be a posteriori, and from these we ascend to general principles and laws; but the aim of all such procedure must be to reach such a com plete and satisfactory explanation of all the phenomena, that the process might be reversed and the facts deduced from the most general principles. It is only in a few sciences, e.g., mechanics, that such a degree of perfection has been attained as to enable them to enter on the deduc tive process. Now it is a question debated by some of the ablest divines, whether theology can adopt this method. It is not denied by any that the inductive method, or that of empirical reflection, as it is called in Germany, is com petent; but some maintain that, while this is so, that of speculation is also legitimate and possible, and that it must be followed, if we are to have a theology in the highest and most proper sense of the term. Those who take this posi tion are for the most part of the Hegelian school ; and we have a favourable specimen of the way in which it may be maintained in a truly believing spirit in Bothe. 2 But the considerations adduced by Julius Miiller 3 against the possi bility of such a method, if we are to avoid a pantheistic view of the universe, seem conclusive. The real and thorough-going recognition of personality and free will, both in God and man, makes it impossible to arrive at tbe phenomena of Christianity by any process of a priori demonstration ; and more particularly, neither the fact of sin on the one hand, as the act of the free will of man, nor of grace on the other, as the work of God s free will, can be exhibited in their essential character in such a method. No science that has to do with the events of a real history in which rational and moral agents are recog nized as acting with true liberty can be constructed by a priori deduction of logical consequences from abstract necessary first principles. The dogmatic theologian there fore, who maintains the freedom alike of the human and of the divine will, is shut up to the a posteriori method of induction. Even though the existence and attributes of God could be satisfactorily demonstrated by reasoning from necessary truths and laws of thought, as Anselm, Descartes, Clarke, and others thought possible, yet when we come to inquire what God has done, and on what principles He acts, we must, if the world s history is not a mere nature- process, learn from experience and testimony the facts, and ascend inductively from them to the principles or laws that direct them. The inductive method, therefore, is the one proper for Protestant evangelical dogmatic. This is recog nized by writers so different in many respects as Dt 4 Theologische Ethik, sec. 2. 8 Die Christliche Lehre von der Siinde, Einleitung.