Chapter I: Idea Of Theology (2)

Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 71-82: “There is but one
authority—Christ. His Spirit works in many ways, but chiefly in
two: first, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and, secondly, the
leading of the church into the truth. The latter is not to be
isolated or separated from the former. Scripture is law to the
Christian consciousness, and Christian consciousness in time
becomes law to the Scripture—interpreting, criticizing, verifying
it. The word and the spirit answer to each other. Scripture and
faith are coördinate. Protestantism has exaggerated the first;
Romanism the second. Martineau fails to grasp the coördination of
Scripture and faith.”

(_d_) With this external record we shall also see that there is given under proper conditions a special influence of God’s Spirit, so to quicken our cognitive powers that the external record reproduces in our minds the ideas with which the minds of the writers were at first divinely filled.

We may illustrate the need of internal revelation from Egyptology,
which is impossible so long as the external revelation in the
hieroglyphics is uninterpreted; from the ticking of the clock in a
dark room, where only the lit candle enables us to tell the time;
from the landscape spread out around the Rigi in Switzerland,
invisible until the first rays of the sun touch the snowy mountain
peaks. External revelation (φανέρωσις, _Rom. 1:19, 20_) must be
supplemented by internal revelation (ἀποκάλυψις, _1 Cor. 2:10,
12_). Christ is the organ of external, the Holy Spirit the organ
of internal, revelation. In Christ (_2 Cor. 1:20_) are “the yea”
and “the Amen”—the objective certainty and the subjective
certitude, the reality and the realization.

Objective certainty must become subjective certitude in order to
be a scientific theology. Before conversion we have the first, the
external truth of Christ; only at conversion and after conversion
do we have the second, “Christ formed in us”_ (Gal. 4:19)_. We
have objective revelation at Sinai (_Ex. 20:22_); subjective
revelation in Elisha’s knowledge of Gehazi (_2 K. 5:26_). James
Russell Lowell, Winter Evening Hymn to my Fire: “Therefore with
thee I love to read Our brave old poets: at thy touch how stirs
Life in the withered words! how swift recede Time’s shadows! and
how glows again Through its dead mass the incandescent verse, As
when upon the anvil of the brain It glittering lay, cyclopically
wrought By the fast throbbing hammers of the poet’s thought!”

(_e_) Internal revelations thus recorded, and external revelations thus interpreted, both furnish objective facts which may serve as proper material for science. Although revelation in its widest sense may include, and as constituting the ground of the possibility of theology does include, both insight and illumination, it may also be used to denote simply a provision of the external means of knowledge, and theology has to do with inward revelations only as they are expressed in, or as they agree with, this objective standard.

We have here suggested the vast scope and yet the insuperable
limitations of theology. So far as God is revealed, whether in
nature, history, conscience, or Scripture, theology may find
material for its structure. Since Christ is not simply the
incarnate Son of God but also the eternal Word, the only Revealer
of God, there is no theology apart from Christ, and all theology
is Christian theology. Nature and history are but the dimmer and
more general disclosures of the divine Being, of which the Cross
is the culmination and the key. God does not intentionally conceal
himself. He wishes to be known. He reveals himself at all times
just as fully as the capacity of his creatures will permit. The
infantile intellect cannot understand God’s boundlessness, nor can
the perverse disposition understand God’s disinterested affection.
Yet all truth is in Christ and is open to discovery by the
prepared mind and heart.

The Infinite One, so far as he is unrevealed, is certainly
unknowable to the finite. But the Infinite One, so far as he
manifests himself, is knowable. This suggests the meaning of the
declarations: _John 1:18—_“No man hath seen God at any time; the
only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath
declared him”; _14:9—_“he that hath seen me hath seen the Father”;
_1 Tim. 6:16—_“whom no man hath seen, nor can see.” We therefore
approve of the definition of Kaftan, Dogmatik, 1—“Dogmatics is the
science of the Christian truth which is believed and acknowledged
in the church upon the ground of the divine revelation”—in so far
as it limits the scope of theology to truth revealed by God and
apprehended by faith. But theology presupposes both God’s external
and God’s internal revelations, and these, as we shall see,
include nature, history, conscience and Scripture. On the whole
subject, see Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:37-43; Nitzsch, System Christ.
Doct., 72; Luthardt, Fund. Truths, 193; Auberlen, Div. Rev.,
Introd., 29; Martineau, Essays, 1:171, 280; Bib. Sac., 1867:593,
and 1872:428; Porter, Human Intellect, 373-375; C. M. Mead, in
Boston Lectures, 1871:58.

B. That many of the truths thus revealed are too indefinite to constitute the material for science, because they belong to the region of the feelings, because they are beyond our full understanding, or because they are destitute of orderly arrangement.

We reply:

(_a_) Theology has to do with subjective feelings only as they can be defined, and shown to be effects of objective truth upon the mind. They are not more obscure than are the facts of morals or of psychology, and the same objection which would exclude such feelings from theology would make these latter sciences impossible.

See Jacobi and Schleiermacher, who regard theology as a mere
account of devout Christian feelings, the grounding of which in
objective historical facts is a matter of comparative indifference
(Hagenbach, Hist. Doctrine, 2:401-403). Schleiermacher therefore
called his system of theology “Der Christliche Glaube,” and many
since his time have called their systems by the name of
“Glaubenslehre.” Ritschl’s “value-judgments,” in like manner,
render theology a merely subjective science, if any subjective
science is possible. Kaftan improves upon Ritschl, by granting
that we know, not only Christian feelings, but also Christian
facts. Theology is the science of God, and not simply the science
of faith. Allied to the view already mentioned is that of
Feuerbach, to whom religion is a matter of subjective fancy; and
that of Tyndall, who would remit theology to the region of vague
feeling and aspiration, but would exclude it from the realm of
science; see Feuerbach, Essence of Christianity, translated by
Marian Evans (George Eliot); also Tyndall, Belfast Address.

(_b_) Those facts of revelation which are beyond our full understanding may, like the nebular hypothesis in astronomy, the atomic theory in chemistry, or the doctrine of evolution in biology, furnish a principle of union between great classes of other facts otherwise irreconcilable. We may define our concepts of God, and even of the Trinity, at least sufficiently to distinguish them from all other concepts; and whatever difficulty may encumber the putting of them into language only shows the importance of attempting it and the value of even an approximate success.

Horace Bushnell: “Theology can never be a science, on account of
the infirmities of language.” But this principle would render void
both ethical and political science. Fisher, Nat. and Meth. of
Revelation, 145—“Hume and Gibbon refer to faith as something too
sacred to rest on proof. Thus religious beliefs are made to hang
in mid-air, without any support. But the foundation of these
beliefs is no less solid for the reason that empirical tests are
not applicable to them. The data on which they rest are real, and
the inferences from the data are fairly drawn.” Hodgson indeed
pours contempt on the whole intuitional method by saying:
“Whatever you are totally ignorant of, assert to be the
explanation of everything else!” Yet he would probably grant that
he begins his investigations by assuming his own existence. The
doctrine of the Trinity is not wholly comprehensible by us, and we
accept it at the first upon the testimony of Scripture; the full
proof of it is found in the fact that each successive doctrine of
theology is bound up with it, and with it stands or falls. The
Trinity is rational because it explains Christian experience as
well as Christian doctrine.

(_c_) Even though there were no orderly arrangement of these facts, either in nature or in Scripture, an accurate systematizing of them by the human mind would not therefore be proved impossible, unless a principle were assumed which would show all physical science to be equally impossible. Astronomy and geology are constructed by putting together multitudinous facts which at first sight seem to have no order. So with theology. And yet, although revelation does not present to us a dogmatic system ready-made, a dogmatic system is not only implicitly contained therein, but parts of the system are wrought out in the epistles of the New Testament, as for example in Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:3, 4; 8:6; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 6:1, 2.

We may illustrate the construction of theology from the dissected
map, two pieces of which a father puts together, leaving his child
to put together the rest. Or we may illustrate from the physical
universe, which to the unthinking reveals little of its order.
“Nature makes no fences.” One thing seems to glide into another.
It is man’s business to distinguish and classify and combine.
Origen: “God gives us truth in single threads, which we must weave
into a finished texture.” Andrew Fuller said of the doctrines of
theology that “they are united together like chain-shot, so that,
whichever one enters the heart, the others must certainly follow.”
George Herbert: “Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine, And
the configuration of their glory; Seeing not only how each verse
doth shine, But all the constellations of the story!”

Scripture hints at the possibilities of combination, in _Rom.
5:12-19_, with its grouping of the facts of sin and salvation
about the two persons, Adam and Christ; in _Rom. 4:24, 25_, with
its linking of the resurrection of Christ and our justification;
in _1 Cor. 3:6_, with its indication of the relations between the
Father and Christ; in _1 Tim. 3:16_, with its poetical summary of
the facts of redemption (see Commentaries of DeWette, Meyer,
Fairbairn); in _Heb. 6:1, 2_, with its statement of the first
principles of the Christian faith. God’s furnishing of concrete
facts in theology, which we ourselves are left to systematize, is
in complete accordance with his method of procedure with regard to
the development of other sciences. See Martineau, Essays, 1:29,
40; Am. Theol. Rev., 1859:101-126—art. on the Idea, Sources and
Uses of Christian Theology.

IV. Necessity of Theology.

The necessity of theology has its grounds:

(_a_) _In the organizing instinct of the human mind._ This organizing principle is a part of our constitution. The mind cannot endure confusion or apparent contradiction in known facts. The tendency to harmonize and unify its knowledge appears as soon as the mind becomes reflective; just in proportion to its endowments and culture does the impulse to systematize and formulate increase. This is true of all departments of human inquiry, but it is peculiarly true of our knowledge of God. Since the truth with regard to God is the most important of all, theology meets the deepest want of man’s rational nature. Theology is a rational necessity. If all existing theological systems were destroyed to-day, new systems would rise to-morrow. So inevitable is the operation of this law, that those who most decry theology show nevertheless that they have made a theology for themselves, and often one sufficiently meagre and blundering. Hostility to theology, where it does not originate in mistaken fears for the corruption of God’s truth or in a naturally illogical structure of mind, often proceeds from a license of speculation which cannot brook the restraints of a complete Scriptural system.

President E. G. Robinson: “Every man has as much theology as he
can hold.” Consciously or unconsciously, we philosophize, as
naturally as we speak prose. “Se moquer de la philosophie c’est
vraiment philosopher.” Gore, Incarnation, 21—“Christianity became
metaphysical, only because man is rational. This rationality means
that he must attempt ‘to give account of things,’ as Plato said,
‘because he was a man, not merely because he was a Greek.’ ” Men
often denounce systematic theology, while they extol the sciences
of matter. Has God then left only the facts with regard to himself
in so unrelated a state that man cannot put them together? All
other sciences are valuable only as they contain or promote the
knowledge of God. If it is praiseworthy to classify beetles, one
science may be allowed to reason concerning God and the soul. In
speaking of Schelling, Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 173,
satirically exhorts us: “Trust your genius; follow your noble
heart; change your doctrine whenever your heart changes, and
change your heart often,—such is the practical creed of the
romanticists.” Ritchie, Darwin and Hegel, 3—“Just those persons
who disclaim metaphysics are sometimes most apt to be infected
with the disease they profess to abhor—and not to know when they
have it.” See Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 27-52; Murphy,
Scientific Bases of Faith, 195-199.

(_b_) _In the relation of systematic truth to the development of character._ Truth thoroughly digested is essential to the growth of Christian character in the individual and in the church. All knowledge of God has its influence upon character, but most of all the knowledge of spiritual facts in their relations. Theology cannot, as has sometimes been objected, deaden the religious affections, since it only draws out from their sources and puts into rational connection with each other the truths which are best adapted to nourish the religions affections. On the other hand, the strongest Christians are those who have the firmest grasp upon the great doctrines of Christianity; the heroic ages of the church are those which have witnessed most consistently to them; the piety that can be injured by the systematic exhibition of them must be weak, or mystical, or mistaken.

Some knowledge is necessary to conversion—at least, knowledge of
sin and knowledge of a Savior; and the putting together of these
two great truths is a beginning of theology. All subsequent growth
of character is conditioned upon the increase of this knowledge.
_Col. 1:10—αὐξανόμενοι τῇ ἐπιγνώσει τοῦ Θεοῦ [omit ἐν] =
_“increasing by the knowledge of God”—the instrumental dative
represents the knowledge of God as the dew or rain which nurtures
the growth of the plant; _cf._ _3 Pet. 3:18—_“grow in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” For texts
which represent truth as nourishment, see _Jer. 3:15—_“feed you
with knowledge and understanding”; _Mat. 4:4—_“Man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of God”; _1 Cor. 3:1, 2—_“babes in Christ ... I fed you with milk,
not with meat”; _Heb. 5:14—_“but solid food is for full-grown
men.” Christian character rests upon Christian truth as its
foundation; see _1 Cor. 3:10-15—_“I laid a foundation, and another
buildeth thereon.” See Dorus Clarke, Saying the Catechism; Simon,
on Christ Doct. and Life, in Bib. Sac., July, 1884:433-439.

Ignorance is the mother of superstition, not of devotion. Talbot
W. Chambers:—“Doctrine without duty is a tree without fruits; duty
without doctrine is a tree without roots.” Christian morality is a
fruit which grows only from the tree of Christian doctrine. We
cannot long keep the fruits of faith after we have cut down the
tree upon which they have grown. Balfour, Foundations of Belief,
82—“Naturalistic virtue is parasitic, and when the host perishes,
the parasite perishes also. Virtue without religion will die.”
Kidd, Social Evolution, 214—“Because the fruit survives for a time
when removed from the tree, and even mellows and ripens, shall we
say that it is independent of the tree?” The twelve manner of
fruits on the Christmas-tree are only tacked on,—they never grew
there, and they can never reproduce their kind. The withered apple
swells out under the exhausted receiver, but it will go back again
to its former shrunken form; so the self-righteousness of those
who get out of the atmosphere of Christ and have no divine ideal
with which to compare themselves. W. M. Lisle: “It is the mistake
and disaster of the Christian world that effects are sought
instead of causes.” George A. Gordon, Christ of To-day,
28—“Without the historical Christ and personal love for that
Christ, the broad theology of our day will reduce itself to a
dream, powerless to rouse a sleeping church.”

(_c_) _In the importance to the preacher of definite and just views of Christian doctrine._ His chief intellectual qualification must be the power clearly and comprehensively to conceive, and accurately and powerfully to express, the truth. He can be the agent of the Holy Spirit in converting and sanctifying men, only as he can wield “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17), or, in other language, only as he can impress truth upon the minds and consciences of his hearers. Nothing more certainly nullifies his efforts than confusion and inconsistency in his statements of doctrine. His object is to replace obscure and erroneous conceptions among his hearers by those which are correct and vivid. He cannot do this without knowing the facts with regard to God in their relations—knowing them, in short, as parts of a system. With this truth he is put in trust. To mutilate it or misrepresent it, is not only sin against the Revealer of it,—it may prove the ruin of men’s souls. The best safeguard against such mutilation or misrepresentation, is the diligent study of the several doctrines of the faith in their relations to one another, and especially to the central theme of theology, the person and work of Jesus Christ.

The more refined and reflective the age, the more it requires
reasons for feeling. Imagination, as exercised in poetry and
eloquence and as exhibited in politics or war, is not less strong
than of old,—it is only more rational. Notice the progress from
“Buncombe”, in legislative and forensic oratory, to sensible and
logical address. Bassanio in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice,
1:1:113—“Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing.... His
reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff.”
So in pulpit oratory, mere Scripture quotation and fervid appeal
are no longer sufficient. As well be a howling dervish, as to
indulge in windy declamation. Thought is the staple of preaching.
Feeling must be roused, but only by bringing men to “the knowledge
of the truth”_ (2 Tim. 2:25)_. The preacher must furnish the basis
for feeling by producing intelligent conviction. He must instruct
before he can move. If the object of the preacher is first to know
God, and secondly to make God known, then the study of theology is
absolutely necessary to his success.

Shall the physician practice medicine without study of physiology,
or the lawyer practice law without study of jurisprudence?
Professor Blackie: “One may as well expect to make a great patriot
out of a fencing-master, as to make a great orator out of a mere
rhetorician.” The preacher needs doctrine, to prevent his being a
mere barrel-organ, playing over and over the same tunes. John
Henry Newman: “The false preacher is one who has to say something;
the true preacher is one who has something to say.” Spurgeon,
Autobiography, 1:167—“Constant change of creed is sure loss. If a
tree has to be taken up two or three times a year, you will not
need to build a very large loft in which to store the apples. When
people are shifting their doctrinal principles, they do not bring
forth much fruit.... We shall never have great preachers till we
have great divines. You cannot build a man of war out of a
currant-bush, nor can great soul-moving preachers be formed out of
superficial students.” Illustrate the harmfulness of ignorant and
erroneous preaching, by the mistake in a physician’s prescription;
by the wrong trail at Lake Placid which led astray those ascending
Whiteface; by the sowing of acorns whose crop was gathered only
after a hundred years. Slight divergences from correct doctrine on
our part may be ruinously exaggerated in those who come after us.
Though the moth-miller has no teeth, its offspring has. _2 Tim.
2:2—_“And the things which thou hast heard from me among many
witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able
to teach others also.”

(_d_) _In the intimate connection between correct doctrine and the safety and aggressive power of the church._ The safety and progress of the church is dependent upon her “holding the pattern of sound words” (2 Tim. 1:13), and serving as “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). Defective understanding of the truth results sooner or later in defects of organization, of operation, and of life. Thorough comprehension of Christian truth as an organized system furnishes, on the other hand, not only an invaluable defense against heresy and immorality, but also an indispensable stimulus and instrument in aggressive labor for the world’s conversion.

The creeds of Christendom have not originated in mere speculative
curiosity and logical hair-splitting. They are statements of
doctrine in which the attacked and imperiled church has sought to
express the truth which constitutes her very life. Those who
deride the early creeds have small conception of the intellectual
acumen and the moral earnestness which went to the making of them.
The creeds of the third and fourth centuries embody the results of
controversies which exhausted the possibilities of heresy with
regard to the Trinity and the person of Christ, and which set up
bars against false doctrine to the end of time. Mahaffy: “What
converted the world was not the example of Christ’s life,—it was
the dogma of his death.” Coleridge: “He who does not withstand,
has no standing ground of his own.” Mrs. Browning: “Entire
intellectual toleration is the mark of those who believe nothing.”
E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 360-362—“A doctrine is but a
precept in the style of a proposition; and a precept is but a
doctrine in the form of a command.... Theology is God’s garden;
its trees are trees of his planting; and ‘all the trees of the
Lord are full of sap’_ (Ps. 104:16)._”

Bose, Ecumenical Councils: “A creed is not catholic because a
council of many or of few bishops decreed it, but because it
expresses the common conviction of entire generations of men and
women who turned their understanding of the New Testament into
those forms of words.” Dorner: “The creeds are the precipitate of
the religious consciousness of mighty men and times.” Foster,
Christ. Life and Theol., 162—“It ordinarily requires the shock of
some great event to startle men into clear apprehension and
crystallization of their substantial belief. Such a shock was
given by the rough and coarse doctrine of Arius, upon which the
conclusion arrived at in the Council of Nice followed as rapidly
as in chilled water the crystals of ice will sometimes form when
the containing vessel receives a blow.” Balfour, Foundations of
Belief, 287—“The creeds were not explanations, but rather denials
that the Arian and Gnostic explanations were sufficient, and
declarations that they irremediably impoverished the idea of the
Godhead. They insisted on preserving that idea in all its
inexplicable fulness.” Denny, Studies in Theology, 192—“Pagan
philosophies tried to capture the church for their own ends, and
to turn it into a school. In self-defense the church was compelled
to become somewhat of a school on its own account. It had to
assert its facts; it had to define its ideas; it had to interpret
in its own way those facts which men were misinterpreting.”

Professor Howard Osgood: “A creed is like a backbone. A man does
not need to wear his backbone in front of him; but he must have a
backbone, and a straight one, or he will be a flexible if not a
humpbacked Christian.” Yet we must remember that creeds are
_credita_, and not _credenda_; historical statements of what the
church _has_ believed, not infallible prescriptions of what the
church _must_ believe. George Dana Boardman, The Church,
98—“Creeds are apt to become cages.” Schurman, Agnosticism,
151—“The creeds were meant to be defensive fortifications of
religion; alas, that they should have sometimes turned their
artillery against the citadel itself.” T. H. Green: “We are told
that we must be loyal to the beliefs of the Fathers. Yes, but who
knows what the Fathers believe now?” George A. Gordon, Christ of
To-day, 60—“The assumption that the Holy Spirit is not concerned
in the development of theological thought, nor manifest in the
intellectual evolution of mankind, is the superlative heresy of
our generation.... The metaphysics of Jesus are absolutely
essential to his ethics.... If his thought is a dream, his
endeavor for man is a delusion.” See Schaff, Creeds of
Christendom, 1:8, 15, 16; Storrs, Div. Origin of Christianity,
121; Ian Maclaren (John Watson), Cure of Souls, 152; Frederick
Harrison, in Fortnightly Rev., Jan. 1889.

(_e_) _In the direct and indirect injunctions of Scripture._ The Scripture urges upon us the thorough and comprehensive study of the truth (John 5:39, marg.,—“Search the Scriptures”), the comparing and harmonizing of its different parts (1 Cor. 2:13—“comparing spiritual things with spiritual”), the gathering of all about the great central fact of revelation (Col. 1:27—“which is Christ in you, the hope of glory”), the preaching of it in its wholeness as well as in its due proportions (2 Tim. 4:2—“Preach the word”). The minister of the Gospel is called “a scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 13:52); the “pastors” of the churches are at the same time to be “teachers” (Eph. 4:11); the bishop must be “apt to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2), “handling aright the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), “holding to the faithful word which is according to the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in the sound doctrine and to convict the gainsayers” (Tit. 1:9).

As a means of instructing the church and of securing progress in
his own understanding of Christian truth, it is well for the
pastor to preach regularly each month a doctrinal sermon, and to
expound in course the principal articles of the faith. The
treatment of doctrine in these sermons should be simple enough to
be comprehensible by intelligent youth; it should be made vivid
and interesting by the help of brief illustrations; and at least
one-third of each sermon should be devoted to the practical
applications of the doctrine propounded. See Jonathan Edwards’s
sermon on the Importance of the Knowledge of Divine Truth, in
Works, 4:1-15. The actual sermons of Edwards, however, are not
models of doctrinal preaching for our generation. They are too
scholastic in form, too metaphysical for substance; there is too
little of Scripture and too little of illustration. The doctrinal
preaching of the English Puritans in a similar manner addressed
itself almost wholly to adults. The preaching of our Lord on the
other hand was adapted also to children. No pastor should count
himself faithful, who permits his young people to grow up without
regular instruction from the pulpit in the whole circle of
Christian doctrine. Shakespeare, K. Henry VI, 2nd part,
4:7—“Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge the wing wherewith
we fly to heaven.”

V. Relation of Theology to Religion.

Theology and religion are related to each other as effects, in different spheres, of the same cause. As theology is an effect produced in the sphere of systematic thought by the facts respecting God and the universe, so religion is an effect which these same facts produce in the sphere of individual and collective life. With regard to the term “religion”, notice:

1. Derivation.

(_a_) The derivation from _religāre_, “to bind back” (man to God), is negatived by the authority of Cicero and of the best modern etymologists; by the difficulty, on this hypothesis, of explaining such forms as _religio_, _religens_; and by the necessity, in that case, of presupposing a fuller knowledge of sin and redemption than was common to the ancient world.

(_b_) The more correct derivation is from _relegĕre_, “to go over again,” “carefully to ponder.” Its original meaning is therefore “reverent observance” (of duties due to the gods).

For advocacy of the derivation of _religio_, as meaning “binding
duty,” from _religāre_, see Lange, Dogmatik, 1:185-196. This
derivation was first proposed by Lactantius, Inst. Div., 4:28, a
Christian writer. To meet the objection that the form _religio_
seems derived from a verb of the third conjugation, Lange cites
_rebellio_, from _rebellāre_, and _optio_, from _optāre_. But we
reply that these verbs of the first conjugation, like many others,
are probably derived from obsolete verbs of the third conjugation.
For the derivation favored in the text, see Curtius, Griechische
Etymologie, 5te Aufl., 364; Fick, Vergl. Wörterb. der indoger.
Spr., 2:227; Vanicek, Gr.-Lat. Etym. Wörterb., 2:829; Andrews,
Latin Lexicon, _in voce_; Nitzsch, System of Christ. Doctrine, 7;
Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 75-77; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 1:6;
Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:18; Menzies, History of Religion, 11; Max
Müller, Natural Religion, lect. 2.

2. False Conceptions.

(_a_) Religion is not, as Hegel declared, a kind of knowing; for it would then be only an incomplete form of philosophy, and the measure of knowledge in each case would be the measure of piety.

In a system of idealistic pantheism, like that of Hegel, God is
the subject of religion as well as its object. Religion is God’s
knowing of himself through the human consciousness. Hegel did not
utterly ignore other elements in religion. “Feeling, intuition,
and faith belong to it,” he said, “and mere cognition is
one-sided.” Yet he was always looking for the movement of
_thought_ in all forms of life; God and the universe were but
developments of the primordial _idea_. “What knowledge is worth
knowing,” he asked, “if God is unknowable? To know God is eternal
life, and thinking is also true worship.” Hegel’s error was in
regarding life as a process of thought, rather than in regarding
thought as a process of life. Here was the reason for the
bitterness between Hegel and Schleiermacher. Hegel rightly
considered that feeling must become intelligent before it is truly
religious, but he did not recognize the supreme importance of love
in a theological system. He gave even less place to the will than
he gave to the emotions, and he failed to see that the knowledge
of God of which Scripture speaks is a knowing, not of the
intellect alone, but of the whole man, including the affectional
and voluntary nature.

Goethe: “How can a man come to know himself? Never by thinking,
but by doing. Try to do your duty, and you will know at once what
you are worth. You cannot play the flute by blowing alone,—you
must use your fingers.” So we can never come to know God by
thinking alone. _John 7:17—_“If any man willeth to do his will, he
will know of the teaching, whether it is of God.” The Gnostics,
Stapfer, Henry VIII, all show that there may be much theological
knowledge without true religion. Chillingworth’s maxim, “The Bible
only, the religion of Protestants,” is inadequate and inaccurate;
for the Bible, without faith, love, and obedience, may become a
fetich and a snare: _John 5:39,40—_“Ye search the Scriptures, ...
and ye will not come to me, that ye may have life.” See Sterrett,
Studies in Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion; Porter, Human
Intellect, 59, 60, 412, 525-536, 589, 650; Morell, Hist. Philos.,
476, 477; Hamerton, Intel. Life, 214; Bib. Sac., 9:374.

(_b_) Religion is not, as Schleiermacher held, the mere feeling of dependence; for such feeling of dependence is not religious, unless exercised toward God and accompanied by moral effort.

In German theology, Schleiermacher constitutes the transition from
the old rationalism to the evangelical faith. “Like Lazarus, with
the grave clothes of a pantheistic philosophy entangling his
steps,” yet with a Moravian experience of the life of God in the
soul, he based religion upon the inner certainties of Christian
feeling. But, as Principal Fairbairn remarks, “Emotion is impotent
unless it speaks out of conviction; and where conviction is, there
will be emotion which is potent to persuade.” If Christianity is
religious feeling alone, then there is no essential difference
between it and other religions, for all alike are products of the
religious sentiment. But Christianity is distinguished from other
religions by its peculiar religious conceptions. Doctrine precedes
life, and Christian doctrine, not mere religious feeling, is the
cause of Christianity as a distinctive religion. Though faith
begins in feeling, moreover, it does not end there. We see the
worthlessness of mere feeling in the transient emotions of
theatre-goers, and in the occasional phenomena of revivals.

Sabatier, Philos. Relig., 27, adds to Schleiermacher’s passive
element of _dependence_, the active element of _prayer_. Kaftan,
Dogmatik, 10—“Schleiermacher regards God as the _Source_ of our
being, but forgets that he is also our _End_.” Fellowship and
progress are as important elements in religion as is dependence;
and fellowship must come before progress—such fellowship as
presupposes pardon and life. Schleiermacher apparently believed in
neither a personal God nor his own personal immortality; see his
Life and Letters, 2:77-90; Martineau, Study of Religion, 2:357.
Charles Hodge compares him to a ladder in a pit—a good thing for
those who wish to get out, but not for those who wish to get in.
Dorner: “The Moravian brotherhood was his mother; Greece was his
nurse.” On Schleiermacher, see Herzog, Realencyclopädie, _in
voce_; Bib. Sac., 1852:375; 1883:534; Liddon, Elements of
Religion, lect. I; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:14; Julius Müller, Doctrine
of Sin, 1:175; Fisher, Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 563-570;
Caird, Philos. Religion, 160-186.

(_c_) Religion is not, as Kant maintained, morality or moral action; for morality is conformity to an abstract law of right, while religion is essentially a relation to a person, from whom the soul receives blessing and to whom it surrenders itself in love and obedience.

Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Beschluss: “I know of but
two beautiful things, the starry heavens above my head, and the
sense of duty within my heart.” But the mere sense of duty often
distresses. We object to the word “obey” as the imperative of
religion, because (1) it makes religion a matter of the will only;
(2) will presupposes affection; (3) love is not subject to will;
(4) it makes God all law, and no grace; (5) it makes the Christian
a servant only, not a friend; _cf._ _John 15:15—_“No longer do I
call you servants ... but I have called you friends”—a relation
not of service but of love (Westcott, Bib. Com., _in loco_). The
voice that speaks is the voice of love, rather than the voice of
law. We object also to Matthew Arnold’s definition: “Religion is
ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling; morality touched
with emotion.” This leaves out of view the receptive element in
religion, as well as its relation to a personal God. A truer
statement would be that religion is morality toward God, as
morality is religion toward man. Bowne, Philos. of Theism,
251—“Morality that goes beyond mere conscientiousness must have
recourse to religion”; see Lotze, Philos. of Religion, 128-142.
Goethe: “Unqualified activity, of whatever kind, leads at last to
bankruptcy”; see also Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:65-69;
Shedd, Sermons to the Natural Man, 244-246; Liddon, Elements of
Religion, 19.

3. Essential Idea.

Religion in its essential idea is a life in God, a life lived in recognition of God, in communion with God, and under control of the indwelling Spirit of God. Since it is a life, it cannot be described as consisting solely in the exercise of any one of the powers of intellect, affection, or will. As physical life involves the unity and coöperation of all the organs of the body, so religion, or spiritual life, involves the united working of all the powers of the soul. To feeling, however, we must assign the logical priority, since holy affection toward God, imparted in regeneration, is the condition of truly knowing God and of truly serving him.

See Godet, on the Ultimate Design of Man—“God in man, and man in
God”—in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 5-79,
and Religionsphilosophie, 255—Religion is “Sache des ganzen
Geisteslebens”: Crane, Religion of To-morrow, 4—“Religion is the
personal influence of the immanent God”; Sterrett, Reason and
Authority in Religion, 31, 32—“Religion is the reciprocal relation
or communion of God and man, involving (1) revelation, (2) faith”;
Dr. J. W. A. Stewart: “Religion is fellowship with God”; Pascal:
“Piety is God sensible to the heart”; Ritschl, Justif. and
Reconcil., 13—“Christianity is an ellipse with two foci—Christ as
Redeemer and Christ as King, Christ for us and Christ in us,
redemption and morality, religion and ethics”; Kaftan, Dogmatik,
8—“The Christian religion is (1) the _kingdom of God_ as a goal
above the world, to be attained by moral development here, and (2)
_reconciliation with God_ permitting attainment of this goal in
spite of our sins. Christian theology once grounded itself in
man’s natural knowledge of God; we now start with religion, _i.
e._, that Christian knowledge of God which we call faith.”

Herbert Spencer: “Religion is an _a priori_ theory of the
universe”; Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, 43, adds: “which assumes
intelligent personality as the originating cause of the universe,
science dealing with the _How_, the phenomenal process, religion
dealing with the _Who_, the intelligent Personality who works
through the process.” Holland, in Lux Mundi, 27—“Natural life is
the life in God which has not yet arrived at this recognition”—the
recognition of the fact that God is in all things—“it is not yet,
as such, religious; ... Religion is the discovery, by the son, of
a Father who is in all his works, yet is distinct from them all.”
Dewey, Psychology, 283—“Feeling finds its absolutely universal
expression in religious emotion, which is the finding or
realization of self in a completely realized personality which
unites in itself truth, or the complete unity of the relations of
all objects, beauty or the complete unity of all ideal values, and
rightness or the complete unity of all persons. The emotion which
accompanies the religious life is that which accompanies the
complete activity of ourselves; the self is realized and finds its
true life in God.” Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 262—“Ethics is simply
the growing insight into, and the effort to actualize in society,
the sense of fundamental kinship and identity of substance in all
men; while religion is the emotion and the devotion which attend
the realization in our self-consciousness of an inmost spiritual
relationship arising out of that unity of substance which
constitutes man the true son of the eternal Father.” See Van
Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 81-85; Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:227;
Nitzsch, Syst. of Christ. Doct., 10-28; Luthardt, Fund. Truths,
147; Twesten, Dogmatik, 1:12.

4. Inferences.

From this definition of religion it follows:

(_a_) That in strictness there is but one religion. Man is a religious being, indeed, as having the capacity for this divine life. He is actually religious, however, only when he enters into this living relation to God. False religions are the caricatures which men given to sin, or the imaginations which men groping after light, form of this life of the soul in God.

Peabody, Christianity the Religion of Nature, 18—“If Christianity
be true, it is not _a_ religion, but _the_ religion. If Judaism be
also true, it is so not as distinct from but as coincident with
Christianity, the one religion to which it can bear only the
relation of a part to the whole. If there be portions of truth in
other religious systems, they are not portions of other religions,
but portions of the one religion which somehow or other became
incorporated with fables and falsities.” John Caird, Fund. Ideas
of Christianity, 1:25—“You can never get at the true idea or
essence of religion merely by trying to find out something that is
common to all religions; and it is not the lower religions that
explain the higher, but conversely the higher religion explains
all the lower religions.” George P. Fisher: “The recognition of
certain elements of truth in the ethnic religions does not mean
that Christianity has defects which are to be repaired by
borrowing from them; it only means that the ethnic faiths have in
fragments what Christianity has as a whole. Comparative religion
does not bring to Christianity new truth; it provides
illustrations of how Christian truth meets human needs and
aspirations, and gives a full vision of that which the most
spiritual and gifted among the heathen only dimly discerned.”

Dr. C. H. Parkhurst, sermon on _Proverbs 20:27—_“The spirit of man
is the lamp of Jehovah”—“a lamp, but not necessarily lighted; a
lamp that can be lit only by the touch of a divine flame”—man has
naturally and universally a capacity for religion, but is by no
means naturally and universally religious. All false religions
have some element of truth; otherwise they could never have gained
or kept their hold upon mankind. We need to recognize these
elements of truth in dealing with them. There is some silver in a
counterfeit dollar, else it would deceive no one; but the thin
washing of silver over the lead does not prevent it from being bad
money. Clarke, Christian Theology, 8—“See Paul’s methods of
dealing with heathen religion, in Acts 14 with gross paganism and
in Acts 17 with its cultured form. He treats it with sympathy and
justice. Christian theology has the advantage of walking in the
light of God’s self-manifestation in Christ, while heathen
religions grope after God and worship him in ignorance”; _cf._
_Acts 14:16—_“We ... bring you good tidings, that ye should turn
from these vain things unto a living God”_;_ _17:22—_“I perceive
that ye are more than usually reverent toward the divinities....
What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto
you.”

Matthew Arnold: “Children of men! the unseen Power whose eye
Forever doth accompany mankind, Hath looked on no religion
scornfully That man did ever find. Which has not taught weak wills
how much they can? Which has not fallen on the dry heart like
rain? Which has not cried to sunk, self-weary man, Thou must be
born again?” Christianity is absolutely exclusive, because it is
absolutely inclusive. It is not an amalgamation of other
religions, but it has in it all that is best and truest in other
religions. It is the white light that contains all the colored
rays. God may have made disclosures of truth outside of Judaism,
and did so in Balaam and Melchisedek, in Confucius and Socrates.
But while other religions have a relative excellence, Christianity
is the absolute religion that contains all excellencies. Matheson,
Messages of the Old Religions, 328-342—“Christianity is
reconciliation. Christianity includes the aspiration of Egypt; it
sees, in this aspiration, God in the soul (Brahmanism); recognizes
the evil power of sin with Parseeism; goes back to a pure
beginning like China; surrenders itself to human brotherhood like
Buddha; gets all things from within like Judaism; makes the
present life beautiful like Greece; seeks a universal kingdom like
Rome; shows a growth of divine life, like the Teuton. Christianity
is the manifold wisdom of God.” See also Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics,
88-93. Shakespeare: “There is some soul of goodness in things
evil, Would men observingly distill it out”

(_b_) That the content of religion is greater than that of theology. The facts of religion come within the range of theology only so far as they can be definitely conceived, accurately expressed in language, and brought into rational relation to each other.

This principle enables us to define the proper limits of religious
fellowship. It should be as wide as is religion itself. But it is
important to remember what religion is. Religion is not to be
identified with the capacity for religion. Nor can we regard the
perversions and caricatures of religion as meriting our
fellowship. Otherwise we might be required to have fellowship with
devil-worship, polygamy, thuggery, and the inquisition; for all
these have been dignified with the name of religion. True religion
involves some knowledge, however rudimentary, of the true God, the
God of righteousness; some sense of sin as the contrast between
human character and the divine standard; some casting of the soul
upon divine mercy and a divine way of salvation, in place of
self-righteous earning of merit and reliance upon one’s works and
one’s record; some practical effort to realize ethical principle
in a pure life and in influence over others. Wherever these marks
of true religion appear, even in Unitarians, Romanists, Jews or
Buddhists, there we recognize the demand for fellowship. But we
also attribute these germs of true religion to the inworking of
the omnipresent Christ, “the light which lighteth every man”_
(John 1:9),_ and we see in them incipient repentance and faith,
even though the Christ who is their object is yet unknown by name.
_Christian_ fellowship must have a larger basis in accepted
Christian truth, and _Church_ fellowship a still larger basis in
common acknowledgment of N. T. teaching as to the church.
_Religious_ fellowship, in the widest sense, rests upon the fact
that “God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that
feareth him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to him”_ (Acts
10:34, 35)_.

(_c_) That religion is to be distinguished from formal worship, which is simply the outward expression of religion. As such expression, worship is “formal communion between God and his people.” In it God speaks to man, and man to God. It therefore properly includes the reading of Scripture and preaching on the side of God, and prayer and song on the side of the people.

Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 166—“Christian worship
is the utterance (outerance) of the spirit.” But there is more in
true love than can be put into a love-letter, and there is more in
true religion than can be expressed either in theology or in
worship. Christian worship is communion between God and man. But
communion cannot be one-sided. Madame de Staël, whom Heine called
“a whirlwind in petticoats,” ended one of her brilliant
soliloquies by saying: “What a delightful conversation we have
had!” We may find a better illustration of the nature of worship
in Thomas à Kempis’s dialogues between the saint and his Savior,
in the Imitation of Christ. Goethe: “Against the great superiority
of another there is no remedy but love.... To praise a man is to
put one’s self on his level.” If this be the effect of loving and
praising man, what must be the effect of loving and praising God!
Inscription in Grasmere Church: “Whoever thou art that enterest
this church, leave it not without one prayer to God for thyself,
for those who minister, and for those who worship here.” In _James
1:27—_“Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is
this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and
to keep oneself unspotted from the world”—“_religion_,” θρησκεία,
is _cultus exterior_; and the meaning is that “the external
service, the outward garb, the very ritual of Christianity, is a
life of purity, love and self-devotion. What its true essence, its
inmost spirit may be, the writer does not say, but leaves this to
be inferred.” On the relation between religion and worship, see
Prof. Day, in New Englander, Jan. 1882; Prof. T. Harwood Pattison,
Public Prayer; Trench, Syn. N. T., 1; sec. 48; Coleridge, Aids to
Reflection, Introd., Aphorism 23; Lightfoot, Gal., 351, note 2.