But this must not by any means be understood to mean that the Biblical vocabulary should itself be adopted in the system of doctrine. For since the New Testament is but partially didactic in form, and is nowhere properly systematic, a mode of expression which there is perfectly suitable would in most cases only very imperfectly answer the demands which are made of a system of doctrine. And, further, the didactic parts of Scripture are for the most part occasional discourses and writings, and therefore full of special references which in a dogmatic presentation must simply cause confusion. Hence our task cannot be anything like perfectly discharged by the adducing of some passages of Scripture under each proposition. This procedure has actually become hurtful in many ways, to Dogmatics on the one hand, and to Scriptural exegesis on the other. The relating of particular passages of Scripture to particular dogmatic propositions can therefore only be done indirectly, by showing that the former are based on the same religious emotions which are set forth in the latter, and that the differences of expression are only such as are occasioned by the different connexions in which they appear. But since this can only be done by explaining these connexions, there ought to be developed more and more in this branch of study a large-viewed use of Scripture, not stressing individual passages torn out of their context, but only taking account of larger sections, and these particularly fruitful ones, so as to exhibit in the trains of thought of the sacred writers those same combinations on which the dogmatic results also are based. Such an application of Scripture can, however, only be made allusively in the system of doctrine itself, and its success depends entirely upon agreement in hermeneutic principles and methods. Therefore, on this side, Dogmatics can only reach its consummation simultaneously with the theory of Scriptural exegesis.

4. Thus there is room for great variety on this side too, so that Protestant systems of doctrine may be of very different stamp without losing their ecclesiastical character. When in a Dogmatic the appeal to the confessional documents and to analogy falls very much into the background, while the reference to Scripture predominates throughout, we have what I should call, for the most part, a Scriptural Dogmatic. In such a Dogmatic, the arrangement will be the thing of least importance; but it will be a perfectly ecclesiastical arrangement, except where (say) the recognizedly common Protestant element is sacrificed to what is merely local and temporary in Scripture, or even to an eccentric interpretation of Scripture, or where it gives up the dialectical development of the ideas and goes back to the often indefinite and ambiguous language of the Bible. On the other hand, I should give the name of Scientific Dogmatic preferably to a Dogmatic which, starting from some recognized principal points, would make everything clear by its orderly sequence, the parallelism of its members, and the coherence of its individual propositions, in which case citation from Scripture and application of the Symbols, of course, falls automatically into the background. Only, of course, those principal points must be none other than the fundamental facts of the religious self-consciousness conceived in a Protestant spirit. For if they were speculations, the system of doctrine might indeed be very scientific, but it would not be Christian doctrine. Finally, if a Dogmatic attaches itself principally to the confessional documents alone, and contents itself with proving everything from these and making everything dependent on these, without either going back to Scripture in details or linking up everything more closely by strict arrangement, this would be a Symbolical Dogmatic; and in such we cannot fail to see a certain approximation to the Roman Catholic Church, since it lays the whole stress on every detail being recognized by the Church. But so long as it does not, on the one hand, set up the principle that Scriptural exegesis is subject to authority, and does not, on the other hand, ascribe to its own propositions a value independent of their expressing the inner experience of each individual, its Protestant character is not endangered. Since, however, each of these forms exposes itself the more to its own peculiar danger, the more it steers clear of the others, it would certainly seem that the common aim of all must be to diverge from each other as little as possible.

Postscript.—Our proposition is completely silent as to the very general custom of appealing in dogmatic systems to the dicta of other teachers, from the Church Fathers down to the most recent; and this certainly means declaring such a procedure to be non-essential. Nevertheless, these citations may have a value, though not always the same value. In so far as what is established in our confessional documents passes over into a system of doctrine, citation of later theologians cannot increase the conviction of the ecclesiastical character of the propositions; and it has a value only in compendiums, for the purpose of referring the reader to the most outstanding of later developments. Even ancient Patristic citations can in this case be of use only in an apologetical or polemical connexion as against the Roman Church. But it is different in cases of divergence, whether only in terminology or in content as well, from the symbolical documents. For the more a proposition has made itself heard from different quarters, the more claim has it to present itself as current in the Church. In particular, when a system of doctrine belongs definitely to one of the three abovementioned forms, it becomes the more complete the more closely it connects itself with systems which bear equally strongly the stamp of one of the other forms.

§ 28. The dialectical character of the language and the systematic arrangement give Dogmatics the scientific form which is essential to it.

Note.—Cf. § 13, Postscript; § 16, § 18.

1. The term ‘dialectical’ is here taken in exactly the ancient sense. The dialectical character of the language therefore consists simply in its being formed in a technically correct manner, that it may be used in all intercourse for the communication and correction of the knowledge in question. Now this cannot be said of either the poetic or the rhetorical form of expression, nor even of the descriptively didactic, which, having sprung from the other two, has not become quite separate from them. Thus the expressions amid which the system of doctrine moves, form (inasmuch as they go back to the religious feeling) a special realm of language within the didactically religious, i.e. the strictest region of it. The questions of how religious feeling becomes diversified, and what object it refers to, encroach upon the ground of Psychology, Ethics, and Metaphysics; and the proper language of Dogmatics is distinguished more definitely from the didactically religious in general by its affinity to the scientific terminology of those realms: a terminology which is as sedulously avoided in the homiletical and poetical communication of the religious consciousness as it is eagerly sought after in the dogmatic. Hence the great diversity of views and of their expressions in all these philosophical realms makes the suitable management of language in dogmatic presentation a most difficult problem. However, the only views which are primarily unfit for use in dogmatic language are those which make no separation between the conceptions of God and the World, admit no contrast between good and evil, and thus make no definite distinction in man between the spiritual and the sensible. For these distinctions are the original presuppositions of the religious self-consciousness, because without these the self-consciousness, when widened into a world-consciousness, could not be set in antithesis to the God-consciousness,² nor could one speak of a distinction between a free and an inhibited higher self-consciousness, nor, consequently, of redemption and the need for it.³ Now the more frequently philosophical systems change within those limits, the more frequent also are the revolutions in dogmatic language. These revolutions are indeed inevitable only when a system has become antiquated, i.e. when thinking really no longer conforms to its type. But they often take place earlier through the more intense zeal of theologians who have been caught away by a rising system, and who hope that the new system will be better fitted than any previous one to make an end of all divisions and misunderstandings in the realm of Dogmatics. Others again, by the spectacle of that very zeal, are made apprehensive lest one particular philosophical system should set itself up as lord and judge in theological matters. But the apprehension is, as a rule, as unfounded as the hope. The hope is illusory, because the important misunderstandings are always there before the expressions used upon the controversial points take on a strictly dogmatic complexion, and consequently the change resulting from the influence of another system does not in itself touch the origin of the misconceptions, unless the language should thereby gain a higher degree of clearness and definiteness. And it is the same with the apprehension referred to. For, in the first place, a system never, at least in our day, continues to have sole supremacy for a sufficiently long time. And secondly, as a general consideration, so long as it is really an interest in Christian piety that evokes the dogmatic presentation, this latter can never turn against that interest: such a danger can only arise when the whole procedure has not sprung from that interest, but is alien in type. Apart from this, there are two other opposite complaints which one sometimes hears made concerning the language used by theologians, as regards its connexion with philosophy. The more frequent complaint is that the language is too abstract and too far removed from the immediate language of religion, for the sake of which alone Dogmatics exists. The other one is less frequent—that one cannot tell from the language used which philosophical system the theologian assumes as his starting-point. Both complaints appear to be unfounded. For in our Church it is only the scientifically educated who can be expected to take their bearings from Dogmatics for the realm of popular religious teaching, and the key for this they are bound to have. And as regards the other complaint, for this purpose it is neither necessary nor profitable to know which philosophical system a theologian adheres to, so long as his language is correct and self-consistently formed. In all sciences the Schools always more or less discard their own language for the universal language of educated people, and yet the language of the Schools does always tend to keep itself distinct. Now the more a theologian keeps to the strictest language of the Schools, the more readily will he give occasion for the first complaint; and for the second, the more use he makes of the elements which have been adopted into the universal language of humanity. In this latter, indeed, there remain for long enough elements collected from different periods and systems. But even out of these, by means of skilful selection and due explanation, there can be formed a whole which is perfectly well adapted for dogmatic usage. And thus the danger of an influence hurtful to the interests of Christian piety completely disappears, and a balance is maintained amid the influences of various contemporary systems.

2. If, however, Dogmatics is to fulfil its proper vocation, i.e. both to clear up the misconceptions which ever and again tend to arise in the whole business of making communications from the immediate religious life of the Christian, and also, so far as in it lies, to prevent such misconceptions by the norm it has established, not only is a dialectically formed vocabulary indispensable in the establishing of the system of doctrine, but also as strict and systematic an arrangement of the subject-matter as possible. For the more indefinite and more imperfectly formed material offered by every fragmentary opinion can only be rightly appraised by comparison with the perfectly definite and ordered material of the self-contained system, and only so can it be rectified. For even the most definite idea and the clearest proposition do not lose every trace of instability until they have been placed in an absolute context, for the simple reason that the sense of any proposition is not fully given except in some definite context. But this is the very essence of systematic arrangement, that by comprehensive co-ordination and exhaustive subordination each proposition should be brought into a perfectly definite relation with all others. Now a dogmatic system of doctrine is capable of this in so far as the subject treated of forms a self-contained whole, i.e., on the one hand, in so far as all Christian religious emotions of the Protestant type, wherever they appear, can be represented in a complex of coherent formulæ, and, on the other hand, in so far as it is true that facts of consciousness which can be subsumed under these formulæ are not to be found anywhere outside of this communion. Now in this sense the Evangelical (Protestant) Church, it is true, is not so perfectly self-contained that there might not be doctrines which the Roman Church expresses in exactly the same way, or that, on the other hand, its doctrines might not for the most part be also found in other anti-Roman communions which do not form a single whole with the Evangelical Church. But this latter contingency is due simply to the fact that outward unity does not depend solely on doctrine. As far as doctrine is concerned, those small communions do for us really form a single whole with the Evangelical Church. And the former case disappears when we come to regard the propositions, not by themselves alone, but in their context; and thus at suitable points an Evangelical Dogmatic may legitimately set itself to dispel that impression. In Dogmatics, however, the arrangement of material can have no resemblance to that employed in those sciences which are built upon some fundamental principle or can be developed from within themselves, or in those either which comprise a definite field of external perception and in this sense are historical. Instead of a fundamental law, Dogmatics has simply the fundamental inner fact of Christian piety which it postulates; and what it has to arrange consists simply in the different modifications of this fact which emerge, according to its differing relations with the other facts of consciousness.⁴ Thus the task of arrangement consists simply in so comparing and so distinguishing those different relations that the different modifications themselves appear as a complete whole, and that consequently, by means of the formulæ all taken together, the infinite multiplicity of the particular can be synoptically viewed in a definite plurality. But the dialectical language and the systematic arrangement require one another, and also they promote one another. The dialectical language is too sharply defined for any other kind of religious communication, and outside of the complete doctrinal system itself it is permissible only in passages which are extensions of or outflows from the latter. But a systematic arrangement would never stand out so clearly, and still less could it win recognition, if it did not make use of language which admits of a strict calculus-like procedure for the trying and testing of all connexions of ideas. But it is self-evident how very much the task of systematic arrangement is facilitated when the particulars are given in dialectical language of uniform consistency, and also how the most precise expression for the particular is more easily found when a schematism of sharp distinctions and close connexions has already been fashioned for that purpose.

3. After all we have already said on this point, it seems superfluous now expressly to remark or to demonstrate that there is no other connexion than that which we have exhibited between Christian Dogmatics and speculative philosophy; especially since, in a treatment of the subject developed on the lines we have described above, there scarcely remains any point at which speculation could force its way into the system of doctrine. Our method indeed would seem to be the one that will most easily get rid of all traces of the Scholastic mode of treatment, by which philosophy (transformed as it was by the spread of Christianity) and real Christian Dogmatics were frequently mingled in one and the same work. There is only one point remaining for discussion here. Those members of the Christian communion through whose agency alone the scientific form of Dogmatics arises and subsists are also those in whom the speculative consciousness has awakened. Now as this is the highest objective function of the human spirit, while the religious self-consciousness is the highest subjective function, a conflict between the two would touch essential human nature, and so such a conflict can never be anything but a misunderstanding. Now it is certainly not sufficient merely that such a conflict should not arise: the man of knowledge is bound to reach the positive consciousness that the two are in agreement; only, this is not the work of Dogmatics, since even for the same religious standpoint the procedure would necessarily vary with every different type of philosophy. If, on the other hand, such a conflict does arise, and some one rightly or wrongly finds the occasion of misunderstanding to be on the religious side, that circumstance may of course lead to his giving up religion altogether, or at least the Christian religion. But to guard against this, otherwise than by taking care not to occasion misunderstandings by unconsidered formulæ—that again is not the business of Dogmatics, which has nothing whatever to do with those who do not admit the fundamental fact. It is rather the business of Apologetics.

Postscript.—Those expositions of Christian doctrine which have long flourished under the name of Practical Dogmatics or Popular Dogmatics do indeed dispense both with dialectical language and with systematic arrangement. But these lie outside of the realm to which we here appropriate the name of Dogmatics. They are sometimes compromises between a system of doctrine and a catechism, and sometimes adaptations of Dogmatics to homiletical ends. The former have for the most part the aim of communicating the results of dogmatic developments with a certain coherence to those who would not find it easy to follow a scientific argument. But as that aim is itself somewhat arbitrary, the undertaking seems to lead to too much confusion and to foster too great superficiality for anything really useful to be achieved. As for the latter kind, its place will be completely filled if in Practical Theology the needful general directions are added concerning the matter of religious communications as well as concerning the form.

§ 29. We shall exhaust the whole compass of Christian doctrine if we consider the facts of the religious self-consciousness, first, as they are presupposed by the antithesis expressed in the concept of redemption, and secondly, as they are determined by that antithesis.

Note.—Cf. §§ 8, 9, and 11. 1. It is clear, to begin with, that the antithesis between the inability to inform all moments of life with the feeling of absolute dependence and the corresponding ability communicated to us by the Redeemer, presupposes that feeling itself and a knowledge of it. For since it is never presented to us except in man, we cannot know about it except in so far as it exists in ourselves; and without knowing about it we could not know about an incapacity for it, nor even about the difference between the Redeemer and ourselves. Thus the state which precedes the communication of the capacity cannot be either absolute forgetfulness of God or a mere empty striving after the God-consciousness, but must somehow contain this last as a datum in the self-consciousness. It might, however, be said that such facts of the religious self-consciousness, which precede fellowship with the Redeemer, cannot belong to the system of Christian doctrine, but only to some general system of doctrine, or to the system of some religious communion from which one could pass to Christianity. To this we must reply that these states of the religious mind do not disappear when the mind has been laid hold of by Christianity, but are facilitated and encouraged in proportion as the communicated capacity is less or more. Thus they belong to the religious consciousness of the Christian too, and they might have been described as states not determined by that antithesis but remaining unchanged on all its different levels; while the facts which are determined by the antithesis itself must differ in their content according as the incapacity or the communicated capacity has the preponderance. Only, the former kind of facts, remaining as they do ever self-identical, will never by themselves alone occupy completely any moment of the religious life in the realm of Christian piety, but only partially; and it is for that reason, and because none the less we have to consider these facts in themselves, on account of their different nature, that the mode of expression used in our proposition has been preferred.

2. If, then, this first element in our proposition does thus belong to Christian piety, because it necessarily appears in combination with the second, we further venture to assert that the two taken together enclose the whole realm of Christian piety. For even if we assume that by degrees the incapacity disappears completely, this will not give rise to any new modifications of the religious self-consciousness, but will simply bring the reality nearer to the formulæ which express the condition in its purity. And so our only concern is to measure out the provinces of the two elements precisely and completely, that we may be sure of the completeness of the whole. The two will, then, of course, be so related to each other that the first part will contain those doctrines (the possibility in general of which has already been admitted) in which the distinctively Christian element is less prominent, and which may therefore most easily be coincident in expression with those of other faiths. These doctrines, however, are by no means constituent parts of a universal or so-called natural theology. Not only are they in every case expressions of the religious self-consciousness, and thus genuinely dogmatic propositions, but they are also definitely Christian, in virtue of the distinctively Christian reference which is inherent in the arrangement of the whole, and which we might repeat in every proposition. But apart from this, it certainly could be said—especially as all that belongs to the realm of the Science of Christian Morals remains excluded—that there are dogmatic propositions which only express monotheism in general, without making it clear whether they belong to the teleological or the æsthetic point of view. Therefore it is necessary that, if general allusions to the Science of Christian Morals are not given in Dogmatics, we should nevertheless always keep in mind the fact that to a system of Christian doctrine, of whatever form, there essentially belongs also a system of Christian morals developing in harmony with it.

3. These two, then, may be identified with each other: facts which are presupposed by the antithesis, and facts which remain unchanged throughout the whole development of the antithesis; and we have further asserted that these, together with the facts which are determined by the antithesis, comprise the whole of Christian doctrine. Now from this it follows that, strictly considered, nothing which belongs exclusively to a period preceding the Christian development of that antithesis, and also nothing which belongs to a period which will only begin when the incapacity has been completely overcome and has disappeared, can be brought within the compass of Christian doctrine in the proper sense. No matter can be thus introduced except in so far as it has a demonstrable and definite connexion with the religious affections which are found within the antithesis. Now since all Christian piety rests upon the appearing of the Redeemer, the same thing is true of Him too, namely, that nothing concerning Him can be set up as real doctrine unless it is connected with His redeeming causality and can be traced to the original impression made by His existence. Whatever falls outside these limits either must have its proper place elsewhere or can make good its position only in virtue of some more distant relationship to be demonstrated in a special way.

§ 30. All propositions which the system of Christian doctrine has to establish can be regarded either as descriptions of human states, or as conceptions of divine attributes and modes of action, or as utterances regarding the constitution of the world; and all three forms have always subsisted alongside of each other. 1. Since the feeling of absolute dependence, even in the realm of redemption, only puts in an appearance, i.e. becomes a real self-consciousness in time, in so far as it is aroused by another determination of the self-consciousness and unites itself therewith,⁵ every formula for that feeling is a formula for a definite state of mind; and consequently all propositions of Dogmatics must be capable of being set up as such formulæ. But any such sensible determination of the self-consciousness points back to a determinant outside of the self-consciousness. Now since, in virtue of the general coherence always postulated in every human consciousness, this determinant always appears as a part thereof, any modification which has so arisen of the feeling of absolute dependence may be known if we can get a description of that element of existence on which the state in question is based. Thus conceived, the dogmatic propositions become utterances regarding the constitution of the world, but only for the feeling of absolute dependence and with reference to it. Finally, not only is the feeling of absolute dependence in itself a co-existence of God in the self-consciousness, but the totality of being from which, according to the position of the subject, all determinations of the self-consciousness proceed, is comprehended under that feeling of dependence; and therefore all modifications of the higher self-consciousness may also be represented by our describing God as the basis of this togetherness of being in its various distributions.

2. If we compare these three possible forms with each other, it is clear that descriptions of human states of mind with this content can only be taken from the realm of inner experience, and that therefore in this form nothing alien can creep into the system of Christian doctrine; whereas, of course, utterances regarding the constitution of the world may belong to natural science, and conceptions of divine modes of action may be purely metaphysical; in which case both are engendered on the soil of science, and so belong to the objective consciousness and its conditions, and are independent of the inner experience and the facts of the higher self-consciousness. Thus these two forms (the first of which includes, of course, all propositions of a generally anthropological content) do not in themselves afford any guarantee that all propositions so conceived are genuinely dogmatic. Hence we must declare the description of human states of mind to be the fundamental dogmatic form; while propositions of the second and third forms are permissible only in so far as they can be developed out of propositions of the first form; for only on this condition can they be really authenticated as expressions of religious emotions.

3. If, then, all propositions which belong to the system of Christian doctrine can indisputably be expressed in the fundamental form, and propositions which assert attributes of God and qualities of the world must be reduced to propositions of that first form before we can be safe from the creeping in of alien and purely scientific propositions, then it would seem that Christian Dogmatics has only to carry through consistently that fundamental form in order to complete the analysis of Christian piety, while the other two forms might be entirely set aside as superfluous. But if anyone were to attempt at the present time to treat Christian Dogmatics in this way, his work would be left isolated without any historical support; and not only would it lack a really ecclesiastical character, but, however perfectly it rendered the content of Christian doctrine, it could not fulfil the real purpose of all Dogmatics. For since dogmatic language only came to be formed gradually out of the language which was current in the public communication of religion, the rhetorical and hymnic elements in this latter must have been especially favourable to the formation of conceptions of divine attributes, and indeed these became necessary in order that those expressions should be kept within due proportions. Similarly there arose, partly out of these, and partly out of the need for fixing the relation between the Kingdom of God and the world, utterances regarding the constitution of the world. Then, as the habit increased of treating Metaphysics in combination with Dogmatics, these two kinds of proposition became more numerous through the addition of similar ones of alien content, whereas the fundamental form naturally came to be left behind, and scarcely found any place except in presentations of a less scientific character. Hence a work which at the present time tried to confine itself entirely to the proper fundamental form would have no link with the past, and just for that reason would be of little practical use, either for purging the doctrinal system of alien elements, or for maintaining the clarity and verity of the rhetorical and poetic communications.

§ 31. Thus the division outlined above will have to be fully worked out according to all these three forms of reflection upon the religious affections; but always and everywhere on this same basis, namely, the direct description of the religious affections themselves. 1. As the elements of Dogmatics have taken shape in a fragmentary manner, and the science itself has therefore been fitted together externally out of these elements rather than generated organically, it is easy to understand how, generally speaking, propositions of all three kinds have been placed together without distinction, while none of the forms has been worked out with completeness and perspicuity. But such a state of affairs by no means satisfies the demands which may justly be made of dogmatic science; and in place of that we must of necessity (since, as we have seen, we cannot confine ourselves to the fundamental form alone) introduce that completeness of treatment which our proposition indicates. Nothing else can satisfy the present need. Now the general description of the Christian religion given above⁶ underlies this whole presentation so fundamentally that even our division of the subject-matter rests upon it. And so each individual section will have to be prefaced by a similar general description, to which in turn the further articulation of that section will have reference; and with this the ecclesiastical doctrines belonging to the same province will be brought into connexion: first, those which come nearest to the direct exposition of the religious affections, and then those which express the same thing in the form of divine attributes and qualities of the world.

2. From this it follows that the doctrine of God, as set forth in the totality of the divine attributes, can only be completed simultaneously with the whole system: whereas it is usually treated continuously and without a break, and before any other points of doctrine. But this divergence from the usual order can hardly be viewed as a disadvantage. For, not to mention the fact that divine attributes and modes of action which bear exclusively on the development of human soul-states (and this can be said of all the so-called moral attributes of God) cannot be understood without previous knowledge of these states, it is in general undeniable that the usual arrangement is peculiarly apt to conceal the relation of those doctrines both to the feeling of absolute dependence in general and to the fundamental facts of the Christian religion, and to give the impression of a quite independent speculative theory. Whereas our method not only makes that connexion most luminous, but also places in closer juxtaposition things which can only be understood alongside of and by means of each other.

Postscript.—Further comparison of the schematism here set forth with those more common in our older and newer textbooks and systems would exceed the limits of an Introduction which is not obliged to be polemical. The method here adopted can only be justified by the finished argument itself.

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Footnotes

1. See § 12, 2 and 3. ↩

2. 8, 2. ↩

3. 11, 2. ↩

4. 10, 3. ↩

5. Cf. § 5. ↩

6. See § 11. ↩