§ 16. Dogmatic propositions are doctrines of the descriptively didactic type, in which the highest possible degree of definiteness is aimed at.

Note.—Cf. § 3, 4 and 5; and § 13, 1 and 2. 1. The poetic expression is always based originally upon a moment of exaltation which has come purely from within, a moment of enthusiasm or inspiration; the rhetorical upon a moment whose exaltation has come from without, a moment of stimulated interest which issues in a particular definite result. The former is purely descriptive (darstellend), and sets up in general outlines images and forms which each hearer completes for himself in his own peculiar way. The rhetorical is purely stimulative, and has, in its nature, to do for the most part with such elements of speech as, admitting of degrees of signification, can be taken in a wider or narrower sense, content if at the decisive moment they can accomplish the highest, even though they should exhaust themselves thereby and subsequently appear to lose somewhat of their force. Thus both of these forms possess a different perfection from the logical or dialectical perfection described in our proposition. But, nevertheless, we can think of both as being primary and original in every religious communion, and thus in the Christian Church, in so far as we ascribe to everyone in it a share in the vocation of preaching. For when anyone finds himself in a state of unusually exalted religious self-consciousness, he will feel himself called to poetic description, as that which proceeds from this state most directly. And, on the other hand, when anyone finds himself particularly challenged by insistent or favourable outward circumstances to attempt an act of preaching, the rhetorical form of expression will be the most natural to him for obtaining from the given circumstances the greatest possible advantage. But let us conceive of the comprehension and appropriation of what is given in a direct way in these two forms, as being now also wedded to language and thereby made communicable: then this cannot again take the poetic form, nor yet the rhetorical; but, being independent of that which was the important element in those two forms, and expressing as it does a consciousness which remains self-identical, it becomes, less as preaching than as confession (ὁμολογία), precisely that third form—the didactic—which, with its descriptive instruction, remains distinct from the two others, and is made up of the two put together, as a derivative and secondary form.

2. But let us confine ourselves to Christianity, and think of its distinctive beginning, namely, the self-proclamation of Christ, Who, as subject of the divine revelation, could not contain in Himself any distinction of stronger and weaker emotion, but could only partake in such a diversity through His common life with others. Then we shall not be able to take either the poetic or the rhetorical form of expression as the predominating, or even as the really primary and original, form of His self-proclamation. These have only a subordinate place in parabolic and prophetic discourses. The essential thing in His self-proclamation was that He had to bear witness regarding His ever unvarying self-consciousness out of the depths of its repose, and consequently not in poetic but in strictly reflective form; and thus had to set Himself forth, while at the same time communicating His alone true objective consciousness of the condition and constitution of men in general, thus instructing by description or representation, the instruction being sometimes subordinate to the description, and sometimes vice versa. But this descriptively didactic mode of expression used by Christ is not included in our proposition, and such utterances of the Redeemer will hardly be set up anywhere as dogmatic propositions; they will only, as it were, provide the text for them. For in such essential parts of the self-proclamation of Christ the definiteness was absolute, and it is only the perfection of the apprehension and appropriation which reproduces these, that can be characterized by the endeavour after the greatest possible definiteness. Subordinate to these, however, there do appear genuinely dogmatic propositions in the discourses of Christ, namely, at those points at which He had to start from the partly erroneous and partly confused ideas current among His contemporaries.

3. As regards the poetic and rhetorical forms of expression, it follows directly from what we have said, that they may fall into apparent contradiction both with themselves and with each other, even when the self-consciousness which is indicated by different forms of expression is in itself one and the same. And a solution will only be possible, in the first place, when it is possible in interpreting propositions that are apparently contradictory to take one’s bearings from the original utterances of Christ (a thing which can in very few cases be done directly), and, in the second place, when the descriptively didactic expression, which has grown out of those three original forms put together, is entirely or largely free from those apparent contradictions. This, however, will not be possible of achievement so long as the descriptively didactic expression itself keeps vacillating between the emotional and the didactic, in its presentation to the catechumens or the community, and approaches sometimes more to the rhetorical and sometimes more to the figurative. It will only be possible in proportion as the aim indicated in our proposition underlies the further development of the expression and its more definite separation from the rhetorical and the poetic, both of which processes are essentially bound up with the need of settling the conflict. Now, of course, this demand, that the figurative expression be either exchanged for a literal one or transformed into such by being explained, and that definite limits be imposed on the corresponding element in the rhetorical expressions, is unmistakably the interest which science has in the formation of language; and it is mainly with the formation of religious language that we are here concerned. Hence dogmatic propositions develop to any considerable extent and gain recognition only in such religious communions as have reached a degree of culture in which science is organized as something distinct both from art and from business, and only in proportion as friends of science are found and have influence within the communion itself, so that the dialectical function is brought to bear on the utterances of the religious self-consciousness, and guides the expression of them. Such a union with organized knowledge has had a place in Christianity ever since the earliest ages of the Church, and therefore in no other religious communion has the form of the dogmatic proposition evolved in such strict separation from the other forms, or developed in such fulness.

Postscript.—This account of the origin of dogmatic propositions, as having arisen solely out of logically ordered reflection upon the immediate utterances of the religious self-consciousness, finds its confirmation in the whole of history. The earliest specimens of preaching preserved for us in the New Testament Scriptures already contain such propositions; and on closer consideration we can see in all of them, in the first place, their derivation from the original self-proclamation of Christ, and, in the second place, their affinity to figurative and rhetorical elements which, for permanent circulation, had to approximate more to the strictness of a formula. Similarly in later periods it is clear that the figurative language, which is always poetic in its nature, had the most decided influence upon the dogmatic language, and always preceded its development, and also that the majority of the dogmatic definitions were called forth by contradictions to which the rhetorical expressions had led.

But when the transformation of the original expressions into dogmatic propositions is ascribed to the logical or dialectical interest, this is to be understood as applying only to the form. A proposition which had originally proceeded from the speculative activity, however akin it might be to our propositions in content, would not be a dogmatic proposition. The purely scientific activity, whose task is the contemplation of existence, must, if it is to come to anything, either begin or end with the Supreme Being; and so there may be forms of philosophy containing propositions of speculative import about the Supreme Being which, in spite of the fact that they arose out of the purely scientific interest, are, when taken individually, difficult to distinguish from the corresponding propositions which arose purely out of reflection upon the religious emotions, but have been worked out dialectically. But when they are considered in their connexions, these two indubitably show differences of the most definite kind. For dogmatic propositions never make their original appearance except in trains of thought which have received their impulse from religious moods of mind; whereas, not only do speculative propositions about the Supreme Being appear for the most part in purely logical or natural-scientific trains of thought, but even when they come in as ethical presuppositions or corollaries, they show an unmistakable leaning towards one or other of those two directions. Moreover, in the dogmatic developments of the earliest centuries, if we discount the quite unecclesiastical Gnostic schools, the influence of speculation upon the content of dogmatic propositions may be placed at zero. At a later time, certainly, when the classical organization of knowledge had fallen into ruins, and the conglomerate-philosophy of the Middle Ages took shape within the Christian Church, and at the same time came to exercise its influence upon the formation of dogmatic language, a confusion of the speculative with the dogmatic, and consequently a mingling of the two, was almost inevitable. But this was for both an imperfect condition, from which philosophy freed itself by means of the avowal, growing ever gradually louder, that at that time it had stood under the tutelage of ecclesiastical faith, and therefore under an alien law. Having, however, since then made so many fresh starts in its own proper development, it was able to escape from the wearisome task of inquiring exactly as to what kind of speculative propositions were at that time taken to be dogmatic, and vice versa. For the Christian Church, however, which is not in a position ever and anon to begin the development of its doctrine over again from the start, this separation is of the greatest importance, in order to secure that speculative matter (by which neither the poetic and rhetorical nor the popular expression can consent to be guided) may not continue to be offered to it as dogmatic. The Evangelical (Protestant) Church in particular is unanimous in feeling that the distinctive form of its dogmatic propositions does not depend on any form or school of philosophy, and has not proceeded at all from a speculative interest, but simply from the interest of satisfying the immediate self-consciousness solely through the means ordained by Christ, in their genuine and uncorrupted form. Thus it can consistently adopt as dogmatic propositions of its own no propositions except such as can show this derivation. Our dogmatic theology will not, however, stand on its proper ground and soil with the same assurance with which philosophy has so long stood upon its own, until the separation of the two types of proposition is so complete that, e.g., so extraordinary a question as whether the same proposition can be true in philosophy and false in Christian theology, and vice versa, will no longer be asked, for the simple reason that a proposition cannot appear in the one context precisely as it appears in the other: however similar it sounds, a difference must always be assumed. But we are still very far from this goal, so long as people take pains to base or deduce dogmatic propositions in the speculative manner, or even set themselves to work up the products of speculative activity and the results of the study of religious affections into a single whole.

§ 17. Dogmatic propositions have a twofold value—an ecclesiastical and a scientific; and their degree of perfection is determined by both of these and their relation to each other.

1. The ecclesiastical value of a dogmatic proposition consists in its reference to the religious emotions themselves. Every such emotion, regarded singly, is indeed for description an infinite, and all dogmatic concepts, as well as all concepts of psychology, would have to be used to describe one moment of life. But just as in such a moment the religious strain may be the dominant one, so again in every such strain some one relation of the higher self-consciousness stands out as determinative; and it is to this strain, uniformly for all analogous moments of religious emotion, that the dogmatic propositions refer. Thus, in all completely expressed dogmatic propositions, the reference to Christ as Redeemer must appear with the same measure of prominence which it has in the religious consciousness itself. Naturally, however, this is not equally strongly the case in all religious moments, any more than in the life of any civic state the distinctive character of its constitution can appear equally strongly in all moments. Accordingly, the less strongly the reference to Christ is expressed in a dogmatic proposition, as, e.g., in the religious emotions mediated by our relation to the external world, the more easily may it resemble a doctrinal proposition of another religious communion, in cases where the distinctive character of that communion too remains for the most part in the background. Now this occurs even within the Christian Church itself, in respect of the various modifications of the Christian consciousness which separate into larger or smaller groups. Now, if a dogmatic proposition is so formed that it satisfies the Christian consciousness for all alike, then it actually holds good in a larger circle, but it is not calculated to show up differences, which are thus indirectly marked as unimportant or in process of disappearing. If, on the other hand, it has respect only to one of these different modifications, then it holds good only within this smaller compass. Sometimes the former kind of dogma may seem colourless, and the latter be the right kind; at other times the latter may be factious or sectarian, and the former be the right kind. But such differences in dogmatic propositions dealing with the same subject, which do not represent any differences at all in the immediate religious self-consciousness, are of no significance for their ecclesiastical value.

2. The scientific value of a dogmatic proposition depends in the first place upon the definiteness of the concepts which appear in it, and of their connexion with each other. For the more definite these become, the more does the proposition pass out of the indefinite realm of the poetic and rhetorical, and the more certain will it be that the proposition cannot enter into apparent contradiction with other dogmatic propositions belonging to the same form of religious consciousness. But in forming its concepts Dogmatics has not succeeded—indeed, one might say that from the nature of the subject it cannot succeed—in everywhere substituting the exact expression for the figurative; and thus the scientific value of dogmatic propositions depends, from this side, for the most part simply upon the highest possible degree of precision and definiteness in explaining the figurative expressions which occur. And we can the more readily leave it at that, since, even if the exact expression could throughout be substituted for the figurative, the latter is the original, and therefore the identity of the two would have to be shown, which would come to the same thing in the end. In the second place, the scientific value of a dogmatic proposition consists in its fruitfulness, that is to say, its many-sidedness in pointing us towards other kindred ones; and not so much in a heuristic way (since no dogmatic proposition is based on another, and each one can only be discovered from contemplation of the Christian selfconsciousness) as in a critical way, because then it can be the more easily tested how well one dogmatic expression harmonizes with others. For it is undeniable that, of a number of dogmatic expressions which are supposed to refer to the same fact of the Christian consciousness, that one will deserve the preference which opens up and enters into combination with the largest range of other expressions referring to kindred facts. And when we find a realm or system of dogmatic language which is closely bound together and forms a self-contained whole, that is an account of the facts which we may presume to be correct.

A proposition which lacks the first of these two properties, and which thus belongs entirely to the poetic or the rhetorical realm of language, has not got the length of being a dogmatic proposition. A proposition which, as regards the second of the two properties, goes beyond the principle we have set up, and seeks to establish anything objectively without going back to the higher self-consciousness, would not be a religious doctrine (Glaubenssatz) at all, and would simply not belong to our field.

3. Now since every doctrine of the faith has, as such, an ecclesiastical value, and since these doctrines become dogmatic when they acquire a scientific value, dogmatic propositions are the more perfect the more their scientific character gives them an outstanding ecclesiastical value, and also the more their scientific content bears traces of having proceeded from the ecclesiastical interest.

§ 18. The collocation of dogmatic propositions, for the purpose of connecting them and relating them to each other, proceeds from the very same need which led to the formation of them, and is simply a natural sequel to it.

1. We distinguish Christ’s own preaching (which was the starting-point of everything) from dogmatic material, chiefly because when He went didactically into particular details, He verged upon the poetic and the rhetorical, and when He proclaimed Himself in precise and unfigurative language, He never went beyond a quite summary presentation of His being and His work.² But every religious emotion which was the direct effect of that preaching became, in the given life-context of the moment, a particular emotion, and therefore the apprehension of it in thought, as an appropriation of that original self-proclamation, was only partial and imperfect; so that the total mass of the doctrines which thus arose and were worked out with the greatest possible definiteness as dogmatic propositions, is simply, taken all together, the unfolding, ever more and more complete, of that original preaching. Therefore each individual proposition which has so arisen implies a striving after the remaining ones, and thus an endeavour to connect each with others; and each, just in so far as it is definitely one individual proposition, obtains its place only on the presupposition that it has other more or less kindred propositions beside it and around it.

2. Let us begin with the rhetorical and poetic preaching both of Christ Himself and of His witnesses, which did go into particular details. From this point the didactic form of expression certainly arises mainly out of the problem of settling the apparent conflict between individual metaphors and figures, but partly too out of the need for freeing the expression from the ambiguity and uncertainty which attach to it outside of the given context, and of setting it forth more independently as the same for all. But every apparent contradiction of that sort makes one apprehensive of a number of others, because each casts suspicion upon the whole realm of language in which it occurs, as possibly concealing contradictions. Thus if in a given case an exact and didactic form of expression is set up, by which one may orientate oneself in relation to the apparent opposition, our assurance depends entirely upon the condition that the reconciling expression does not in turn stand in apparent contradiction with itself, but that this whole realm of language is immune from any such danger. But certainty on this point can only be gained by the relating of several such expressions to each other, and by ever repeated attempts to connect them together. Now, although the didactic expression is both more definite and in itself more comprehensible, yet it is always a combination of general ideas which become perfectly definite only when considered along with the higher ones above them and the lower ones under them; just as every such idea, as subject, can only be fully contemplated in the totality of its predicates, and as predicate, only in the whole range of its applicability. So that every such proposition points towards others, in which occur both kindred ideas and the same ideas in other connexions.

3. Thus it is unthinkable that the religious self-consciousness should be sufficiently alive to utter and communicate itself, without at the same time fashioning for itself the didactic form of expression, whether in the looser form of popular usage or in the stricter form of the schools. And it is equally unthinkable that the particular elements of this expression should exist in any religious communion without forming themselves into a wealth of thought-series, which would partly aim at the original object of describing the religious emotions themselves in a real succession or in their natural connexion, and partly at working out the didactic expression itself into the greatest possible lucidity.

When we speak of Christian Preaching, we mean chiefly the utterance and presentation which have a directly rousing effect. But when we speak of Christian Teaching or Doctrine (Lehre), we mean rather that communication which employs the didactic form of expression, whether in order to rouse by bringing the idea in its clarity home to the consciousness, as happens in homiletic practice, or in order to isolate more definitely, through the clarity of the idea, the immediate religious self-consciousness, and reliably to establish its independence, which is the business of the dogmatic schools. But manifestly this can only reach a satisfactory conclusion when the system of doctrine has become a complete system, in which every essential moment of the religious and Christian consciousness is given its developed dogmatic expression, and all the dogmatic propositions are brought into relation with each other. Hence it is far from praiseworthy when respected theologians, perhaps confounding the thing itself with a perversion of it, reckon the scholarly study of doctrine as a degeneracy of the Christian communion or as a result of such degeneracy. Rather is it, on the one hand, the more necessary for the preaching office itself, as modes of presentation multiply with the variety of languages, that there should be a system of doctrine elaborated with dialectical precision. And on the other hand, it is natural that the more the Christian communion recruits and renews itself out of its own resources, the more does preaching itself take the form of popular teaching or doctrine, and the more does this doctrine (which itself in turn, however, requires the scholarly teaching as norm and limit) become the most important means to promote the living circulation of the religious consciousness.

Postscript.—If from this position we survey the whole procedure proper for dogmatic propositions, which indeed is just the subject of Dogmatic Theology, we arrive at the conclusion that it may begin at any point, wheresoever the requirements most demand it. The syntheses are, then, in part, of the kind which by preference are occasional, immediately serving the purpose of directly communicating the religious consciousness, and claiming only ecclesiastical value for the propositions in question, as doctrine which belongs to the realm of preaching and edification. But they are also, in part, of the kind where more depends upon their scientific value, and which keep strictly to the realm of Dogmatic Theology itself. These may take the form of Monographs, i.e. explications of some single proposition in its various relations as these may be surveyed from the standpoint of the proposition itself. Or they may take the form of loci theologici (i.e. collections of such monographs), which, of course, may be complete, so as to include the whole range of propositions which can be connected with each other, though this will be seen to be merely accidental, since such completeness has nothing to do with the form. Or, finally, they may take the form of a complete System of Doctrine, such as has been already described. Such a system, again, may be purely positive, and in that case either merely aphoristic or provided with an apparatus of explanations. Or it may include the polemical element, by taking account of other modifications of the religious and Christian consciousness, or other expressions of the same modification. Or, finally, it may also include the historical, by taking account of the development of dogmatic propositions and the changes which have occurred in the realm of dogmatic terminology.

§ 19. Dogmatic Theology is the science which systematizes the doctrine prevalent in a Christian Church at a given time.

Note.—See Brief Outline, §§ 3, 15, 18, 19, 26, 27.

1. This definition does not seem to exclude the possibility that a person could be a master of Dogmatic Theology and could even communicate it to others without himself believing in what he expounded, just as a man may have knowledge of the interconnexion of propositions in philosophical systems which he does not himself accept. But since the dogmatic procedure has reference entirely to preaching, and only exists in the interests of preaching, all who busy themselves therewith must be assumed to possess the relevant faith, if they are to offer anything profitable, because otherwise it would be a case of a professed reference and relation without any real congruity. The thing, however, is inconceivable except on the supposition that the exponent was not conscious of any religious emotions, even of a different variety. For otherwise no one could, without doing violence to himself, conceal the contradiction between the position which he expounds as internally coherent and derived from the Christian consciousness, and the position which he himself accepts. And so a dogmatic presentation which takes no sides but is purely historical will always be sufficiently distinct from a presentation which is also apologetic—the only kind now in view. Moreover, it can hardly be denied that those dogmatic presentations (perhaps not uncommon even in our own Church) which, without any firm personal conviction, keep strictly to what is ecclesiastically received, either lack rigorous coherence and inward harmony, or involuntarily betray a weakening of the conviction.

2. Limitation to the doctrine of one particular Church is not a characteristic universally valid, for Christendom has not always been divided into a number of communions definitely separated by diversity of doctrine. But for the present this characteristic is indispensable; for, to speak only of the Western Church, a presentation suitable for Protestantism cannot possibly be suitable for Catholics, there being no systematic connexion between the doctrines of the one and those of the other. A dogmatic presentation which aimed at avoiding contradiction from either of these two parties would lack ecclesiastical value for both in almost every proposition.

That each presentation confines itself to the doctrine existing at a certain time, is indeed seldom expressly avowed, but it nevertheless seems to be a matter of course; and this seems, for the most part, to be the only possible explanation of the large number of dogmatic presentations which follow upon each other. It is obvious that the text-books of the seventeenth century can no longer serve the same purpose as they did then, but now in large measure belong merely to the realm of historical presentation; and that in the present day it is only a different set of dogmatic presentations that can have the ecclesiastical value which these had then; and the same fate will one day befall the present ones too. But of course it is only from the more universal crises of development that large alterations in doctrine arise, while the alterations which are continually going on amount to so little that it takes a long time to render them perceptible.

3. Now ‘the prevalent doctrine’ is not by any means to be taken as signifying merely what is expressed in (confessional) Symbols, but rather all doctrines which are dogmatic expressions of that which, in the public proceedings of the Church (even if only in certain regions of it), can be put forward as a presentation of its common piety without provoking dissension and schism. Hence this characterization admits of considerable variety in the dogmatic presentations. None the less it might be held that this makes the definition too narrow, partly because it seems as if no alterations could ever come into the dogmatic presentations unless at some time or other something not yet prevalent were adopted, and partly because in this way everything individually distinctive is excluded. But, in the first place, everyone will admit that a system, however coherent, of purely and entirely individual opinions and views, which, even if really Christian, did not link themselves at all to the expressions used in the Church for the communication of religion, would always be regarded as simply a private confession and not as a dogmatic presentation, until there came to be attached to it a like-minded society, and there thus arose a public preaching and communication of religion which found its norm in that doctrine. Consequently it may in a general way be said that the less there is of publicly accepted matter in any such presentation, the less does it answer to the conception of a Dogmatic. Yet this does not mean that the individuality of the author may not have an influence upon the form and manner of treatment, and even assert itself at particular points by intentional correction of the usual position. And this of itself makes it clear that our definition by no means excludes improvements and new developments of Christian doctrine. But this becomes still clearer when we add the fact that such improvements and developments hardly ever proceed directly from the dogmatic discussions themselves, but are for the most part occasioned, in one way or another, by the proceedings of public worship or by popular literature for the dissemination of religion.

4. The correctness of our definition is also made clear by the following considerations: that when a presentation of Christian doctrine lacks one of the above characteristics, it no longer falls within the real field of Dogmatics; and that the most fundamental aberrations in the dogmatic field are caused by some one of these requirements being torn out of its natural connexions and taken by itself as the only rule for the treatment of the subject.

As for the popular presentation of doctrine, in catechisms and similar works, for the general instruction of the Church, this does indeed require completeness and coherence, but it makes no claim to erudition and systematic arrangement and connexion; and therefore we separate this from the properly dogmatic field. Further, many religious books which aim either at mystical depth or at rational clarity are more of the descriptively didactic type than of the directly rousing, and these too handle doctrine with a certain completeness; but they lack the historical attitude, and the reference to the public ecclesiastical understanding of the faith, so that they inform us only about the individual, or one isolated fragment of the whole; and therefore we do not give them the title of dogmatic, however coherently systematic they may be in themselves. Finally let us take the canonical and symbolical definitions of doctrine which have from time to time entered into the traffic of dogmatics. These, of course, should always presuppose the science of the complete systematization of doctrine, and in that sense they of course belong to dogmatic theology. Only they do not themselves go so far as to give a complete presentation of this systematic coherence, but are concerned only with particular points of doctrine.

Similarly, the most fundamental aberrations in the dogmatic field are accounted for by the one-sided attention paid to one or other of the characteristics which we established. If from time to time dogmatic presentations of doctrine come to appear as pretty much a mere tradition which has become static, this happens because people aim at no more than establishing the doctrine which is already publicly accepted, and thus look upon it as an absolutely given quantity. If, on the other hand, there are to be found dogmatic presentations which in their time enjoyed a widespread acceptance, but which, viewed from some distance and compared with earlier and later ones, appear entirely arbitrary, these are the ones which, having sprung from some transient and confused movement in the ecclesiastical realm, comprehended that movement alone, and thus were one-sided, never getting any further than the one particular phase; in which circumstances it is easy for arbitrary caprice and sophistry to take the place of scientific rigour. Finally, if there are presentations which, while they of course handle Christian doctrine and profess to be dogmatic, do not go back at all to the religious affections, these are the ones which aim only at satisfying the demand for scientific system and coherence, as if that could at the same time produce what a genuinely dogmatic presentation must presuppose, namely, faith. Thus they attempt either directly to deduce and prove what is distinctively Christian from the universal reason, or to make it disappear, as an imperfect thing, in a purely rational and universally valid doctrine of religion.

Postscript.—Many theologians are in complete agreement with the definition of dogmatic theology which we have here established, but assign this actual Dogmatic to a pretty low level, as being only concerned with the presentation of ecclesiastical opinions, and assert that there must stand above it another and higher theology which, even with disregard of these ecclesiastical opinions, would bring out and make evident the essential truths of religion.³ But the Christian science of God and Salvation cannot possibly recognize such a distinction between ecclesiastical doctrines and essential truths of religion (which are yet supposed to be Christian, for otherwise there can be no talk of them in this connexion at all), either in the sense that these truths of religion have another source, or in the sense that their content is of a different type. For there is only one source from which all Christian doctrine is derived, namely, the self-proclamation of Christ; and there is only one type of doctrine, for, whether more perfect or less perfect, it all arises out of the religious consciousness itself and its direct expression. Therefore, if anybody is disposed to say that the ecclesiastical doctrine of any given time and place is mere opinion, because it does not remain ever self-identical and is not unmixed with error, it must be replied that nevertheless there is nothing else superior to it in the realm of Christian knowledge, except the purer and more perfect ecclesiastical doctrine which may be found in some other period and in other presentations. But this purifying and perfecting is just the work and the task of Dogmatic Theology.

But let us suppose this task to have been fully discharged, and Dogmatic Theology thus to have reached its completion. Even then we could not agree with those other theologians who make Dogmatics the whole of Christian theology, and who thus regard all the other branches of theological study, Scriptural Exegesis and Church History, both in their widest range and with all their accessories, as merely auxiliary sciences to Dogmatics. For even though both of these are necessary to Dogmatics, nevertheless their whole value does not consist in the service they render to it: each of them has also its own peculiar value directly for the advancement and guidance of the Church, which is the ultimate purpose of all Christian theology, Dogmatics included. Rather would we say that, though Scriptural Exegesis and Church History are, each in its own peculiar office, dependent on the study of Dogmatics, and suffer when Dogmatics is neglected, so that all these different branches can only approach completion by reciprocally influencing each other, yet it would be a very suspicious thing if it were just Dogmatics that principally set the tone in this progress, because it depends more than the other branches (if only in form) upon Philosophy (Weltweisheit). For philosophy makes frequent new beginnings, and most of these revolutions engender new combinations and new expressions for the field from which Dogmatics draws its vocabulary; hence it is in this branch of theology that those variations most easily arise which provoke irrelevant controversy, and also those restatements which do not exactly represent progress but rather hinder than advance the theoretic development.

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Footnotes

1. See § 5, 4. ↩

2. Cf. John 3¹⁷ 8¹² 10³⁰ 12⁴⁵. ↩

3. See, among other works, Bretschneider’s Entwicklung, § 25, and Handbuch der Dogmatik, § 5, where in the end one is in doubt whether Dogmatics belongs to Christian theology at all. ↩