(b) Theology is nevertheless progressive. It is progressive in the sense that our subjective understanding of the facts with regard to God, and our consequent expositions of these facts, may and do become more perfect. But theology is not progressive in the sense that its objective facts change, either in their number or their nature. With Martineau we may say: “Religion has been reproached with not being progressive; it makes amends by being imperishable.” Though our knowledge may be imperfect, it will have great value still. Our success in constructing a theology will depend upon the proportion which clearly expressed facts of Scripture bear to mere inferences, and upon the degree in which they all cohere about Christ, the central person and theme.
The progress of theology is progress in apprehension by man, not progress in communication by God. Originality in astronomy is not man's creation of new planets, but man's discovery of planets that were never seen before, or the bringing to light of relations between them that were never before suspected. Robert Kerr Eccles: “Originality is a habit of recurring to origins—the habit of securing personal experience by personal application to original facts. It is not an eduction of novelties either from nature, Scripture, or inner consciousness; it is rather the habit of resorting to primitive facts, and of securing the personal experiences which arise from contact with these facts.” Fisher, Nat. and Meth. of Revelation, 48—“The starry heavens are now what they were of old; there is no enlargement of the stellar universe, except that which comes through the increased power and use of the telescope.” We must not imitate the green sailor who, when set to steer, said he had “sailed by that star.”
Martineau, Types, 1:492, 493—“Metaphysics, so far as they are true to their work, are stationary, precisely because they have in charge, not what begins and ceases to be, but what always is. … It is absurd to praise motion for always making way, while disparaging space for still being what it ever was: as if the motion you prefer could be, without the space which you reproach.” Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 45, 67–70, 79—“True conservatism is progress which takes direction from the past and fulfils its good; false conservatism is a narrowing and hopeless reversion to the past, which is a betrayal of the promise of the future. So Jesus came not ‘to destroy the law or the prophets’; he ‘came not to destroy, but to fulfil’ (Mat. 5:17). … The last book on Christian Ethics will not be written before the Judgment Day.” John Milton, Areopagitica: “Truth is compared in the Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretic in the truth.” Paul in Rom. 2:16, and in 2 Tim. 2:8—speaks of “my gospel.” It is the duty of every Christian to have his own conception of the truth, while he respects the conceptions of others. Tennyson, Locksley Hall: “I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon at Ajalon.” We do not expect any new worlds, and we need not expect any new Scriptures; but we may expect progress in the interpretation of both. Facts are final, but interpretation is not.
Chapter III. Method Of Theology.
I. Requisites to the study of Theology.
The requisites to the successful study of theology have already in part been indicated in speaking of its limitations. In spite of some repetition, however, we mention the following:
(a) A disciplined mind. Only such a mind can patiently collect the facts, hold in its grasp many facts at once, educe by continuous reflection their connecting principles, suspend final judgment until its conclusions are verified by Scripture and experience.
Robert Browning, Ring and Book, 175 (Pope, 228)—“Truth nowhere lies, yet everywhere, in these; Not absolutely in a portion, yet Evolveable from the whole: evolved at last Painfully, held tenaciously by me.” Teachers and students may be divided into two classes: (1) those who know enough already; (2) those wish to learn more than they now know. Motto of Winchester School in England: “Disce, aut discede.”Butcher, Greek Genius, 213, 230—“The Sophists fancied that they were imparting education, when they were only imparting results. Aristotle illustrates their method by the example of a shoemaker who, professing to teach the art of making painless shoes, puts into the apprentice's hand a large assortment of shoes ready-made. A witty Frenchman classes together those who would make science popular, metaphysics intelligible, and vice respectable. The word σχόλη, which first meant ‘leisure,’then ‘philosophical discussion,’ and finally ‘school,’ shows the pure love of learning among the Greeks.” Robert G. Ingersoll said that the average provincial clergyman is like the land of the upper Potomac spoken of by Tom Randolph, as almost worthless in its original state, and rendered wholly so by cultivation. Lotze, Metaphysics, 1:16—“the constant whetting of the knife is tedious, if it is not proposed to cut anything with it.” “To do their duty is their only holiday,” is the description of Athenian character given by Thucydides. Chitty asked a father inquiring as to his son's qualifications for the law: “Can your son eat sawdust without any butter?” On opportunities for culture in the Christian ministry, see New Englander, Oct. 1875:644; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 273–275; Christ in Creation, 318–320.
(b) An intuitional as distinguished from a merely logical habit of mind—or, trust in the mind's primitive convictions, as well as in its processes of reasoning. The theologian must have insight as well as understanding. He must accustom himself to ponder spiritual facts as well as those which are sensible and material; to see things in their inner relations as well as in their outward forms; to cherish confidence in the reality and the unity of truth.
Vinet, Outlines of Philosophy, 39, 40—“If I do not feel that good is good, who will ever prove it to me?” Pascal: “Logic, which is an abstraction, may shake everything. A being purely intellectual will be incurably sceptical.” Calvin: “Satan is an acute theologian.” Some men can see a fly on a barn door a mile away, and yet can never see the door. Zeller, Outlines of Greek Philosophy, 93—“Gorgias the Sophist was able to show metaphysically that nothing can exist; that what does exist cannot be known by us; and that what is known by us cannot be imparted to others” (quoted by Wenley, Socrates and Christ, 28). Aristotle differed from those moderate men who thought it impossible to go over the same river twice—he held that it could not be done even once (cf. Wordsworth, Prelude, 536). Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 1–29, and especially 25, gives a demonstration of the impossibility of motion: A thing cannot move in the place where it is; it cannot move in the places where it is not; but the place where it is and the places where it is not are all the places that there are; therefore a thing cannot move at all. Hazard, Man a Creative First Cause, 109, shows that the bottom of a wheel does not move, since it goes backward as fast as the top goes forward. An instantaneous photograph makes the upper part a confused blur, while the spokes of the lower part are distinctly visible. Abp. Whately: “Weak arguments are often thrust before my path; but, although they are most unsubstantial, it is not easy to destroy them. There is not a more difficult feat known than to cut through a cushion with a sword.” Cf. 1 Tim. 6:20—“oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called”; 3:2—“the bishop therefore must be … sober-minded”—σώφρων = “well balanced.”The Scripture speaks of “sound [ὑγιής = healthful] doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10). Contrast 1 Tim. 6:4—[νοσῶν = ailing] “diseased about questionings and disputes of words.”
(c) An acquaintance with physical,