Systematic Theology (Vol. 1-3). Augustus Hopkins Strong

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

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      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. СКАЧАТЬ