Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/214

* DEVAUX. 17(5 DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE. upon the instnllatiuii of King Leopold. He laur became the head ol the Moderate Liberals in the L'hamlH-r.aiid lor many years tondueled the olhcial ur-an of that partv. the Itmti- Suliunale, found- ed"^ by him in 1S40. Toward the close of his career he was strieken with blindness. D^VAY. ..r DEVAI (i.e. of IX-va), ^LvtyAs BlKu u-.l''tlO-7li. The founder of the Reformed Church of llun-j:u-y. He was born at Di-va, Transylvania, studied theolotry at t'racow, be- came "a priest, but in 1.'>2'.I embraced the Refor- mation, and spent nearly two years with Luther at Wittenberjr. On his return liiime he preached the new faith boldly and at the risk of his life until, in lo3t. he ca"nic under the protection of a powerful noble. In 1.'>J1 he lied to Switzerland to escape the oneomin'; Turks, and there imbibed Zwinglian views of the sacraments, much to Luther's sorrow. He died at Debreczin. Huni;ar>-, where he had laitbfully labored for a few years. DEVELOPMENT, p:mhkyoxic. See Embrt- OI.OGV: Oastu.I:;.^ Tiikoky. DEVELOPMENT, Evoli-tiox.vhy. See Evo- LITION. DEVELOPMENT IN PHOTOG'BAPHY. See PiioTOt.itAniY. DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE. The jiriKC-s bv which Clirislian iloctnne has been slowlv anil succcssiv.'lv ilivided into dill'erent de- partments of thou-bt. tlusc niie after another more earefullv detined. subdivided, and elabo- rated, and more thoroujrlily f;rounded in revela- tion and reason, ami the whole thereby reduced to a svstematie and relatively complete form. The" fact of such a develoijiuent is at once evi- dent upon the most superlicial examination of Christian history. The earliest writers of the Church possess no system of theology, and em- plov few expressions which indicate any thought upon the great questions with which theology is engaged. Hv the time of lren;vus (died c.202). the be<'innin'gs of an orgrnization of thought are manif«^st. ISv the earlv i)art of the fourth century (Council of'Xice. etc., :!2o and onward) the doc- trines of God and of the Trinity have come to be (listinctlv treated, and their ultimate elements discriminated and defined. Th.' middle of the fifth sees Christolog- defined at Chalcedon (4.)1), and the first half of the sixth the doctrine of .^ntbropol<.g^• at Orange (.V2!U. :Mueh further (leveloinnent went on in the Middle Ages which is a "round of dispute between Catholics and Prot- esrants. the latter viewing it as a perversion of the true line of evolution. During this period the great features of the Catholic sacramental system were settled. Then came the Protestant Reformation, when the advancing movement was, as Protestants maintain, resumed. Now, the doctrines of the application of grace, justifica- tion, etc.. were redefined by Luther (1.t1<), and the doctrine of the ground of forgiveness, the atonement, was again stated upon the basis already laid down by Anselin (10!)8). Ine Reformation era as a whole, reaching down to the close of the Thirty Years' War. was a very productive period theologically, when processes oi thought long in course of elaboration were hnnight to a more or less satisfactory coik lu^ion. Hence even eeclesiolog}' and eschatology were in- cluded in the topics substantially treated in this era. In certain re.-pects this development is paral- lel to all development, and may be described even with Spencer's phrases, as increasing heter- ogeneity accompanied by increasing coherency of each separate department of thought. It lia» another marked ludnl of likeness with all other development, in that it has parts which must be recognized as abnormal .levdopment. as 'degen- eration' rather than progressive evolution. Ciios- ticism, and the long train of like forms which have followed it even down to our own day, was one of these. The Reformation itself had its an- normal perversions in the fanatical wing of thr Anabaptists and the like. It becomes, therefore, important to esUblish criteria by which the sound and luogicssive development of doctrine iiiav be discriminated, in ordi-r that its result - mav be used in the construction of systems .'t theology with coiilidence that they will Jinnv sound and enduring elements of truth. For it i- only as the present can build upon the past, and positions once really gained can be employed by subsecpicnt thinkers, that there can be any hope of substjintial growth in the knowledge of Chris- tian truth from age to age. Four such criteria seem possible and i)ractical. First, the develop- ment must begin from a germ actually present in the definite instruction of .lesus Christ to his Apostles. Cliristianity is a religion of revelation ((I.V.). and jxissesses from its foundation the es- sential annd, it must proceed according to the laws of logical sequence. The doctrines must follow upon one another in such a way that the fundamental shall precede the later wb'ieh are bnilt upon them, as the(do<n- actually iireceded Christology; and they miist also be logically proved, that is. follow- in "a rational smiuence. Third, each doctrine must agree with previously established Chris- tian doctrines, since it is a system of truth which is being developed, and truth is harmony. -Villi, fourth, its developed form must agree with its original in substance and vital pint ion. or a later doctrine must not contradict any doctrine nreviouslv established. The great system of evan- .'clical theology as embraced in the great Protes- tant confessions, (apart from the i.bilosophical form in which it is expressed and conceptions by which it is supi^rted* is believed by Protestants to satisfy all these conditions of a sound develop- ment. See Dogma. This view of development is founded upon the presupposition that the Holy Spirit is in the Church guiding it into the knowledge of the truth as was jiromised by the Saviour should be the case (.lohn xvi. l.'i). A very prominent school of Church history at the present time, of whieji Harnack. professor in IVilin. is the most emi- nent representative, lays little emphasis upon this idea, or whollv discards it. and seeks to ex- plain the course of history by purely natural causes. Thus the idea of specific revelation I" denied or at least obscured, the miraculous ele- ment of original Christianity rejected, and the whole historic process regarded as mincled so largely with error that its outcome is of little or ^no value for the ascertainment of truth. Christianity is thus simply one of the elements of civilization and is tn l>e subjected to precisely the same canons of criticism as every other; and