Outlines of Theology

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY ; ITS SEVERAL BRANCHES; AND THEIR RELATION TO OTHER DEPARTMENTS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.

1. What is Religion? And what Theology in its Christian sense

Religion, in its most general sense, is the sum of the relations which man sustains to God, and comprises the truths, the experiences, actions, and institutions which correspond to, or grow out of those relations.

Theology, in its most general sense, is the science of religion.

The Christian religion is that body of truths, experiences, actions, and institutions which are determined by the revelation supernaturally presented in the Christian Scriptures. Christian Theology is the scientific determination, interpretation, and defence of those Scriptures, together with the history of the manner in which the truths it reveals have been understood, and the duties they impose have been performed, by all Christians in all ages.

2. What is Theological Encyclopedia? and what Theological Methodology ?

Theological Encyclopedia, from the Greek éyxuxAoratdeta (the whole circle of general education), presents to the student the entire circle of the special sciences devoted to the discovery, elucidation, and defence of the contents of the supernatural revelation contained in the Christian Scriptures, and aims to

resent these sciences in those organic relations which are Reieatitied by their actual genesis and inmost nature.

Theological Methodology is the science of theological method. As each department of human inquiry demands a mode of treatment peculiar to itself; and as even each subdivision of each general department demands its own special modifications of treatment, so theological methodology provides for the scientific determination of the true method, general and special, of pursuing the theological sciences. And this includes two distinct categories: (a) The methods proper to the original investigation and construction of the several sciences, and (6) the methods proper to elementary instruction in the same.

All this should be accompanied with critical and historical information, and direction as to the use of the vast literature with which these sciences are illustrated.

3. How far is the scientific arrangement of all the theological sciences possible? And on what account is the attempt desirable ?

Such an arrangement can approach perfection only in proportion as these sciences themselves approach their final and absolute form. At present every such attempt must be only more or less an approximation to an ideal unattainable in the present state of knowledge in this life. Every separate attempt also must depend for its comparative success upon the comparative justness of the general theological Da ee upon which it is based. It is evident that those who make Reason, and those who make the inspired Church, and those who make the inspired Scriptures the source and standard of all divine knowledge, must severally configure the theological sciences to the different foundations on which they are made to stand.

The point of view adopted in this book is the evangelical and specifically the Calvinistic or Augustinian one, assuming the following fundamental principles: 1st. The inspired Scriptures are the sole, and an infallible standard of all religious knowledge. 2d. Christ and his work is the centre around which all Christian theology is brought into order. 3d. The salvation brought to light in the gospel is supernatural and of Free Grace. 4th, All religious knowledge has a practical end. The theological sciences, instead of being absolute ends in themselves, find their noblest purpose and effect in the advancement of personal holiness, the more efficient service of our fellow. men, and THE GREATER GLORY OF Gop.

The advantages of such a grouping of the theological sciences are obvious, and great. The relations of all truths are determined by their nature, whence it follows that their nature is revealed by an exhibition of their relations. Such an exhibition will also tend to widen the mental horizon of the student, to incite him to breadth of culture, and prevent him from unduly exalting or exclusively cultivating any one special branch, and thus from perverting it by regarding it out of its natural limitations and dependencies,

4. What are the fundamental questions which all theological science proposes to answer, and which therefore determine the arrangement of the several departments of that general science?

Ist. Is there a God? 2d. Has God spoken? 3d. What has God said? 4th. How have men in time past understood his word and practically, in their persons and institutions, realized his intentions?

5. What position in an encyclopedia of theological sciences must be given to other branches of human knowledge ?

It is evident that as the Supernatural Revelation God has been pleased to give has come to us in an historical form, that history, and that of the Christian Church, is inseparably connected with all human history more or less directly. Further, it is evident that as all truth is ‘one, all revealed truths and duties are inseparably connected with all departments of human knowledge, and with all the institutions of human society. It hence follows that theological science can at no point be separated from general science, that some knowledge of every department of human knowledge must always be comprehended in every system of Theological Encyclopedia as auxiliary to the Theological sciences themselves. Some of these meiliney sciences sustain special relations to certain of the theological sciences, and are very remotely related to others. It is, however, convenient to give them a position by themselves, as in general constituting a discipline preparatory and auxiliary to the science of theology as a whole.

6. State the main divisions of the proposed arrangement of the theological sciences.

I. Sciences Auciliary to the study of theology.

AT; ype natn EOE the answers to the two questions—Is there a God? and Has God spoken?

Ill. Exegetical Theology—embracing the critical determination of the ipsissima verba of the Divine Revelation, and the Interpretation their meaning. ;

IV. Systematic ee ae the development into an all-embracing and self-consistent system of the contents of that Revelation, and its subsequent elucidation and defence.

V. Practical Theology—embracing the principles and laws revealed in Scripture for the guidance of Christians (a) in the promulgation of this divine revelation thus ascertained and interpreted, and thus (6) in bringing all men into practical obedience to the duties 1t imposes and (c) into the fruition of the blessings it confers.