Chapter VI: The Incarnation as the Basis of Dogma

I. The principle of Dogma is not to be attacked or defended
on _à priori_ grounds. The real question is whether
the Incarnation, as asserted, is true or false. And this is
a question for evidence 217-220

Even scientific 'dogmata' differ less from religious dogmas
than is sometimes supposed, in that (_a_) both are received
on evidence, (_b_) both require an experimental verification,
or (in so far as either are still held along with error)
correction 220-224

The acceptance of dogmatic truth is essentially reasonable.
Its claims to (_a_) authority, (_b_) finality, are not the
ground for accepting it, but a necessary outcome of the facts
accepted in it 224-229

II. The evidence for the Incarnation is as many-sided as human
life 229-233

But primarily historical. The crucial fact is the
Resurrection 233-236

Everything is involved in the answer to 'What think ye of
Christ?' 236-238

It is an error to think of the belief of the Church as an
edifice built up in the age of the Councils 238-239

The decisions of the Councils represent only a growth in
intellectual precision through experience of error 239-245

The creed in its whole substance is the direct outcome of
the fact of the Incarnation 245-250

III. The dogmatic creed is to be distinguished from the body of
theological literature which comments upon it 250

Theological comment is variable: it may err, it may
develop. Herein lie most of the disputes of technical, and
the advances of popular, theology 250-255

Even the creeds are human on the side of their language 255-258

IV. The 'damnatory clauses,' though easily misunderstood,
really mean what is both true, and necessary 258-260

Christian dogmatism is after all devotion to truth, for
truth's sake 260-261

V. The modern reading of the Scriptures without miracle and
the Christ without Godhead depends for its justification
upon the truth of an hypothesis 262-266

But this hypothesis explains away, instead of explaining,
the evidence; while it is itself incapable of proof 266-270

Historical reality is essential to the truth of the
Incarnation. Mere spiritualism ends in unreality 270-272