Chapter I: Idea Of Theology (1)

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 (328) 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
“Naturæ 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 æsthetics 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”_
(Heb. 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.

C. Faith, therefore, can furnish, and only faith can furnish, fit and sufficient material for a scientific theology.—As an operation of man’s higher rational nature, though distinct from ocular vision or from reasoning, faith is not only a kind, but the highest kind, of knowing. It gives us understanding of realities which to sense alone are inaccessible, namely, God’s existence, and some at least of the relations between God and his creation.

Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 1:50, follows Gerhard in making faith the
joint act of intellect and will. Hopkins, Outline Study of Man,
77, 78, speaks not only of “the æsthetic reason” but of “the moral
reason.” Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 91, 109, 145,
191—“Faith is the certitude concerning matter in which
verification is unattainable.” Emerson, Essays, 2:96—“Belief
consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul—unbelief in
rejecting them.” Morell, Philos. of Religion, 38, 52, 53, quotes
Coleridge: “Faith consists in the synthesis of the reason and of
the individual will, ... and by virtue of the former (that is,
reason), faith must be a light, a form of knowing, a beholding of
truth.” Faith, then, is not to be pictured as a blind girl
clinging to a cross—faith is not blind—“Else the cross may just as
well be a crucifix or an image of Gaudama.” “Blind unbelief,” not
blind faith, “is sure to err, And scan his works in vain.” As in
conscience we recognize an invisible authority, and know the truth
just in proportion to our willingness to “do the truth,” so in
religion only holiness can understand holiness, and only love can
understand love (_cf._ _John 3:21—_“he that doeth the truth cometh
to the light”).

If a right state of heart be indispensable to faith and so to the
knowledge of God, can there be any “theologia irregenitorum,” or
theology of the unregenerate? Yes, we answer; just as the blind
man can have a science of optics. The testimony of others gives it
claims upon him; the dim light penetrating the obscuring membrane
corroborates this testimony. The unregenerate man can know God as
power and justice, and can fear him. But this is not a knowledge
of God’s inmost character; it furnishes some material for a
defective and ill-proportioned theology; but it does not furnish
fit or sufficient material for a correct theology. As, in order to
make his science of optics satisfactory and complete, the blind
man must have the cataract removed from his eyes by some competent
oculist, so, in order to any complete or satisfactory theology,
the veil must be taken away from the heart by God himself (_cf._
_2 Cor. 3:15, 16_—“_a veil lieth upon their heart. But whensoever
it_ [marg. ‘a man’] _shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken
away_”).

Our doctrine that faith is knowledge and the highest knowledge is
to be distinguished from that of Ritschl, whose theology is an
appeal to the heart to the _exclusion_ of the head—to _fiducia_
without _notitia_. But _fiducia_ includes _notitia_, else it is
blind, irrational, and unscientific. Robert Browning, in like
manner, fell into a deep speculative error, when, in order to
substantiate his optimistic faith, he stigmatized human knowledge
as merely apparent. The appeal of both Ritschl and Browning from
the head to the heart should rather be an appeal from the narrower
knowledge of the mere intellect to the larger knowledge
conditioned upon right affection. See A. H. Strong, The Great
Poets and their Theology, 441. On Ritschl’s postulates, see
Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 274-280, and
Pfleiderer, Die Ritschl’sche Theologie. On the relation of love
and will to knowledge, see Kaftan, in Am. Jour. Theology,
1900:717; Hovey, Manual Christ. Theol., 9; Foundations of our
Faith, 12, 13; Shedd, Hist. Doct., 1:154-164; Presb. Quar., Oct.
1871, Oct. 1872, Oct. 1873; Calderwood, Philos. Infinite, 99, 117;
Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 2-8; New Englander, July, 1873:481;
Princeton Rev., 1864:122; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt, 124, 125; Grau,
Glaube als höchste Vernunft, in Beweis des Glaubens, 1865:110;
Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theol., 228; Newman, Univ. Sermons, 206;
Hinton, Art of Thinking, Introd. by Hodgson, 5.

2. Man’s capacity for the knowledge of God

_In the capacity of the human mind for knowing God and certain of these relations._—But it has urged that such knowledge is impossible for the following reasons:

A. Because we can know only phenomena. We reply: (_a_) We know mental as well as physical phenomena. (_b_) In knowing phenomena, whether mental or physical, we know substance as underlying the phenomena, as manifested through them, and as constituting their ground of unity. (_c_) Our minds bring to the observation of phenomena not only this knowledge of substance, but also knowledge of time, space, cause, and right, realities which are in no sense phenomenal. Since these objects of knowledge are not phenomenal, the fact that God is not phenomenal cannot prevent us from knowing him.

What substance is, we need not here determine. Whether we are
realists or idealists, we are compelled to grant that there cannot
be phenomena without noumena, cannot be appearances without
something that appears, cannot be qualities without something that
is qualified. This something which underlies or stands under
appearance or quality we call substance. We are Lotzeans rather
than Kantians, in our philosophy. To say that we know, not the
self, but only its manifestations in thought, is to confound self
with its thinking and to teach psychology without a soul. To say
that we know no external world, but only its manifestations in
sensations, is to ignore the principle that binds these sensations
together; for without a somewhat in which qualities inhere they
can have no ground of unity. In like manner, to say that we know
nothing of God but his manifestations, is to confound God with the
world and practically to deny that there is a God.

Stählin, in his work on Kant, Lotze and Ritschl, 186-191, 218,
219, says well that “limitation of knowledge to phenomena involves
the elimination from theology of all claim to know the objects of
the Christian faith as they are in themselves.” This criticism
justly classes Ritschl with Kant, rather than with Lotze who
maintains that knowing phenomena we know also the noumena
manifested in them. While Ritschl professes to follow Lotze, the
whole drift of his theology is in the direction of the Kantian
identification of the world with our sensations, mind with our
thoughts, and God with such activities of his as we can perceive.
A divine nature apart from its activities, a preexistent Christ,
an immanent Trinity, are practically denied. Assertions that God
is self-conscious love and fatherhood become judgments of merely
subjective value. On Ritschl, see the works of Orr, of Garvie, and
of Swing; also Minton, in Pres. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1902:162-169,
and C. W. Hodge, _ibid._, Apl. 1902:321-326; Flint, Agnosticism,
590-597; Everett, Essays Theol. and Lit., 92-99.

We grant that we can know God only so far as his activities reveal
him, and so far as our minds and hearts are receptive of his
revelation. The appropriate faculties must be exercised—not the
mathematical, the logical, or the prudential, but the ethical and
the religious. It is the merit of Ritschl that he recognizes the
practical in distinction from the speculative reason; his error is
in not recognizing that, when we do thus use the proper powers of
knowing, we gain not merely subjective but also objective truth,
and come in contact not simply with God’s activities but also with
God himself. Normal religious judgments, though dependent upon
subjective conditions, are not simply “judgments of worth” or
“value-judgments,”—they give us the knowledge of “things in
themselves.” Edward Caird says of his brother John Caird (Fund.
Ideas of Christianity, Introd. cxxi)—“The conviction that God can
be known and is known, and that, in the deepest sense, all our
knowledge is knowledge of him, was the corner-stone of his
theology.”

Ritschl’s phenomenalism is allied to the positivism of Comte, who
regarded all so-called knowledge of other than phenomenal objects
as purely negative. The phrase “Positive Philosophy” implies
indeed that all knowledge of mind is negative; see Comte, Pos.
Philosophy, Martineau’s translation, 26, 28, 33—“In order to
observe, your intellect must pause from activity—yet it is this
very activity you want to observe. If you cannot effect the pause,
you cannot observe; if you do effect it, there is nothing to
observe.” This view is refuted by the two facts; (1)
consciousness, and (2) memory; for consciousness is the knowing of
the self side by side with the knowing of its thoughts, and memory
is the knowing of the self side by side with the knowing of its
past; see Martineau, Essays Philos. and Theol., 1:24-40, 207-212.
By phenomena we mean “facts, in distinction from their ground,
principle, or law”; “neither phenomena nor qualities, as such, are
perceived, but objects, percepts, or beings; and it is by an
after-thought or reflex process that these are connected as
qualities and are referred to as substances”; see Porter, Human
Intellect, 51, 238, 520, 619-637, 640-645.

Phenomena may be internal, _e. g._, thoughts; in this case the
noumenon is the mind, of which these thoughts are the
manifestations. Or, phenomena may be external, _e. g._, color,
hardness, shape, size; in this case the noumenon is matter, of
which these qualities are the manifestations. But qualities,
whether mental or material, imply the existence of a substance to
which they belong: they can no more be conceived of as existing
apart from substance, than the upper side of a plank can be
conceived of as existing without an under side; see Bowne, Review
of Herbert Spencer, 47, 207-217; Martineau, Types of Ethical
Theory, 1; 455, 456—“Comte’s assumption that mind cannot know
itself or its states is exactly balanced by Kant’s assumption that
mind cannot know anything outside of itself.... It is precisely
because all knowledge is of relations that it is not and cannot be
of phenomena alone. The absolute cannot _per se_ be known, because
in being known it would _ipso facto_ enter into relations and be
absolute no more. But neither can the phenomenal _per se_ be
known, _i. e._, be known as phenomenal, without simultaneous
cognition of what is non-phenomenal.” McCosh, Intuitions, 138-154,
states the characteristics of substance as (1) being, (2) power,
(3) permanence. Diman, Theistic Argument, 337, 363—“The theory
that disproves God, disproves an external world and the existence
of the soul.” We know something beyond phenomena, viz.: law,
cause, force,—or we can have no science; see Tulloch, on Comte, in
Modern Theories, 53-73; see also Bib. Sac., 1874:211; Alden,
Philosophy, 44; Hopkins, Outline Study of Man, 87; Fleming, Vocab.
of Philosophy, art.: Phenomena; New Englander, July, 1875:537-539.

B. Because we can know only that which bears analogy to our own nature or experience. We reply: (_a_) It is not essential to knowledge that there be similarity of nature between the knower and the known. We know by difference as well as by likeness. (_b_) Our past experience, though greatly facilitating new acquisitions, is not the measure of our possible knowledge. Else the first act of knowledge would be inexplicable, and all revelation of higher characters to lower would be precluded, as well as all progress to knowledge which surpasses our present attainments. (_c_) Even if knowledge depended upon similarity of nature and experience, we might still know God, since we are made in God’s image, and there are important analogies between the divine nature and our own.

(_a_) The dictum of Empedocles, “Similia similibus percipiuntur,”
must be supplemented by a second dictum, “Similia dissimilibus
percipiuntur.” All things are alike, in being objects. But knowing
is distinguishing, and there must be contrast between objects to
awaken our attention. God knows sin, though it is the antithesis
to his holy being. The ego knows the non-ego. We cannot know even
self, without objectifying it, distinguishing it from its
thoughts, and regarding it as another.

(_b_) _Versus_ Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 79-82—“Knowledge
is recognition and classification.” But we reply that a thing must
first be perceived in order to be recognized or compared with
something else; and this is as true of the first sensation as of
the later and more definite forms of knowledge,—indeed there is no
sensation which does not involve, as its complement, an at least
incipient perception; see Sir William Hamilton, Metaphysics, 351,
352; Porter, Human Intellect, 206.

(_c_) Porter, Human Intellect, 486—“Induction is possible only
upon the assumption that the intellect of man is a reflex of the
divine intellect, or that man is made in the image of God.” Note,
however, that man is made in God’s image, not God in man’s. The
painting is the image of the landscape, not, _vice versa_, the
landscape the image of the painting; for there is much in the
landscape that has nothing corresponding to it in the painting.
Idolatry perversely makes God in the image of man, and so deifies
man’s weakness and impurity. Trinity in God may have no exact
counterpart in man’s present constitution, though it may disclose
to us the goal of man’s future development and the meaning of the
increasing differentiation of man’s powers. Gore, Incarnation,
116—“If anthropomorphism as applied to God is false, yet
theomorphism as applied to man is true; man is made in God’s
image, and his qualities are, not the measure of the divine, but
their counterpart and real expression.” See Murphy, Scientific
Bases, 122; McCosh, in Internat. Rev., 1875:105; Bib. Sac.,
1867:624; Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, 2:4-8, and Study of
Religion, 1:94.

C. Because we know only that of which we can conceive, in the sense of forming an adequate mental image. We reply: (_a_) It is true that we know only that of which we can conceive, if by the term “conceive” we mean our distinguishing in thought the object known from all other objects. But, (_b_) The objection confounds conception with that which is merely its occasional accompaniment and help, namely, the picturing of the object by the imagination. In this sense, conceivability is not a final test of truth. (_c_) That the formation of a mental image is not essential to conception or knowledge, is plain when we remember that, as a matter of fact, we both conceive and know many things of which we cannot form a mental image of any sort that in the least corresponds to the reality; for example, force, cause, law, space, our own minds. So we may know God, though we cannot form an adequate mental image of him.

The objection here refuted is expressed most clearly in the words
of Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 25-36, 98—“The reality
underlying appearances is totally and forever inconceivable by
us.” Mansel, Prolegomena Logica, 77, 78 (_cf._ 26) suggests the
source of this error in a wrong view of the nature of the concept:
“The first distinguishing feature of a concept, viz.: that it
cannot in itself be depicted to sense or imagination.” Porter,
Human Intellect, 392 (see also 429, 656)—“The _concept_ is not a
mental image”—only the _percept_ is. Lotze: “Color in general is
not representable by any image; it looks neither green nor red,
but has no look whatever.” The generic horse has no particular
color, though the individual horse may be black, white, or bay. So
Sir William Hamilton speaks of “the unpicturable notions of the
intelligence.”

Martineau, Religion and Materialism, 39, 40—“This doctrine of
Nescience stands in exactly the same relation to causal power,
whether you construe it as Material Force or as Divine Agency.
Neither can be _observed_; one or the other must be _assumed_. If
you admit to the category of knowledge only what we learn from
observation, particular or generalized, then is Force unknown; if
you extend the word to what is imported by the intellect itself
into our cognitive acts, to make them such, then is God known.”
Matter, ether, energy, protoplasm, organism, life,—no one of these
can be portrayed to the imagination; yet Mr. Spencer deals with
them as objects of Science. If these are not inscrutable, why
should he regard the Power that gives unity to all things as
inscrutable?

Herbert Spencer is not in fact consistent with himself, for in
divers parts of his writings he calls the inscrutable Reality back
of phenomena the one, eternal, ubiquitous, infinite, ultimate,
absolute Existence, Power and Cause. “It seems,” says Father
Dalgairns, “that a great deal is known about the Unknowable.”
Chadwick, Unitarianism, 75—“The beggar phrase ‘Unknowable’
becomes, after Spencer’s repeated designations of it, as rich as
Croesus with all saving knowledge.” Matheson: “To know that we
know nothing is already to have reached a fact of knowledge.” If
Mr. Spencer intended to exclude God from the realm of Knowledge,
he should first have excluded him from the realm of Existence; for
to grant that he is, is already to grant that we not only may know
him, but that we actually to some extent do know him; see D. J.
Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 22; McCosh, Intuitions, 186-189 (Eng.
ed., 214); Murphy, Scientific Bases, 133; Bowne, Review of
Spencer, 30-34; New Englander, July, 1875:543, 544; Oscar Craig,
in Presb. Rev., July, 1883:594-602.

D. Because we can know truly only that which we know in whole and not in part. We reply: (_a_) The objection confounds partial knowledge with the knowledge of a part. We know the mind in part, but we do not know a part of the mind. (_b_) If the objection were valid, no real knowledge of anything would be possible, since we know no single thing in all its relations. We conclude that, although God is a being not composed of parts, we may yet have a partial knowledge of him, and this knowledge, though not exhaustive, may yet be real, and adequate to the purposes of science.

(_a_) The objection mentioned in the text is urged by Mansel,
Limits of Religious Thought, 97, 98, and is answered by Martineau,
Essays, 1:291. The mind does not exist in space, and it has no
parts: we cannot speak of its south-west corner, nor can we divide
it into halves. Yet we find the material for mental science in
partial knowledge of the mind. So, while we are not “geographers
of the divine nature” (Bowne, Review of Spencer, 72), we may say
with Paul, not “now know we a part of God,” but “now I know [God],
in part”_ (1 Cor. 13:12)_. We may know truly what we do not know
exhaustively; see _Eph. 3:19—_“to know the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge.” I do not perfectly understand myself, yet I
know myself in part; so I may know God, though I do not perfectly
understand him.

(_b_) The same argument that proves God unknowable proves the
universe unknowable also. Since every particle of matter in the
universe attracts every other, no one particle can be exhaustively
explained without taking account of all the rest. Thomas Carlyle:
“It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my
hand alters the centre of gravity of the universe.” Tennyson,
Higher Pantheism: “Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of
the crannies; Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little
flower; but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and
all in all, I should know what God and man is.” Schurman,
Agnosticism, 119—“Partial as it is, this vision of the divine
transfigures the life of man on earth.” Pfleiderer, Philos.
Religion, 1:167—“A faint-hearted agnosticism is worse than the
arrogant and titanic gnosticism against which it protests.”

E. Because all predicates of God are negative, and therefore furnish no real knowledge. We answer: (_a_) Predicates derived from our consciousness, such as spirit, love, and holiness, are positive. (_b_) The terms “infinite” and “absolute,” moreover, express not merely a negative but a positive idea—the idea, in the former case, of the absence of all limit, the idea that the object thus described goes on and on forever; the idea, in the latter case, of entire self-sufficiency. Since predicates of God, therefore, are not merely negative, the argument mentioned above furnishes no valid reason why we may not know him.

_Versus_ Sir William Hamilton, Metaphysics, 530—“The absolute and
the infinite can each only be conceived as a negation of the
thinkable; in other words, of the absolute and infinite we have no
conception at all.” Hamilton here confounds the infinite, or the
absence of _all_ limits, with the indefinite, or the absence of
all _known_ limits. _Per contra_, see Calderwood, Moral
Philosophy, 248, and Philosophy of the Infinite, 272—“Negation of
one thing is possible only by affirmation of another.” Porter,
Human Intellect, 652—“If the Sandwich Islanders, for lack of name,
had called the ox a _not-hog_, the use of a negative appellation
would not necessarily authorize the inference of a want of
definite conceptions or positive knowledge.” So with the infinite
or not-finite, the unconditioned or not-conditioned, the
independent or not-dependent,—these names do not imply that we
cannot conceive and know it as something positive. Spencer, First
Principles, 92—“Our consciousness of the Absolute, indefinite
though it is, is positive, and not negative.”

Schurman, Agnosticism, 100, speaks of “the farce of nescience
playing at omniscience in setting the bounds of science.” “The
agnostic,” he says, “sets up the invisible picture of a _Grand
Être_, formless and colorless in itself, absolutely separated from
man and from the world—blank within and void without—its very
existence indistinguishable from its non-existence, and, bowing
down before this idolatrous creation, he pours out his soul in
lamentations over the incognizableness of such a mysterious and
awful non-entity.... The truth is that the agnostic’s abstraction
of a Deity is unknown, only because it is unreal.” See McCosh,
Intuitions, 194, note; Mivart, Lessons from Nature, 363. God is
not necessarily infinite in every respect. He is infinite only in
every excellence. A plane which is unlimited in the one respect of
length may be limited in another respect, such as breadth. Our
doctrine here is not therefore inconsistent with what immediately
follows.

F. Because to know is to limit or define. Hence the Absolute as unlimited, and the Infinite as undefined, cannot be known. We answer: (_a_) God is absolute, not as existing in _no_ relation, but as existing in no _necessary_ relation; and (_b_) God is infinite, not as excluding all coexistence of the finite with himself, but as being the ground of the finite, and so unfettered by it. (_c_) God is actually limited by the unchangeableness of his own attributes and personal distinctions, as well as by his self-chosen relations to the universe he has created and to humanity in the person of Christ. God is therefore limited and defined in such a sense as to render knowledge of him possible.

_Versus_ Mansel, Limitations of Religious Thought, 75-84, 93-95;
_cf._ Spinoza: “Omnis determinatio est negatio;” hence to define
God is to deny him. But we reply that perfection is inseparable
from limitation. Man can be other than he is: not so God, at least
internally. But this limitation, inherent in his unchangeable
attributes and personal distinctions, is God’s perfection.
Externally, all limitations upon God are self-limitations, and so
are consistent with his perfection. That God should not be able
thus to limit himself in creation and redemption would render all
self-sacrifice in him impossible, and so would subject him to the
greatest of limitations. We may say therefore that God’s 1.
_Perfection_ involves his limitation to (_a_) personality, (_b_)
trinity, (_c_) righteousness; 2. _Revelation_ involves his
self-limitation in (_a_) decree, (_b_) creation, (_c_)
preservation, (_d_) government, (_e_) education of the world; 3.
_Redemption_ involves his infinite self-limitation in the (_a_)
person and (_b_) work of Jesus Christ; see A. H. Strong, Christ in
Creation, 87-101, and in Bap. Quar. Rev., Jan. 1891:521-532.

Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 135—“The infinite is not the
quantitative all; the absolute is not the unrelated.... Both
absolute and infinite mean only the independent ground of things.”
Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, Introduc., 10—“Religion has to do, not
with _an_ Object that must let itself be known because its very
existence is contingent upon its being known, but with _the_
Object in relation to whom we are truly subject, dependent upon
him, and waiting until he manifest himself.” James Martineau,
Study of Religion, 1:346—“We must not confound the _infinite_ with
the _total_.... The self-abnegation of infinity is but a form of
self-assertion, and the only form in which it can reveal
itself.... However instantaneous the omniscient thought, however
sure the almighty power, the execution has to be distributed in
time, and must have an order of successive steps; on no other
terms can the eternal become temporal, and the infinite
articulately speak in the finite.”

Perfect personality excludes, not _self_-determination, but
determination _from without_, determination _by another_. God’s
self-limitations are the self-limitations of love, and therefore
the evidences of his perfection. They are signs, not of weakness
but of power. God has limited himself to the method of evolution,
gradually unfolding himself in nature and in history. The
government of sinners by a holy God involves constant
self-repression. The education of the race is a long process of
divine forbearance; Herder: “The limitations of the pupil are
limitations of the teacher also.” In inspiration, God limits
himself by the human element through which he works. Above all, in
the person and work of Christ, we have infinite self-limitation:
Infinity narrows itself down to a point in the incarnation, and
holiness endures the agonies of the Cross. God’s promises are also
self-limitations. Thus both nature and grace are self-imposed
restrictions upon God, and these self-limitations are the means by
which he reveals himself. See Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 1:189,
195; Porter, Human Intellect, 653; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 130;
Calderwood, Philos. Infinite, 168; McCosh, Intuitions, 186;
Hickok, Rational Cosmology, 85; Martineau, Study of Religion,
2:85, 86, 362; Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:189-191.

G. Because all knowledge is relative to the knowing agent; that is, what we know, we know, not as it is objectively, but only as it is related to our own senses and faculties. In reply: (_a_) We grant that we can know only that which has relation to our faculties. But this is simply to say that we know only that which we come into mental contact with, that is, we know only what we know. But, (_b_) We deny that what we come into mental contact with is known by us as other than it is. So far as it is known at all, it is known as it is. In other words, the laws of our knowing are not merely arbitrary and regulative, but correspond to the nature of things. We conclude that, in theology, we are equally warranted in assuming that the laws of our thought are laws of God’s thought, and that the results of normally conducted thinking with regard to God correspond to the objective reality.

_Versus_ Sir Wm. Hamilton, Metaph., 96-116, and Herbert Spencer,
First Principles, 68-97. This doctrine of relativity is derived
from Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, who holds that _a priori_
judgments are simply “regulative.” But we reply that when our
primitive beliefs are found to be simply regulative, they will
cease to regulate. The forms of thought are also facts of nature.
The mind does not, like the glass of a kaleidoscope, itself
furnish the forms; it recognizes these as having an existence
external to itself. The mind reads its ideas, not _into_ nature,
but _in_ nature. Our intuitions are not green goggles, which make
all the world _seem_ green: they are the lenses of a microscope,
which enable us to see what is objectively _real_ (Royce, Spirit
of Mod. Philos., 125). Kant called our understanding “the
legislator of nature.” But it is so, only as discoverer of
nature’s laws, not as creator of them. Human reason does impose
its laws and forms upon the universe; but, in doing this, it
interprets the real meaning of the universe.

Ladd, Philos. of Knowledge: “All judgment implies an objective
truth according to which we judge, which constitutes the standard,
and with which we have something in common, _i. e._, our minds are
part of an infinite and eternal Mind.” French aphorism: “When you
are right, you are more right than you think you are.” God will
not put us to permanent intellectual confusion. Kant vainly wrote
“No thoroughfare” over the reason in its highest exercise.
Martineau, Study of Religion, 1:135, 136—“Over against Kant’s
assumption that the mind cannot know anything outside of itself,
we may set Comte’s equally unwarrantable assumption that the mind
cannot know itself or its states. We cannot have philosophy
without assumptions. You dogmatize if you say that the forms
correspond with reality; but you equally dogmatize if you say that
they do not.... 79—That our cognitive faculties correspond to
things _as they are_, is much less surprising than that they
should correspond to things _as they are not_.” W. T. Harris, in
Journ. Spec. Philos., 1:22, exposes Herbert Spencer’s
self-contradiction: “All knowledge is, not absolute, but relative;
our knowledge of this fact however is, not relative, but
absolute.”

Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 3:16-21, sets out with
a correct statement of the nature of knowledge, and gives in his
adhesion to the doctrine of Lotze, as distinguished from that of
Kant. Ritschl’s statement may be summarized as follows: “We deal,
not with the abstract God of metaphysics, but with the God
self-limited, who is revealed in Christ. We do not know either
things or God _apart from_ their phenomena or manifestations, as
Plato imagined; we do not know phenomena or manifestations
_alone_, without knowing either things or God, as Kant supposed;
but we do know both things and God _in_ their phenomena or
manifestations, as Lotze taught. We hold to no mystical union with
God, back of all experience in religion, as Pietism does; soul is
always and only active, and religion is the activity of the human
spirit, in which feeling, knowing and willing combine in an
intelligible order.”

But Dr. C. M. Mead, Ritschl’s Place in the History of Doctrine,
has well shown that Ritschl has not followed Lotze. His
“value-judgments” are simply an application to theology of the
“regulative” principle of Kant. He holds that we can know things
not as they are in themselves, but only as they are for us. We
reply that what things are worth for us depends on what they are
in themselves. Ritschl regards the doctrines of Christ’s
preexistence, divinity and atonement as intrusions of metaphysics
into theology, matters about which we cannot know, and with which
we have nothing to do. There is no propitiation or mystical union
with Christ; and Christ is our Example, but not our atoning
Savior. Ritschl does well in recognizing that love in us gives
eyes to the mind, and enables us to see the beauty of Christ and
his truth. But our judgment is not, as he holds, a merely
subjective value-judgment,—it is a coming in contact with
objective fact. On the theory of knowledge held by Kant, Hamilton
and Spencer, see Bishop Temple, Bampton Lectures for 1884:13; H.
B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 297-336; J. S. Mill, Examination,
1:113-134; Herbert, Modern Realism Examined; M. B. Anderson, art.:
“Hamilton,” in Johnson’s Encyclopædia; McCosh, Intuitions,
139-146, 340, 341, and Christianity and Positivism, 97-123;
Maurice, What is Revelation? Alden, Intellectual Philosophy,
48-79, esp. 71-79; Porter, Hum. Intellect, 523; Murphy, Scientific
Bases, 103; Bib. Sac. April, 1868:341; Princeton Rev., 1864:122;
Bowne, Review of Herbert Spencer, 76; Bowen, in Princeton Rev.,
March, 1878:445-448; Mind, April, 1878:257; Carpenter, Mental
Physiology, 117; Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 109-113;
Iverach, in Present Day Tracts, 5: No. 29; Martineau, Study of
Religion, 1:79, 120, 121, 135, 136.

3. God’s revelation of himself to man.

_In God’s actual revelation of himself and certain of these relations._—As we do not in this place attempt a positive proof of God’s existence or of man’s capacity for the knowledge of God, so we do not now attempt to prove that God has brought himself into contact with man’s mind by revelation. We shall consider the grounds of this belief hereafter. Our aim at present is simply to show that, granting the fact of revelation, a scientific theology is possible. This has been denied upon the following grounds:

A. That revelation, as a making known, is necessarily internal and subjective—either a mode of intelligence, or a quickening of man’s cognitive powers—and hence can furnish no objective facts such as constitute the proper material for science.

Morell, Philos. Religion, 128-131, 143—“The Bible cannot in strict
accuracy of language be called a revelation, since a revelation
always implies an actual process of intelligence in a living
mind.” F. W. Newman, Phases of Faith, 152—“Of our moral and
spiritual God we know nothing without—everything within.” Theodore
Parker: “Verbal revelation can never communicate a simple idea
like that of God, Justice, Love, Religion”; see review of Parker
in Bib. Sac., 18:24-27. James Martineau, Seat of Authority in
Religion: “As many minds as there are that know God at first hand,
so many revealing acts there have been, and as many as know him at
second hand are strangers to revelation”; so, assuming external
revelation to be impossible, Martineau subjects all the proofs of
such revelation to unfair destructive criticism. Pfleiderer,
Philos. Religion, 1:185—“As all revelation is originally an
_inner_ living experience, the springing up of religious truth in
the heart, no external event can belong in itself to revelation,
no matter whether it be naturally or supernaturally brought
about.” Professor George M. Forbes: “Nothing can be revealed to us
which we do not grasp with our reason. It follows that, so far as
reason acts normally, it is a part of revelation.” Ritchie, Darwin
and Hegel, 30—“The revelation of God is the growth of the idea of
God.”

In reply to this objection, urged mainly by idealists in philosophy, (_a_) We grant that revelation, to be effective, must be the means of inducing a new mode of intelligence, or in other words, must be understood. We grant that this understanding of divine things is impossible without a quickening of man’s cognitive powers. We grant, moreover, that revelation, when originally imparted, was often internal and subjective.

Matheson, Moments on the Mount, 51-53, on _Gal. 1:16—_“to reveal
his Son in me”: “The revelation on the way to Damascus would not
have enlightened Paul, had it been merely a vision to his eye.
Nothing can be revealed _to_ us which has not been revealed _in_
us. The eye does not see the beauty of the landscape, nor the ear
hear the beauty of music. So flesh and blood do not reveal Christ
to us. Without the teaching of the Spirit, the external facts will
be only like the letters of a book to a child that cannot read.”
We may say with Channing: “I am more sure that my rational nature
is from God, than that any book is the expression of his will.”

(_b_) But we deny that external revelation is therefore useless or impossible. Even if religious ideas sprang wholly from within, an external revelation might stir up the dormant powers of the mind. Religious ideas, however, do not spring wholly from within. External revelation can impart them. Man can reveal himself to man by external communications, and, if God has equal power with man, God can reveal himself to man in like manner.

Rogers, in his Eclipse of Faith, asks pointedly: “If Messrs.
Morell and Newman can teach by a book, cannot God do the same?”
Lotze, Microcosmos, 2:660 (book 9, chap. 4), speaks of revelation
as “either contained in some divine act of historic occurrence, or
continually repeated in men’s hearts.” But in fact there is no
alternative here; the strength of the Christian creed is that
God’s revelation is both external and internal; see Gore, in Lux
Mundi, 338. Rainy, in Critical Review, 1:1-21, well says that
Martineau unwarrantably _isolates_ the witness of God to the
individual soul. The inward needs to be combined with the outward,
in order to make sure that it is not a vagary of the imagination.
We need to distinguish God’s revelations from our own fancies.
Hence, before giving the internal, God commonly gives us the
external, as a standard by which to try our impressions. We are
finite and sinful, and we need authority. The external revelation
commends itself as authoritative to the heart which recognizes its
own spiritual needs. External authority evokes the inward witness
and gives added clearness to it, but only historical revelation
furnishes indubitable proof that God is love, and gives us
assurance that our longings after God are not in vain.

(_c_) Hence God’s revelation may be, and, as we shall hereafter see, it is, in great part, an external revelation in works and words. The universe is a revelation of God; God’s works in nature precede God’s words in history. We claim, moreover, that, in many cases where truth was originally communicated internally, the same Spirit who communicated it has brought about an external record of it, so that the internal revelation might be handed down to others than those who first received it.

We must not limit revelation to the Scriptures. The eternal Word
antedated the written word, and through the eternal Word God is
made known in nature and in history. Internal revelation is
preceded by, and conditioned upon, external revelation. In point
of time earth comes before man, and sensation before perception.
Action best expresses character, and historic revelation is more
by deeds than by words. Dorner, Hist. Prot. Theol., 1:231-264—“The
Word is not in the Scriptures alone. The whole creation reveals
the Word. In nature God shows his power; in incarnation his grace
and truth. Scripture testifies of these, but Scripture is not the
essential Word. The Scripture is truly apprehended and
appropriated when in it and through it we see the living and
present Christ. It does not bind men to itself alone, but it
points them to the Christ of whom it testifies. Christ is the
authority. In the Scriptures he points us to himself and demands
our faith in him. This faith, once begotten, leads us to new
appropriation of Scripture, but also to new criticism of
Scripture. We find Christ more and more in Scripture, and yet we
judge Scripture more and more by the standard which we find in
Christ.”