Systematic Theology
A Compendium and Commonplace-Book
Designed For The Use Of Theological Students
Revised and Enlarged
In Three Volumes
Volume 1
The Doctrine of God
The Judson Press
Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Seattle, Toronto
[Transcriber’s Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]
Christo Deo Salvatori.
PREFACE
The present work is a revision and enlargement of my “Systematic Theology,” first published in 1886. Of the original work there have been printed seven editions, each edition embodying successive corrections and supposed improvements. During the twenty years which have intervened since its first publication I have accumulated much new material, which I now offer to the reader. My philosophical and critical point of view meantime has also somewhat changed. While I still hold to the old doctrines, I interpret them differently and expound them more clearly, because I seem to myself to have reached a fundamental truth which throws new light upon them all. This truth I have tried to set forth in my book entitled “Christ in Creation,” and to that book I refer the reader for further information.
That Christ is the one and only Revealer of God, in nature, in humanity, in history, in science, in Scripture, is in my judgment the key to theology. This view implies a monistic and idealistic conception of the world, together with an evolutionary idea as to its origin and progress. But it is the very antidote to pantheism, in that it recognizes evolution as only the method of the transcendent and personal Christ, who fills all in all, and who makes the universe teleological and moral from its centre to its circumference and from its beginning until now.
Neither evolution nor the higher criticism has any terrors to one who regards them as parts of Christ’s creating and educating process. The Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge himself furnishes all the needed safeguards and limitations. It is only because Christ has been forgotten that nature and law have been personified, that history has been regarded as unpurposed development, that Judaism has been referred to a merely human origin, that Paul has been thought to have switched the church off from its proper track even before it had gotten fairly started on its course, that superstition and illusion have come to seem the only foundation for the sacrifices of the martyrs and the triumphs of modern missions. I believe in no such irrational and atheistic evolution as this. I believe rather in him in whom all things consist, who is with his people even to the end of the world, and who has promised to lead them into all the truth.
Philosophy and science are good servants of Christ, but they are poor guides when they rule out the Son of God. As I reach my seventieth year and write these words on my birthday, I am thankful for that personal experience of union with Christ which has enabled me to see in science and philosophy the teaching of my Lord. But this same personal experience has made me even more alive to Christ’s teaching in Scripture, has made me recognize in Paul and John a truth profounder than that disclosed by any secular writers, truth with regard to sin and atonement for sin, that satisfies the deepest wants of my nature and that is self-evidencing and divine.
I am distressed by some common theological tendencies of our time, because I believe them to be false to both science and religion. How men who have ever felt themselves to be lost sinners and who have once received pardon from their crucified Lord and Savior can thereafter seek to pare down his attributes, deny his deity and atonement, tear from his brow the crown of miracle and sovereignty, relegate him to the place of a merely moral teacher who influences us only as does Socrates by words spoken across a stretch of ages, passes my comprehension. Here is my test of orthodoxy: Do we pray to Jesus? Do we call upon the name of Christ, as did Stephen and all the early church? Is he our living Lord, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent? Is he divine only in the sense in which we are divine, or is he the only-begotten Son, God manifest in the flesh, in whom is all the fulness of the Godhead bodily? What think ye of the Christ? is still the critical question, and none are entitled to the name of Christian who, in the face of the evidence he has furnished us, cannot answer the question aright.
Under the influence of Ritschl and his Kantian relativism, many of our teachers and preachers have swung off into a practical denial of Christ’s deity and of his atonement. We seem upon the verge of a second Unitarian defection, that will break up churches and compel secessions, in a worse manner than did that of Channing and Ware a century ago. American Christianity recovered from that disaster only by vigorously asserting the authority of Christ and the inspiration of the Scriptures. We need a new vision of the Savior like that which Paul saw on the way to Damascus and John saw on the isle of Patmos, to convince us that Jesus is lifted above space and time, that his existence antedated creation, that he conducted the march of Hebrew history, that he was born of a virgin, suffered on the cross, rose from the dead, and now lives forevermore, the Lord of the universe, the only God with whom we have to do, our Savior here and our Judge hereafter. Without a revival of this faith our churches will become secularized, mission enterprise will die out, and the candlestick will be removed out of its place as it was with the seven churches of Asia, and as it has been with the apostate churches of New England.
I print this revised and enlarged edition of my “Systematic Theology,” in the hope that its publication may do something to stem this fast advancing tide, and to confirm the faith of God’s elect. I make no doubt that the vast majority of Christians still hold the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, and that they will sooner or later separate themselves from those who deny the Lord who bought them. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will raise up a standard against him. I would do my part in raising up such a standard. I would lead others to avow anew, as I do now, in spite of the supercilious assumptions of modern infidelity, my firm belief, only confirmed by the experience and reflection of a half-century, in the old doctrines of holiness as the fundamental attribute of God, of an original transgression and sin of the whole human race, in a divine preparation in Hebrew history for man’s redemption, in the deity, preëxistence, virgin birth, vicarious atonement and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord, and in his future coming to judge the quick and the dead. I believe that these are truths of science as well as truths of revelation; that the supernatural will yet be seen to be most truly natural; and that not the open-minded theologian but the narrow-minded scientist will be obliged to hide his head at Christ’s coming.
The present volume, in its treatment of Ethical Monism, Inspiration, the Attributes of God, and the Trinity, contains an antidote to most of the false doctrine which now threatens the safety of the church. I desire especially to call attention to the section on Perfection, and the Attributes therein involved, because I believe that the recent merging of Holiness in Love, and the practical denial that Righteousness is fundamental in God’s nature, are responsible for the utilitarian views of law and the superficial views of sin which now prevail in some systems of theology. There can be no proper doctrine of the atonement and no proper doctrine of retribution, so long as Holiness is refused its preëminence. Love must have a norm or standard, and this norm or standard can be found only in Holiness. The old conviction of sin and the sense of guilt that drove the convicted sinner to the cross are inseparable from a firm belief in the self-affirming attribute of God as logically prior to and as conditioning the self-communicating attribute. The theology of our day needs a new view of the Righteous One. Such a view will make it plain that God must be reconciled before man can be saved, and that the human conscience can be pacified only upon condition that propitiation is made to the divine Righteousness. In this volume I propound what I regard as the true Doctrine of God, because upon it will be based all that follows in the volumes on the Doctrine of Man, and the Doctrine of Salvation.
The universal presence of Christ, the Light that lighteth every man, in heathen as well as in Christian lands, to direct or overrule all movements of the human mind, gives me confidence that the recent attacks upon the Christian faith will fail of their purpose. It becomes evident at last that not only the outworks are assaulted, but the very citadel itself. We are asked to give up all belief in special revelation. Jesus Christ, it is said, has come in the flesh precisely as each one of us has come, and he was before Abraham only in the same sense that we were. Christian experience knows how to characterize such doctrine so soon as it is clearly stated. And the new theology will be of use in enabling even ordinary believers to recognize soul-destroying heresy even under the mask of professed orthodoxy.
I make no apology for the homiletical element in my book. To be either true or useful, theology must be a passion. _Pectus est quod theologum facit_, and no disdainful cries of “Pectoral Theology!” shall prevent me from maintaining that the eyes of the heart must be enlightened in order to perceive the truth of God, and that to know the truth it is needful to do the truth. Theology is a science which can be successfully cultivated only in connection with its practical application. I would therefore, in every discussion of its principles, point out its relations to Christian experience, and its power to awaken Christian emotions and lead to Christian decisions. Abstract theology is not really scientific. Only that theology is scientific which brings the student to the feet of Christ.
I would hasten the day when in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. I believe that, if any man serve Christ, him the Father will honor, and that to serve Christ means to honor him as I honor the Father. I would not pride myself that I believe so little, but rather that I believe so much. Faith is God’s measure of a man. Why should I doubt that God spoke to the fathers through the prophets? Why should I think it incredible that God should raise the dead? The things that are impossible with men are possible with God. When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith on the earth? Let him at least find faith in us who profess to be his followers. In the conviction that the present darkness is but temporary and that it will be banished by a glorious sunrising, I give this new edition of my “Theology” to the public with the prayer that whatever of good seed is in it may bring forth fruit, and that whatever plant the heavenly Father has not planted may be rooted up.
ROCHESTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ROCHESTER, N. Y., AUGUST 3, 1906.
PART I. PROLEGOMENA.
Chapter I. Idea Of Theology.
I. Definition of Theology.
Theology is the science of God and of the relations between God and the universe.
Though the word “theology” is sometimes employed in dogmatic writings to designate that single department of the science which treats of the divine nature and attributes, prevailing usage, since Abelard (A. D. 1079-1142) entitled his general treatise “Theologia Christiana,” has included under that term the whole range of Christian doctrine. Theology, therefore, gives account, not only of God, but of those relations between God and the universe in view of which we speak of Creation, Providence and Redemption.
John the Evangelist is called by the Fathers “the theologian,” because he most fully treats of the internal relations of the persons of the Trinity. Gregory Nazianzen received this designation because he defended the deity of Christ against the Arians. For a modern instance of this use of the term “theology” in the narrow sense, see the title of Dr. Hodge’s first volume: “Systematic Theology, Vol. I: _Theology_.” But theology is not simply “the science of God,” nor even “the science of God and man.” It also gives account of the relations between God and the universe.
If the universe were God, theology would be the only science. Since the universe is but a manifestation of God and is distinct from God, there are sciences of nature and of mind. Theology is “the science of the sciences,” not in the sense of including all these sciences, but in the sense of using their results and of showing their underlying ground; (see Wardlaw, Theology, 1:1, 2). Physical science is not a part of theology. As a mere physicist, Humboldt did not need to mention the name of God in his “Cosmos” (but see Cosmos, 2:418, where Humboldt says: “Psalm 104 presents an image of the whole Cosmos”). Bishop of Carlisle: “Science is atheous, and therefore cannot be atheistic.”
Only when we consider the relations of finite things to God, does the study of them furnish material for theology. Anthropology is a part of theology, because man’s nature is the work of God and because God’s dealings with man throw light upon the character of God. God is known through his works and his activities. Theology therefore gives account of these works and activities so far as they come within our knowledge. All other sciences require theology for their complete explanation. Proudhon: “If you go very deeply into politics, you are sure to get into theology.” On the definition of theology, see Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 1:2; Blunt, Dict. Doct. and Hist. Theol., art.: Theology; H. B. Smith, Introd. to Christ. Theol., 44; cf. Aristotle, Metaph., 10, 7, 4; 11, 6, 4; and Lactantius, De Ira Dei, 11.
II. Aim of Theology.
The aim of theology is the ascertainment of the facts respecting God and the relations between God and the universe, and the exhibition of these facts in their rational unity, as connected parts of a formulated and organic system of truth.
In defining theology as a science, we indicate its aim. Science does not create; it discovers. Theology answers to this description of a science. It discovers facts and relations, but it does not create them. Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 141—“Schiller, referring to the ardor of Columbus’s faith, says that if the great discoverer had not found a continent, he would have created one. But faith is not creative. Had Columbus not found the land—had there been no real object answering to his belief—his faith would have been a mere fancy.” Because theology deals with objective facts, we refuse to define it as “the science of religion”; _versus_ Am. Theol. Rev., 1850:101-126, and Thornwell, Theology, 1:139. Both the facts and the relations with which theology has to deal have an existence independent of the subjective mental processes of the theologian.
Science is not only the observing, recording, verifying, and formulating of objective facts; it is also the recognition and explication of the relations between these facts, and the synthesis of both the facts and the rational principles which unite them in a comprehensive, rightly proportioned, and organic system. Scattered bricks and timbers are not a house; severed arms, legs, heads and trunks from a dissecting room are not living men; and facts alone do not constitute science. Science = facts + relations; Whewell, Hist. Inductive Sciences, I, Introd., 43—“There may be facts without science, as in the knowledge of the common quarryman; there may be thought without science, as in the early Greek philosophy.” A. MacDonald: “The _a priori_ method is related to the _a posteriori_ as the sails to the ballast of the boat: the more philosophy the better, provided there are a sufficient number of facts; otherwise, there is danger of upsetting the craft.”
President Woodrow Wilson: “ ‘Give us the facts’ is the sharp injunction of our age to its historians... But facts of themselves do not constitute the truth. The truth is abstract, not concrete. It is the just idea, the right revelation, of what things mean. It is evoked only by such arrangements and orderings of facts as suggest meanings.” Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 14—“The pursuit of science is the pursuit of relations.” Everett, Science of Thought, 3—“Logy” (_e. g._, in “theology”), from λόγος, = word + reason, expression + thought, fact + idea; _cf._ _John 1:1—_“In the beginning was the Word.”
As theology deals with objective facts and their relations, so its arrangement of these facts is not optional, but is determined by the nature of the material with which it deals. A true theology thinks over again God’s thoughts and brings them into God’s order, as the builders of Solomon’s temple took the stones already hewn, and put them into the places for which the architect had designed them; Reginald Heber: “No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm, the mystic fabric sprung.” Scientific men have no fear that the data of physics will narrow or cramp their intellects; no more should they fear the objective facts which are the data of theology. We cannot make theology, any more than we can make a law of physical nature. As the natural philosopher is “Naturae minister et interpres,” so the theologian is the servant and interpreter of the objective truth of God. On the Idea of Theology as a System, see H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 126-166.
III. Possibility of Theology.
The possibility of theology has a threefold ground: 1. In the existence of a God who has relations to the universe; 2. In the capacity of the human mind for knowing God and certain of these relations; and 3. In the provision of means by which God is brought into actual contact with the mind, or in other words, in the provision of a revelation.
Any particular science is possible only when three conditions combine, namely, the actual existence of the object with which the science deals, the subjective capacity of the human mind to know that object, and the provision of definite means by which the object is brought into contact with the mind. We may illustrate the conditions of theology from selenology—the science, not of “lunar politics,” which John Stuart Mill thought so vain a pursuit, but of lunar physics. Selenology has three conditions: 1. the objective existence of the moon; 2. the subjective capacity of the human mind to know the moon; and 3. the provision of some means (_e. g._, the eye and the telescope) by which the gulf between man and the moon is bridged over, and by which the mind can come into actual cognizance of the facts with regard to the moon.
1. The existence of a God.
_In the existence of a God who has relations to the universe._—It has been objected, indeed, that since God and these relations are objects apprehended only by faith, they are not proper objects of knowledge or subjects for science. We reply:
A. Faith is knowledge, and a higher sort of knowledge.—Physical science also rests upon faith—faith in our own existence, in the existence of a world objective and external to us, and in the existence of other persons than ourselves; faith in our primitive convictions, such as space, time, cause, substance, design, right; faith in the trustworthiness of our faculties and in the testimony of our fellow men. But physical science is not thereby invalidated, because this faith, though unlike sense-perception or logical demonstration, is yet a cognitive act of the reason, and may be defined as certitude with respect to matters in which verification is unattainable.
The objection to theology thus mentioned and answered is expressed in the words of Sir William Hamilton, Metaphysics, 44, 531—“Faith—belief—is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond our knowledge.” But science is knowledge, and what is beyond our knowledge cannot be matter for science. Pres. E. G. Robinson says well, that knowledge and faith cannot be severed from one another, like bulkheads in a ship, the first of which may be crushed in, while the second still keeps the vessel afloat. The mind is one,—“it cannot be cut in two with a hatchet.” Faith is not antithetical to knowledge,—it is rather a larger and more fundamental sort of knowledge. It is never opposed to reason, but only to sight. Tennyson was wrong when he wrote: “We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see” (In Memoriam, Introduction). This would make sensuous phenomena the only objects of knowledge. Faith in supersensible realities, on the contrary, is the highest exercise of reason.
Sir William Hamilton consistently declares that the highest achievement of science is the erection of an altar “To the Unknown God.” This, however, is not the representation of Scripture. _Cf._ _John 17:3—_“this is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God”; and _Jer. 9:24—_“let him that glorieth glory in that he hath understanding and knoweth me.” For criticism of Hamilton, see H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 297-336. Fichte: “We are born in faith.” Even Goethe called himself a believer in the five senses. Balfour, Defence of Philosophic Doubt, 277-295, shows that intuitive beliefs in space, time, cause, substance, right, are presupposed in the acquisition of all other knowledge. Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 14—“If theology is to be overthrown because it starts from some primary terms and propositions, then all other sciences are overthrown with it.” Mozley, Miracles, defines faith as “unverified reason.” See A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 19-30.
B. Faith is a knowledge conditioned by holy affection.—The faith which apprehends God’s being and working is not opinion or imagination. It is certitude with regard to spiritual realities, upon the testimony of our rational nature and upon the testimony of God. Its only peculiarity as a cognitive act of the reason is that it is conditioned by holy affection. As the science of aesthetics is a product of reason as including a power of recognizing beauty practically inseparable from a love for beauty, and as the science of ethics is a product of reason as including a power of recognizing the morally right practically inseparable from a love for the morally right, so the science of theology is a product of reason, but of reason as including a power of recognizing God which is practically inseparable from a love for God.
We here use the term “reason” to signify the mind’s whole power of knowing. Reason in this sense includes states of the sensibility, so far as they are indispensable to knowledge. We cannot know an orange by the eye alone; to the understanding of it, taste is as necessary as sight. The mathematics of sound cannot give us an understanding of music; we need also a musical ear. Logic alone cannot demonstrate the beauty of a sunset, or of a noble character; love for the beautiful and the right precedes knowledge of the beautiful and the right. Ullman draws attention to the derivation of _sapientia_, wisdom, from _sapĕre_, to taste. So we cannot know God by intellect alone; the heart must go with the intellect to make knowledge of divine things possible. “Human things,” said Pascal, “need only to be known, in order to be loved; but divine things must first be loved, in order to be known.” “This [religious] faith of the intellect,” said Kant, “is founded on the assumption of moral tempers.” If one were utterly indifferent to moral laws, the philosopher continues, even then religious truths “would be supported by strong arguments from analogy, but not by such as an obstinate, sceptical heart might not overcome.”
Faith, then, is the highest knowledge, because it is the act of the integral soul, the insight, not of one eye alone, but of the two eyes of the mind, intellect and love to God. With one eye we can see an object as flat, but, if we wish to see around it and get the stereoptic effect, we must use both eyes. It is not the theologian, but the undevout astronomer, whose science is one-eyed and therefore incomplete. The errors of the rationalist are errors of defective vision. Intellect has been divorced from heart, that is, from a right disposition, right affections, right purpose in life. Intellect says: “I cannot know God”; and intellect is right. What intellect says, the Scripture also says: _1 Cor. 2:14—_“the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged”_; 1:21—_“in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God.”
The Scripture on the other hand declares that “by faith we know”_ (Hebrews 11:3)_. By “heart” the Scripture means simply the governing disposition, or the sensibility + the will; and it intimates that the heart is an organ of knowledge: _Ex. 35:25—_“the women that were wise-hearted”; _Ps. 34:8—_“O taste and see that Jehovah is good” = a right taste precedes correct sight; _Jer. 24:7—_“I will give them a heart to know me”; _Mat. 5:8—_“Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God”; _Luke 24:25—_“slow of heart to believe”; _John 7:17—_“If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself”; _Eph. 1:18—_“having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know”; _1 John 4:7, 8—_“Every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God.” See Frank, Christian Certainty, 303-324; Clarke, Christ. Theol., 362; Illingworth, Div. and Hum. Personality, 114-137; R. T. Smith, Man’s Knowledge of Man and of God, 6; Fisher, Nat. and Method of Rev., 6; William James, The Will to Believe, 1-31; Geo. T. Ladd, on Lotze’s view that love is essential to the knowledge of God, in New World, Sept. 1895:401-406; Gunsaulus, Transfig. of Christ, 14, 15.